[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 29, Number 43 (Monday, November 1, 1993)]
[Pages 2159-2160]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks on the 200th Anniversary of the Capitol and the Reinstallation 
of the Statue of Freedom

 October 23, 1993

    Thank you, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, distinguished leaders of 
the House and Senate, Mr. Justice Blackmun, my fellow Americans.
    We come here today to celebrate the 200th birthday of this great 
building, the cornerstone of our Republic. We come here to watch our 
Capitol made whole 130 years after the beautiful Statue of Freedom was 
first raised above this Capitol.
    This is a moment of unity in this great city of ours so often known 
for its conflicts. In this moment, we all agree, we know in our minds 
and feel in our hearts the words that Thomas Jefferson spoke in the 
first Inaugural Address ever given on these grounds. He said that people 
of little faith were doubtful about America's future, but he believed 
our Government was the world's best hope.
    What was that hope? The hope that still endures that in this country 
every man and woman without regard to race or region or station in life 
would have the freedom to live up to the fullest of his or her God-given 
potential; the hope that every citizen would get from Government not a 
guarantee but the promise of an opportunity to do one's best, to have an 
equal chance, for the most humble and the most well born, to do what God 
meant for them to be able to do.
    That hope was almost dashed in the great Civil War. When the Statue 
of Freedom was raised, many people questioned whether Abraham Lincoln 
should permit this work to go on. But he said, during the war when so 
many thought our country would come to an end, that if people see the 
Capitol going on, it is a sign we intend the Union to go on. In 1865, 
Abraham Lincoln gave the first Inaugural Address ever given under the 
Statue of Freedom. And he said, ``With malice toward none, with charity 
for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, 
let us strive on to finish the work we are in.'' And in that, the 
greatest of all Presidential Inaugural Addresses, Abraham Lincoln gave 
us our charge for today, for the work of keeping the hope of America 
alive never finishes.
    It is not enough for use to be mere stewards of our inheritance. We 
must always be the architects of its renewal. The Capitol is here after 
200 years, this beautiful Statute of Freedom can be raised, renewed 
after 130 years, because our forebearers never stopped thinking about 
tomorrow.
    We require the freedom to preserve what is best and the freedom to 
change, the freedom to explore, the freedom to build, the freedom to 
grow. My fellow Americans, I tell

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you that perhaps the biggest of our problems today is that too many of 
our people no longer believe the future can be better than the past. And 
too many others, most of them young, have no connection to the future 
whatsoever because their present is so chaotic. But the future, the 
future has a claim on all of us.
    We have, because of our birthright as Americans, a moral obligation 
to face the day's challenges and to make tomorrow better than today. All 
we really owe to this great country after 200 years is to make sure that 
200 years from now this building will still be here and our 
grandchildren many generations in the future will be here to celebrate 
it anew.
    Thank you, and God bless you all.

Note: The President spoke at 12:33 p.m. at the West Front of the 
Capitol.