[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 31, Number 11 (Monday, March 20, 1995)]
[Pages 417-418]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Proclamation 6777--National Day of Prayer, 1995

March 14, 1995

By the President of the United States of America

A Proclamation

    Our Nation was built on the steadfast foundation of the prayers of 
our ancestors. In times of blessing and crisis, stability and change, 
thanksgiving and repentance, ap- 

[[Page 418]]

peals for Divine direction have helped the citizens of the United States 
to remain faithful to our long-standing commitment to life, liberty, and 
justice for all.
    This reliance on spiritual assistance has especially characterized 
times of national transition and uncertainty. As our country was ravaged 
by the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln remarked, ``I have been driven many 
times upon my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere 
else to go.'' And with him, millions of slaves cried out to the Almighty 
for an end to their suffering.
    Abolitionist Frederick Douglass said this about the spiritual songs 
sung on the plantations: ``Every tone was a testimony against slavery, 
and a prayer to God for deliverance from chains.'' Since that time, we 
have witnessed tremendous improvements in relations between people of 
all races and backgrounds. Indeed, long ago, through the work of prayer 
and common effort, and with the inspiration of the Creator, we began to 
turn the tide in this Nation from divisiveness and recrimination toward 
reconciliation and healing.
    Let us not forget those painful lessons of our past, but continue to 
seek the guidance of God in all the affairs of our Nation. We must not 
become complacent, but rather press onward for the protection of the 
vulnerable and the downtrodden. In the words of President Lincoln, ``it 
behooves us then to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to 
confess our national sins and pray for clemency and forgiveness'' for 
any injustice we perceive in our midst. May we, the people of this 
country, set a steady course, dedicated to respect for one another and 
for individual freedom.
    The Congress, by Public Law 100-307, has called on our citizens to 
reaffirm annually our dependence on Almighty God by recognizing a 
``National Day of Prayer.''
    Now, Therefore, I, William J. Clinton, President of the United 
States of America, do hereby proclaim May 4, 1995, as a National Day of 
Prayer. I call upon every citizen of this great Nation to gather 
together on that day to pray, each in his or her own manner, for God's 
continued guidance and blessing.
    In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this fourteenth day 
of March, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and ninety-five, and 
of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and 
nineteenth.
                                            William J. Clinton

[Filed with the Office of the Federal Register, 2:02 p.m., March 15, 
1995]

Note: This proclamation was published in the Federal Register on March 
17.