I see these United States of America moving forward as before toward a more perfect Union where the government serves and the people rule.

We will not make this happen simply by making speeches, good or bad, yours or mine, but by hard work and hard decisions made with courage and with common sense.

I have heard many inspiring Presidential speeches, but the words I remember best were spoken by Dwight D. Eisenhower.  “America is not good because it is great,” the President said.  “America is great because it is good.”

President Eisenhower was raised in a poor but religious home in the heart of America.  His simple words echoed President Lincoln’s eloquent testament that “right makes might.”  And Lincoln in turn evoked the silent image of George Washington kneeling in prayer at Valley Forge.

So, all these magic memories which link eight generations of Americans are summed up in the inscription just above me.  How many times have we seen it?  “In God We Trust.”

Let us engrave it now in each of our hearts as we begin our Bicentennial.

***

State of the Union Address
Gerald R. Ford
January 12, 1977

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, Members of the 95th Congress, and distinguished guests: 

In accordance with the Constitution, I come before you once again to report on the state of the Union.

This report will be my last—­maybe—­[laughter]—­but for the Union it is only the first of such reports in our third century of independence, the close of which none of us will ever see.  We can be confident, however, that 100 years from now a freely elected President will come before a freely elected Congress chosen to renew our great Republic’s pledge to the Government of the people, by the people, and for the people.

For my part I pray the third century we are beginning will bring to all Americans, our children and their children’s children, a greater measure of individual equality, opportunity, and justice, a greater abundance of spiritual and material blessings, and a higher quality of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

The state of the Union is a measurement of the many elements of which it is composed—­a political union of diverse States, an economic union of varying interests, an intellectual union of common convictions, and a moral union of immutable ideals.

Taken in sum, I can report that the state of the Union is good.  There is room for improvement, as always, but today we have a more perfect Union than when my stewardship began.

As a people we discovered that our Bicentennial was much more than a celebration of the past; it became a joyous reaffirmation of all that it means to be Americans, a confirmation before all the world of the vitality and durability of our free institutions.  I am proud to have been privileged to preside over the affairs of our Federal Government during these eventful years when we proved, as I said in my first words upon assuming office, that “our Constitution works; our great Republic is a Government of laws and not of men.  Here the people rule.”