If we want the Republic to be solid, we must first build its foundation. We need not look abroad for this foundation; we should seek it in the hearts of all the people of the nation.
Nation
I beg you to speak of Woman as you do of the Negro, speak of her as a human being, as a citizen of the United States, as a half of the people in whose hands lies the destiny of this Nation.
It means that, in fact, it’s – whether fascist is the right word I don’t know – more of a plutocracy than anything resembling a democracy; it has become a nation controlled by a very small, very wealthy elite.
The dream of socialists, the Maximum Programme, has always been to eliminate the private property, the family and the nation state. With the private property they have not succeeded, but they continue on the path of destruction of the family and the nation.
The challenge of social justice is to evoke a sense of community that we need to make our nation a better place, just as we make it a safer place.
Can a nation be free if it oppresses other nations? It cannot.
Even in its third century, America is still the most meritocratic nation in the world.
The workers of the nation were tired of waiting for corporate industry to right their economic wrongs, to alleviate their social agony and to grant them their political rights. Despairing of fair treatment, they resolved to do something for themselves.
Women, if the soul of the nation is to be saved, I believe that you must become its soul.
To be sure, Kennedy did not discount the importance of words in rallying the nation to meet its foreign and domestic challenges. Winston Churchill’s powerful exhortations during World War II set a standard he had long admired. Kennedy was hardly unmindful of how important a great inaugural address could be.