John Hargrave - "At Suvla Bay"

Algernon Charles Swinburne - "Songs before Sunrise"

Adam Smith - "An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations"

D.H. Lawrence - "Women in Love"

State of the Union Addresses of Ronald Reagan

R >> Ronald Reagan >> State of the Union Addresses of Ronald Reagan




As a nation we do, of course, spend heavily on education--more than we
spend on defense. Yet across our country, Governors like New Jersey's Tom
Kean are giving classroom demonstrations that how we spend is as important
as how much we spend. Opening up the teaching profession to all qualified
candidates, merit pay--so that good teachers get A's as well as apples--and
stronger curriculum, as Secretary Bennett has proposed for high
schools--these imaginative reforms are making common sense the most popular
new kid in America's schools. How can we help? Well, we can talk about and
push for these reforms. But the most important thing we can do is to
reaffirm that control of our schools belongs to the States, local
communities and, most of all, to the parents and teachers.

My friends, some years ago, the Federal Government declared war on poverty,
and poverty won. Today the Federal Government has 59 major welfare programs
and spends more than $100 billion a year on them. What has all this money
done? Well, too often it has only made poverty harder to escape. Federal
welfare programs have created a massive social problem. With the best of
intentions, government created a poverty trap that wreaks havoc on the very
support system the poor need most to lift themselves out of poverty: the
family. Dependency has become the one enduring heirloom, passed from one
generation to the next, of too many fragmented families.

It is time--this may be the most radical thing I've said in 7 years in this
office--it's time for Washington to show a little humility. There are a
thousand sparks of genius in 50 States and a thousand communities around
the Nation. It is time to nurture them and see which ones can catch fire
and become guiding lights. States have begun to show us the way. They've
demonstrated that successful welfare programs can be built around more
effective child support enforcement practices and innovative programs
requiring welfare recipients to work or prepare for work. Let us give the
States more flexibility and encourage more reforms. Let's start making our
welfare system the first rung on America's ladder of opportunity, a boost
up from dependency, not a graveyard but a birthplace of hope.

And now let me turn to three other matters vital to family values and the
quality of family life. The first is an untold American success story.
Recently, we released our annual survey of what graduating high school
seniors have to say about drugs. Cocaine use is declining, and marijuana
use was the lowest since surveying began. We can be proud that our students
are just saying no to drugs. But let us remember what this menace requires:
commitment from every part of America and every single American, a
commitment to a drugfree America. The war against drugs is a war of
individual battles, a crusade with many heroes, including America's young
people and also someone very special to me. She has helped so many of our
young people to say no to drugs. Nancy, much credit belongs to you, and I
want to express to you your husband's pride and your country's thanks.'.
Surprised you, didn't I?

Well, now we come to a family issue that we must have the courage to
confront. Tonight, I call America--a good nation, a moral people--to
charitable but realistic consideration of the terrible cost of abortion on
demand. To those who say this violates a woman's right to control of her
own body: Can they deny that now medical evidence confirms the unborn child
is a living human being entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness? Let us unite as a nation and protect the unborn with legislation
that would stop all Federal funding for abortion and with a human life
amendment making, of course, an exception where the unborn child threatens
the life of the mother. Our Judeo-Christian tradition recognizes the right
of taking a life in self-defense. But with that one exception, let us look
to those others in our land who cry out for children to adopt. I pledge to
you tonight I will work to remove barriers to adoption and extend full
sharing in family life to millions of Americans so that children who need
homes can be welcomed to families who want them and love them.

And let me add here: So many of our greatest statesmen have reminded us
that spiritual values alone are essential to our nation's health and vigor.
The Congress opens its proceedings each day, as does the Supreme Court,
with an acknowledgment of the Supreme Being. Yet we are denied the right to
set aside in our schools a moment each day for those who wish to pray. I
believe Congress should pass our school prayer amendment.

Now, to make sure there is a full nine member Supreme Court to interpret
the law, to protect the rights of all Americans, I urge the Senate to move
quickly and decisively in confirming Judge Anthony Kennedy to the highest
Court in the land and to also confirm 27 nominees now waiting to fill
vacancies in the Federal judiciary.

Here then are our domestic priorities. Yet if the Congress and the
administration work together, even greater opportunities lie ahead to
expand a growing world economy, to continue to reduce the threat of nuclear
arms, and to extend the frontiers of freedom and the growth of democratic
institutions.

Our policies consistently received the strongest support of the late
Congressman Dan Daniel of Virginia. I'm sure all of you join me in
expressing heartfelt condolences on his passing.

One of the greatest contributions the United States can make to the world
is to promote freedom as the key to economic growth. A creative,
competitive America is the answer to a changing world, not trade wars that
would close doors, create greater barriers, and destroy millions of jobs.
We should always remember: Protectionism is destructionism. America's jobs,
America's growth, America's future depend on trade--trade that is free,
open, and fair.

This year, we have it within our power to take a major step toward a
growing global economy and an expanding cycle of prosperity that reaches to
all the free nations of this Earth. I'm speaking of the historic free trade
agreement negotiated between our country and Canada. And I can also tell
you that we're determined to expand this concept, south as well as north.
Next month I will be traveling to Mexico, where trade matters will be of
foremost concern. And over the next several months, our Congress and the
Canadian Parliament can make the start of such a North American accord a
reality. Our goal must be a day when the free flow of trade, from the tip
of Tierra del Fuego to the Arctic Circle, unites the people of the Western
Hemisphere in a bond of mutually beneficial exchange, when all borders
become what the U.S.-Canadian border so long has been: a meeting place
rather than a dividing line.

This movement we see in so many places toward economic freedom is
indivisible from the worldwide movement toward political freedom and
against totalitarian rule. This global democratic revolution has removed
the specter, so frightening a decade ago, of democracy doomed to permanent
minority status in the world. In South and Central America, only a third of
the people enjoyed democratic rule in 1976. Today over 90 percent of Latin
Americans live in nations committed to democratic principles. And the
resurgence of democracy is owed to these courageous people on almost every
continent who have struggled to take control of their own destiny.

In Nicaragua the struggle has extra meaning, because that nation is so near
our own borders. The recent revelations of a former high-level Sandinista
major, Roger Miranda, show us that, even as they talk peace, the Communist
Sandinista government of Nicaragua has established plans for a large
600,000-man army. Yet even as these plans are made, the Sandinista regime
knows the tide is turning, and the cause of Nicaraguan freedom is riding at
its crest. Because of the freedom fighters, who are resisting Communist
rule, the Sandinistas have been forced to extend some democratic rights,
negotiate with church authorities, and release a few political prisoners.

The focus is on the Sandinistas, their promises and their actions. There is
a consensus among the four Central American democratic Presidents that the
Sandinistas have not complied with the plan to bring peace and democracy to
all of Central America. The Sandinistas again have promised reforms. Their
challenge is to take irreversible steps toward democracy. On Wednesday my
request to sustain the freedom fighters will be submitted, which reflects
our mutual desire for peace, freedom, and democracy in Nicaragua. I ask
Congress to pass this request. Let us be for the people of Nicaragua what
Lafayette, Pulaski, and Von Steuben were for our forefathers and the cause
of American independence.

So, too, in Afghanistan, the freedom fighters are the key to peace. We
support the Mujahidin. There can be no settlement unless all Soviet troops
are removed and the Afghan people are allowed genuine self-determination. I
have made my views on this matter known to Mr. Gorbachev. But not just
Nicaragua or Afghanistan--yes, everywhere we see a swelling freedom tide
across the world: freedom fighters rising up in Cambodia and Angola,
fighting and dying for the same democratic liberties we hold sacred. Their
cause is our cause: freedom.

Yet even as we work to expand world freedom, we must build a safer peace
and reduce the danger of nuclear war. But let's have no illusions. Three
years of steady decline in the value of our annual defense investment have
increased the risk of our most basic security interests, jeopardizing
earlier hard-won goals. We must face squarely the implications of this
negative trend and make adequate, stable defense spending a top goal both
this year and in the future.

This same concern applies to economic and security assistance programs as
well. But the resolve of America and its NATO allies has opened the way for
unprecedented achievement in arms reduction. Our recently signed INF treaty
is historic, because it reduces nuclear arms and establishes the most
stringent verification regime in arms control history, including several
forms of short-notice, on-site inspection. I submitted the treaty today,
and I urge the Senate to give its advice and consent to ratification of
this landmark agreement. Thank you very much.

In addition to the INF treaty, we're within reach of an even more
significant START agreement that will reduce U.S. and Soviet long-range
missile--or strategic arsenals by half. But let me be clear. Our approach
is not to seek agreement for agreement's sake but to settle only for
agreements that truly enhance our national security and that of our allies.
We will never put our security at risk--or that of our allies-just to reach
an agreement with the Soviets. No agreement is better than a bad
agreement.

As I mentioned earlier, our efforts are to give future generations what we
never had--a future free of nuclear terror. Reduction of strategic
offensive arms is one step, SDI another. Our funding request for our
Strategic Defense Initiative is less than 2 percent of the total defense
budget. SDI funding is money wisely appropriated and money well spent. SDI
has the same purpose and supports the same goals of arms reduction. It
reduces the risk of war and the threat of nuclear weapons to all mankind.
Strategic defenses that threaten no one could offer the world a safer, more
stable basis for deterrence. We must also remember that SDI is our
insurance policy against a nuclear accident, a Chernobyl of the sky, or an
accidental launch or some madman who might come along.

We've seen such changes in the world in 7 years. As totalitarianism
struggles to avoid being overwhelmed by the forces of economic advance and
the aspiration for human freedom, it is the free nations that are resilient
and resurgent. As the global democratic revolution has put totalitarianism
on the defensive, we have left behind the days of retreat. America is again
a vigorous leader of the free world, a nation that acts decisively and
firmly in the furtherance of her principles and vital interests. No legacy
would make me more proud than leaving in place a bipartisan consensus for
the cause of world freedom, a consensus that prevents a paralysis of
American power from ever occurring again.

But my thoughts tonight go beyond this, and I hope you'll let me end this
evening with a personal reflection. You know, the world could never be
quite the same again after Jacob Shallus, a trustworthy and dependable
clerk of the Pennsylvania General Assembly, took his pen and engrossed
those words about representative government in the preamble of our
Constitution. And in a quiet but final way, the course of human events was
forever altered when, on a ridge overlooking the Emmitsburg Pike in an
obscure Pennsylvania town called Gettysburg, Lincoln spoke of our duty to
government of and by the people and never letting it perish from the
Earth.

At the start of this decade, I suggested that we live in equally momentous
times, that it is up to us now to decide whether our form of government
would endure and whether history still had a place of greatness for a
quiet, pleasant, greening land called America. Not everything has been made
perfect in 7 years, nor will it be made perfect in seven times 70 years,
but before us, this year and beyond, are great prospects for the cause of
peace and world freedom.

It means, too, that the young Americans I spoke of 7 years ago, as well as
those who might be coming along the Virginia or Maryland shores this night
and seeing for the first time the lights of this Capital City--the lights
that cast their glow on our great halls of government and the monuments to
the memory of our great men--it means those young Americans will find a
city of hope in a land that is free.

We can be proud that for them and for us, as those lights along the Potomac
are still seen this night signaling as they have for nearly two centuries
and as we pray God they always will, that another generation of Americans
has protected and passed on lovingly this place called America, this
shining city on a hill, this government of, by, and for the people.

Thank you, and God bless you. NOTE: The President spoke at 9:07 p.m. in the
House Chamber of the Capitol. He was introduced by Jim Wright, Speaker of
the House of Representatives. The address was broadcast live on nationwide
radio and television.

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