 We are assembled here on this Bill of Rights Day to do honor to the three great documents which together constitute the charter of our form of government. The Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights are now assembled in one place for display and safekeeping. Here, so far as is humanly possible, they will be protected from disaster and from the ravages of time. I'm glad that the Bill of Rights is at last to be exhibited side by side with the Constitution. These two original documents have been separated for too long. In my opinion, the Bill of Rights is the most important part of the Constitution of the United States. The longer I live, the more I am impressed by the significance of our simple official oath to uphold and defend the Constitution. Perhaps it takes a lifetime of experience to understand how much the Constitution means to our national life. You can read about the Constitution and you can study it in books, but the Constitution is not merely a matter of words. The Constitution is a living force. It is a growing thing. The Constitution belongs to no one group of people and to no single branch of the government. We acknowledge our judges as the interpreters of the Constitution, but our executive branch and our legislative branch alike operate within its framework and must apply it and its principles in all they do. The Constitution and the Declaration of Independence can live only as long as they are enshrined in our hearts and minds. If they are not so enshrined, they would be no better than mummies in their glass cases, and they could in time become idols whose worship would be a grim mockery of the true faith. Only as these documents are reflected in the thoughts and acts of Americans can they remain symbols of power that can move the world. That power is our faith in human liberty, that all freedom-loving nations, not the United States alone, are facing a stern challenge from the Communist tyranny. In the circumstances, alarm is justified. The man who isn't alarmed simply doesn't understand the situation, or he's crazy. But alarm is one thing, and hysteria is another. Hysteria impels people to destroy the very thing they are struggling to preserve. Invasion and conquest by Communist armies would be a horror beyond our capacity to imagine. But invasion and conquest by Communist ideas of right and wrong would be just as bad. For us to embrace the methods and morals of Communism in order to defeat Communist aggression would be a moral disaster worse than any physical catastrophe. If that should come to pass, then the Constitution and the Declaration would be utterly dead, and what we are doing today would be the gloomiest burial in the history of the world. But I do not believe it is going to come to pass. On the contrary, I believe that this ceremony here today marks a new dedication to the ideals of liberty, since said whether we will preserve and extend popular liberty is a very serious question, but after all, it is a very old question. The man who signed the Declaration faced it. He voted those who wrote the Constitution. But each succeeding generation has faced it, and so far, each succeeding generation has answered it in the affirmative. I am sure that our generation will give the same affirmative answer. So I confidently predict that what we are doing today is placing before the eyes of many generations to come the symbols of a living fate and like the sight of the flag in the dawn's early light. The sight of these symbols will lift up their hearts so they will go out of this building, helped and strengthened and inspired. Massachusetts, February the 6th, 1788. Maryland, April the 28th, 1788. The Constitution and the Bill of Rights is a common and phenomenon in this country. Americans like to pay homage to these great documents. Just as other people in other parts of the world like to pay homage to their kings, our rulers, a stranger in our midst, ignorant of our institutions, might think it odd that we would wax so eloquent over some ancient scraps of paper. But the fact is, these papers are not historical heirlooms. They are the living organic law of the land. We've got all, putting them to work, and they have thus far worked well. As this nation has gained maturity, so has it gained new insight and formed fresh, fresh aspirations for the work of its creators. We have mead of this vision today. Ours has always been a faith based on reason. This then is the time for a new and fiercer faith in the Declaration and the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights. This is a time for sharpening to the glistening point the aspirations which we have for them. We have the verdict of history thus far to prove the strength of our institutions and to show their worth in man's struggle to realize the highest hopes of man. A people who with great pride, trace their political ancestry to the man who created these immortal documents should seek to emulate their valor and their vision. We can afford to do no less.