 But I left Congress in Washington. Pollux, politics is forgiven as you may have heard sometimes, forget. This year throughout America, our eyes are turned to Philadelphia as America. And yes, that's what I told Ben Franklin at the time. Never before had an entire people joined together so peacefully. We joined together to do it ourselves. And there's no better example of Americans joining together for a kind of good than the founding almost 200 years ago. All of us, and a leader in medical studies, the College of Boats, one of the world's finest and most used medical libraries. One of the best. How do we need to turn America into a 21st century? What kind of country will we pass on to our growing world economy? If we have a source as many as ours is our future, it includes making use or sure that American education is the best in the world. The best you need are the limits of their dreams. The key here is lower tax rates and fewer needless regulations. We've made great progress in both of them. Government has played a large role in the inflation of medical costs. As I said, once the burden of hospital is over, we're not on the go. The incentives and the public assigning liability doctors were hurt, too. Stories of storing costs and excessive bills, carnage to prevent and ensure that the fund remains strong through the year 2000. We must do more. And that's why I've sent a new package of proposals. The recovery system would discourage innovation, restrict services and be a step toward government control of the entire medical profession. American medicine, times it seems, though the courts are ready to award damages even to that man. Last year, a jury awarded one woman a million dollars in damages. She'd come to the country. Women haven't been able to find doctors to deliver their babies. And other medical services have become scarce and more expensive. This is both a state and federal matter. Our third century with undernourished commitment to the high schools of U.S. And we very much appreciate your visit here today. States of America, in the celebration of the 200th anniversary of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia. And whereas he has used this occasion to address some of the critical healthcare issues of our times. And whereas Ladies and gentlemen, it's a great pleasure for me to introduce the president and to thank him as I have privately and publicly for his support. This occasion of celebration of the Bicentennial of the Constitution. This was going to be a longer introduction, but the White House didn't send me any biographical information, so I, oh yeah. Mr. President, we are delighted, honored and just tickled that you're here. And we thank you very much for coming. Thank you all. Thank you, Bill, and thank all of you very much. Governor Casey and Mayor Good and ladies and gentlemen to begin with. Let me put you all at ease by letting you know that I intend to keep my remarks brief. I will, as Henry VIII said to each of his six wives, I won't keep you long. I often reflect that George Washington gave an inaugural address of only 135 words and became a great president. And then there was William Henry Harrison. In his inauguration, he spoke for nearly two hours, caught pneumonia, and was dead within a month. But it's an honor to be here in this historic place with all of you who are doing so much this year to help make our history come alive, especially on September 17th, the 200th anniversary of the day of our Constitution. The eyes of the world will turn here to Philadelphia. The hours and hours that you've spent contributing the energy and imagination, all these represent a magnificent gift to the nation. And on behalf of all Americans, I thank you. By the way, looking around, I can't help thinking that the National Park Service has done a darn good job of taking care of this place. It looks almost like new. And I ought to know I was here the day it opened. And I can't tell you how nice the bell in the other building looked before it cracked. But on a serious note, join me if you will in considering three moments in the history of this square. First, it was, it is December 1790. 65 representatives and 26 senators have gathered here in Congress Hall. Outside, there is the distracting constant clop of horse hooves and the rumble of coaches. And the men inside here in this room are worried. Many risked property and life itself in the revolution just a few years before. Now they faced a sobering question. Have they and their countrymen overreached? Can this raw new republic survive? Or will it be torn apart by disputes between the state's lack of finance pressure from the great powers of Europe? In this House chamber and the Senate chamber above, the members of the Congress of the United States faced these challenges and surmounted them, bringing into being a sound system of finance, providing for the defense of the nation, and learning through it all to make this fledgling democracy work. And now, it's February 1861, Abraham Lincoln has been making his way slowly eastward from Springfield, Illinois to Washington to take the oath of office as president. And like the men of 1790, Lincoln faced a simple question. Not could the republic prosper, but could the republic survive? Before dawn on the 22nd, he came here to this set of buildings and spoke to the crowd that he found waiting. He had often asked himself, Mr. Lincoln said, What great principal idea it was that it held the union together for so long. And then it was not, he said, the mere matter of separation of the colonies from the mother country. Instead, it was something giving liberty not alone to the people of this country, but hope to the world. It was that which gave promise that in due course, the weights should be lifted from the shoulders of all men." Well, the final moment I'd like you to join me in considering requires no imagining. It is now the present, like the men of 1790, like Lincoln in 1861, indeed like every generation of Americans throughout our history. We too face the question, will this nation founded upon freedom continue to flourish? Will it continue to extend the hope of liberty to all the world? It's my belief that in the last six years we've done much to restore our nation, restore our economy and defenses, restore our basic values, even restore a sense of our own fundamental goodness as a people. Yes, I feel certain that despite all the challenges that be set us, this nation of freedom will flourish. But if we're to succeed in the future, we must first learn our own past. We must learn to go to a building like this and hear the echoes and sense the greatness and draw strength. For a study American history is, in a sense, to study free will. It is to see that all our greatness has been built up by specific acts of choice and determination. And it is to see how very fragile our nation is, how very quickly so much that we cherish could be lost. All this is really a more elaborate way of repeating what I said at the beginning, that by doing so much to bring American history to life, each of you is making a weighty gift to the nation and especially to our young people. And so let me repeat, too, the other remark I made a moment ago. My friends, I thank you and God bless you all.