That system has never failed us, but, for a time, we failed the system.  We asked things of government that government was not equipped to give.  We yielded authority to the National Government that properly belonged to States or to local governments or to the people themselves.  We allowed taxes and inflation to rob us of our earnings and savings and watched the great industrial machine that had made us the most productive people on Earth slow down and the number of unemployed increase.

By 1980, we knew it was time to renew our faith, to strive with all our strength toward the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with an orderly society.

We believed then and now there are no limits to growth and human progress when men and women are free to follow their dreams.

And we were right to believe that.  Tax rates have been reduced, inflation cut dramatically, and more people are employed than ever before in our history.

We are creating a nation once again vibrant, robust, and alive.  But there are many mountains yet to climb.  We will not rest until every American enjoys the fullness of freedom, dignity, and opportunity as our birthright.  It is our birthright as citizens of this great Republic, and we’ll meet this challenge.

These will be years when Americans have restored their confidence and tradition of progress; when our values of faith, family, work, and neighborhood were restated for a modern age; when our economy was finally freed from government’s grip; when we made sincere efforts at meaningful arms reduction, rebuilding our defenses, our economy, and developing new technologies, and helped preserve peace in a troubled world; when Americans courageously supported the struggle for liberty, self-government, and free enterprise throughout the world, and turned the tide of history away from totalitarian darkness and into the warm sunlight of human freedom.

My fellow citizens, our Nation is poised for greatness.  We must do what we know is right and do it with all our might.  Let history say of us, “These were golden years—­when the American Revolution was reborn, when freedom gained new life, when America reached for her best.”

Our two-party system has served us well over the years, but never better than in those times of great challenge when we came together not as Democrats or Republicans, but as Americans united in a common cause.

Two of our Founding Fathers, a Boston lawyer named Adams and a Virginia planter named Jefferson, members of that remarkable group who met in Independence Hall and dared to think they could start the world over again, left us an important lesson.  They had become political rivals in the Presidential election of 1800.  Then years later, when both were retired, and age had softened their anger, they began to speak to each other again through letters.  A bond was reestablished between those two who had helped create this government of ours.