Acceptance Speech at the Democratic Convention (1976)

By Jimmy Carter

But in recent years, our nation has seen a failure of leadership. We've been hurt and we have been disillusioned. We've seen a wall go up that separates us from our own government.

We've lost some precious things that historically have bound our people and our government together.

We feel that moral decay has weakened our country; that it's crippled by a lack of goals and values. And that our public officials have lost faith in us.

We've been a nation adrift too long. We've been without leadership too long. We've had divided and deadlocked government too long. We have been governed by veto too long. We've suffered enough at the hands of a tired and worn-out administration without new ideas, without youth or vitality, without visions, and without the confidence of the American people.

There is a fear that our best years are behind us, but I say to you that our nation's best is still ahead.

Our country has lived through a time of torment. It's now a time for healing.

We want to have faith again! We want to be proud again! We just want the truth again!

It's time for the people to run the government, and not the other way around. It's time to honor and strengthen our families and our neighborhoods, and our diverse cultures and customs.

We need a Democratic President and a Congress to work in harmony for a change, with mutual respect for a change, in the open for a change and next year we are going to have that new leadership. You can depend on it.

It's time for America to move and to speak, not with boasting and belligerence, but with a quiet strength-to depend in world affairs not merely on the size of an arsenal but on the nobility of ideas-and to govern at home not by confusion and crisis but with grace and imagination and common sense....

It's time for our government leaders to respect the law no less than the humblest citizen, so that we can end once and for all
a double standard of justice. I see no reason why big shot crooks should be free and the poor ones go to jail....

The foremost responsibility of any President above all else is to guarantee the security of our nation-a guarantee of freedom from the threat of successful attack or blackmail and the ability with our allies to maintain peace.

But peace is not the mere absence of war. Peace is action to stamp out international terrorism. Peace is the unceasing effort to preserve human rights. And peace is a combined demonstration of strength and good will. We'll pray for peace and we'll work for peace, until we have removed from all nations for all the time the threat of nuclear destruction.

America's birth opened a new chapter in mankind's history. Ours was the first nation to dedicate itself clearly to basic moral and philosophical principles:

That all people are created equal and endowed with inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and that the power of government is derived from the consent of the governed.

This national commitment was a singular act of wisdom and courage, and it brought the best and the bravest from other nations to our shores.

It was a revolutionary development that captured the imagination of mankind.

It created the basis for a unique role for America-that of a pioneer in shaping more decent and just relations among people and among societies.

Today, 200 years later, we must address ourselves to that role both in what we do at home and how we act abroad-among people everywhere who have become politically more alert, socially more congested and increasingly impatient with global inequities, and who are now organized as you know, into some 50 different nations.

This calls for nothing less than a sustained architectural effort to shape an international framework of peace within which our own ideals gradually can become a global reality.