US Presidency
1972

If we yield to that pressure and fail to deal seriously with the historic challenges that we face, we will have failed the trust of millions of Americans and shaken the confidence they have a right to place in us, in their government. Never has a Congress had a greater opportunity to leave a legacy of a profound and constructive reform for the nation than this Congress. If we succeed in these tasks, there will be credit enough for all, not only for doing what is right, but doing it in the right way, by rising above partisan interest to serve the national interest. And if we fail, more than any one of us, America will be the loser. That is why my call upon the Congress today is for a high statesmanship, so that in the years to come Americans will look back and say because it withstood the intense pressures of a political year, and achieved such great good for the American people and for the future of this nation, this was truly a great Congress