Tonight I want to suggest to you that we should regard the spectacles of the sordid actions, of the weaving of lies and clever explanations, of the prosecutions and pleadings, that are engulfing the Clinton Administration as the paradigm of what modern government is doing to America. And I want to underline that perhaps the most discouraging part of the current scandals is that leading Republicans are helping to undergird this corrupt way of life by omission and commission. Modern big government is the negation of what the founding Fathers established on this continent. Abraham Lincoln told a high school audience in 1838 that this country would stand or fall according to our reverence for law. Never forget what Lincoln never forgot, that America was born out of the manly hatred of kings and of those who thought themselves entitled because of their connections with them.
Equality is the very heart of American law, and of the American way of life.
America was the wonder of the world because here and only here individuals did not have to be special in order to enjoy the kind of civil dignity, the kind of respect, that everywhere else was reserved for the well-connected. Here and only here men of average income in the average professions of farmer or mechanic could play a leading role in their community. Among us, power could come only from laws made by elected representatives, administered by elected officials, and enforced by juries composed of voters. Modern American government however is the opposite. We live by rules made by, administered by and enforced by bureaucrats and judges who are responsible to the interest groups who got them hired, and who will give them sinecures in retirement.