John F. Kennedy: Address in the Assembly Hall at the Paulskirche in Frankfurt. (June 25, 1963)

[YoungDemCA]

Tomorrow is the 52nd anniversary of President John F. Kennedy's assassination. Only months before that fateful day in Dallas, the President gave a speech in Frankfurt. Here are some excerpts (apologies for the length, but it's just so good).

One hundred and fifteen years ago a most learned Parliament was convened in this historic hall. Its goal was a united German Federation. Its members were poets and professors, lawyers and philosophers, doctors and clergymen, freely elected in all parts of the land. No nation applauded its endeavors as warmly as my own. No assembly ever strove more ardently to put perfection into practice. And though in the end it failed, no other building in Germany deserves more the title of "cradle of German democracy."

But can there be such a title? In my own home city of Boston, Faneuil Hall-once the meeting-place of the authors of the American Revolution--has long been known as the "cradle of American liberty." But when, in 1852, the Hungarian patriot Kossuth addressed an audience there, he criticized its name. "It is," he said, "a great name-but there is something in it which saddens my heart. You should not say 'American liberty.' You should say 'liberty in America. Liberty should not be either American or European--it should just be 'liberty.'"

Kossuth was right. For unless liberty flourishes in all lands, it cannot flourish in one. Conceived in one hall, it must be carried out in many.] Thus, the seeds of the American Revolution had been brought earlier from Europe, and they later took root around the world. And the German Revolution of 1848 transmitted ideas and idealists to America and to other lands. Today, in 1963, democracy and liberty are more international than ever before. And the spirit of the Frankfurt Assembly, like the spirit of Faneuil Hall, must live in many hearts and nations if it is to live at all.

For we know now that freedom is more than the rejection of tyranny--that prosperity is more than an escape from want-that partnership is more than a sharing of power. These are, above all, great human adventures. They must have meaning and conviction and purpose--and because they do, in your country now and in mine, in all the nations of the alliance, we are called to a great new mission.

It is not a mission of self-defense alone-for that is a means, not an end. It is not a mission of arbitrary power for we reject the idea of one nation dominating another. The mission is to create a new social order, rounded on liberty and justice, in which men are the masters of their fate, in which states are the servants of their citizens, and in which all men and women can share a better life for themselves and their children. That is the object of our common policy.

To realize this vision, we must seek a world of peace--a world in which peoples dwell together in mutual respect and work together in mutual regard--a world where peace is not a mere interlude between wars, but an incentive to the creative energies of humanity. We will not find such a peace today, or even tomorrow. The obstacles to hope are large and menacing. Yet the goal of a peaceful world--today and tomorrow-must shape our decisions and inspire our purposes.

So we are all idealists. We are all visionaries. Let it not be said of this Atlantic generation that we left ideals and visions to the past, nor purpose and determination to our adversaries. We have come too far, we have sacrificed too much, to disdain the future now. And we shall ever remember what Goethe told us--that the "highest wisdom, the best that mankind ever knew" was the realization that "he only earns his freedom and existence who daily conquers them anew."

http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=9303

Bolding mine (I highly recommend reading the whole speech).

JFK: Gone too soon, but never forgotten.

[YoungDemCA]

1. Shameless self-kick for the morning crowd

Also, because today is the anniversary.