THIS SPECIAL PLACE

The United States of America has been and can be a great nation.

We are unique in all of human history because we are where the world met.

Our first immigrants arrived from Asia, before civilization existed. After thousands of years in the Americas, native populations numbered in the millions when Christopher Columbus arrived. The next century brought them horrifying devastation, as infectious diseases like smallpox killed nearly 90% of the first Americans. Some echoes of this past survive in the remaining tribal nations.

Waves of immigration from Europe helped to grow this country, as famine and persecution and war and poverty drove people across the ocean to seek a better life.

The brutality of slavery brought millions of Africans to our shores. They have not had an easy road. Over 200,000 fought for their freedom with the Union Army in the Civil War, and to some extent that fight against racism continues today.

Modern times have brought immigrants from every nation on Earth, seeking opportunity and freedom.

We are a special place because of the people who came here. They were visionaries, who left home to search for a brighter future. They were survivors, who endured peril and hardship and became stronger and tougher from it. They were determined idealists, who crossed oceans in wooden boats rather than compromise their religious beliefs.

And, most importantly, we are a special place because we have chosen a path that values individual rights and liberty above all else.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."

If we can manage to live in peace and prosperity among ourselves in this nation, based on these principles, we can and should lead the world into a better future, because of who we are and what we believe.

But each generation of Americans has had to face enemies of one sort or another. We face new enemies today, dangerous ones. Enemies from within.