When the earth shook and fires raged in California; when I saw the Mississippi deluge the farmlands of the Midwest in a 500 year flood; when the century’s bitterest cold swept from North Dakota to Newport News it seemed as though the world itself was coming apart at the seams. But the American people, they just came together. They rose to the occasion, neighbor helping neighbor, strangers risking life and limb to stay total strangers, showing the better angels of our nature.
Let us not reserve the better angels only for natural disasters, leaving our deepest and most profound problems to petty political fighting.
Let us instead by true to our spirit, facing facts, coming together, bringing hope and moving forward.
Tonight, my fellow Americans, we are summoned to answer a question as old as the republic itself, what is the state of our union?
It is growing stronger but it must be stronger still. With your help and God’s help it will be.
Thank you and God Bless America.
***
State of the Union Address
William J. Clinton
January 24, 1995
Mr. President, Mr. Speaker, members of the 104th Congress, my fellow Americans:
Again we are here in the sanctuary of democracy. And once again, our democracy has spoken.