1965年1月20日
我的同胞们，我此刻当着你们和上帝的面所宣读的誓词，并不仅仅属于我一个人，而是属于我们大家。因为我们共有一个国家，同属一个民族；我们作为一个国家的命运，我们作为一个民族的未来，决非依赖于某一个公民，而取决于全体人民。
这就是这一时刻的庄严和意义之所在。
每一代人都有某种命运。对某些时代的人而言，决定其命运的乃是历史。而我们这一代人则必须由自己来作出抉择。就在此刻，有一枚火箭正飞向火星。①它向我们提示，在我们子孙的时代，甚至在我们自己这一代，只要稍过几年世界就会迥然不同。下一个站在这里的人，将会看到一幅不同于现在的景象。因为我们所处的时代乃是一个变革的时代，这种变革迅疾而奇妙，它揭示大自然的奥妙，成倍增加民族国家的数目，将具有控制和毁灭神通的新式武器置于靠不住的人手中，①同时还动摇旧的价值观念，把原来的生活方式连根拔除。
①1964年11月28日美国发射“水手四号”
空间探测器，对火星表面进行近距离探侧。①指苏联已经掌握核武器一事。身处变革之中，我们的命运将取决于我国人民不可移易的品格，取决于他们的信念。
当年那些萍踪漂泊、浪迹他乡的人们，坚强勇敢而又饱受恐吓，他们为了寻找一片个人能够独立自主的土地而抵达此地。他们与这片土地订下公约②。这一公约形之于正义，言之以自由，并以团结为约束，预示终有一天会激起全人类的希望。它至今仍把我们联结在一起。我们若能奉守它的规约，便会走向繁荣昌盛。
②指1620年清教徒移民签订的《五月花号公约》．参见本书第367页注释②。
首先，公正乃是第一项条款，它允诺所有越海而来的人们共同享有这块土地上的果实。在这片极其富饶的土地上，家家户户决不能生活在无望的贫困之中。在这片物产丰富的土地上，孩子们决不能身受饥谨之苦。在这片具有治病奇迹的土地上，人们决不能任由疾病折磨和在无人照料中死去。在这个知识昌明、学者云集的伟大国度，年轻人必须接受教育，学会认读和写作。我在为国效力的三十余年中③一直认为，在上述各方面对我国人民的不公正，对我国资源的这种浪费，乃是我们的真正敌人。三十多年来，我运用自己掌握的一切手段时刻警惕地与之进行斗争。我已认识并懂得，这个敌人是不会轻易投降的。
③约翰逊于1931年来到华盛顿，任一位国会议员的私人秘书，开始了自己的政治生涯，到此次演说时已有三十余年。然而，变革给我们带来了新的武器。在这一代美国人的有生之年，这个敌人不仅会退却，而且还会被征服。公正就是要求我们牢记，任何公民如果拒不承认其同胞的权益，说什么“他的肤色跟我不一样”或“他的信仰奇特怪异”，这时他便背叛了美国，虽然他的先辈创立了这个国家。自由则是公约的第二项条款。它就是自治。它就是我们的“权利法案”①。但并不止于此。美国还要成为一个人人都能为自己的存在感到自豪的地方，在这里每个人均可施展自己的才华，从工作中得到欢欣，并在邻里和全国性的生活中发挥重要的作用。①详见本书第366页注释②。但是，在一个变革与增长似乎已经超出人们的控制、甚至超出人们的判断的世界里，这一切已变得更为困难。因此，我们必须努力提供必要的知识和环境，以扩大每个公民的发展余地。这项美国公约召唤我们协助指明人类解放的道路，而这正是我们今天的奋斗目标。如此说来，我们作为一个国家固然有许多力所难及之处，但作为一个民族，则不会让任何人置身于我们的希望之外。变革已赋予这一昔日的使命以新的意义。我们永远不复可能作壁上观，也无法因孤立而沾沾自喜。我们一度称作“外国所专有”的那些可怕危险和难题，现在却时时存在于我们的生活中间。②倘若美国人必须在那些我们所知甚少的国度献出生命和倾注钱财，①那乃是变革向我们的信念、向我们永存的政府所索取的代价。②美国人长期相信自己的社会乃是人类的
“希望之乡”，困扰其他国家的阶级对抗、贫困、战争和压迫都与美国无缘，但二十世纪初以来，这些问题日益使美国社会陷入困境。
①当时美国已全面卷入越南战争。1954年法国势力退出越南后，美国开始谋求向该地区渗透。1961年美国帮助越南南方的吴庭艳政权发动“特种战争”，从此日益深陷越南战争之中。1964年战火延及越南北方，次年美军开始大规模直接参战。1969年美国推行“越南化”政策，但战局仍无大的改观。1973年1月美国在“巴黎协定”上签字，退出越南战争。试想一下，从正驶向火星的火箭仁看我们的世界是一个什么样子。它就像一个儿童玩的地球仪，悬于太空当中，贴在它上面的几块大陆则像若干幅彩色的地图。我们都是这个小小地球上同行的旅客。在时间的长河中，我们每个人实际上只是与各自的旅伴一起度过了短暂的一瞬。人类的存在既是如此脆弱，倘若我们居然彼此仇恨和自相毁灭，那是多么令人不可思议啊！事实上，所有愿意放弃主宰他人的人，都有足够的机会来实现对自然的主宰。海阔天高，每个人可以按自己的方式去寻求幸福。我们国家的航向是再清楚不过的。我们对属于他人的东西决无奢求。我们所寻求的决非对自己的同类的统治，而是人类对专制与苦难的胜利。我们需要做的事情还有许多。人们要求参与一项共同的事业，那是一桩比他们自身还要伟大的工作。我们每个人都必须想方设法推进国家的目标，从而为自己找到新的目标。舍此我们就会虽然同居一国而形同路人。
公约的第三条是团结。对当年那些势孤力单地奋斗于蛮荒之境的人们②来说，要赢得自由就非依靠联合的力量不可。两个世纪的变动已再度证实了这点。②指早期移居北美的人和后来开拓西部的拓荒者。资本家和工人、农场主和职员、城市和农村之间再也不必为瓜分利益而争斗。我们只要并肩工作和共同努力，就能增进所有人的利益。我们业已发现，每有一个儿童上学，每有一个成人找到工作，每有一个病人身体康复，就好比在圣坛上增添了一根蜡烛，照亮了所有忠诚的人们的希望。
因此，让我们鄙弃我们中间任何企图重新撕开旧伤口、重新点燃旧仇恨的人吧！因为他们阻挡了我们这个不懈迫求的国家前进的道路。现在，让我们把理智与信念、行动与经验联结起来，从而将利益的一致转化为目标的一致。因为毋需争斗倾轧即可获得进步，不必激起仇恨即可发生变革，这样的时刻、这样的日子和这样的时代已经来临。这并不是说意见分歧亦不复存在，而是说许多世代以来使团结蒙垢的深刻而持久的分裂已然消失了。
在这项以公正、自由、团结为原则的公约指导下，我们已经成为一个繁荣、伟大和强盛的国家。而且我们还保持了我们的自由。但是，我们并未从上帝那里得到保证我们永远是一个伟大国家的诺言。我们只是已经得到上帝的准许，用我们勤劳的双手和坚强的精神去赢得伟大。我并不认为“伟大社会”①应像蚁群那样安排有序、一成不变和了无生气。①约翰逊在1964年5月的一次演说中，首次提出了“伟大社会”的口号，他在燕得1964年大选后，便把这一口号变成了自己的内政纲领，其内容包括发展教育、改善生活质量和扩大就业机会，其目标是消灭贫困，实现经济和社会的重大改革。这是一种由“生成”带来的振奋；它在不停地生成，尝试，探索，起伏，休整，再尝试；但只要一直在尝试，就总会有收获。我们每一代人都只得靠汗水和泪水来重新继承我们的传统。假如我们现在遭到了失败，那就说明我们身处富足之中而忘记了在艰难中学到的东西——民主须建立在信仰之上，自由所要求的多于它所给予的，上帝对他最宠爱的人所做的评判也最为苛刻。倘若我们获得了成功，其原因并不是我们具备了什么条件，而是在于我们自身的素质；并不是我们拥有的什么东西，而毋宁在于我们所信仰的事情。因为我们是一个由有信仰的人所组成的国家。在我们创业的扰攘和日常事务的奔忙背后，我们对公正、自由和团结怀着信仰，对我们自己的联盟怀着信仰。我们相信，每个人总有一天都会获得自由。而且，我们相信我们自己。我们的敌人总是犯下同样的错误。在我一生所经历的大萧条①和战争时期②，他们都曾期待我们被打败。但每当这个时候，在美国人民的心灵深处都会涌出他们难以理解甚至也无从想象的信念。这种信念给我们带来过胜利，今后也必将再度给我们带来胜利。①即1929—1933年经济危机。详见本书第350页注释①。②指第二次世界大战（1939—1945）。
因为这就是美国所包含的一切。它是一块无人穿越的沙漠，它是一座未曾经人登上的山峦；它是一个人迹未至的星球，它是尚未开垦的土地上沉睡的果实。我们的世界已经逝去了吗？让我们对它说声“再见吧”。一个新的世界正在来临吗了我们对它表示欢迎，并将使之服从于人类的愿望。
今天，我想向那些重任在肩的公仆们、向我的家人、向那些跟随我走过一条漫长而又曲折的道路的亲密朋友们、向联邦全体人民和全世界人民，重述我自己在1963，11月那悲痛的日子里①说过的那句话：“我将领路前行，并竭尽所能而为之。”
①即1963年11月22日。第三十五任总统约翰•菲茨杰拉德•肯尼迪于是日在达拉斯遇刺身亡，约翰逊继任总统。不过，你们应当在自己内心留意昔日的诺言和昔日的梦想，它们会给你们以最好的指引。至于我自己，不妨借用一位古代领袖②的话说，我只“求你赐我智慧聪明，我好在这民前出入。不然，谁能判断这众多的民呢？”③②指以色列国王所罗门（solomon，约公元前961—922年在位）。③语出《圣经•旧约全书•历代志下》第一章第十节。
Lyndon Baines Johnson的就职演讲稿
Inaugural Address of Lyndon Baines Johnson
http://www.en8848.com.cn/kouyu/use/inauguraladdress/126825.html
My fellow countrymen, on this occasion, the oath I have taken before you and before God is not mine alone, but ours together. We are one nation and one people. Our fate as a nation and our future as a people rest not upon one citizen, but upon all citizens.
This is the majesty and the meaning of this moment.
For every generation, there is a destiny. For some, history decides. For this generation, the choice must be our own.
Even now, a rocket moves toward Mars. It reminds us that the world will not be the same for our children, or even for ourselves in a short span of years. The next man to stand here will look out on a scene different from our own, because ours is a time of change—rapid and fantastic change bearing the secrets of nature, multiplying the nations, placing in uncertain hands new weapons for mastery and destruction, shaking old values, and uprooting old ways.
Our destiny in the midst of change will rest on the unchanged character of our people, and on their faith.
TH AMERICAN COVENANT
They came here—the exile and the stranger, brave but frightened—to find a place where a man could be his own man. They made a covenant with this land. Conceived in justice, written in liberty, bound in union, it was meant one day to inspire the hopes of all mankind; and it binds us still. If we keep its terms, we shall flourish.
JUSTICE AND CHANGE
First, justice was the promise that all who made the journey would share in the fruits of the land.
In a land of great wealth, families must not live in hopeless poverty. In a land rich in harvest, children just must not go hungry. In a land of healing miracles, neighbors must not suffer and die unattended. In a great land of learning and scholars, young people must be taught to read and write.
For the more than 30 years that I have served this Nation, I have believed that this injustice to our people, this waste of our resources, was our real enemy. For 30 years or more, with the resources I have had, I have vigilantly fought against it. I have learned, and I know, that it will not surrender easily.
But change has given us new weapons. Before this generation of Americans is finished, this enemy will not only retreat—it will be conquered.
Justice requires us to remember that when any citizen denies his fellow, saying, "His color is not mine," or "His beliefs are strange and different," in that moment he betrays America, though his forebears created this Nation.
LIBERTY AND CHANGE
Liberty was the second article of our covenant. It was self-government. It was our Bill of Rights. But it was more. America would be a place where each man could be proud to be himself: stretching his talents, rejoicing in his work, important in the life of his neighbors and his nation.
This has become more difficult in a world where change and growth seem to tower beyond the control and even the judgment of men. We must work to provide the knowledge and the surroundings which can enlarge the possibilities of every citizen.
The American covenant called on us to help show the way for the liberation of man. And that is today our goal. Thus, if as a nation there is much outside our control, as a people no stranger is outside our hope.
Change has brought new meaning to that old mission. We can never again stand aside, prideful in isolation. Terrific dangers and troubles that we once called "foreign" now constantly live among us. If American lives must end, and American treasure be spilled, in countries we barely know, that is the price that change has demanded of conviction and of our enduring covenant.
Think of our world as it looks from the rocket that is heading toward Mars. It is like a child's globe, hanging in space, the continents stuck to its side like colored maps. We are all fellow passengers on a dot of earth. And each of us, in the span of time, has really only a moment among our companions.
How incredible it is that in this fragile existence, we should hate and destroy one another. There are possibilities enough for all who will abandon mastery over others to pursue mastery over nature. There is world enough for all to seek their happiness in their own way.
Our Nation's course is abundantly clear. We aspire to nothing that belongs to others. We seek no dominion over our fellow man, but man's dominion over tyranny and misery.
But more is required. Men want to be a part of a common enterprise—a cause greater than themselves. Each of us must find a way to advance the purpose of the Nation, thus finding new purpose for ourselves. Without this, we shall become a nation of strangers.
UNION AND CHANGE
The third article was union. To those who were small and few against the wilderness, the success of liberty demanded the strength of union. Two centuries of change have made this true again.
No longer need capitalist and worker, farmer and clerk, city and countryside, struggle to divide our bounty. By working shoulder to shoulder, together we can increase the bounty of all. We have discovered that every child who learns, every man who finds work, every sick body that is made whole—like a candle added to an altar—brightens the hope of all the faithful.
So let us reject any among us who seek to reopen old wounds and to rekindle old hatreds. They stand in the way of a seeking nation. 22.
Let us now join reason to faith and action to experience, to transform our unity of interest into a unity of purpose. For the hour and the day and the time are here to achieve progress without strife, to achieve change without hatred—not without difference of opinion, but without the deep and abiding divisions which scar the union for generations.
THE AMERICAN BELIEF
Under this covenant of justice, liberty, and union we have become a nation—prosperous, great, and mighty. And we have kept our freedom. But we have no promise from God that our greatness will endure. We have been allowed by Him to seek greatness with the sweat of our hands and the strength of our spirit.
I do not believe that the Great Society is the ordered, changeless, and sterile battalion of the ants. It is the excitement of becoming—always becoming, trying, probing, falling, resting, and trying again—but always trying and always gaining.
In each generation, with toil and tears, we have had to earn our heritage again.
If we fail now, we shall have forgotten in abundance what we learned in hardship: that democracy rests on faith, that freedom asks more than it gives, and that the judgment of God is harshest on those who are most favored.
If we succeed, it will not be because of what we have, but it will be because of what we are; not because of what we own, but, rather because of what we believe. 28
For we are a nation of believers. Underneath the clamor of building and the rush of our day's pursuits, we are believers in justice and liberty and union, and in our own Union. We believe that every man must someday be free. And we believe in ourselves.
Our enemies have always made the same mistake. In my lifetime—in depression and in war—they have awaited our defeat. Each time, from the secret places of the American heart, came forth the faith they could not see or that they could not even imagine. It brought us victory. And it will again.
For this is what America is all about. It is the uncrossed desert and the unclimbed ridge. It is the star that is not reached and the harvest sleeping in the unplowed ground. Is our world gone? We say "Farewell." Is a new world coming? We welcome it—and we will bend it to the hopes of man.
To these trusted public servants and to my family and those close friends of mine who have followed me down a long, winding road, and to all the people of this Union and the world, I will repeat today what I said on that sorrowful day in November 1963: "I will lead and I will do the best I can."
But you must look within your own hearts to the old promises and to the old dream. They will lead you best of all.
For myself, I ask only, in the words of an ancient leader: "Give me now wisdom and knowledge, that I may go out and come in before this people: for who can judge this thy people, that is so great?"
林登•贝恩斯•约翰逊（Lyndon Baines Johnson，1908年8月27日— 1973年1月22日）是美国第三十六任总统。（1963年11月22日—1965年1月20日，1965年1月20日—1969年1月20日）。他于1908年8月27日生于得克萨斯州基利斯比县的石墙。约翰逊家族曾参与了约翰逊城的建设。
1963年11月22日，肯尼迪总统在德克萨斯州达拉斯遇刺身亡，享年46岁。副总统约翰逊旋即在达拉斯机场的空军一号总统专机的机舱里宣誓就职，成为美国第三十六任总统。
在继任了总统一职之后，1964年，约翰逊又正式当选为总统。
在内政上，约翰逊总统提出了与“新政”、“公平施政”、“新边疆”一脉相承的改革计划，即“伟大社会”施政纲领。
他在位期间，不遗余力地推行各项福利法案、民权法案、消灭贫穷法案和减税法，他的著名的“向贫穷开战”的口号，引导全国在生活富裕时考虑到饥饿和匮乏的棘手问题。
但是在外交上，他奉行他的前任所制订的政策，使得越战不断升级，由於美军在越战中伤亡惨重，其政策遭到了国内外的普遍反对，使他赔上了政治前途。1969年他在总统选举之前宣布不会参选，并全力支持他的副总统连任。