Proclamation 3946—Bill of Rights Day, Human Rights Day

One hundred seventy-eight years ago, the Bill of Rights was ratified and incorporated as part of the United States Constitution. The founders of our Republic had fought for individual liberty and for representative and responsible government. In the first ten amendments to the Constitution they sought to ensure that the power of the government would not abridge the rights of citizens.

More than twenty years ago, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The founders of the United Nations had endured a world war brought on by those who denied the rights of men to equality and justice and who abrogated the rights of nations to exist in peace.

The two documents—the Bill of Rights and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights—are close in spirit although widely separated in time. The Bill of Rights is the law of the land. The Universal Declaration is a statement of principles, of common standards of achievement for all peoples and all nations. We in the United States are engaged in unremitting efforts to give real meaning to these standards for every American, to assure to every person the full enjoyment of his basic rights.

Now, Therefore, I, Richard Nixon, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim December 10, 1969, as Human Rights Day and December 15, 1969, as Bill of Rights Day, and call upon the people of the United States of America to observe the week of December 10-17, 1969, as Human Rights Week, to the end that we may rededicate ourselves as a united people to the task of assuring to every person—regardless of his race, sex, creed, color, or place of national origin—the full enjoyment of his basic human rights. Let us act so as to provide an example that will point the way in the struggle to promote respect for human rights throughout the world.

In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this ninth day of December, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred sixty-nine, and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred ninety-fourth.

RICHARD NIXON