JFK’s 1962 Fourth of July Speech

On this episode of Our American Stories, during some of the most tense moments of the Cold War, President Kennedy on July 4th 1962 visited Independence Hall to give a motivating speech highlighting the importance of democracy and free enterprise around the world.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we continue here with our American stories, our special
Fourth of July show All Show Long. On July fourth,
nineteen sixty two, President John F. Kennedy gave one of
his very best and least known speeches. JFK was a patriot, and,
though born to a family of wealth and privilege, served
in the Pacific in World War Two in the Solomon Islands. Specifically,

(00:34):
he and his Navy mates ran into trouble on a
torpedo patrol boat E T one O nine. When asked
how he came to be a World War II hero,
which Kennedy was, he answered with his usual humor, it
was involuntary. They sank my boat. He won the Purple
Heart and the Navy and Marine Corps Medals for his heroism.

(00:56):
His brother, Joseph, the oldest of nine Kennedy children, was
killed in action during World War Two while serving as
a land based patrol bomber pilot. He was posthumously awarded
the Navy Cross. The Kennedy family's love of country and
devotion to country was on display in the war that
saved Western civilization, and JFK's love and affection for the

(01:19):
nation's founding document our birth Certificate was on full display
on that warm summer day in front of Independence Hall,
the very building in which the fifty six founders signed
the declaration of Independence. After the usual greetings and thanks,
all fifty governors were present and a huge crowd, Kennedy

(01:41):
got started.

Speaker 2 (01:43):
You and I are the executives all the testament handed
down by those who gathered in this historic hall one
hundred and eighty six years ago today. For they gathered
to affix their names to a document which, above all else,
a document, not a rhetoric, but a bold decision. It was,

(02:08):
it is true, a document of protest, But protests had
been made before. It set forth their grievances with eloquence.
But such eloquence had been heard before. But what distinguished
this paper from all the others was the final, irrevocable

(02:29):
decision that it took to assert the independence of free
states in place of colonies, and to commit to that
goal their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor.

Speaker 1 (02:43):
Kennedy then connected the struggle for independence in America in
the eighteenth century to the struggle for independence across the
globe in the twentieth century.

Speaker 2 (02:54):
Today, one hundred and eighty six years laid up that
declaration who yellow imparchment and fading our most illegible lines
I saw in the past week in the National Archives
in Washington, is still a revolutionary document. To read it
today is to hear a trumpet call for that declaration unleashed,

(03:22):
not merely a revolution against the British, by a revolution
in human affairs. Its authors were highly conscious of its
worldwide imprecations, and George Washington declared that liberty and self
government were, in his words, finally staked on the experiment,

(03:45):
entrusted to the hands of the American people. This prophecy
has been born out for one hundred and eighty six years.
This doctrine of national independence has shaken the globe, and
it remains the most powerful force anywhere in the world today.

(04:06):
There are those struggling to eke out a bare existence
in a barren land, who have never heard of free enterprise,
but who cherished the idea of independence. There are those
who are grappling with overpowering problems of the illiteracy and

(04:26):
ill health, and who are ill equipped to hold free elections,
but they are determined to hold fast to their national independence.
Even those unwilling or unable to take part in any
struggle between East and West are strongly on the side

(04:48):
of their own national independence.

Speaker 1 (04:52):
Kennedy then propelled the founder's vision to the present is present,
and the great global struggle happening under his watch, the
struggle between communism and nations around the world longing to
be free.

Speaker 2 (05:06):
If there is a single issue in the world which
divides the world, it is independence. The independence of Berlin
or laos of Vietnam, the longing for independence behind the
Iron Curtain, the peaceful transition to independence in those newly
emerging areas whose troubles some hope to exploit. The theory

(05:30):
of independence is as old as man himself, and it
was not invented in this hall. But it was in
this hall that the theory became a practice, that the
word went out to all, in Thomas Jefferson's phrase that
the God who gave us life gave us liberty at

(05:51):
the same time.

Speaker 3 (05:53):
And in this nation, conceived in a revolution, nurtured in liberty.

Speaker 2 (06:10):
Maturing in independence, has no intention of advocating its leadership
in that worldwide movement for independence to any nation. Our
society committed to systematic him an oppression.

Speaker 1 (06:29):
And here is how President John F. Kennedy closed things
out on July fourth, nineteen sixty two, in front of
Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Speaker 2 (06:42):
On Washington's birthday in eighteen sixty one. Standing right there,
President Elect Abraham Lincoln spoke at this hall on his
way to the nation's capital, and he paid a brief
but eloquent tribute to the men who wrote, who fought forth,

(07:04):
and who died for the Declaration of Independence. Its essence,
he said, was its promise not only obliberty to the
people of this country, but hope.

Speaker 3 (07:17):
To the world, hope.

Speaker 2 (07:19):
That in due time the weights should be lifted from
the shoulders of all men, and that all should have
an equal chance. On this fourth day of July nineteen
sixty two, we who are guided at this same heart,
entrusted with the faith and future of our states and nation, declare.

Speaker 1 (07:45):
Now all vow to do our part.

Speaker 2 (07:49):
To lift the weights from the shoulders of all, to
join other men in nations in preserving both peace and freedom,
to redd any threat to the peace or freedom of
one as a threat to the peace and freedom of all.

(08:10):
And for the support I'm part of support of this
declaration with a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence.
We mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes,

(08:32):
and our sacred ardor.

Speaker 1 (08:38):
And you've been listening to President John F. Kennedy on
July fourth, nineteen sixty two, giving what is one of
his great speeches of his presidency. One we bring to
you every July fourth, and we bring to you a
couple of other times each year as well, because it's
so worth hearing now. And then John F. Kennedy's July

(09:01):
fourth speech at Independence Hall nineteen sixty two, here on
our American story.