Block · one region of the page, as the scanner read it. It may hold a whole story, part of one, several, or an advertisement; stitching blocks into articles is the next step. Text is supplied OCR.
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in a country, so will its people. If there is any doubt, look into the eyes of those Whose freedoms have been * denied. Ask a freedom fighter in Afghanistan what it means to have one’s freedom denied. Ask a black family living in South Africa or a Polish citizen the same question. And ask the wife of a University of Virginia history professor living in the Soviet Union who is finally coming to the United States with her daughter what it’s like to have freedom denied.
Yes, Thomas Jefferson understood the importance of freedom and ensuring its inclusion in our Constitution. Our nation’s Constitution represents a remarkable achievement by remarkable people. It’s why our government remains today the oldest continuing form of government in the world. All the governments existing at the time of our nation’s founding have either drastically changed or have ceased to exist. It has proved to be a document that has endured for nearly 200 years in a world that has experienced incalculable change.
“It is a good canvas, on which only some strokes only want retouching,” Jefferson observed. Today we; honor what many helieve to be Jefferson’s greatest achievement, the Virginia Statute on Religious Free-' dom. Today, we join together in reaffirming that, most basic freedom which Jefferson willed to us.
As trustees of our Constitutional framework of government, let us vow to protect this freedom as dearly as we have for its first 200 years of life. ^
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