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Supporting One Another
An Enduring American Tradition
Edward Schwartz, President
Institute for the Study of Civic Values
The Americans are fond of explaining almost all the actions of their lives by the principle of self-interest rightly understood; they show with
complacency how an enlightened regard for themselves constantly prompts them to assist one another and inclines them willingly to sacrifice a portion of their time and property to the welfare of the state.
Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Book 2, Chapter 8
Now the only way... to provide for our
posterity, is to follow the counsel of Micah, to do justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly with our God. For this end, we must be knit together, in this work, as one man. We must entertain each other in brotherly
affection. We must be willing to abridge ourselves of our superfluities, for the supply of others' necessities. We must uphold a familiar commerce together in all meekness, gentleness, patience and liberality.
We must delight in each other; make others' conditions our own; rejoice together, mourn together, labor and suffer together.
John Winthrop, "Model of Christian Charity," Massachusetts Bay Colony
For the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance
on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
Declaration of Independence
We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice,
insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the
United States of America.
Preamble to the Constitution
Observe good faith and
justice towards all nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all. Religion and morality enjoin this conduct; and can it be, that good policy does not equally enjoin it? It will be worthy of a free, enlightened,
and, at no distant period, a great nation, to give to mankind the magnanimous and too novel example of a people always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence.
George Washington, Farewell Address
Let us, then, fellow citizens, unite with one heart and one mind. Let us restore to social intercourse
that harmony and affection without which liberty and even life itself are but dreary things
Thomas Jefferson, 1st Inaugural Address
God, in His wisdom, has so linked the whole human family together that any violence done at one end of the chain is felt throughout its length, and here,
too, is the law of restoration, as in woman all have fallen, so in her elevation shall the race be recreated
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Address at Seneca Falls Convention, 1848
With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him
who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves, and with all nations.
Abraham Lincoln, 2nd Inaugural Address
It was also during this winter that
I became permanently impressed with the kindness of the poor to each other; the woman who lives upstairs will willingly share her breakfast with the family below because she knows they "are hard up";
the man who boarded with them last winter will give a month's rent because he knows the father of the family is out of work; the baker across the street who is fast being pushed to the wall by his downtown
competitors, will send across three loaves of stale bread because he has seen the children looking longingly into his window and suspects they are hungry.
Jane Addams, 20 Years at Hull House
If I read the temper of our people correctly, we now realize as we have never realized before
our interdependence on each other; that we can not merely take but we must give as well; that if we are to go forward, we must move as a trained and loyal army willing to sacrifice for the good of a common
discipline, because without such discipline no progress is made, no leadership becomes effective
Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1st Inaugural Address
Solidarity Forever, Solidarity Forever, Solidarity Forever
For the Union Makes Us Strong
Solidarity Forever
This land is your land, this land is my land
From California to the [New York Island,
From the Redwood Forest, to the Gulf stream waters,
This Land was made for you and me
Woody Guthrie, This Land is Your Land
And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do
for your country
John F. Kennedy, Inaugural Address
When we let freedom ring, when we let
it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and
Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"
Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. "I Have a Dream'
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