Energy and the National Goals: A Crisis of Confidence
Introduction: In 1979, there wasn’t enough oil to make gas for cars or to use to heat houses and apartment buildings. People were worried about what came to be known as “the energy crisis.” People were also struggling to pay for things. The American economy was not doing well. President Jimmy Carter had tried to find a solution to these problems, but his efforts were not always successful. In this speech, he talked to the American people about how their worries led them to lose faith in their country. He hoped if they started to feel better about their country, they could work together and help him find a way out of the energy crisis.
1. Ten days ago, I had planned to speak to you again about a very important subject—energy. For the fifth time I would have described the urgency of the problem and laid out a series of legislative recommendations to the Congress. But as I was preparing to speak, I began to ask myself the same question that I now know has been troubling many of you: Why have we not been able to get together as a nation to resolve our serious energy problem?
2. It’s clear that the true problems of our nation are much deeper—deeper than gasoline lines or energy shortages, deeper even than inflation or recession. And I realize more than ever that as President I need your help. So, I decided to reach out and to listen to the voices of America.
3. I invited to Camp David people from almost every segment of our society—business and labor, teachers and preachers, governors, mayors, and private citizens. And then I left Camp David to listen to other Americans, men and women like you. ...
4. These ten days confirmed my belief in the decency and the strength and the wisdom of the American people, but it also bore out some of my longstanding concerns about our nation’s underlying problems.
5. I know, of course, being President, that government actions and legislation can be very important. That’s why I’ve worked hard to put my campaign promises into law, and I have to admit, with just mixed success. But after listening to the American people, I have been reminded again that all the legislation in the world can’t fix what’s wrong with America. So, I want to speak to you first tonight about a subject even more serious than energy or inflation. I want to talk to you right now about a fundamental threat to American democracy.
6. I do not mean our political and civil liberties. They will endure. And I do not refer to the outward strength of America, a nation that is at peace tonight everywhere in the world, with unmatched economic power and military might.
7. The threat is nearly invisible in ordinary ways.
8. It is a crisis of confidence.
9. It is a crisis that strikes at the very heart and soul and spirit of our national will. We can see this crisis in the growing doubt about the meaning of our own lives and in the loss of a unity of purpose for our nation.
10.The erosion of our confidence in the future is threatening to destroy the social and the political fabric of America.
11.The confidence that we have always had as a people is not simply some romantic dream or a proverb in a dusty book that we read just on the Fourth of July. It is the idea which founded our nation and has guided our development as a people. Confidence in the future has supported everything else—public institutions and private enterprise, our own families, and the very Constitution of the United States. Confidence has defined our course and has served as a link between generations. We’ve always believed in something called progress. We’ve always had a faith that the days of our children would be better than our own. ...
12. I will continue to travel this country, to hear the people of America. You can help me to develop a national agenda for the 1980s. I will listen; and I will act. We will act together.
13.These were the promises I made three years ago, and I intend to keep them.
14. Little by little we can and we must rebuild our confidence. We can spend until we empty our treasuries, and we may summon all the wonders of science. But we can succeed only if we tap our greatest resources—America’s people, America’s values, and America’s confidence.
15. I have seen the strength of America in the inexhaustible resources of our people. In the days to come, let us renew that strength in the struggle for an energy-secure nation.
16. In closing, let me say this: I will do my best, but I will not do it alone. Let your voice be heard. Whenever you have a chance, say something good about our country. With God’s help and for the sake of our nation, it is time for us to join hands in America. Let us commit ourselves together to a rebirth of the American spirit. Working together with our common faith we cannot fail.
17.Thank you and good night.
How does President Carter structure the remainder of the speech after introducing the idea of a “fundamental threat to American democracy” in Passage 2, Paragraph 5?
