Proclamation 5639—National Volunteer Week, 1987: Our Constitutional Heritage

Two hundred years ago, when our Founding Fathers drafted the Constitution that has remained our charter of liberty, they began it with the immortal words, "We the People." These are but three words, yet they say everything about America and about Americans. We have Godgiven dignity and rights neither granted by the state nor subject to it; we take responsibility for living our lives in freedom; and we come to the assistance of our neighbors in time of need.

The spirit of "We the People" is the American spirit, and we Americans will always honor it and live by it. Just one example of this is our heritage of voluntarism, which is flourishing today. "We the People"—89 million of us—volunteer our time, energy, talents, and material resources to create a better America. There is no problem facing us today that volunteers are not addressing. We can all be grateful to America's generous volunteers and glad that the tradition of voluntarism will continue to serve us in the future as it has in the past.

Now, Therefore, I, Ronald Reagan, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United States, in recognition of the indispensable contributions volunteers make to our national life, do hereby proclaim the week of April 26 through May 2, 1987, as National Volunteer Week: Our Constitutional Heritage, and I call upon the people of the United States to commemorate the week with appropriate ceremonies and activities.

In Witness Whereof I have hereunto set my hand this 26th day of April, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and eightyseven, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and eleventh.

RONALD REAGAN