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"A comprehensive, collaborative elections resource."
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1952 Speech Accepting the Democratic Presidential Nomination - Adlai E. Stevenson
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| Parent | Parent Candidate |
| Contributor | Thomas Walker |
| Post Date | , 12:am |
| Description | Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen of the Convention, My Fellow Citizens. I accept your nomination and your program. I should have preferred to hear those words uttered by a stronger, a wiser, a better man than myself. But, after listening to the President’s speech, I even feel better about myself. None of you, my friends, can wholly appreciate what is in my heart. I can only hope that you understand my words. They will be few.
I have not sought the honor you have done me. I could not seek it, because I aspired to another office, which was the full measure of my ambition, and one does not treat the highest office within the gift of the people of Illinois as an alternative or as a consolation prize.
I would not seek your nomination for the Presidency, because the burdens of that office stagger the imagination. Its potential for good or evil, now and in the years of our lives, smothers exultation and converts vanity to prayer.
I have asked the Merciful Father -- the Father of us all -- to let this cup pass from me, but from such dreaded responsibility one does not shrink in fear, in self-interest, or in false humility. So, “If this cup may not pass from me, except I drink it, Thy will be done.”
That my heart has been troubled, that I have not sought this nomination, that I could not seek it in good conscience, that I would not seek it in honest self-appraisal, is not to say that I value it the less. Rather, it is that I revere the office of the Presidency of the United States. And now, my friends, that you have made your decision, I will fight to win that office with -- with all my heart and my soul. And, with your help, I have no doubt that we will win. |
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