Remains true, so long as we remain optimistic:

“We are sometimes naïve in our goodness – Americans are. It’s part of the nature of our life lived in a free society; part of our ‘social contract’ in which we each seek out our own self-interest through hard work and discipline and thrift, understanding that the true meaning of freedom is freedom from our vices and our own raging passions; and in that understanding we reap a bounty that has spilled over to build the greatest society the world has ever known. Not by invasions, pillaging and theft; but the tremendous abundance of productively free men giving back through their love of themselves, their country and each other.”

Read the whole thing here.