On Jan. 11, 1989, President Ronald Reagan delivered his farewell address from the Oval Office. It was the close of his second term, and Reagan was reflecting on his two terms. He asserted that his presidency was about restoring America in its role as a “shining city on a hill.”
Reagan recalled the words and beliefs of John Winthrop, an early pilgrim and “an early freedom man.” Winthrop “journeyed here on what today we’d call a little wooden boat; and like the other Pilgrims, he was looking for a home that would be free. I’ve spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don’t know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it.”
Reagan described his own vision of a land “teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity. And if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That’s how I saw it and see it still.”
