↩ the History · a speech, filed

Announcing the Pardon

Gerald Ford · the Oval Office · September 8, 1974
text: The American Presidency Project, UC Santa Barbara · a work of the United States government, in the public domain
colour carries the act's function; a dashed underline marks a predicted misfire; hover or focus any span for its filing

Ladies and gentlemen:

I have come to a decision which I felt I should tell you and all of my fellow American citizens, as soon as I was certain in my own mind and in my own conscience that it is the right thing to do.

I have learned already in this office that the difficult decisions always come to this desk. I must admit that many of them do not look at all the same as the hypothetical questions that I have answered freely and perhaps too fast on previous occasions.

My customary policy is to try and get all the facts and to consider the opinions of my countrymen and to take counsel with my most valued friends. But these seldom agree, and in the end, the decision is mine. To procrastinate, to agonize, and to wait for a more favorable turn of events that may never come or more compelling external pressures that may as well be wrong as right, is itself a decision of sorts and a weak and potentially dangerous course for a President to follow.

I have promised to uphold the Constitution, to do what is right as God gives me to see the right, and to do the very best that I can for America.

I have asked your help and your prayers, not only when I became President but many times since. The Constitution is the supreme law of our land and it governs our actions as citizens. Only the laws of God, which govern our consciences, are superior to it.

As we are a nation under God, so I am sworn to uphold our laws with the help of God. And I have sought such guidance and searched my own conscience with special diligence to determine the right thing for me to do with respect to my predecessor in this place, Richard Nixon, and his loyal wife and family.

Theirs is an American tragedy in which we all have played a part. It could go on and on and on, or someone must write the end to it. I have concluded that only I can do that, and if I can, I must.

There are no historic or legal precedents to which I can turn in this matter, none that precisely fit the circumstances of a private citizen who has resigned the Presidency of the United States. But it is common knowledge that serious allegations and accusations hang like a sword over our former President's head, threatening his health as he tries to reshape his life, a great part of which was spent in the service of this country and by the mandate of its people.

After years of bitter controversy and divisive national debate, I have been advised, and I am compelled to conclude that many months and perhaps more years will have to pass before Richard Nixon could obtain a fair trial by jury in any jurisdiction of the United States under governing decisions of the Supreme Court.

I deeply believe in equal justice for all Americans, whatever their station or former station. The law, whether human or divine, is no respecter of persons; but the law is a respecter of reality.

The facts, as I see them, are that a former President of the United States, instead of enjoying equal treatment with any other citizen accused of violating the law, would be cruelly and excessively penalized either in preserving the presumption of his innocence or in obtaining a speedy determination of his guilt in order to repay a legal debt to society.

During this long period of delay and potential litigation, ugly passions would again be aroused. And our people would again be polarized in their opinions. And the credibility of our free institutions of government would again be challenged at home and abroad.

In the end, the courts might well hold that Richard Nixon had been denied due process, and the verdict of history would even more be inconclusive with respect to those charges arising out of the period of his Presidency, of which I am presently aware.

But it is not the ultimate fate of Richard Nixon that most concerns me, though surely it deeply troubles every decent and every compassionate person. My concern is the immediate future of this great country.

In this, I dare not depend upon my personal sympathy as a long-time friend of the former President, nor my professional judgment as a lawyer, and I do not.

As President, my primary concern must always be the greatest good of all the people of the United States whose servant I am. As a man, my first consideration is to be true to my own convictions and my own conscience.

My conscience tells me clearly and certainly that I cannot prolong the bad dreams that continue to reopen a chapter that is closed. My conscience tells me that only I, as President, have the constitutional power to firmly shut and seal this book. My conscience tells me it is my duty, not merely to proclaim domestic tranquillity but to use every means that I have to insure it.

I do believe that the buck stops here, that I cannot rely upon public opinion polls to tell me what is right.

I do believe that right makes might and that if I am wrong, 10 angels swearing I was right would make no difference.

I do believe, with all my heart and mind and spirit, that I, not as President but as a humble servant of God, will receive justice without mercy if I fail to show mercy.

Finally, I feel that Richard Nixon and his loved ones have suffered enough and will continue to suffer, no matter what I do, no matter what we, as a great and good nation, can do together to make his goal of peace come true.

"Now, therefore, I, Gerald R. Ford, President of the United States, pursuant to the pardon power conferred upon me by Article II, Section 2, of the Constitution, have granted and by these presents do grant a full, free, and absolute pardon unto Richard Nixon for all offenses against the United States which he, Richard Nixon, has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from July (January) 20, 1969 through August 9, 1974."

"In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this eighth day of September, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and seventy-four, and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred and ninety ninth."

The divergences

"Theirs is an American tragedy in which we all have played a part" — the White House files a Frame-set that ends a national ordeal; the House committee that had voted articles of impeachment files an Assertion about authorship and finds it false. They part on target: whether the sentence reports what happened or installs the construal under which fault may still be assigned. Under the tragedy frame there is no offence to pardon, only a misfortune to close — and the aides then under indictment for the same events, whose trial began that autumn, appear nowhere in these remarks.

"The law, whether human or divine, is no respecter of persons; but the law is a respecter of reality" — one audience files a Frame-break, the equal-justice principle avowed in the previous sentence cancelled at the semicolon to make room for a fact it cannot see; another files an Assertion about how courts behave under pressure. They part on function, and the sentence after settles what the break was for: a former President "instead of enjoying equal treatment with any other citizen accused of violating the law." The mercy case is entered before anyone can enter the justice case, so the objection arrives to find its own premise already granted and disposed of.

"There are no historic or legal precedents to which I can turn in this matter" — the remarks file an Assertion of novelty, which leaves the decision unguided and therefore the speaker's alone; lawyers file a Palter, since pardoning a man not yet indicted was settled ground, and Burdick v. United States had held in 1915 that a pardon carries an imputation of guilt and its acceptance a confession of it. They part on motive. The hinge is "precisely," and the acceptance that Burdick describes is the half of the transaction these remarks never mention — Nixon's statement that day accepted the pardon while conceding no crime.

"My conscience tells me clearly and certainly that I cannot prolong the bad dreams that continue to reopen a chapter that is closed" — the speaker files an Avowal, reflexive, constituting the man who can sign; a citizen files an outward Assertion offered as the public reason for an act of state. They part on target. The pardon power requires no reason at all, which makes the reason given the whole of what was open to argument, and it is lodged in the one place no one else can inspect. Polls that autumn recorded the country's answer, and the previous paragraph had ruled polls out.

"Richard Nixon and his loved ones have suffered enough and will continue to suffer" — read narrow, a judgment about one household, warranted by what the speaker feels; read wide, a rule about how much suffering discharges a legal debt, applied once and to one man. They part on scope. The remarks name the sufferers they weigh — a former President, a loyal wife and family — and the parties the alleged offences touched appear only as "our people," whose passions would be aroused by the delay.

"I, not as President but as a humble servant of God, will receive justice without mercy if I fail to show mercy" — Ford files an Avowal answerable to a court the electorate cannot appear before; a public whose Constitution vests the pardon in the President alone files a claim made by an officeholder spending an official power. They part on target: the self, or the office. Every auditor these remarks name is one the voters are not — God, "the verdict of history," and the speaker's own promise "to do what is right as God gives me to see the right."

"Now, therefore, I, Gerald R. Ford ... do grant a full, free, and absolute pardon" — the room files a Declaration and hears the pardon happen; the law files a Report of a document that took effect at the signature after the reading. They part on function, and the gap between the two filings is the shape of the whole text. Every reason on this page was spoken while the decision was still reversible, and the act those reasons justify did not exist until the last line — which is why the remarks argue the mercy at length and name what is pardoned in one unexamined phrase, "all offenses against the United States."