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House Managers' argument:
President's conduct endangers civil rights

Before I close, I do want to take a moment to address a theme that the House managers sounded throughout their presentation last week—civil rights. They suggested that by not removing the President from office, the entire house of civil rights might well fall. While acknowledging that the President is a good advocate for civil rights, they suggested that they had grave concerns because of the President's conduct in the Paula Jones case.

Some managers suggested that we all should be concerned should the Senate fail to convict the President, because it would send a message that our civil rights laws and our sexual harassment laws are unimportant.

Personal challenge

I can't let their comments go unchallenged. I speak as but one woman, but I know I speak for others as well. I know I speak for the President.

Narrative

Bill Clinton's grandfather owned a store. His store catered primarily to African Americans. Apparently, his grandfather was one of only four white people in town who would do business with African Americans. He taught his grandson that the African Americans who came into his store were good people and they worked hard and they deserved a better deal in life.

The President has taken his grandfather's teachings to heart, and he has worked every day to give all of us a better deal, an equal deal.

Refutation 1:
Jones had no civil rights case

I am not worried about the future of civil rights. I am not worried because Ms. Jones had her day in court and Judge Wright determined that all of the matters we are discussing here today were not material to her case and ultimately decided that Ms. Jones, based on the facts and the law in that case, did not have a case against the President.

Refutation 2:
imperfect leader-ship has not rolled back civil rights

I am not worried, because we have had imperfect leaders in the past and will have imperfect leaders in the future, but their imperfections did not roll back, nor did they stop, the march for civil rights and equal opportunity for all of our citizens.

Thomas Jefferson, Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr: we revere these men. We should. But they were not perfect men. They made human errors, but they struggled to do humanity good. I am not worried about civil rights because this President's record on civil rights, on women's rights, on all of our rights is unimpeachable.

Refutation 3: the house of civil rights is laid on a strong foundation: the people who fought for it.

Ladies and gentlemen of the Senate, you have an enormous decision to make. And in truth, there is little more I can do to lighten that burden. But I can do this: I can assure you that your decision to follow the facts and the law and the Constitution and acquit this President will not shake the foundation of the house of civil rights. The house of civil rights is strong because its foundation is strong.

And with all due respect, the foundation of the house of civil rights was never at the core of the Jones case. It was never at the heart of the Jones case. The foundation of the house of civil rights is in the voices of all the great civil rights leaders and the soul of every person who heard them. It is in the hands of every person who folded a leaflet for change. And it is in the courage of every person who changed. It is here in the Senate where men and women of courage and conviction stood for progress, where Senators—some of them still in this chamber; some of them who lost their careers—looked to the Constitution, listened to their conscience, and then did the right thing.

The foundation of the house of civil rights is in all of us who gathered up our will to raise it up and keep on building. I stand here before you today because others before me decided to take a stand, or as one of my law professors so eloquently says, 'because someone claimed my opportunities for me, by fighting for my right to have the education I have, by fighting for my right to seek the employment I choose, by fighting for my right to be a lawyer,' by sitting in and carrying signs and walking on long marches, riding freedom rides and putting their bodies on the line for civil rights.

I stand here before you today because America decided that the way things were was not how they were going to be. We, the people, decided that we all deserved a better deal. I stand here before you today because President Bill Clinton believed I could stand here for him.

Your decision whether to remove President Clinton from office, based on the articles of impeachment, I know, will be based on the law and the facts and the Constitution. It would be wrong to convict him on this record. You should acquit him on this record. And you must not let imagined harms to the house of civil rights persuade you otherwise. The President did not obstruct justice. The President did not commit perjury. The President must not be removed from office.