Wednesday, Feb. 6, marks the 108th anniversary of President Ronald Wilson Reagan’s birthday, or, as he would have phrased it, the 69th anniversary of his 39th birthday.

Either way, we’re grateful beyond measure for his service to our country, the shining City on a Hill, and his steadfast devotion to Essential Liberty.

In honor of his birthday, we remember “The Speech” — his 1964 address that vaulted him to national prominence: “The Founding Fathers knew a government can’t control the economy without controlling people. And they knew when a government sets out to do that, it must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose. So we have come to a time for choosing. … You and I are told we must choose between a left or right, but I suggest there is no such thing as a left or right, there is only an up or down. Up to man’s age-old dream — the maximum of individual freedom consistent with order — or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism.”

“It’s time we asked ourselves if we still know the freedoms intended for us by the Founding Fathers. James Madison said, ‘We base all our experiments on the capacity of mankind for self government.’ This idea — that government was beholden to the people, that it had no other source of power — is still the newest, most unique idea in all the long history of man’s relation to man. This is the issue of this election: Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American Revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves.”

He concluded, “You and I have a rendezvous with destiny.”

We also invite you to visit The Patriot Post’s vast collection of commentary and resources on our nation’s 40th president.

Mark Alexander’s essays:

The Reagan Centennial

The Reagan Model for Restoration

Ronald Reagan: North Star of the Conservative Revolution

The Twilight’s Last Gleaming — God Bless Ronald Reagan

And, of course, Reagan2020.US