Video: 'The Primary Source: JFK's 1960 Speech'

(Monday, September 12, 1960, 9:00 p.m. CDT; during the 1960 United States presidential election) — Democratic presidential nominee John F. Kennedy, a Roman Catholic, bluntly told a group of 300 Protestant clergymen meeting tonight at Rice Hotel in Houston that he would resign the presidency if holding it ever required violating his conscience or the national interest.

Video: '"THE MAKING OF THE PRESIDENT 1960" (1963)' (Sept. 12, 1960, at 42:45)

“I am not the Catholic candidate for President. I am the Democratic Party’s candidate for president who happens also to be a Catholic,” Kennedy told the Greater Houston Ministerial Association. “I do not speak for my Church on public matters – and the Church does not speak for me.”

Video: 'America Remembers John F. Kennedy (1983)' (Sept. 12, 1960, at 35:33)

Kennedy promised to respect the separation of church and state and not to allow Catholic officials to dictate public policy to him.

Video: 'Television & the Presidency Part 3' (Sept. 12, 1960, at 2:56)

Kennedy also raised the question of whether one-quarter of Americans were relegated to second-class citizenship just because they were Roman Catholic.

Kennedy would go on to become the first Roman Catholic to be elected president.