Pence received the award for his refusal to endorse President Donald Trump's efforts to remain in office after losing the 2020 election.
The award recognises Pence "for putting his life and career on the line to ensure the constitutional transfer of presidential power on January 6, 2021", the JFK Library Foundation said on Sunday.
"To forge a future together, we have to find common ground," Pence said.
"I hope in some small way my presence here tonight is a reminder that whatever differences we may have as Americans, the constitution is the common ground on which we stand.
"It's what binds us across time and generations. .... It's what makes us one people."
His comments came hours after an interview with Trump aired in which he was asked whether US citizens and non-citizens both deserve due process as laid out in the fifth amendment of the constitution. Trump was noncommittal.
"I don't know. I'm not, I'm not a lawyer. I don't know," Trump said when pressed in an interview with NBC's Kristen Welker.
Pence never mentioned Trump during his 10-minute speech but made several references to the Trump administration.
Referencing what he called "these divided times, in these anxious days," he acknowledged that he probably had differences with the Democrats in the room but also with his own Republican Party "on spending, tariffs and my belief that America is the leader of the free world and must stand with Ukraine until the Russian invasion is repelled and a just and lasting peace is secured".
Trump pressured Pence to reject election results from swing states where the Republican president falsely claimed the vote was marred by fraud.
Pence refused, saying he lacked such authority.
When a mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol, some chanted that they wanted to "hang Mike Pence".
Pence was whisked away by Secret Service agents, narrowly avoiding a confrontation with the rioters.
"Mike Pence didn't have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution, giving States a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously certify," Trump wrote at the time on Twitter, as rioters moved through the Capitol and Pence was in hiding with his family, aides and security detail inside the building.
Pence rejected Secret Service advice that he leave the Capitol, staying to continue the ceremonial election certification of Democrat Joe Biden's presidential victory once rioters were cleared.
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