[As presented on the Internet by Project Gutenberg on January 20th, 1993]
My fellow citizens:
Today we celebrate the mystery of American renewal.
This ceremony is held in the depth of winter, but by the words we speak
and the faces we show the world, we force the spring. A spring reborn
in the world's oldest democracy, that brings forth the vision and
courage to reinvent America. When our founders boldly declared
America's independence to the world, and our purposes to the Almighty,
they knew that America, to endure, would have to change. Not change for
change sake, but change to preserve America's ideals: life, liberty,
the pursuit of happiness.
Though we march to the music of our time, our mission is timeless. Each
generation of American's must define what it means to be an American. On
behalf of our nation, I salute my predecessor, President Bush, for his
half-century of service to America...and I thank the millions of men
and women whose steadfastness and sacrifice triumphed over depression,
fascism and communism.
Today, a generation raised in the shadows of the Cold War assumes new
responsibilities in a world warmed by the sunshine of freedom, but
threatened still by ancient hatreds and new plagues. Raised in
unrivalled prosperity, we inherit an economy that is still the world's
strongest, but is weakened by business failures, stagnant wages,
increasing inequality, and deep divisions among *our own* people.
When George Washington first took the oath I have just sworn to uphold,
news travelled slowly across the land by horseback, and across the ocean
by boat. Now the sights and sounds of this ceremony are broadcast
instantaneously to billions around the world. Communications and
commerce are global. Investment is mobile. Technology is almost
magical, and ambition for a better life is now universal.
We earn our livelihood in America today in peaceful competition with
people all across the Earth. Profound and powerful forces are shaking
and remaking our world, and the *urgent* question of our time is whether
we can make change our friend and not our enemy. This new world has
already enriched the lives of *millions* of Americans who are able to
compete and win in it. But when most people are working harder for
less, when others cannot work at all, when the cost of health care
devastates families and threatens to bankrupt our enterprises, great and
small; when the fear of crime robs law abiding citizens of their
freedom; and when millions of poor children cannot even imagine the
lives we are calling them to lead, we have not made change our friend.
We know we have to face hard truths and take strong steps, but we have
not done so. Instead we have drifted, and that drifting has eroded our
resources, fractured our economy, and shaken our confidence. Though our
challenges are fearsome, so are our strengths. Americans have ever been
a restless, questing, hopeful people, and we must bring to our task
today the vision and will of those who came before us. From our
Revolution to the Civil War, to the Great Depression, to the Civil
Rights movement, our people have always mustered the determination to
construct from these crises the pillars of our history. Thomas
Jefferson believed that to preserve the very foundations of our nation
we would need dramatic change from time to time. Well, my fellow
Americans, this is OUR time. Let us embrace it.
Our democracy must be not only the envy of the world but the engine of
our *own* renewal. There is nothing *wrong* with America that cannot be
cured by what is *right* with America.
And so today we pledge an end to the era of deadlock and drift, and a
new season of American renewal has begun.
To renew America we must be bold. We must do what no generation has had
to do before. We must invest more in our own people, in their jobs, and
in their future, and at the same time cut our massive debt...and we
must do so in a world in which we must compete for every opportunity. It
will not be easy. It will require sacrifice, but it can be done, and
done fairly. Not choosing sacrifice for its own sake, but for *our* own
sake. We must provide for our nation the way a family provides for its
children. Our founders saw themselves in the light of posterity. We can
do no less. Anyone who has ever watched a child's eyes wander into
sleep knows what posterity is. Posterity is the world to come, the
world for whom we hold our ideals, from whom we have borrowed our
planet, and to whom we bear sacred responsibilities. We must do what
America does best, offer more opportunity TO all and demand more
responsibility *from* all.
It is time to break the bad habit of expecting something for nothing:
from our government, or from each other. Let us all take more
responsibility, not only for ourselves and our families, but for our
communities and our country. To renew America we must revitalize our
democracy. This beautiful capitol, like every capitol since the dawn of
civilization, is often a place of intrigue and calculation. Powerful
people maneuver for position and worry endlessly about who is *in* and
who is *out*, who is *up* and who is *down*, forgetting those people
whose toil and sweat sends us here and paves our way.
Americans deserve better, and in this city today there are people who
want to do better, and so I say to all of you here, let us resolve to
reform our politics, so that power and privilege no longer shout down
the voice of the people. Let us put aside personal advantage, so that
we can feel the pain and see the promise of America. Let us resolve to
make our government a place for what Franklin Roosevelt called "bold,
persistent experimentation, a government for our tomorrows, not our
yesterdays." Let us give this capitol back to the people to whom it
belongs.
To renew America we must meet challenges abroad, as well as at home.
There is no longer a clear division between what is foreign and what is
domestic. The world economy, the world environment, the world AIDS
crisis, the world arms race: they affect us all. Today as an old order
passes, the new world is more free, but less stable. Communism's
collapse has called forth old animosities, and new dangers. Clearly,
America must continue to lead the world we did so much to make. While
America rebuilds at home, we will not shrink from the challenges nor
fail to seize the opportunities of this new world. Together with our
friends and allies, we will work together to shape change, lest it
engulf us. When our vital interests are challenged, or the will and
conscience of the international community is defied, we will act; with
peaceful diplomacy whenever possible, with force when necessary. The
brave Americans serving our nation today in the Persian Gulf, in
Somalia, and wherever else they stand, are testament to our resolve, but
our greatest strength is the power of our ideas, which are still new in
many lands. Across the world, we see them embraced and we rejoice. Our
hopes, our hearts, our hands, are with those on every continent, who are
building democracy and freedom. Their cause is America's cause. The
American people have summoned the change we celebrate today. You have
raised your voices in an unmistakable chorus, you have cast your votes
in historic numbers, you have changed the face of congress, the
presidency, and the political process itself. Yes, *you*, my fellow
Americans, have forced the spring. Now *we* must do the work the season
demands. To that work I now turn with *all* the authority of my office.
I ask the congress to join with me; but no president, no congress, no
government can undertake *this* mission alone.
My fellow Americans, you, too, must play your part in our renewal. I
challenge a new generation of *young* Americans to a season of service,
to act on your idealism, by helping troubled children, keeping company
with those in need, reconnecting our torn communities. There is so much
to be done. Enough, indeed, for millions of others who are still young
in spirit, to give of themselves in service, too. In serving we
recognize a simple, but powerful, truth: we need each other, and we
must care for one another. Today we do more than celebrate America, we
rededicate ourselves to the very idea of America, an idea born in
revolution, and renewed through two centuries of challenge, an idea
tempered by the knowledge that but for fate, we, the fortunate and the
unfortunate, might have been each other; an idea ennobled by the faith
that our nation can summon from its myriad diversity, the deepest
measure of unity; an idea infused with the conviction that America's
journey long, heroic journey must go forever upward.
And so, my fellow Americans, as we stand at the edge of the 21st
Century, let us begin anew, with energy and hope, with faith and
discipline, and let us work until our work is done. The Scripture says:
"And let us not be weary in well-doing, for in due season we shall reap,
if we faint not." From this joyful mountaintop of celebration we hear a
call to service in the valley. We have heard the trumpets, we have
changed the guard, and now each in our own way, and with God's help, we
must answer the call.
Thank you, and God bless you all.
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