I am introduced to you as the President of the United States, and yet I
would be pleased if you would put the thought of the office into the
background and regard me as one of your fellow-citizens who has come
here to speak, not the words of authority, but the words of counsel; the
words which men should speak to one another who wish to be frank in a
moment more critical perhaps than the history of the world has ever yet
known; a moment when it is every man's duty to forget himself, to forget
his own interests, to fill himself with the nobility of a great national
and world conception, and act upon a new platform elevated above the
ordinary affairs of life and lifted to where men have views of the long
destiny of mankind.
I think that in order to realize just what this moment of counsel is it
is very desirable that we should remind ourselves just how this war came
about and just what it is for. You can explain most wars very simply,
but the explanation of this is not so simple. Its roots run deep into
all the obscure soils of history, and in my view this is the last
decisive issue between the old principle of power and the new principle
of freedom.