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.
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