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