Speech Transcript:

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's sake, but change to preserve American's
ideals -- life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness. Though we march to
the music of our time, our mission is timeless. Each generation of
Americans 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 by still ancient hatreds and new plagues.

Raised in unrivaled 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.

When George Washington first took the oath I have just sworn to
uphold, news traveled slowly. Now, the sights and sounds of this
ceremony are broadcast instantaneously to billions around the world.

Communications and commerce are global; technology is almost magical;
and ambition for a better life is almost universal. We earn our
livelihood 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 enriched the lives of millions of Americans who
are able to compete and win in it. But when people are working harder
for less; when others cannot work at all; when the cost of health care
devastates families and threatens to bankrupt enterprises, great and
small; when fear of crime robs law-abiding citizens of their
freeedom; 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. And
Americans have ever been a restless, questing, hopeful people. We
must bring to our task today the vision and the will of those who
came before us.

From our Revolution, Civil War, to the Great Depression, to the Civil
Rights Movement, our people have mustered the determination to
construct from 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 citizens, this is our time. Let us embarce it.

Our democracy must not only be the envy of the world but the engine
of our own renewal. There is nothing wrong with America that cannot
be fixed by what is right with America.

And so today, we pledge an end to the era of deadlock and drift -- 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, in their future, and at the
same time cut our massive debt. 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 the sacrifice for it's own sake, but
for our own sake, but for our own sake. We must provide for our
nation the way a family provides for it's 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 responsibility.

We must do what America does best; offer more opportunity to all and
demand more responsibility of 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 for our families but for
our communities and for our country.

To renew America, we must revitalize our democracy.

This beautiful capital, like every capital 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 whose toil
and sweat sends us here and pays our way.

Americans deserve better, and in this city today, there are people
who want to do better. 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 of
our tomorrows, not our yesterdays. Let us give this capital 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 division between what is foreign and domestic. The
world economy, 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 to shape change,
lest it engulf us.

When our vital interests are challenged, or the will and conscience
of the international community 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, the political process itself. Yes, you, my fellow
Americans, have forced the spring. Now, we must do the work that the
season demands.

To that work I now trun, with 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. 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, and
reconnecting our torn communities. There is so much to be done,
enough for millions of others who are 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 idea of America.

An idea born in Revolution and renewed through two centuries of
challenge. An idea. An idea tempered by the knowledge that, but for
fate, we -- the fortunate and the unforunate -- might have been each
other. An idea enobled by the faith that our nation can summon from
it's myriad diversity the deepest measure of measure of unity. An
idea infused with the conviction that America's long heroic journey
must go forever upward.

And so, my fellow Americans, at the edge of the 21st Century, let us
begin with energy and hope, with faith and discipline, and let us
work until the 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.