oath, we affirm old traditions and make new
beginnings.

As I begin, I thank President Clinton for his service to our nation.

And I thank Vice President Gore for a contest conducted with spirit and
ended with grace.

I am honored and humbled to stand here, where so many of America's
leaders have come before me, and so many will follow.

We have a place, all of us, in a long story--a story we continue, but
whose end we will not see. It is the story of a new world that became a
friend and liberator of the old, a story of a slave-holding society that
became a servant of freedom, the story of a power that went into the
world to protect but not possess, to defend but not to conquer.

It is the American story--a story of flawed and fallible people, united
across the generations by grand and enduring ideals.

The grandest of these ideals is an unfolding American promise that
everyone belongs, that everyone deserves a chance, that no insignificant
person was ever born.

Americans are called to enact this promise in our lives and in our laws.
And though our nation has sometimes halted, and sometimes delayed, we
must follow no other course.

Through much of the last century, America's faith in freedom and
democracy was a rock in a raging sea. Now it is a seed upon the wind,
taking root in many nations.

Our democratic faith is more than the creed of our country, it is the
inborn hope of our humanity, an ideal we carry but do not own, a trust
we bear and pass along. And even after nearly 225 years, we have a long
way yet to travel.

While many of our citizens prosper, others doubt the promise, even the
justice, of our own country. The ambitions of some Americans are
limited by failing schools and hidden prejudice and the circumstances of
their birth. And sometimes our differences run so deep, it seems we
share a continent, but not a country.

We do not accept this, and we will not allow it. Our unity, our union,
is the serious work of leaders and citizens in every generation. And
this is my solemn pledge: I will work to build a single nation of
justice and opportunity.

I know this is in our reach because we are guided by a power larger than
ourselves who creates us equal in His image.

And we are confident in principles that unite and lead us onward.

America has never been united by blood or birth or soil. We are bound
by ideals that move us beyond our backgrounds, lift us above our
interests and teac