the ownership of
homes and businesses, retirement savings and health insurance--preparing
our people for the challenges of life in a free society. By making every
citizen an agent of his or her own destiny, we will give our fellow
Americans greater freedom from want and fear, and make our society more
prosperous and just and equal.

In America's ideal of freedom, the public interest depends on private
character--on integrity, and tolerance toward others, and the rule of
conscience in our own lives. Self-government relies, in the end, on the
governing of the self. That edifice of character is built in families,
supported by communities with standards, and sustained in our national
life by the truths of Sinai, the Sermon on the Mount, the words of the
Koran, and the varied faiths of our people. Americans move forward in
every generation by reaffirming all that is good and true that came
before--ideals of justice and conduct that are the same yesterday,
today, and forever.

In America's ideal of freedom, the exercise of rights is ennobled by
service, and mercy, and a heart for the weak. Liberty for all does not
mean independence from one another. Our nation relies on men and women
who look after a neighbor and surround the lost with love. Americans, at
our best, value the life we see in one another, and must always remember
that even the unwanted have worth. And our country must abandon all the
habits of racism, because we cannot carry the message of freedom and the
baggage of bigotry at the same time.

From the perspective of a single day, including this day of dedication,
the issues and questions before our country are many. From the viewpoint
of centuries, the questions that come to us are narrowed and few. Did
our generation advance the cause of freedom? And did our character
bring credit to that cause?

These questions that judge us also unite us, because Americans of every
party and background, Americans by choice and by birth, are bound to one
another in the cause of freedom. We have known divisions, which must be
healed to move forward in great purposes--and I will strive in good
faith to heal them. Yet those divisions do not define America. We felt
the unity and fellowship of our nation when freedom came under attack,
and our response came like a single hand over a single heart. And we can
feel that same unity and pride whenever America acts for good, and the
victims of disaster are given hope, and the unjus