Chief Justice Rehnquist, President Carter, President Bush, President Clinton, distinguished¹ guests and my fellow citizens, the peaceful transfer of authority is rare in history, yet common in our country. With a simple 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 Vice² President Gore³ for a contest conducted with spirit and ended with grace. I am honored and humbled⁴ 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 liberator⁵ 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 be longs, that everyone deserves a chance, that no insignificant⁶ person was ever born.

Americans are called to enact⁷ this promise in our lives and in our laws.

And t hough 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 creed⁸ of our country, it is the inborn⁹ h ope 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.