Though our challenges are fearsom, so are our strengths. Americans have ever been a restless, questing, hopeful people. And we must bring to our task today the vision and will of those who came before us.

From our revolution to the Civil War, to the Great Depression to the civil rights movement, our people have always mustered the determination to construct from these 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 Americans, this is our time. Let us embrace it.

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

So, today, we pledge an end to the era of deadlock and drift--and a new season of American renewal has begun.

To renew America, we must be bold.

We must do what no genration has had to do before. We must invest more in our own people in their jobs and in their future, and at the same time cut our massive debt. And 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 sacrifice for its own sake, but for our own sake. We must provide for our nation the way a family provides for its 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 from 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 our families but for our communities and our country.

To renew America, we must revitalize our democracy.

This exerpt of Clinton's inaugural address was printed in the Miami Herald, Thursday, January 21, 1993, starting on page 6A

I am small and weak, I need your strength and wisdom

Let me walk in beauty and make my eyes ever behold the red and purple sunset

Make my hands respect the things you have made

Make my ears sharp to hear your voice

Make me wise so that I may understand the things you have taught your people

Let me learn the lessons you have hidden in every leaf and rock

I seek strength, not to be greater than my brother, but to fight my greatest enemy, myself

Make me always ready to come to you with clean hands and straight eyes

So when life fades, as the fading sunset, my spirite may come to you without shame

I'm not sure where I got this poem from

"Nelson Mandela captured the imagination of thw orld with his unyielding pride, his remarkable lack of bitterness, and most of all his uncompromising principles and vigorous commitment to struggle against apartheid. He has challenged us to maintain strong sanctions against the racist apartheid government and, brothers and sisters, this we must do  until a nonracial democracy based on one person, one vote, is firmly establlished in South Africa. With courage, incorruptible integrity, and unshakable dedication to the liberation of South Africa, Nelson Mandela has set the highest standard of leadership fro freedom-loving people everywhere. Brothers and sisters, it is my great honor to present to you a man who provides a clear voice and a vision of the new South Africa to come. A man whose life and work burns as bright as a bright beacon of hope for the disadvantaged and downtrodden of every nation."

From: The Eyes on the Prize Civil Rights Reader. 1991. Clayborne Carson, David J. Garrow, Gerald Gill, Vincent Harding, and Darlene Clark Hine editors.

When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.--That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

If there is to be peace on earth and good will toward men, we must finally believe in the ultimate morality of the universe, and believe that all reality hinges on moral foundations. Something must remind us of this as we once again stand in the Christmas season and think of the Easter season simultaneously, for the two somehow go together. Christ came to show us the way. Men love darkness rather than the light, and they crucified him, and there on Good Friday on the cross it was still dark, but then Easter came, and Easter is an eternal reminder of the fact that the truth-crushed earth will rise again. Easter justifies Carlyle in saying "No lie can live forever." And so this is our faith, as we continue to hope for peace on earth and good will toward men: let us know that in the process we have cosmic companionship.

Law does not come down from the heavens, nor does it spring up from the earth. It develops among people and winds up in self-correction. Therefore, those who have it in themselves do not deny it in others; those who lack it in themselves do not seek it from others. What is set up for the lower echelons is not to be neglected in the higher echelons, and what is forbidden to the people is not to be done by the ruler.

A lost nation is not one that lacks a ruler but one that lacks law. Distortion of law does not mean there is no law; it means there is law but it is not applied. Thus, it is as if there is no law.

Therefore, when leaders establish law, they personally act as models and exemplars. This is why their directives are carried out throughout the land.

Confucius said, "When people are personally upright, others go along with them even though they are not commanded to do so; when people are not upright themselves, others will not follow them even if ordered to do so." So when leaders themselves are subject to regulations, then their directives are carried out by the people.

The Tao of Politics: Lessons of the Masters of Huainan, Translated and Edited by Thomas Cleary. 1990. Shambhala Publications, Inc. Boston.

But what is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed: and in the next place oblige it to control iself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government: but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions.