Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends -hard work and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism- these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history. What is demanded then is a return to these truths. What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility - a recognition, on the part of every American, thatwe have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task.
This is the meaning of our liberty and our creed - why men and women and children of every race and every faith can join in celebration across this magnificent mall, andwhy a man whose father less than sixty years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath.