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F I R S T I N A U G U R A L A D D R E S S

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––––––––––––––––––––––––––Bill Clinton –––––––––––––––––––––––

My fellow citizens:

Today we celebrate the mystery of American renewal. This ceremony is held

in the depth of winter, but by the words we speak and the faces we show the

world, we force the spring. A spring reborn in the world’s oldest democracy

that brings forth the vision and courage to reinvent America.

When our founders boldly declared America’s independence to the world

and our purposes to the Almighty, they knew that America to endure would

have to change. Not change for change’s sake but change to preserve America’s

ideals—life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness. Though we march to the music of

our time, our mission is timeless. Each generation of Americans must define

what it means to be an American.

On behalf of our nation, I salute my predecessor, President Bush, for his halfcentury

of service to America.

And I thank the millions of men and women whose steadfastness and

sacrifice triumphed over depression, fascism and communism. Today, a

generation raised in the shadows of the cold war assumes new responsibilities in

a world warmed by the sunshine of freedom but threatened still by ancient

hatreds and new plagues.

Raised in unrivaled prosperity, we inherit an economy that is still the world’s

strongest but is weakened by business failures, stagnant wages, increasing

inequality and deep divisions among our own people.

When George Washington first took the oath I have just sworn to uphold,

news traveled slowly across the land by horseback and across the ocean by

boat. Now the sights and sounds of this ceremony are broadcast instantaneously

to billions around the world. Communications and commerce are global.

Investment is mobile, technology is almost magical, and ambition for a better

life is now universal. We earn our livelihood in America today in peaceful

competition with people all across the earth. Profound and powerful forces are

shaking and making our world. And the urgent question of our time is whether

we can make change our friend and not our enemy.

This new world has already enriched the lives of millions of Americans who

are able to compete and win in it. But when most people are working harder for

less, when others cannot work at all, when the cost of health care devastates

families and threatens to bankrupt our enterprises great and small, when the

fear of crime robs law-abiding citizens of their freedom, and when millions of

poor children cannot even imagine the lives we are calling them to lead, we

have not made change our friend. We know we have to face hard truths and

take strong steps, but we have not done so. Instead, we have drifted, and that

drifting has eroded our resources, fractured our economy and shaken our

confidence.

Though our challenges are fearsome, 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 perceive 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 by

what is right with America. And 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 generation 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.…

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 beautiful capital,

like every capital since the dawn of civilization, is often a place of intrigue and

calculation. Powerful people maneuver for position and worry endlessly about

who is in and who is out, who is up and who is down, forgetting those people

whose toil and sweat sends us here and pays our way.

Americans deserve better, and in this city today there are people who want to

do better. And so I say to all of you here, let us resolve to reform our politics so

that power and privilege no longer shout down the voice of the people. Let us

put aside personal advantage so that we can feel the pain and see the promise of

America. Let us resolve to make our Government a place for what Franklin

Roosevelt called bold, persistent experimentation, a Government for our

tomorrows, not our yesterdays. Let us give this capital back to the people to

whom it belongs.

To renew America, we must meet challenges abroad as well as at home.

There is no longer a clear division between what is foreign and what is

domestic. The world economy, the world environment, the world AIDS crises,

the world arms race—they affect us all.

Today, as an old order passes, the new world is more free but less stable.

Communism’s collapse has called forth old animosities and new dangers.

Clearly, America must continue to lead the world we did so much to make.

While America rebuilds at home, we will not shrink from the challenges nor

fail to seize the opportunities of this new world. Together with our friends and

allies we will work to shape change lest it engulf us. When our vital interests are

challenged or the will and conscience of the international community is defied,

we will act, with peaceful diplomacy whenever possible, with force when

necessary.

The brave Americans serving our nation today in the Persian Gulf and

Somalia, and wherever else they stand, are testament to our resolve.

But our greatest strength is the power of our ideas, which are still new in

many lands. Across the world we see them embraced and we rejoice. Our

hopes, our hearts, our hands are with those on every continent who are building

democracy and freedom. Their cause is America’s cause.

The American people have summoned the change we celebrate today. You

have raised your voices in an unmistakable chorus, you have cast your votes in

historic numbers, and you have changed the face of Congress, the Presidency

and the political process itself. Yes, you, my fellow Americans have forced the

spring.

Now we must do the work the season demands. To that work I now turn

with all the authority of my office. I ask the Congress to join with me. But no

President, no Congress, no government can undertake this mission alone. My

fellow Americans, you, too, must play your part in our renewal.

I challenge a new generation of young Americans to a season of service, to act

on your idealism by helping troubled children, keeping company with those in

need, reconnecting our torn communities. There is so much to be done.

Enough, indeed, for millions of others who are still young in spirit to give of

themselves in service, too.

In serving, we recognize a simple but powerful truth. We need each other

and we must care for one another. Today we do more than celebrate America,

we rededicate ourselves to the very idea of America. An idea born in revolution

and renewed through two centuries of challenge; an idea tempered by the

knowledge that but for fate we, the fortunate and the unfortunate, might have

been each other; an idea ennobled by the faith that our nation can summon

from its myriad diversity the deepest measure of unity; an idea infused with the

conviction that America’s long, heroic journey must go forever upward.

And so, my fellow Americans, as we stand at the edge of the 21st century, let

us begin anew with energy and hope, with faith and discipline. And let us work

until our work is done. The Scripture says, “And let us not be weary in welldoing,

for in due season we shall reap if we faint not.”

From this joyous mountaintop of celebration we hear a call to service in the

valley. We have heard the trumpets, we have changed the guard. And now each

in our own way, and with God’s help, we must answer the call.

Thank you, and God bless you all.