Our streets will echo again with the laughter of our children, because no one will try to shoot them or sell them drugs anymore.  Everyone who can work, will work, with today’s permanent under class part of tomorrow’s growing middle class.  New miracles of medicine at last will reach not only those who can claim care now, but the children and hardworking families too long denied.

We will stand mighty for peace and freedom, and maintain a strong defense against terror and destruction.  Our children will sleep free from the threat of nuclear, chemical or biological weapons.  Ports and airports, farms and factories will thrive with trade and innovation and ideas.  And the world’s greatest democracy will lead a whole world of democracies.

Our land of new promise will be a nation that meets its obligations—­a nation that balances its budget, but never loses the balance of its values.  A nation where our grandparents have secure retirement and health care, and their grandchildren know we have made the reforms necessary to sustain those benefits for their time.  A nation that fortifies the world’s most productive economy even as it protects the great natural bounty of our water, air, and majestic land.

And in this land of new promise, we will have reformed our politics so that the voice of the people will always speak louder than the din of narrow interests—­regaining the participation and deserving the trust of all Americans.

Fellow citizens, let us build that America, a nation ever moving forward toward realizing the full potential of all its citizens.  Prosperity and power—­yes, they are important, and we must maintain them.  But let us never forget:  The greatest progress we have made, and the greatest progress we have yet to make, is in the human heart.  In the end, all the world’s wealth and a thousand armies are no match for the strength and decency of the human spirit.

Thirty-four years ago, the man whose life we celebrate today spoke to us down there, at the other end of this Mall, in words that moved the conscience of a nation.  Like a prophet of old, he told of his dream that one day America would rise up and treat all its citizens as equals before the law and in the heart.  Martin Luther King’s dream was the American Dream.  His quest is our quest:  the ceaseless striving to live out our true creed.  Our history has been built on such dreams and labors.  And by our dreams and labors we will redeem the promise of America in the 21st century.

To that effort I pledge all my strength and every power of my office.  I ask the members of Congress here to join in that pledge.  The American people returned to office a President of one party and a Congress of another.  Surely, they did not do this to advance the politics of petty bickering and extreme partisanship they plainly deplore.  No, they call on us instead to be repairers of the breach, and to move on with America’s mission.