Many of us live in a country formed by revolution against the past, by dreamers who sought to form "a more perfect union" to render the government an instrument of the people, and not of the despots or oppressors of Europe or even of England.

As Edward R. Murrow reminded us at one of the critical points in our history when we seemed to forget that:

If we dig deep into our history and our doctrine, we will remember we are not descended from fearful men. Not from men who dared to write, to speak, to associate, and to defend causes that were for the moment unpopular.....We proclaim ourselves as indeed we are, the defenders of freedom where ever it still exists in the world. But we cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home."

or, put more simply at another critical point in our history, by one of our greatest presidents:

The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself

It was never true that this is a "center-right" country. We have, to be sure, had our "center-right" moments, some which have lasted for many years, but we are a country, formed by an idea, but recognizing the need for consensus, and though born with the sin of slavery, we have, from the first day, believed ourselves to be "good" and an example for the world.

We have not always lived up to that promise, but that has always been at our core. While Europe turned to fascism and dictatorships when the realignment of the world set in motion by the first world war turned into a great depression, we instead put our faith in Franklin Delano Roosevel.  He could have conned us into giving him whatever power he wanted if he would just save us, but instead, bent our democratic republic under its laws to do the same thing.

His election, and that achievement, gave rise to the the greatest liberal democracy of all time.  It was, sadly, ended by the tragic mistake of Vietnam which rended our country into many pieces. Out of that, from many directions, came questions about the New Deal, Fair Deal, New Frontier and Great Society that President Roosevelt and his acolytes had established under which we came to depend on and take for granted.  Into that vacuum came the same "heedless self-interest" that bankrupted our country in 1932, and has almost done so today (saving us only by the institutions created by the New Deal).

Now, finally, that, too has ended. Its last steward, the Hoover of his time, told a nation in shock after an attack on its soil for the first time since World War II, that we should hunker down, report on anything our neighbors did which we found "suspicious" and reduce the taxes paid by the wealthy. We were scared and did what we were told, but when we awoke and saw that our government no longer cared when a beloved city washed away, a nation shuddered and said, no, that is not who we are.

So this is the only thing George W. Bush has done for us.  The Great Society collapsed under the weight of a war fought, perhaps for a noble reason (at least in the minds of most of us) to protect the freedom of people we believed to be threatened as pawns in a geopolitical struggle against Communism,but descended out of control.  This Bush made it possible for Americans to return to its better, noble and optimistic self. The giddy optimism of the New Frontier: the idea that there was nothing we could not do if we put our minds to it, has returned.

Since the "south" (a smaller portion of it, though) continues to vote differently than do the rest of us, it remains unclear whether a black man could have been elected president without George W. Bush showing us, like Jimmy Stewart in A Wonderful Life, the bleak alternative universe, but he did and we did. So congratulations to us.

After President Kennedy was murdered we wondered what would become of us, and of the hope he inspired and what happened next was not pretty.

But before the lights went out, President Johnson stood before Congress and, as a son of the south trying to complete the legacy and promise of his martyred predecessor, said the things no American President had ever dared to say as clearly and straightforwardly as he did on March 15, 1965. This is a truncated version of how he started:

I speak tonight for the dignity of man and the destiny of democracy.

I urge every member of both parties--Americans of all religions and of all colors--from every section of this country--to join me in that cause.

At times history and fate meet at a single time in a single place to shape a turning point in man's unending search for freedom. So it was at Lexington and Concord. So it was a century ago at Appomattox. So it was last week in Selma, Alabama.

There is no Negro problem. There is no southern problem. There is no northern problem. There is only an American problem.

...

This was the first nation in the history of the world to be founded with a purpose. The great phrases of that purpose still sound in every American heart, north and south: "All men are created equal"--"Government by consent of the governed"--"Give me liberty or give me death."...

Those words are a promise to every citizen that he shall share in the dignity of man. This dignity cannot be found in man's possessions. It cannot be found in his power or in his position. It really rests on his right to be treated as a man equal in opportunity to all others. It says that he shall share in freedom, he shall choose his leaders, educate his children, provide for his family according to his ability and his merits as a human being... .

Many of the issues of civil rights are very complex and most difficult. But about this there can and should be no argument. Every American citizen must have an equal right to vote. There is no reason which can excuse the denial of that right. There is no duty which weighs more heavily on us than the duty we have to ensure that right.

Yet the harsh fact is that in many places in this country men and women are kept from voting simply because they are Negroes... .

That speech, as great as any ever given, led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act, and it was that Act which elected Barack Obama. When President Johnson made it, the spirit of the great, optimistic, adventurous and, yes, liberal nation which led the world out of depression and against fascism, was dimming fast. The protests of 1967 and the riots of 1968 (and the fact of the Voting Rights Act and its impact on the southern states of the confederacy) killed it off and made Richard Nixon president, putting us on a perilous and deeply divisive path for more than a generation.

We reached the end of that road on Tuesday and today are back on track. There is much we destroyed in the intervening years that desperately needs repair today, but we are on our way. The memories of Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson and, truth be told, even Dwight David Eisenhower, have kept many of us going all these years, but now it is time to return to their mission.

It is a country where Michael Moore is not some off the wall screwball, but a man who showed us the way. And it is the country which has a Nobel Prize winner whose newspaper columns spell it out consistently every week.

Watching spontaneous demonstrations of pride in our country, in our president-elect, in who were are and what we represent, again, finally, has reduced me to tears more than once this week. I have been absent mindedly humming "America the Beautiful" and Paul Simon's "American Tune" since that wonderful night. And to my daughter, a recent college graduate just beginning her life as an adult, I have written about how happy I am for her, her compadres in her generation and, well, for all of us.

Since we are a bit out of practice, here are just two passages which spell it out:

In this nation I see tens of millions of its citizens--a substantial part of its whole population--who at this very moment are denied the greater part of what the very lowest standards of today call the necessities of life.
I see millions of families trying to live on incomes so meager that the pall of family disaster hangs over them day by day.
I see millions whose daily lives in city and on farm continue under conditions labeled indecent by a so-called polite society half a century ago.
I see millions denied education, recreation, and the opportunity to better their lot and the lot of their children.
I see millions lacking the means to buy the products of farm and factory and by their poverty denying work and productiveness to many other millions.
I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished.
It is not in despair that I paint you that picture. I paint it for you in hope--because the Nation, seeing and understanding the injustice in it, proposes to paint it out. We are determined to make every American citizen the subject of his country's interest and concern; and we will never regard any faithful law-abiding group within our borders as superfluous. The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, January 20, 1937

Let both sides seek to invoke the wonders of science instead of its terrors. Together let us explore the stars, conquer the deserts, eradicate disease, tap the ocean depths, and encourage the arts and commerce.

Let both sides unite to heed, in all corners of the earth, the command of Isaiah -- to "undo the heavy burdens, and [to] let the oppressed go free." And, if a beachhead of cooperation may push back the jungle of suspicion, let both sides join in creating a new endeavor -- not a new balance of power, but a new world of law -- where the strong are just, and the weak secure, and the peace preserved.

All this will not be finished in the first one hundred days. Nor will it be finished in the first one thousand days; nor in the life of this Administration; nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin.

John F Kennedy, January 20, 1961.

Now, to all of that, we can add this echo of the best of our past, in a beautiful modern call to those who had the strength to get this country back on track:

above all, I will ask you join in the work of remaking this nation the only way it's been done in America for two-hundred and twenty-one years - block by block, brick by brick, calloused hand by calloused hand.

What began twenty-one months ago in the depths of winter must not end on this autumn night. This victory alone is not the change we seek - it is only the chance for us to make that change. And that cannot happen if we go back to the way things were. It cannot happen without you.

So let us summon a new spirit of patriotism; of service and responsibility where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves, but each other. Let us remember that if this financial crisis taught us anything, it's that we cannot have a thriving Wall Street while Main Street suffers - in this country, we rise or fall as one nation; as one people.

Barack Obama, Election Night, 2008

Amen.