peace to be made permanent by a government of liberty under law!


***

Theodore Roosevelt
Inaugural Address
Saturday, March 4, 1905

MY fellow-citizens, no people on earth have more cause to be thankful
than ours, and this is said reverently, in no spirit of boastfulness in
our own strength, but with gratitude to the Giver of Good who has
blessed us with the conditions which have enabled us to achieve so
large a measure of well-being and of happiness. To us as a people it
has been granted to lay the foundations of our national life in a new
continent. We are the heirs of the ages, and yet we have had to pay few
of the penalties which in old countries are exacted by the dead hand of
a bygone civilization. We have not been obliged to fight for our
existence against any alien race; and yet our life has called for the
vigor and effort without which the manlier and hardier virtues wither
away. Under such conditions it would be our own fault if we failed; and
the success which we have had in the past, the success which we
confidently believe the future will bring, should cause in us no
feeling of vainglory, but rather a deep and abiding realization of all
which life has offered us; a full acknowledgment of the responsibility
which is ours; and a fixed determination to show that under a free
government a mighty people can thrive best, alike as regards the things
of the body and the things of the soul.

Much has been given us, and much will rightfully be expected from us.