I knew then we Americans could renew this country.
Tonight, as I deliver the last State of the Union Address for the 20th century, no one anywhere in the world can doubt the enduring resolve and boundless capacity of the American people to work toward that "more perfect union" of our founders' dreams.
We are now, at the end of a century, when generation after generation of Americans answered the call to greatness, overcoming Depression, lifting up the dispossessed, bringing down barriers to racial prejudice, building the largest middle class in history, winning two world wars and the "long twilight struggle" of the Cold War.
We must all be profoundly grateful for the magnificent achievements of our forbearers in this century.
Yet perhaps in the daily press of events, in the clash of controversy, we don't see our own time for what it truly is--a new dawn for America.
A hundred years from tonight, another American president will stand in this place and report on the State of the Union. He--or she--will look back on the 21st century shaped in so many ways by the decisions we make here and now.
So let it be said of us then that we were thinking not only of our time, but of their time; that we reached as high as our ideals; that we put aside our divisions and found a new hour of healing and hopefulness; that we joined together to serve and strengthen the land we love.
My fellow Americans, this is our moment. Let us lift our eyes as one nation, and from the mountaintop of this American century, look ahead to the next one--asking God's blessing on our endeavors and on our beloved country.
Thank you, and good evening.
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