Lincoln freed the slaves of their chains 100 years ago. He signed the Emancipation Proclamation 100 years ago this year, and he freed them of their c… - Lyndon B. Johnson

Since 1961, under the leadership of that great President, John F. Kennedy, we have carried out the greatest peacetime buildup of national strength of any nation at any time in the history of the world. I report tonight that we have spent $30 billion more on preparing this Nation in the 4 years of the Kennedy administration than would have been spent if we had followed the appropriations of the last year of the previous administration. I report tonight as President of the United States and as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces on the strength of your country, and I tell you that it is greater than any adversary. I assure you that it is greater than the combined might of all the nations, in all the wars, in all the history of this planet. And I report our superiority is growing.

Last year, within 6 months of each other, two of the great men of this century passed from this earth: President John F. Kennedy and Pope John XXIII. They both left a world transformed by their triumphs and lessened by their leaving. They both handed on a heritage of hope, a vision of the future which will occupy the thoughts and labors of men for generations yet to come. For a generation, Americans have struggled to keep the ambitions of nations from erupting into the annihilation of nuclear war. We have struggled to diminish hostility and to decrease tension, while battling aggression and building our power. The years will not dim, nor the burdens destroy, our resolve to seek and not to yield, to find a way to peace in a world where freedom grows. But even if we achieve such a world, we will only have taken a first step toward final fulfillment of the hopes of Pope John and President Kennedy. For just as the cold war has consumed our energies, it has often limited our horizons. We have tended to place every challenge in the context of conflict, to regard every difficulty as part of a struggle for domination.

Let there be no mistake. The objectives we seek will not be handed to you by a beneficent government. The work of a few men in Washington will not make life easier. No one man can lead this Nation, and you cannot sit idly by, quietly waiting for the day when someone else will make everything better for you. These goals are going to demand your effort and your work and your sacrifice, and the best from every American. It will mean that each of you must participate in the affairs of your community and your State and your Nation. It will require the help of government at every level, of labor and of business, of farmers and consumers. A President can lead and teach, and explore, and set goals. He can have his eyes in the stars, with a vision that will flow therefrom, and he can have his feet on the ground, with a solid foundation that we need. But no leader can make a people more than they are, or make them more than they really want to be. My success and America's success will depend on you.