Tonight, with a new Iraqi government in place, and following consultations with allies abroad and Congress at home, I can announce that America will lead a broad coalition to roll back this terrorist threat.

Our pride is based on a very simple premise, summed up in a declaration made over two hundred years ago.

My particular passion for Lincoln dates back from my earliest memories of politics.

We had to get out of Chicago so quick. Election night happens, suddenly I'm talking to Ben Bernanke and Hank Paulson and trying to figure out whether the world's going to fly apart, and Michelle is trying to figure out where the girls are going to go to school. And we pack up and leave and basically our house in Chicago just became like a time capsule. My desk in my home office still had stacks of articles and bills and stuff from 2008.

The Supreme Court had the choice not only which way to rule, pro- or anti-gay marriage rights, but also how they were going to rule. They could have ruled just federalism, saying, "This isn't a matter for federal; this isn't a federal issue at all. States should decide it." Or they could decide it on equal protection grounds and say that, "Gay discrimination is wrong."

We remain more than a collection of red states and blue states. We are and forever will be the United States of America.

I think at a certain age I became conscious of the power of words. And it was fairly late. I was kind of a goofball - but I was always subconsciously thinking about issues.