 A troublesome constant of our political system has been the rate at which younger Americans have forfeited their right to have an equal say in our nation's affairs by the simple process of voting. That's especially unfortunate these days, first because it's never been so easy to cast a ballot, but more so because the problems being left to coming generations have never been so daunting. From environmental challenges to unfairly tilted health care policies to the biggest one of all, the unconscionably massive debts your elders have run up for you to pay, today's young people have a huge stake in public decisions and need to have a larger say in them. That's why we were so eager to enlist our university in the All In project and why I'm so gratified to be invited to say these few words on its behalf. All In was organized to encourage and enable you to vote, not tell you how or for whom to vote, and that's exactly as it should be. A healthy democracy requires a wide open competition of ideas and a climate of freedom and non-coercion that allows those ideas to be expressed and examined. Most of all, it requires an informed, active citizenry in which everyone takes part. The American Constitution is perhaps the most important document in the centuries-long advance of human freedom. Its first three words, which sound so commonplace today, made a radical statement at which monarchs and tyrants trembled then and have ever since. We the people. Here was not a king bestowing a few paltry permissions on his subjects or granting a few more privileges to a hereditary aristocracy. Rather, it was a people granting specific, limited powers to government while retaining the ultimate authority themselves. That authority all starts at the ballot box. There's one other critical aspect to the act of voting. It brings us all together in all our variety at one time for one purpose, the selection of those temporary employees to whom we entrust for a time, public office. And then, win or lose, we accept the outcome, peaceably. In that sense, it's almost a ritual, a ceremony of all we have in common, and we really need that reminder right now. Beyond all the wrenching, complex issues I mentioned a minute ago, your generation must somehow find a new vocabulary of pluralism, of genuine toleration of differences, of unity as Americans. Your elders, for the moment at least, have failed that test. Thank you for supporting All In, a long first step toward redeeming the American promise, and our common destiny is that unique nation that is truly, as our great seal reminds us, out of many, won.