Kennedy reminds Americans of their roots and calls on them to continue the struggle for freedom and democracy, emphasizing the importance of the nation’s founding ideals and the need to continue to constantly defend them. This theme, which highlights American tradition and key historical events and figures, predominates throughout the first section of the speech (Paragraphs 1-4). He references the founding of the US and the Declaration of Independence, “which our forebears prescribed nearly a century and three-quarters ago” (Paragraph 2). He links America’s present to its past because of his belief that its founding principles remained relevant and necessary: “The same revolutionary beliefs for which our forebears fought are still at issue around the globe—the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state but from the hand of God” (Paragraph 2). The importance of those rights receives repeated emphasis: “We dare not forget today that we are the heirs of that first revolution” (Paragraph 4).

At the same time, Kennedy leverages the nation’s past to orient US citizens in its present. He expresses this continuity in the symbol of a torch passed from one hand to another, as in a relay race or the ceremonial passing of the Olympic fire, and references his constituents as proudly upholding the country’s founding ideals and “unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed” (Paragraph 4).