This Could Be The Start Of Something Big

"Washington takes large gatherings, pageantry, the important and even the self-important in stride," says CBS News Chief Washington correspondent Bob Schieffer, "but Washington is getting ready for something remarkable - even for this town."

And it's not just the crowds, though the capital is bracing for as many as three million people, 10 times the number who came to the last presidential inauguration.

Washington's young mayor Adrian Fenty says for him, the swearing-in of Barack Obama will mean one thing, and for his children, another.

"For all of us as adults, he will be the first black president. But for his kids, and for kids like mine from all different races and backgrounds, he will just be the president," Fenty said. "They will not know a country that has never elected a black man as president. And so ... you won't grow up wondering whether or not this country is going to accept everyone at every position. You'll already know it."

The inaugural parade will pass just blocks from where riots broke out following the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1968 - the same place where crowds celebrated Obama's election 40 years later. In a city where history is around every corner, this inauguration stirs thoughts of both the past and the days ahead.

There will be more people than have been seen before in Washington. Is that daunting?

"Daunting is a good word. Yes, it's daunting," said Linda Douglass, the spokesperson for Obama's inaugural committee, the group that coordinates everything from parade routes to port-a-potties.

"In this attempt to make the whole inauguration more open, we've opened up the National Mall for the first time in history, in anticipation of so many people coming to Washington ... who want to be part of this historical event, and want to be part of the sense of coming together," Douglass said.

For all the coverage that the Internet and television will provide, thousands upon thousands are determined not to be turned away, even though Mr. Obama himself has actually gone online to suggest people watch from home.

"You don't need to come," he says in a YouTube video.

"If anyone is paying attention to that, there's no sign of it yet," said CBS News presidential historian Douglas Brinkley.

"Who wouldn't want to say, 'I was there when Lincoln gave the Gettysburg Address.' Who doesn't want to be there when Barack Obama gave his inaugural?"

Brinkley said the mark that Mr. Obama made as an orator during the campaign has raised expectations sky-high.

"If you watch horse races, you like to see the horse you're betting on get out of the gate fast. And so, inaugurals are just that," Brinkley said. "You don't want to stumble out of the gate. That's the pressure on Obama."

Back in 1961, another young president felt similar pressure.

John F. Kennedy won the presidency by a whisker and faced many skeptics, but his memorable speech set the skeptics on their heels.

"We dare not forget today that we are the heirs of that first revolution. Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans - born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage - and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today at home and around the world.

"Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.

"This much we pledge - and more."

According to William Safire, who helped write one of Richard Nixon's inaugural speeches, President-elect Obama should also be studying Franklin Roosevelt's 1933 address.

"'The only thing we have to fear is fear itself' blasts the unreasoning terror that was around. And you read that whole paragraph - that was a grabber. You had to listen to the rest of that speech," Safire said. "It's not the actual phrase, not the words. It's the moment in history that you seize."

More often than not, the greatest inaugural addresses have been delivered when the nation was in crisis, when the nation turns to the president for leadership.

In such times, policy statements have taken a backseat to presidential poetry. Think of the crisis Abraham Lincoln faced in 1861. National division was not just a metaphor; seven states had already broken away from the Union.

Yet Lincoln appealed to what he called "our better angels." The phrase did not stop the war, but it set the tone for his presidency.

"That's a poet at work," Safire said. "He was a great president, not only because he was a great writer, but (because he was) a great thinker, who could think those thoughts."

But if Lincoln's inauguration was a presidential highlight, history has seen more than its share of lowlights as well.

William Henry Harrison's speech is remembered mainly for its length. He spoke more than two hours in a driving rain, caught pneumonia and died after only a month in office.

Andrew Jackson's inauguration is famous for the drunken riot that erupted afterwards at the White House.

Writer Jim Bendat says some inaugurations were just embarrassing.

"James Buchanan had to have a doctor by his side at all times," Bendat said. "There was a little disease running around Washington at the time. They were calling it the Hotel Disease. Poor Buchanan had diarrhea on his Inauguration Day."

The ceremonies have evolved over time: even the origin of the closing line of the oath, "So help me God," is in dispute.

"The legend or the myth is that George Washington added those words following the inaugural oath in 1789. Yet no one ever wrote that he said those words until 65 years later, in 1854," Bendat said. "Maybe he said them, maybe he didn't."

Both Washington and Thomas Jefferson spoke at their inaugurations of their anxiety about taking the job, a position they said they were unworthy to hold. Don't expect such words to cross the lips of Mr. Obama or any other modern politician.

But Jefferson did express one thought in 1801 that any president would do well to remember: He said, "We may belong to different parties but we are all Americans."

That seems to be a common sentiment here in Washington - and that alone is a sign that change really may be coming to this town.