President Barack Obama stood in front of a nation living in fear. As if speaking directly to the ‘tired, the poor, and the huddled masses yearning to breath,’ he gave the country the audacity to hope again Tuesday night, the audacity to be optimistic.

For weeks, the American public has listened to the economy described in near apocalyptic terms. In Obama’s address to congress Tuesday night, he spoke in a different tone, using his rhetoric to capture the age old, deep-rooted optimistic American spirit that lay dormant over the last few months. He completely captured the never-say-die attitude that great presidents embody, and convinced a nation that we will not be going quietly into the night.

“We will rebuild. We will recover, and the United States of America will emerge stronger than before,” Obama said in Rooseveltian fashion.

“The answers to our problems don’t lie beyond our reach,” Obama said. “What is required now is for this country to pull together, confront boldly the challenges we face, and take responsibility for our future once more.”

Obama has been a realist in his assessments of the economy prior to Tuesday. Saying that things would “get worse before they got better” and “quick action is needed to prevent a crisis from turning into a catastrophe.” He did what any great leader must do and that is to face facts. Americans don’t need sugar coating of the severity of the crisis at hand, nor do they need a cheerleader to pump them up during a crisis.

He is being exactly what Americans need: a leader.

Whether or not you agree with his $787 billion stimulus package or the massive amounts of included government spending, one cannot help but be hopeful after Obama became a beacon of light for America in its near darkest economic hour Tuesday.

Obama turned the dreadful truth into hopeful futuristic optimism via a rhetoric turning point.

“You should also know,” Obama told millions of viewers Tuesday night, “that the money you’ve deposited in banks across the country is safe; your insurance is secure; you can rely on the continued operation of our financial system.”

His rhetoric strikes a not so coincidental resemblance to that of Franklin Roosevelt, the leader that emerged and led the nation out of its last financial crisis. After being elected in 1932, Roosevelt said, “Confidence and courage are the essentials of success in carrying out our plan. Let us unite in banishing fear. We have provided the machinery to restore our financial system. It is up to you to support and make it work. It is your problem no less than it is mine. Together we cannot fail.”

Like Roosevelt, Obama inspired the nation to unite against the pessimism gripping the nation. “We are a nation that has seen promise amid peril, and claimed opportunity from ordeal,” Obama said. “Now we must be that nation again.”

Like Roosevelt, Obama challenged Americans to step up and meet the nation’s challenges.

Like Roosevelt, Obama said the government was providing the “machinery” to create jobs, improve health care, free up credit, and help struggling homeowners.

Obama may have been addressing members of congress but he was also instilling passion in millions of Americans to take ownership of the issues and solve them, not to run and hide.

The nation’s economy is battered and bruised, but Obama’s bottom line to a reeling shaken nation:

“We are not quitters.”