In this moving video, President Obama addresses the crowd at the Edward M. Kennedy Institute in Boston, invoking his spirit and legacy to call for restoring the integrity of our democracy and camaraderie to the politics of Washington.

The institution, a replica of the Senate Chambers, will be a valuable resource to to future generations of Americans, and the President used this to gently critique the Washington status quo: “It’s hard for our children to see through the noisy and all too often trivial pursuits of our politics, the possibilities of our democracy, the capacity that we have to achieve great things.”

After painting a beautifully idealistic extended metaphor of young future Senators, “filling them with the spark of noble ambition”, he wondered what it would be like if all of Washington “carried themselves like Ted Kennedy?” For the American government to look beyond “a narrow base instead of the body politic as a whole, the outside influences of money and special interests…and how it all leaves more Americans to turn away in disgust, and simply choose to not exercise their right to vote.”

Watch the eloquent speech here: