Obama entered his second term at the largest convention center in America. (Flickr Creative Commons)

Barack Obama gave his second presidential acceptance speech, addressing a happy crowd of thousands of supporters at McCormick Place convention center in Chicago after midnight their time, a little after Mitt Romney conceded in Boston.

He came on stage to Stevie Wonder's "Sign, Sealed, Delivered" with the First Lady and their two daughters.  Before he started speaking, the crowd chanted "Four more years."

Obama started by saying that his supporters have helped raise the country out of despair and into hope.  "We will rise or fall together as one nation and one people," he said.

"We know in our hearts that for the United States of America the best is yet to come," he continued, thanking all the people who worked and voted on the campaign.  "Whether [you had] an Obama sign or a Romney sign, you made your voice heard," he said.

He applauded Mitt Romney's public service to the counter, and promised to talk more with Romney about how they can move the country forward together.

Then the president said the requisite platitudes to Joe Biden and gushed about the First Lady. 

"Thank you for believing all the way," Obama said to the crowd.  "You lifted me up the whole way, and I will always be grateful." 

Obama fired off specific images of people he met along the campaign trail, hoping to show people that the presidential campaign didn't amount only to combat of egos and agendas. 

The president's second acceptance speech had all the sweeping beauty we're accustomed to from his speeches.  He painted landscapes of the possibility and ideals relating to the upward climb of American life, saying that we all share these ideals no matter what our political affiliations.

"That common bond is where we must begin," he said, inciting cheers from the crowd once he invoked the end of America's foreign wars.

"I return to the White House more determined and inspired than ever," he said.

Obama kept hitting on the importance of bipartisanship, all as a means to highlight the work we have left to do in this country.  He's the only two-party presidential candidate in recent years who has effectively portrayed the notion that American experience and destiny--not the things we own--sit at the heart of who we are.

He finished his speech throwing his fist into the words.

Reach Assistant News Editor Michael Juliani here.