President Barack Obama spoke with the urgency of a leader who knows that America's future rests in the hands of his audience.

"You have a chance to shape history, and that doesn't come often," Mr Obama told the cheering crowd at a Miami university. "There is incredible power in your hands."

The atmosphere was electric inside the arena at the Miami university, as the crowd let out a deafening cheer to let their president know they had heard his appeal.