(CNN) Justice Sonia Sotomayor sidestepped a question Tuesday about last week's election, but told an intimate audience, "we can't afford to despair."

"We can't afford for a president to fail," she said, speaking in Washington at the Hill Center at the Old Naval Hospital.

She added that it was the responsibility of the people to support that "which is right and help guide him to those right decisions in whichever way we can find to do that."

But then she cautioned the audience: "We can't afford to despair, and we can't afford to give up on pursuing the values that we and others have fought so hard to achieve."

The comments came after Sotomayor -- who was appointed by President Barack Obama -- was asked by moderator, Bill Press, if she was in any way "apprehensive about what happened in this nation last Tuesday."

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