A round up of editorials from across the country:

Washington Post: The dawn of a new presidency is always a time of awe and anxiety. The awe comes in bearing witness to the peaceful transfer of power as a new chapter of national history unfolds. The anxiety speaks to an untested new leader and the challenges he will face. The swearing-in today of the nation's 44th president is a moment of particular extremes: enormous joy, great hope, deep fears.

Wall Street Journal: Barack Obama takes the oath of office today amid a sense of expectation and opportunity rare even for new Presidents. Partly this is due to his heritage and the historic nature of his triumph, partly to our current economic troubles, and partly to a nation looking for a fresh start after the difficulties of the Bush era. The paradox is that in order to succeed Mr. Obama will soon need to turn the opacity of his hope into clear and often difficult choices, some of which will upset his most passionate supporters.

NY Daily News: The American heart will stir this day with pride and hope as the powers of the presidency of the United States, magnificent in their promise, terrible in their burdens, are vested in a man of groundbreaking heritage and grand aspirations.

New York Post: In any other year, Obama's slight résumé might have made him an electoral footnote; this time, the hopeful message of the bright young senator from Illinois struck home with voters.

Now he has to prove himself - fast.

USA Today: The once unthinkable — an African-American president — is about to become the new reality, a symbol of America's racial progress and a reaffirmation of its place as a land of opportunity. Barack Obama's soaring oratory and improbable life story have deeply moved millions around the nation and the world.

Faith in Obama's ability to deliver change is so high that, asked about 10 campaign promises ranging from tax cuts to getting out of Iraq, a majority of respondents in a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll last week said he would make good on all.

Therein lies a danger. The challenges Obama inherits — from a global economic meltdown to nuclear proliferation, terrorism, two wars and climate change — are so daunting and intractable that great expectations could be followed by crushing disappointment.

Chicago Tribune: Barack Obama's, by contrast, is momentous already. He is different from any president who has gone before, and he faces the most ominous economic crisis since the Depression. Not only that, but Obama has portrayed himself as offering a new kind of politics, aiming to foster unity rather than exploit division. He and circumstances have set a formidable standard, and he will be judged against it.

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: As history shakes loose the bonds of the past, it is hard not to believe in the power of divine providence. In the living memory of some assembled in Washington, D.C., racial prejudice was enforced by law and custom.

Yet today a black man will use Abraham Lincoln's Bible to swear the oath of office -- a black man, moreover, with a foreign-sounding first and last name and a middle name that in recent years was shared by a national bogeyman.

This history-making day would have seemed beyond unlikely just a few years ago, but the point underscored by today's inauguration is that in America anything is possible. Barack Obama is living proof.

Newsday: The gathered force of change, a power strong enough to sweep peacefully aside the leadership of the most dominant nation on Earth, begins with millions of private decisions - more than 132 million of them this time - and culminates in today's public ritual of succession. Whatever the final shape of the change, this renewal itself is worth celebrating.