BOSTON – In the end, Sen. John Kerry finally found the warmth and passion he was often criticized for lacking, emotionally telling those who fought so hard for him that he wished he could “wrap you up in my arms and embrace each and every one of you.”

In a speech as gracious as it was eloquent, the senator from Massachusetts ended his quest for the presidency Wednesday afternoon, hours after it became painfully clear that all roads to the White House had closed for him.

“I’m sorry that we got here a little bit late and a little bit short,” said Kerry, standing alone on a stage at historic Faneuil Hall, as staff and family wept in the front row. “In America, it is vital that every vote count … but the outcome should be decided by voters, not a protracted legal fight. I would not give up this fight if there was a chance that we would prevail.”

After a two-year campaign that lurched from a sense of inevitability to despair and then back again, the end for Kerry came quickly. Just before 11 a.m. Wednesday in the kitchen of Kerry’s Beacon Hill townhouse, aides Bob Shrum and Mary Beth Cahill told him that the numbers would never add up for him in Ohio, his last hope – that there were simply not enough ballots left to change the course of history.

“That’s it,” Kerry said. Then he went into his study with his wife, Teresa, and called his running mate John Edwards, and then President Bush to concede the race.

“We talked about the danger of division in our country and the need, the desperate need for unity, for finding the common ground, coming together,” said Kerry of his four-minute conversation with the president.

“We are required now to work together for the good of our country. In the days ahead, we must find common cause, we must join in common effort, without remorse or recrimination, without anger or rancor. America is in need of unity and longing for a larger measure of compassion.”

Kerry assured all the people who supported him that their work “made a difference” and pledged to keep fighting for them.

“And building on itself … we go on to make a difference another day,” he said. “I promise you that time will come. The time will come, the election will come when your work and your ballots will change the world. And it’s worth fighting for.”

Kerry and Edwards came out to together and stood before a 27-foot-wide oil painting depicting a 1830 historic Senate debate between Daniel Webster and Robert Hayne. Inscribed on the frame are Webster’s famous words: “Liberty and Union, Now and Forever.”

Edwards introduced Kerry, thanked supporters and pledged to keep working for them. “You can be disappointed, but you cannot walk away,” he said. “This fight has just begun.”

As for himself, Kerry offered no regrets.

“So, with a grateful heart, I leave this campaign with a prayer that has even greater meaning to me now,” he said. “And that prayer is very simple: God bless America.”