Sounding a call to restore the "great promise of this country," John Edwards bowed out of the presidential race Wednesday afternoon in New Orleans, ending a spirited underdog bid that was watered down by his distant third finish in the South Carolina primary on Saturday.

In his closing remarks, Edwards underscored his central campaign themes of lifting up the working class, expanding health care, ending the Iraq war and striving "to make the two Americas one."

"It's time for me to step aside so that history can blaze its path," Edwards said. "We do not know who will take the final steps to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, but what we do know is that our Democratic Party will make history."

He said he would be "suspending" his campaign, leaving open the possibility that he could leverage some of his pledged delegates to influence the outcome of the national convention. However, no one, including Edwards, expects the suspension to be lifted for him to re-emerge as a candidate.

The former North Carolina senator did not endorse anybody Wednesday, and his decision leaves Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton the two remaining candidates in the increasingly competitive and bitter Democratic contest. Edwards said Wednesday both rivals have promised to him they will continue to make ending poverty a central theme of their campaigns, as he did.

Edwards, a two-time White House candidate, had pledged to stay in the race through the convention despite suffering losses to Clinton and Obama in every early voting state. He had even hoped to benefit from the intra-party bickering of his rivals and had banked on a strong performance in his home state of South Carolina, which he won in the 2004 Democratic presidential primary, to give his campaign a lift before Super Tuesday, Feb. 5.

Even after he placed third there behind Clinton in the Palmetto State, Edwards pledged to soldier on, putting campaign staff on the ground in select Feb. 5 states. But with the odds getting longer and longer, the former senator penciled in the announcement in New Orleans, where he already had scheduled a speech on poverty.

He made the announcement with his wife and three children at his side. Then he went to work with Habitat for Humanity at the volunteer-fueled rebuilding project Musicians' Village.

With that, Edwards' campaign will end the way it began 13 months ago -- with the candidate pitching in to rebuild lives in the city most ravaged by Hurricane Katrina. Edwards embraced New Orleans as a glaring symbol of what he described as a Washington that did not hear the cries of the downtrodden.

Edwards realized he had "no real path to the nomination and it was time to step aside," spokesman Mark Kornblau said, adding that the decision was made within the last 48 hours.

With Edwards out of the race, Obama and Clinton are already in a head-to-head battle for Super Tuesday states. Obama campaigned Wednesday in Colorado with Caroline Kennedy, President Kennedy's daughter who with Sen. Edward Kennedy endorsed the Illinois senator after his South Carolina victory.

Clinton, meanwhile, was campaigning in Arkansas and Georgia, while her husband had events in Illinois, Oklahoma and Colorado.

Though Edwards at one point in the campaign aggressively went after Clinton, one senior aide told FOX News that his exit from the race could end up benefiting the Clinton campaign, since Edwards and Clinton had split the white vote in previous contests.

After hearing the news, Clinton said she would be "reaching out to everyone who did support Sen. Edwards."

"John is a friend of mine and he was a colleague in the Senate and I have the highest regard for him, and I'm really admiring of what he's done to make sure poverty was on the agenda here in America," she told FOX News affiliate WBRC in Birmingham, Ala.

She did not mention Edwards while speaking to voters at a rally in North Little Rock.

Obama led off his address in Denver with praise for his former rival.

"John Edwards has spent a lifetime fighting to give voice to the voiceless and hope to the struggling," he said. "At a time when our politics is too focused on who's up and who's down, he made us focus on who matters -- the New Orleans child without a home, the West Virginia miner without a job, the families who live in that other America that is not seen or heard or talked about in Washington."

Edwards' campaign was built on appealing to middle-class sympathies while often vilifying corporate America. He made poverty the signature issue of both his presidential campaigns and led a four-day tour to highlight the issue in July.

He waged an energetic top-tier campaign against the two better-funded rivals, even as he dealt with the stunning blow of his wife's recurring cancer. In a dramatic news conference last March, the couple announced Elizabeth Edwards had been diagnosed with Stage-4 breast cancer, though she thought she had beaten it. The couple continued the campaign.

Their decision sparked a debate about family duty and public service. But Elizabeth Edwards remained a forceful advocate for her husband, and she was often surrounded at campaign events by well-wishers and emotional survivors cheering her on.

Kornblau said the decision to drop out had nothing to do with Elizabeth Edwards' health.

Democratic strategist Bob Beckel told FOX News the decision to exit probably boiled down to a matter of money, with the difficulty he likely was having fundraising after disappointing finishes.

The results of the Florida primary Tuesday only added to Edwards' sense of gloom since he barely reached 15 percent, the minimum threshold to acquire delegates. Even though no delegates were at stake in Florida due to party sanctions, it gave Edwards a glimpse of how few delegates he was likely to win on Super Tuesday.

The campaign believed it was carrying on but top aides sensed a shift when Edwards demanded a schedule change for Wednesday's appearance in New Orleans. The Louisiana primary is Feb. 9, four days after Super Tuesday, and seemed to make no sense unless Edwards were contemplating leaving the race.

By suspending his campaign he can retain control of his delegates, according to top advisers. If he "ends" his campaign, his delegates can go to any candidate they chose. Observers had already speculated that Edwards could play the role of power-broker by accumulating delegates and shifting them to the candidate of his choice. Edwards has 56 delegates to his name.

Lastly, Edwards did not want to be humiliated on Super Tuesday for that would risk not only personal marginalization but could have risked ridicule of his "poverty and two Americas" focus.

Edwards did place a promising second in the Iowa leadoff caucuses Jan. 3 and was the first Democratic candidate to offer a plan for universal health care and the first to call on Congress to pull funding for the war. He led the charge that lobbyists have too much power in Washington and need to be reined in.

But the themes were eventually adopted by other Democratic presidential candidates -- and even a Republican, Mitt Romney, echoed the call for an end to special interest politics in Washington.

Edwards' rise to prominence in politics came amid just one term representing North Carolina in the Senate after a career as a trial attorney that made him millions. He was on Al Gore's short list for vice president in 2000 after serving just two years in office. He ran for president in 2004, and after he lost to John Kerry, the nominee picked him as a running mate.

Kerry endorsed Obama in this year's race.

FOX News' Serafin Gomez, Major Garrett, Steve Brown and Cristina Corbin and The Associated Press contributed to this report.