First Presidency

“ The oath that I have taken is the same oath that was taken by George Washington and by every President under the Constitution. But I assume the Presidency under extraordinary circumstances never before experienced by Americans. This is an hour of history that troubles our minds and hurts our hearts.
Therefore, I feel it is my first duty to make an unprecedented compact with my countrymen. Not an inaugural address, not a fireside chat, not a campaign speech—just a little straight talk among friends. And I intend it to be the first of many. ”

“ That they have heads on their shoulders, and that the Teachers have, and they can calculate, and devise, and manage, and arrange for their neighbours, and those who are under their care; and I suppose that it is their duty to do so, and take that care from the Presidency of the Church. The conduct of many would indicate that they think that the Presidency can easily attend to each of their individual affairs, and those too of a trifling character. ”

“ The President is its Prophet, Seer and Revelator, and also its Trustee-in-Trust, holding the legal title to its property.
Next to the First Presidency are the Twelve Apostles. Their special calling is to preach the Gospel or to have it preached, in all nations. The Twelve are equal in authority to the First Presidency, but they exercise the fulness of their powers only in the absence of the higher council. They have the right to regulate and set in order the whole Church, but they act under the direction of the First Presidency. ”

“ For the first time in our national history a President delivers his Annual Message to a new Congress within a fortnight of the expiration of his term of office. While there is no change in the Presidency this year, change will occur in future years. It is my belief that under this new constitutional practice, the President should in every fourth year, in so far as seems reasonable, review the existing state of our national affairs and outline broad future problems, leaving specific recommendations for future legislation to be made by the President about to be inaugurated. ”

“ Your obedience to the voice of duty and your country when you quitted reluctantly a second time the retreat you had chosen and first accepted the Presidency afforded a new proof of the devotedness of your zeal in its service and an earnest of the patriotism and success which have characterized your Administration. As the grateful confidence of the citizens in the virtues of their Chief Magistrate has essentially contributed to that success, we persuade ourselves that the millions whom we represent participate with us in the anxious solicitude of the present occasion. ”

“ At my inauguration, I stated that I would seek to strengthen the nation’s moral fiber through formal modes of reform, enforcement of the laws and the exercise of the tremendous persuasive power of the Presidency in setting the personal example of honesty, uprightness and simple living. ”

“ But if Presidents of Stakes and their Counselors and the Bishops fulfil their duties, and all act in harmony with the First Presidency, then everything goes on smoothly, and all men can be judged according to the principles laid down here in the Book of Doctrine and Covenants. ”

“ THE RED FLAG AND THE WHITE HOUSE
The first qualification the next President should run for the Presidency on is his vision or program for the nation with regard to backing up men in American life—democracy and the Red Flag. ”

“ It consisted in the fact that the first President of this Republic furnished in himself, by his character, the principles he followed, the motives that inspired him and the wisdom of his policies, the most perfect model of a republican chief magistrate in the history of the world—a President to whose teachings and example all his successors—indeed, all those wielding public power in this Republic—could with the utmost confidence look for safest guidance. Surely, no other nation has ever been so signally blessed. ”

“ During the discussions on the Constitution, many of the wisest heads at that eventful period desired to establish the Presidency for life, but eventually the term of four years was agreed upon; and if such powers of obstructing the wishes of a majority were to accompany the office, it certainly was a prudent conclusion they arrived at. In a densely populated community like Great Britain, such powers, whether in the hands of the sovereign or the ministers, would produce a revolution in much less time than four years. ”

“ It saw also the germ of the Democratic and Whig parties planted. It was a prosperous Administration, and under it the nation flourished like a green bay-tree. He was the last of the Presidents who had actively participated in the war of the Revolution. To other virtues and different merits, those who now aspire to the high distinction of the Presidency must owe their success. There must always be a cause for distinction. However great the abilities of a man or exalted his virtues, he must in some manner make a display of them before the public eye, or he must of necessity remain in obscurity. ”

“ As I take the oath today as president of the republic, I promise you only one thing, that the power of the presidency will be utilized in order to free our people from the bondage of the old weaknesses and vices, and we will lift our people. ”

“ In the scheme of our national Government the Presidency is preëminently the people’s office. ”

“ One President, at the conclusion of his term, steps back to private life; his successor, chosen by the people, begins his tenure of the office. And the Presidency of the United States continues to function without a moment's break. ”

“ On the ratification of the constitution, the attention of the people was at once directed to General Washington, as the first president of the United States. Communications, expressive of this general desire, were made to him. "We cannot," said Mr. Johnson, of Maryland, "do without you, and I and thousands more can explain to any body but yourself, why we cannot do without you." "I have ever thought," said Governeur Morris, "and have said, that you must be president; no other man can fill that office." ”

“ Whenever the American people want to remember what the President of the United States ought to be, and whenever a President in our time wishes to make it clear to his mind with what rules he should regulate his conduct, upon what principles he should act, by what motives he should be guided, what methods he should adopt in directing affairs and in managing the machinery of the Government, they will find it all written in characters of light in the first President's teachings and example. ”

“ I am announcing today my candidacy for the Presidency of the United States.
The Presidency is the most powerful office in the Free World. Through its leadership can come a more vital life for our people. ”

“ No man in Congress has devoted more thorough inquiry to a larger number of important subjects and formed upon them opinions more matured and valuable. He was not as great a soldier as his competitor for the Presidency, but he has made himself, and is universally recognized as, what a President ought to be, a statesman. He understands all phases of life, from the lowest to the highest, for he has lived through them. He understands the great problems of politics, for he has studied them and actively participated in their discussion and solution. ”

“ With America's sons in the fields far away, with America's future under challenge right here at home, with our hopes and the world's hopes for peace in the balance every day, l do not believe that I should devote an hour or a day of my time to any personal partisan causes or to any duties other than the awesome duties of this office - the Presidency of your country. ”

“ Practically an unknown man when nominated for the Presidency, his election due to factional strife among his opponents, the people of America when approaching the greatest crisis in their history, turned as if by chance, and Providence that chance did guide, to this comparatively obscure man of the prairies, and with one bound he took his place with the world's greatest statesmen, the leader of his party, the real ruler of a mighty nation. ”

“ Washington founded no dynasty, but he made the American Presidency possible, and the American President is a king with a veto, elected, not by the people directly, but by special electors, for four years, and re-eligible. ”

“ The intervening time to my first inauguration was filled up with wranglings between Congress and the new Executive as to the best mode of "reconstruction," or, to speak plainly, as to whether the control of the Government should be thrown immediately into the hands of those who had so recently and persistently tried to destroy it, or whether the victors should continue to have an equal voice with them in this control. ”

“ To hold the exalted office of President of the United States, to occupy the place of Washington, of Jefferson, of Lincoln, to be looked to for leadership in public questions, to be the first citizen in this great land is not a trifling but a gigantic ambition, worthy of all honest striving but involving, in the ordinary sense, no supreme issue. ”

“ In imitating their example I tread in the footsteps of illustrious men, whose superiors it is our happiness to believe are not found on the executive calendar of any country. Among them we recognize the earliest and firmest pillars of the Republic—those by whom our national independence was first declared, him who above all others contributed to establish it on the field of battle, and those whose expanded intellect and patriotism constructed, improved, and perfected the inestimable institutions under which we live. ”

“ To that benign and healing hand of Providence I trust, in humble hope of the good which it always brings forth out of evil. In upwards of half a century this is the first instance of a Vice-President being called to act as President of the United States, and brings to the test that provision of the constitution which places in the executive chair a man never thought of for it by anybody. ”

“ It cannot be considered as a compliment to say that, on your acceptance of the office of President, the success of the new government in its commencement may materially depend. Your agency and influence will be not less important in preserving it from the future attacks of its enemies than they have been in recommending it in the first instance to the adoption of the people. ”

“ The whole energy of origination under our system rests with Congress. It stands at the front of all government among us;149 it is the single affirmative voice in national policy. First or last, it determines what is to be done. The President, indeed, appoints officers and negotiates treaties, but he does so subject to the ‘yes’ of the Senate. Congress organizes the executive departments, organizes the army, organizes the navy. It audits, approves, and pays expenses. It conceives and directs all comprehensive policy. All else is negation. ”

“ The administration had indeed a most embarrassing problem to solve. It was engaged in a war of conquest which must be carried to a successful issue, or the political object would be unattained. Yet all the capable officers of the requisite rank belonged to the opposition, and the man selected for his lack of political ambition had himself become a prominent candidate for the Presidency. ”

“ Our American system makes the President the centre and focus of political life. He is at once Prime Minister and independent executive. He blends the functions of what in parliamentary government is the head of the Cabinet, and what in other government is the head of the State. He is a vital part of the legislative power without being amenable to its control or dependent on its life. He is the framer of policies and the arbiter of parties. All this makes the election of President the central chord and the arterial force of our broad political action. ”

“ Our Whig brethren throughout the Union have met in convention, and after due deliberation and mutual concessions have elected candidates for the Presidency and Vice-Presidency not only worthy of our cause, but worthy of the support of every true patriot who would have our country redeemed, and her institutions honestly and faithfully administered. ”

“ The whole idea of the Presidency is having somebody in the Oval Office who can try to get above the bickering and buttonholing in the cloakrooms and corridors and say, "Look, enough of this. Let's just get something done for a change that will help the people." ”

“ The question of the last Presidential election arose before the Country—one of those great questions that are not appreciated, I regret from my heart, by the American Nation, when we elect a President, a man who has more power for his time than any enthroned Monarch in Europe. We organize a Government and place him in front as the head and the Chief of the Government. ”

“ For the sixth and the last time, I present to the Congress my assessment of the State of the Union.
I shall speak to you tonight about challenge and opportunity—and about the commitments that all of us have made together that will, if we carry them out, give America our best chance to achieve the kind of great society that we all want.
Every President lives, not only with what is, but with what has been and what could be. ”

“ In another sense it can be interpreted to mean that the responsibilities of the Presidency are so great that no one man could perform in his head all the staff work necessary to see through the opinion-reactions which might develop abroad to U.S. executive decisions made here at home. ”

“ The President is President. His office and his name of office are known, and both are fixed and described by law. Being commander of the army and navy, holding the power of nominating to office and removing from office, and being by these powers the fountain of all patronage and all favor, what does he not become if he be allowed to superadd to all this the character of single representative of the American people? Sir, he becomes what America has not been accustomed to see, what this Constitution has never created, and what I cannot contemplate but with profound alarm. ”