Inaugural address

“ 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. ”

“ Franklin D. Roosevelt, in his Fourth Inaugural Address, expressed the same thought, "The Almighty God has blessed our land in many ways . . . So we pray to Him now for the vision to see our way clearly-to see the way that leads to a better life for ourselves and for all our fellow men-to the achievement of His will, to peace on earth." ”

“ This inauguration ceremony marks a new beginning, a new dedication within our Government, and a new spirit among us all. A President may sense and proclaim that new spirit, but only a people can provide it.
Two centuries ago our Nation's birth was a milestone in the long quest for freedom, but the bold and brilliant dream which excited the founders of this Nation still awaits its consummation. I have no new dream to set forth today, but rather urge a fresh faith in the old dream. ”

“ Then Lincoln's second inauguration came [March 4, 1865] , and with it his second inaugural address. Lincoln's famous 'Gettysburg speech has been much and justly admired. But far greater, as well as far more characteristic, was that inaugural in which he poured out the whole devotion and tenderness of his great soul. It had all the solemnity of a father's last admonition and blessing to his children before he lay down to die. ... No American President had ever spoken words like these to the American people. America never had a President who found such words in the depth of his heart. ”

“ Men's hearts wait upon us; men's lives hang in the balance; men's hopes call upon us to say what we will do. Who shall live up to the great trust? Who dares fail to try? I summon all honest men, all patriotic, all forward-looking men, to my side. God helping me, I will not fail them, if they will but counsel and sustain me!
Woodrow Wilson Second Inaugural Address Monday, March 5, 1917 My Fellow Citizens:
THE four years which have elapsed since last I stood in this place have been crowded with counsel and action of the most vital interest and consequence. ”

“ In our foreign policy, we have entered a new era. The world has changed greatly in the 11 years since President John Kennedy said in his Inaugural Address, "... we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty." ”

“ The oath of office is usually administered and the Inaugural address delivered from a large platform erected in front of the Capitol before which ten thousand people can assemble. But the ten thousand people are sure to have been waiting in a massed crowd for an hour or more; they are always tired and uncomfortable, so when they finally discover that few of them can really hear anything, and that they have seen all there is to be seen, they begin to move about and talk, the noise and agitation greatly detracting from the impressiveness of the ceremony. ”

“ CHAPTER XIX THE INAUGURATION A presidential inauguration is a picturesque affair even when the weather is stormy, as it frequently is on the fourth of March in Washington. It is a brilliant affair when the sun shines bright and the air is balmy, as happened on March 4, 1913, when Woodrow Wilson took the oath of office at noon, delivered his inaugural address a few minutes later, reviewed the parade immediately after luncheon, and before nightfall was at his desk in the White House transacting the business of the Government. ”

“ In his first inaugural address, during the rush of optimism that followed the Colonies' uplifting victory in the American Revolution, George Washington observed that "it would be peculiarly improper to omit, in this first official act my fervent supplications to that Almighty Being who rules over the universe." ”

“ That's what you guys should be writing and covering, instead of sowing division about tweets and false narratives.
The President is committed to unifying our country, and that was the focus of his inaugural address. ”

“ Every victory of our arms, on flood and field, was a rebuke to McClellan and the Democratic party, and an endorsement of Abraham Lincoln for President, and his new policy. It was my good fortune to be present at his inauguration in March, and to hear on that occasion his remarkable inaugural address. ”

“ Chief Justice, members of the United States Congress, distinguished guests, and fellow citizens:
Each time we gather to inaugurate a President we bear witness to the enduring strength of our Constitution. We affirm the promise of our democracy. We recall that what binds this nation together is not the colors of our skin or the tenets of our faith or the origins of our names. ”

“ We intend to renew our faith as God-fearing men...not government-fearing men nor any other kind of fearing-men. We intend to roll up our sleeves and pitch in to develop this full bounty God has given us...to live full and useful lives and in absolute freedom from all fear. Then can we enjoy the full richness of the Great American Dream.
We have placed this sign, "In God We Trust," upon our State Capitol on this Inauguration Day as physical evidence of determination to renew the faith of our fathers and to practice the free heritage they bequeathed to us. ”

“ Vice President Johnson, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Chief Justice, President Eisenhower, Vice President Nixon, President Truman, Reverend Clergy, fellow citizens:
We observe today not a victory of party but a celebration of freedom, symbolizing an end as well as a beginning, signifying renewal as well as change. For I have sworn before you and Almighty God the same solemn oath our forbears prescribed nearly a century and three-quarters ago. ”

“ Our President confines himself to the more formal procedure of issuing an official mandate, the same in kind, though differing in expression, as an American President's Inaugural Address, or one of his Messages to Congress.
Commercial men do not understand and are impatient with the restrictions which hedge round a Foreign Minister, and in their anxiety to get speakers they will look anywhere. On one occasion I received an invitation to go to Canada to attend a banquet at a Commercial Club in one of the principal Canadian cities. ”

“ After his inauguration he spoke his address to the Congress, and several days later members of the House and of the Senate called on him at his residence and made formal replies to his Inaugural Address. After a few weeks, experience led him to modify somewhat his daily schedule. He found that unless it was checked, the insatiate public would consume all his time. Every Tuesday afternoon, between three and four o'clock, he had a public reception which any one might attend. Likewise, on Friday afternoons, Mrs. Washington had receptions of her own. ”

“ I thank you sincerely for it, and consider the views of it so sound, that I have communicated it to my coadjutors as one of our important evidences of the public sentiment, according to which we must shape our course. I suspect, partly from this, but more from a letter of J. Taylor’s which has been put into my hands, that an incorrect idea of my views has got abroad. I am in hopes my inaugural address will in some measure set this to rights, as it will present the leading objects to be conciliation and adherence to sound principle. ”

“ No one pretends that the way ahead will be easy. In my Inaugural Address last year, I warned that the "ills we suffer have come upon us over several decades. They will not go away in days, weeks, or months, but they will go away . ”

“ Calvin Coolidge Inaugural Address Wednesday, March 4, 1925 My Countrymen:
NO one can contemplate current conditions without finding much that is satisfying and still more that is encouraging. Our own country is leading the world in the general readjustment to the results of the great conflict. Many of its burdens will bear heavily upon us for years, and the secondary and indirect effects we must expect to experience for some time. ”

“ The ceremony was performed in New York City, on the site of the Custom-house, in Wall Street. Chancellor Livingston, of New York, administered the oath of office. The streets and house-tops were thronged with people; flags fluttered; cannon boomed from the Battery. Washington retired to the Senate chamber and delivered his inaugural address. Congress had already been organized. ”

“ The dignitaries present then moved in procession to the hall of the House of Representatives, on the floor of which were the Senators and Representatives, the Supreme Court, the diplomatic corps, officers of the army and navy, and many prominent officials, while the galleries were filled with handsomely dressed ladies and gentlemen. Mr. Adams read his inaugural address from the Speaker's desk, after which the oath of office was administered to him by Chief Justice Marshall. ”

“ But I must confess, in all candor, that the best and the utmost I can give in the service of the people will avail us little, unless I receive the understanding, faith, and support of my countrymen. In every momentous time of our history our people have given their full measure of support to our leaders. ”

“ The development of the Gettysburg Address and the Second Inaugural, those supreme expressions of Lincoln's feelings, is not, in the main, to be traced through complete speeches, but it must be sought for in isolated passages, when he left logic for the moment and gave himself up to the passing emotion. The real seed of the majestic simplicity of those addresses is perhaps to be found in those rhetorical speeches of an early period, so lacking apparently in the qualities that we love and admire. In writing, as in so many other things, we reap not what we sow, but its fruition. ”

“ After the Declaration of Independence was signed, Virginia statesman John Page wrote to Thomas Jefferson, "We know the race is not to the swift nor the battle to the strong. Do you not think an angel rides in the whirlwind and directs this storm?" Much time has passed since Jefferson arrived for his inauguration. The years and changes accumulate, but the themes of this day he would know, "our nation's grand story of courage and its simple dream of dignity." ”

“ And now, fellow-citizens, I am about to assume the great trust which you have committed to my hands. I appeal to you for that earnest and thoughtful support which makes this Government in fact, as it is in law, a government of the people.
I shall greatly rely upon the wisdom and patriotism of Congress and of those who may share with me the responsibilities and duties of administration, and, above all, upon our efforts to promote the welfare of this great people and their Government I reverently invoke the support and blessings of Almighty God. ”

“ In perhaps the most memorable line in the address, he reminded us that "America demands and deserves big things from us, and nothing big ever came from being small".
The President believes that if the country can come together and put the divisions aside, it can work together toward unparalleled prosperity and freedom for ourselves and for the rest of the world. ”

“ And it is preposterous to suppose that a thought could for a moment have been entertained that the President, placed at the capital, in the center of the country, could better understand the wants and wishes of the people than their own immediate representatives, who spend a part of every year among them, living with them, often laboring with them, and bound to them by the triple tie of interest, duty, and affection. ”

“ While ministering to all the traditional public services, it is in the accomplishment of these five missions that we must place stress and primary attention, for their solution will facilitate the effective aministration of all the essential public services the government is duty bound to maintain.
It is incorrect to say that we are out to solve all the problems of the nation. No president can do that. Nation-building is an exacting and endless endeavor. No president can build the whole edifice of a nation. ”

“ and yet, in the history of our Nation, it is a commonplace occurrence. The orderly transfer of authority as called for in the Constitution routinely takes place as it has for almost two centuries and few of us stop to think how unique we really are. In the eyes of many in the world, this every-4-year ceremony we accept as normal is nothing less than a miracle. ”

“ The peaceful transfer of authority is rare in history, yet common in our country. With a simple oath, we affirm old traditions and make new beginnings. ”

“ In tendering this homage to the Great Author of every public and private good, I assure myself that it expresses your sentiments not less than my own, nor those of my fellow-citizens at large less than either. No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the Invisible Hand which conducts the affairs of men more than the People of the United States. Every step by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation seems to have been distinguished by some token of providential agency; ”

“ For as much as government can do and must do, it is ultimately the faith and determination of the American people upon which this nation relies. ”

“ Fellow-Citizens:
We stand to-day upon an eminence which overlooks a hundred years of national life—a century crowded with perils, but crowned with the triumphs of liberty and law. Before continuing the onward march let us pause on this height for a moment to strengthen our faith and renew our hope by a glance at the pathway along which our people have traveled. ”