U.s. Presidential Inaugural Addresses

Part 1

U.S. PRESIDENTIAL INAUGURAL ADDRESSES

CONTENTS

George Washington, First Inaugural Address, Thursday, April 30, 1789 George Washington, Second Inaugural Address, Monday, March 4, 1793 John Adams, Inaugural Address, Saturday, March 4, 1797 Thomas Jefferson, First Inaugural Address, Wednesday, March 4, 1801 Thomas Jefferson, Second Inaugural Address, Monday, March 4, 1805 James Madison, First Inaugural Address, Saturday, March 4, 1809 James Madison, Second Inaugural Address, Thursday, March 4, 1813 James Monroe, First Inaugural Address, Tuesday, March 4, 1817 James Monroe, Second Inaugural Address, Monday, March 5, 1821 John Quincy Adams, Inaugural Address, Friday, March 4, 1825 Andrew Jackson, First Inaugural Address, Wednesday, March 4, 1829 Andrew Jackson, Second Inaugural Address, Monday, March 4, 1833 Martin Van Buren, Inaugural Address, Monday, March 4, 1837 William Henry Harrison, Inaugural Address, Thursday, March 4, 1841 James Knox Polk, Inaugural Address, Tuesday, March 4, 1845 Zachary Taylor, Inaugural Address, Monday, March 5, 1849 Franklin Pierce, Inaugural Address, Friday, March 4, 1853 James Buchanan, Inaugural Address, Wednesday, March 4, 1857 Abraham Lincoln, First Inaugural Address, Monday, March 4, 1861 Abraham Lincoln, Second Inaugural Address, Saturday, March 4, 1865 Ulysses S. Grant, First Inaugural Address, Thursday, March 4, 1869 Ulysses S. Grant, Second Inaugural Address, Tuesday, March 4, 1873 Rutherford B. Hayes, Inaugural Address, Monday, March 5, 1877 James A. Garfield, Inaugural Address, Friday, March 4, 1881 Grover Cleveland, First Inaugural Address, Wednesday, March 4, 1885 Benjamin Harrison, Inaugural Address, Monday, March 4, 1889 Grover Cleveland, Second Inaugural Address, Saturday, March 4, 1893 William McKinley, First Inaugural Address, Thursday, March 4, 1897 William McKinley, Second Inaugural Address, Monday, March 4, 1901 Theodore Roosevelt, Inaugural Address, Saturday, March 4, 1905 William Howard Taft, Inaugural Address, Thursday, March 4, 1909 Woodrow Wilson, First Inaugural Address, Tuesday, March 4, 1913 Woodrow Wilson, Second Inaugural Address, Monday, March 5, 1917 Warren G. Harding, Inaugural Address, Friday, March 4, 1921 Calvin Coolidge, Inaugural Address, Wednesday, March 4, 1925 Herbert Hoover, Inaugural Address, Monday, March 4, 1929 Franklin D. Roosevelt, First Inaugural Address, Saturday, March 4, 1933 Franklin D. Roosevelt, Second Inaugural Address, Wednesday, January 20, 1937 Franklin D. Roosevelt, Third Inaugural Address, Monday, January 20, 1941 Franklin D. Roosevelt, Fourth Inaugural Address, Saturday, January 20, 1945 Harry S. Truman, Inaugural Address, Thursday, January 20, 1949 Dwight D. Eisenhower, First Inaugural Address, Tuesday, January 20, 1953 Dwight D. Eisenhower, Second Inaugural Address, Monday, January 21, 1957 John F. Kennedy, Inaugural Address, Friday, January 20, 1961 Lyndon Baines Johnson, Inaugural Address, Wednesday, January 20, 1965 Richard Milhous Nixon, First Inaugural Address, Monday, January 20, 1969 Richard Milhous Nixon, Second Inaugural Address, Saturday, January 20, 1973 Jimmy Carter, Inaugural Address, Thursday, January 20, 1977 Ronald Reagan, First Inaugural Address, Tuesday, January 20, 1981 Ronald Reagan, Second Inaugural Address, Monday, January 21, 1985 George Bush, Inaugural Address, Friday, January 20, 1989 Bill Clinton, First Inaugural Address, Wednesday, January 21, 1993 Bill Clinton, Second Inaugural Address, Monday, January 20, 1997 George W. Bush, First Inaugural Address, Saturday, January 20, 2001 George W. Bush, Second Inaugural Address, Thursday, January 20, 2005 Barack Hussein Obama, Inaugural Address, Tuesday, January 20, 2009 Barack Hussein Obama, Inaugural Address, Monday, January 21, 2013

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George Washington First Inaugural Address Thursday, April 30, 1789

Fellow-Citizens of the Senate and of the House of Representatives:

AMONG the vicissitudes incident to life no event could have filled me with greater anxieties than that of which the notification was transmitted by your order, and received on the 14th day of the present month. On the one hand, I was summoned by my country, whose voice I can never hear but with veneration and love, from a retreat which I had chosen with the fondest predilection, and, in my flattering hopes, with an immutable decision, as the asylum of my declining years--a retreat which was rendered every day more necessary as well as more dear to me by the addition of habit to inclination, and of frequent interruptions in my health to the gradual waste committed on it by time. On the other hand, the magnitude and difficulty of the trust to which the voice of my country called me, being sufficient to awaken in the wisest and most experienced of her citizens a distrustful scrutiny into his qualifications, could not but overwhelm with despondence one who (inheriting inferior endowments from nature and unpracticed in the duties of civil administration) ought to be peculiarly conscious of his own deficiencies. In this conflict of emotions all I dare aver is that it has been my faithful study to collect my duty from a just appreciation of every circumstance by which it might be affected. All I dare hope is that if, in executing this task, I have been too much swayed by a grateful remembrance of former instances, or by an affectionate sensibility to this transcendent proof of the confidence of my fellow-citizens, and have thence too little consulted my incapacity as well as disinclination for the weighty and untried cares before me, my error will be palliated by the motives which mislead me, and its consequences be judged by my country with some share of the partiality in which they originated.

Such being the impressions under which I have, in obedience to the public summons, repaired to the present station, it would be peculiarly improper to omit in this first official act my fervent supplications to that Almighty Being who rules over the universe, who presides in the councils of nations, and whose providential aids can supply every human defect, that His benediction may consecrate to the liberties and happiness of the people of the United States a Government instituted by themselves for these essential purposes, and may enable every instrument employed in its administration to execute with success the functions allotted to his charge. 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 those 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; and in the important revolution just accomplished in the system of their united government the tranquil deliberations and voluntary consent of so many distinct communities from which the event has resulted can not be compared with the means by which most governments have been established without some return of pious gratitude, along with an humble anticipation of the future blessings which the past seem to presage. These reflections, arising out of the present crisis, have forced themselves too strongly on my mind to be suppressed. You will join with me, I trust, in thinking that there are none under the influence of which the proceedings of a new and free government can more auspiciously commence.

By the article establishing the executive department it is made the duty of the President "to recommend to your consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient." The circumstances under which I now meet you will acquit me from entering into that subject further than to refer to the great constitutional charter under which you are assembled, and which, in defining your powers, designates the objects to which your attention is to be given. It will be more consistent with those circumstances, and far more congenial with the feelings which actuate me, to substitute, in place of a recommendation of particular measures, the tribute that is due to the talents, the rectitude, and the patriotism which adorn the characters selected to devise and adopt them. In these honorable qualifications I behold the surest pledges that as on one side no local prejudices or attachments, no separate views nor party animosities, will misdirect the comprehensive and equal eye which ought to watch over this great assemblage of communities and interests, so, on another, that the foundation of our national policy will be laid in the pure and immutable principles of private morality, and the preeminence of free government be exemplified by all the attributes which can win the affections of its citizens and command the respect of the world. I dwell on this prospect with every satisfaction which an ardent love for my country can inspire, since there is no truth more thoroughly established than that there exists in the economy and course of nature an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness; between duty and advantage; between the genuine maxims of an honest and magnanimous policy and the solid rewards of public prosperity and felicity; since we ought to be no less persuaded that the propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right which Heaven itself has ordained; and since the preservation of the sacred fire of liberty and the destiny of the republican model of government are justly considered, perhaps, as deeply, as finally, staked on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people.

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