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This eBook was assembled by James Linden.

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, January 20, 1997
George W. Bush, Inaugural Address, Saturday, January 20, 2001

***

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.

Besides the ordinary objects submitted to your care, it will remain
with your judgment to decide how far an exercise of the occasional
power delegated by the fifth article of the Constitution is rendered
expedient at the present juncture by the nature of objections which
have been urged against the system, or by the degree of inquietude
which has given birth to them. Instead of undertaking particular
recommendations on this subject, in which I could be guided by no
lights derived from official opportunities, I shall again give way to
my entire confidence in your discernment and pursuit of the public
good; for I assure myself that whilst you carefully avoid every
alteration which might endanger the benefits of an united and effective
government, or which ought to await the future lessons of experience, a
reverence for the characteristic rights of freemen and a regard for the
public harmony will sufficiently influence your deliberations on the
question how far the former can be impregnably fortified or the latter
be safely and advantageously promoted.

To the foregoing observations I have one to add, which will be most
properly addressed to the House of Representatives. It concerns myself,
and will therefore be as brief as possible. When I was first honored
with a call into the service of my country, then on the eve of an
arduous struggle for its liberties, the light in which I contemplated
my duty required that I should renounce every pecuniary compensation.
From this resolution I have in no instance departed; and being still
under the impressions which produced it, I must decline as inapplicable
to myself any share in the personal emoluments which may be
indispensably included in a permanent provision for the executive
department, and must accordingly pray that the pecuniary estimates for
the station in which I am placed may during my continuance in it be
limited to such actual expenditures as the public good may be thought
to require.

Having thus imparted to you my sentiments as they have been awakened by
the occasion which brings us together, I shall take my present leave;
but not without resorting once more to the benign Parent of the Human
Race in humble supplication that, since He has been pleased to favor
the American people with opportunities for deliberating in perfect
tranquillity, and dispositions for deciding with unparalleled unanimity
on a form of government for the security of their union and the
advancement of their happiness, so His divine blessing may be equally
conspicuous in the enlarged views, the temperate consultations, and the
wise measures on which the success of this Government must depend.

***

George Washington
Second Inaugural Address
Monday, March 4, 1793

Fellow Citizens:

I AM again called upon by the voice of my country to execute the
functions of its Chief Magistrate. When the occasion proper for it
shall arrive, I shall endeavor to express the high sense I entertain of
this distinguished honor, and of the confidence which has been reposed
in me by the people of united America.

Previous to the execution of any official act of the President the
Constitution requires an oath of office. This oath I am now about to
take, and in your presence: That if it shall be found during my
administration of the Government I have in any instance violated
willingly or knowingly the injunctions thereof, I may (besides
incurring constitutional punishment) be subject to the upbraidings of
all who are now witnesses of the present solemn ceremony.

***

John Adams
Inaugural Address
Saturday, March 4, 1797

WHEN it was first perceived, in early times, that no middle course for
America remained between unlimited submission to a foreign legislature
and a total independence of its claims, men of reflection were less
apprehensive of danger from the formidable power of fleets and armies
they must determine to resist than from those contests and dissensions
which would certainly arise concerning the forms of government to be
instituted over the whole and over the parts of this extensive country.
Relying, however, on the purity of their intentions, the justice of
their cause, and the integrity and intelligence of the people, under an
overruling Providence which had so signally protected this country from
the first, the representatives of this nation, then consisting of
little more than half its present number, not only broke to pieces the
chains which were forging and the rod of iron that was lifted up, but
frankly cut asunder the ties which had bound them, and launched into an
ocean of uncertainty.

The zeal and ardor of the people during the Revolutionary war,
supplying the place of government, commanded a degree of order
sufficient at least for the temporary preservation of society. The
Confederation which was early felt to be necessary was prepared from
the models of the Batavian and Helvetic confederacies, the only
examples which remain with any detail and precision in history, and
certainly the only ones which the people at large had ever considered.
But reflecting on the striking difference in so many particulars
between this country and those where a courier may go from the seat of
government to the frontier in a single day, it was then certainly
foreseen by some who assisted in Congress at the formation of it that
it could not be durable.

Negligence of its regulations, inattention to its recommendations, if
not disobedience to its authority, not only in individuals but in
States, soon appeared with their melancholy consequences - universal
languor, jealousies and rivalries of States, decline of navigation and
commerce, discouragement of necessary manufactures, universal fall in
the value of lands and their produce, contempt of public and private
faith, loss of consideration and credit with foreign nations, and at
length in discontents, animosities, combinations, partial conventions,
and insurrection, threatening some great national calamity.

In this dangerous crisis the people of America were not abandoned by
their usual good sense, presence of mind, resolution, or integrity.
Measures were pursued to concert a plan to form a more perfect union,
establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common
defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of
liberty. The public disquisitions, discussions, and deliberations
issued in the present happy Constitution of Government.

Employed in the service of my country abroad during the whole course of
these transactions, I first saw the Constitution of the United States
in a foreign country. Irritated by no literary altercation, animated by
no public debate, heated by no party animosity, I read it with great
satisfaction, as the result of good heads prompted by good hearts, as
an experiment better adapted to the genius, character, situation, and
relations of this nation and country than any which had ever been
proposed or suggested. In its general principles and great outlines it
was conformable to such a system of government as I had ever most
esteemed, and in some States, my own native State in particular, had
contributed to establish. Claiming a right of suffrage, in common with
my fellow-citizens, in the adoption or rejection of a constitution
which was to rule me and my posterity, as well as them and theirs, I
did not hesitate to express my approbation of it on all occasions, in
public and in private. It was not then, nor has been since, any
objection to it in my mind that the Executive and Senate were not more
permanent. Nor have I ever entertained a thought of promoting any
alteration in it but such as the people themselves, in the course of
their experience, should see and feel to be necessary or expedient, and
by their representatives in Congress and the State legislatures,
according to the Constitution itself, adopt and ordain.

Returning to the bosom of my country after a painful separation from it
for ten years, I had the honor to be elected to a station under the new
order of things, and I have repeatedly laid myself under the most
serious obligations to support the Constitution. The operation of it
has equaled the most sanguine expectations of its friends, and from an
habitual attention to it, satisfaction in its administration, and
delight in its effects upon the peace, order, prosperity, and happiness
of the nation I have acquired an habitual attachment to it and
veneration for it.

What other form of government, indeed, can so well deserve our esteem
and love?

There may be little solidity in an ancient idea that congregations of
men into cities and nations are the most pleasing objects in the sight
of superior intelligences, but this is very certain, that to a
benevolent human mind there can be no spectacle presented by any nation
more pleasing, more noble, majestic, or august, than an assembly like
that which has so often been seen in this and the other Chamber of
Congress, of a Government in which the Executive authority, as well as
that of all the branches of the Legislature, are exercised by citizens
selected at regular periods by their neighbors to make and execute laws
for the general good. Can anything essential, anything more than mere
ornament and decoration, be added to this by robes and diamonds? Can
authority be more amiable and respectable when it descends from
accidents or institutions established in remote antiquity than when it
springs fresh from the hearts and judgments of an honest and
enlightened people? For it is the people only that are represented. It
is their power and majesty that is reflected, and only for their good,
in every legitimate government, under whatever form it may appear. The
existence of such a government as ours for any length of time is a full
proof of a general dissemination of knowledge and virtue throughout the
whole body of the people. And what object or consideration more
pleasing than this can be presented to the human mind? If national
pride is ever justifiable or excusable it is when it springs, not from
power or riches, grandeur or glory, but from conviction of national
innocence, information, and benevolence.

In the midst of these pleasing ideas we should be unfaithful to
ourselves if we should ever lose sight of the danger to our liberties
if anything partial or extraneous should infect the purity of our free,
fair, virtuous, and independent elections. If an election is to be
determined by a majority of a single vote, and that can be procured by
a party through artifice or corruption, the Government may be the
choice of a party for its own ends, not of the nation for the national
good. If that solitary suffrage can be obtained by foreign nations by
flattery or menaces, by fraud or violence, by terror, intrigue, or
venality, the Government may not be the choice of the American people,
but of foreign nations. It may be foreign nations who govern us, and
not we, the people, who govern ourselves; and candid men will
acknowledge that in such cases choice would have little advantage to
boast of over lot or chance.

Such is the amiable and interesting system of government (and such are
some of the abuses to which it may be exposed) which the people of
America have exhibited to the admiration and anxiety of the wise and
virtuous of all nations for eight years under the administration of a
citizen who, by a long course of great actions, regulated by prudence,
justice, temperance, and fortitude, conducting a people inspired with
the same virtues and animated with the same ardent patriotism and love
of liberty to independence and peace, to increasing wealth and
unexampled prosperity, has merited the gratitude of his
fellow-citizens, commanded the highest praises of foreign nations, and
secured immortal glory with posterity.

In that retirement which is his voluntary choice may he long live to
enjoy the delicious recollection of his services, the gratitude of
mankind, the happy fruits of them to himself and the world, which are
daily increasing, and that splendid prospect of the future fortunes of
this country which is opening from year to year. His name may be still
a rampart, and the knowledge that he lives a bulwark, against all open
or secret enemies of his country's peace. This example has been
recommended to the imitation of his successors by both Houses of
Congress and by the voice of the legislatures and the people throughout
the nation.

On this subject it might become me better to be silent or to speak with
diffidence; but as something may be expected, the occasion, I hope,
will be admitted as an apology if I venture to say that if a
preference, upon principle, of a free republican government, formed
upon long and serious reflection, after a diligent and impartial
inquiry after truth; if an attachment to the Constitution of the United
States, and a conscientious determination to support it until it shall
be altered by the judgments and wishes of the people, expressed in the
mode prescribed in it; if a respectful attention to the constitutions
of the individual States and a constant caution and delicacy toward the
State governments; if an equal and impartial regard to the rights,
interest, honor, and happiness of all the States in the Union, without
preference or regard to a northern or southern, an eastern or western,
position, their various political opinions on unessential points or
their personal attachments; if a love of virtuous men of all parties
and denominations; if a love of science and letters and a wish to
patronize every rational effort to encourage schools, colleges,
universities, academies, and every institution for propagating
knowledge, virtue, and religion among all classes of the people, not
only for their benign influence on the happiness of life in all its
stages and classes, and of society in all its forms, but as the only
means of preserving our Constitution from its natural enemies, the
spirit of sophistry, the spirit of party, the spirit of intrigue, the
profligacy of corruption, and the pestilence of foreign influence,
which is the angel of destruction to elective governments; if a love of
equal laws, of justice, and humanity in the interior administration; if
an inclination to improve agriculture, commerce, and manufacturers for
necessity, convenience, and defense; if a spirit of equity and humanity
toward the aboriginal nations of America, and a disposition to
meliorate their condition by inclining them to be more friendly to us,
and our citizens to be more friendly to them; if an inflexible
determination to maintain peace and inviolable faith with all nations,
and that system of neutrality and impartiality among the belligerent
powers of Europe which has been adopted by this Government and so
solemnly sanctioned by both Houses of Congress and applauded by the
legislatures of the States and the public opinion, until it shall be
otherwise ordained by Congress; if a personal esteem for the French
nation, formed in a residence of seven years chiefly among them, and a
sincere desire to preserve the friendship which has been so much for
the honor and interest of both nations; if, while the conscious honor
and integrity of the people of America and the internal sentiment of
their own power and energies must be preserved, an earnest endeavor to
investigate every just cause and remove every colorable pretense of
complaint; if an intention to pursue by amicable negotiation a
reparation for the injuries that have been committed on the commerce of
our fellow-citizens by whatever nation, and if success can not be
obtained, to lay the facts before the Legislature, that they may
consider what further measures the honor and interest of the Government
and its constituents demand; if a resolution to do justice as far as
may depend upon me, at all times and to all nations, and maintain
peace, friendship, and benevolence with all the world; if an unshaken
confidence in the honor, spirit, and resources of the American people,
on which I have so often hazarded my all and never been deceived; if
elevated ideas of the high destinies of this country and of my own
duties toward it, founded on a knowledge of the moral principles and
intellectual improvements of the people deeply engraven on my mind in
early life, and not obscured but exalted by experience and age; and,
with humble reverence, I feel it to be my duty to add, if a veneration
for the religion of a people who profess and call themselves
Christians, and a fixed resolution to consider a decent respect for
Christianity among the best recommendations for the public service, can
enable me in any degree to comply with your wishes, it shall be my
strenuous endeavor that this sagacious injunction of the two Houses
shall not be without effect.

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