U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses
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.
United States. Presidents
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Assembled by James Linden
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
Fellow-Citizens:
Andrew Jackson Second Inaugural Address Monday, March 4, 1833
Fellow-Citizens:
Martin Van Buren Inaugural Address Monday, March 4, 1837
Fellow-Citizens:
William Henry Harrison Inaugural Address Thursday, March 4, 1841
James Knox Polk Inaugural Address Tuesday, March 4, 1845
Fellow-Citizens:
Zachary Taylor Inaugural Address Monday, March 5, 1849
Franklin Pierce Inaugural Address Friday, March 4, 1853
My Countrymen:
James Buchanan Inaugural Address Wednesday, March 4, 1857
Fellow-Citizens:
Abraham Lincoln First Inaugural Address Monday, March 4, 1861
Fellow-Citizens of the United States:
Abraham Lincoln Second Inaugural Address Saturday, March 4, 1865
Fellow-Countrymen:
Ulysses S. Grant First Inaugural Address Thursday, March 4, 1869
Citizens of the United States:
Ulysses S. Grant Second Inaugural Address Tuesday, March 4, 1873
Fellow-Citizens:
Rutherford B. Hayes Inaugural Address Monday, March 5, 1877
Fellow-Citizens:
James A. Garfield Inaugural Address Friday, March 4, 1881
Fellow-Citizens:
Grover Cleveland First Inaugural Address Wednesday, March 4, 1885
Fellow-Citizens:
Benjamin Harrison Inaugural Address Monday, March 4, 1889
Fellow-Citizens:
Grover Cleveland Second Inaugural Address Saturday, March 4, 1893
My Fellow-Citizens:
William McKinley First Inaugural Address Thursday, March 4, 1897
Fellow-Citizens:
William McKinley Second Inaugural Address Monday, March 4, 1901
My Fellow-Citizens:
Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural Address Saturday, March 4, 1905
William Howard Taft Inaugural Address Thursday, March 4, 1909
My Fellow-Citizens:
Woodrow Wilson First Inaugural Address Tuesday, March 4, 1913
Woodrow Wilson Second Inaugural Address Monday, March 5, 1917
My Fellow Citizens:
Warren G. Harding Inaugural Address Friday, March 4, 1921
My Countrymen:
Calvin Coolidge Inaugural Address Wednesday, March 4, 1925
My Countrymen:
Herbert Hoover Inaugural Address Monday, March 4, 1929
My Countrymen:
CONCLUSION
Franklin D. Roosevelt First Inaugural Address Saturday, March 4, 1933
Franklin D. Roosevelt Second Inaugural Address Wednesday, January 20,
Franklin D. Roosevelt Third Inaugural Address Monday, January 20, 1941
Franklin D. Roosevelt Fourth Inaugural Address Saturday, January 20,
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
THE PRICE OF PEACE
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,
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
My fellow citizens:
Bill Clinton Second Inaugural Address January 20, 1997
My fellow citizens:
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, Second Inaugural Address, Monday, January 21, 2013