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Chicago Public Libr
CHICAGO PUBLIC LIBRARY j
81.4
'NRAD SULZER REGIONAL
,U55
2001
4455 LINCOLN AVE.
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS 60625 RDFPT40S171
SULZER
I do solemnly swear : the inaugural addr
Chicago Public Library
I Do Solemnly Swear
The Inaugural Addresses of the Presidents
of the United States,
1789-2001
with an introduction by
Arthur M. Schlesinger, jr.
and commentary by
Fred L. Israel
Chelsea House Publishers
Philadelphia
CHELSEA HOUSE PUBLISHERS
The Chelsea House World Wide Web address is:
http://www.chelseahouse.com
Originally published by Crown Publishers, Inc. © 1965
Copyright © 2001 by Chelsea House Publishers, a subsidiary of
Haights Cross Communications. All rights reserved.
Printed and bound in Malaysia.
35798642
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
United States. President.
I do solemnly swear : the inaugural addresses of the presidents of the United States,
1789-2001 / with an introduction by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., and commentary by Fred
L. Israel,
p. cm.
Enl., updated ed. of: The chief executive. New York : Crown Publishers, 1965.
ISBN 0-7910-6620-7 (alk. paper)
1. Presidents—United States—Inaugural addresses. I. Israel, Fred L. II. United States.
President. Chief executive. III. Title.
J81.4 .U55 2001
352.23'86'0973—dc21
2001037166
Table of Contents
Introduction by Arthur M. Schlesinger, jr. v
George Washington
First Inaugural Address 1
Second Inaugural Address 5
John Adams 7
Thomas Jefferson
First Inaugural Address 14
Second Inaugural Address 19
James Madison
First Inaugural Address 26
Second Inaugural Address 30
James Monroe
First Inaugural Address 35
Second Inaugural Address 44
John Quincy Adams 56
Andrew Jackson
First Inaugural Address 65
Second Inaugural Address 69
Martin Van Buren 75
William Henry Harrison 86
James K. Polk 107
Zachary T aylor 121
Franklin Pierce 125
James Buchanan 135
Abraham Lincoln
First Inaugural Address 144
Second Inaugural Address 155
Ulysses S. Grant
First Inaugural Address 158
Second Inaugural Address 163
Rutherford B. Hayes 169
James A. Garfield 177
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*
Contents
IV
Grover Cleveland (First Inaugural) 186
Benjamin Harrison 192
Grover Cleveland (Second Inaugural) 204
William McKinley
First Inaugural Address 211
Second Inaugural Address 223
Theodore Roosevelt 230
William Howard Taft 234
Woodrow Wilson
First Inaugural Address 249
Second Inaugural Address 255
Warren G. Harding 260
Calvin Coolidge 270
Herbert Hoover 281
Franklin D. Roosevelt
First Inaugural Address 292
Second Inaugural Address 298
Third Inaugural Address 304
Fourth Inaugural Address 309
Harry S. Truman 312
Dwight D. Eisenhower
First Inaugural Address 322
Second Inaugural Address 331
John F. Kennedy 338
Lyndon Baines Johnson 345
Richard M. Nixon
First Inaugural Address 352
Second Inaugural Address 360
Jimmy Carter 369
Ronald Reagan
First Inaugural Address 376
Second Inaugural Address 386
George H. W. Bush 396
William J. Clinton
First Inaugural Address 404
Second Inaugural Address 412
George W. Bush 422
Introduction
By Arthur M. Schlesinger, jr.
I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of
President of the United States, and will, to the best of my Ability, preserve,
protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States
—Oath as prescribed in the Constitution,
Article II, Section 1
* * *
America has no more solemn rite than the inauguration of a Presi¬
dent. Every four years since 1789 the austere ceremony has suspended
the passions of politics to permit an interlude of national reunion.
"We have called by different names brethren of the same principle."
said Jefferson after one of the angriest elections of our history. "We
are all Republicans, we are all Federalist." Putting doubts and dis¬
agreements aside, the nation listens for a moment as one people to
the words of the man they have chosen for the highest office in the
land. And every President, as he takes the oath, has his opportunity
to confide to his countrymen his philosophy of government, his con¬
ception of the Presidency, and his vision of the future "to recall what
our place in history has been," as Franklin Roosevelt said at his third
inauguration (1941), "and to rediscover what we are and what we
may be." Some have done this more arrestingly than others; but to¬
gether the inaugural addresses offer an unusual panorama of Ameri¬
can history.
George Washington delivered the first inaugural address from a
balcony at Federal Hall in New York City's Wall Street; he gave the
second indoors at Congress Hall in Philadelphia. The first
inauguration to be held in Washington was Thomas Jefferson's in
the Senate Chamber of the Capitol in 1801. Not till James Monroe's
inauguration in 1817 did the ceremony in Washington take place out¬
doors. Thereafter, inaugurations were open to the public. Until re¬
cently, most presidents were inaugurated at the Capitol's East Por¬
tico; since Ronald Reagan in 1981, the ceremony has moved over to
the West Portico.
%
Introduction
VI
James Madison, urged on by his vivacious wife Dolley, held the
first official inaugural ball in 1809. John Quincy Adams in 1825 was
the first president to reject traditional breeches at his inauguration
and wear long trousers. Martin Van Buren in 1837 was the first presi¬
dent actually born in the United States. James K. Polk's inauguration
(1845) was the first to be reported by telegraph; James Buchanan's
(1857), the first to be photographed; William McKinley's (1897), the
first to be filmed; Calvin Coolidge's (1925), the first to be carried live
on radio; Harry Truman's (1949), the first to be televised; Bill Clinton's
(1997), the first to be put on the internet.
The long parade of inaugural addresses records the growth of the
United States from the predominantly rural nation of 1789, made up
of four million people in thirteen states straggling along the Atlantic
seaboard, into the mighty computerized society of today, with more
than two hundred eighty million in fifty states stretching from sea to
sea and thrusting into the Pacific and toward the Arctic Circle. The
addresses record, too, the parallel transformation of a weak nation iso¬
lated on the periphery of the world politics into the most powerful
nation known to history, with interest and obligations everywhere
on earth.
At the same time, these addresses reflect the tragic problems that
growth and change have brought to the American community. The
idyllic days when John Adams talked of our "national innocence,"
when Monroe spoke of "the happy Government under which we live,"
when Polk asked, "Who shall assign limits to the achievements of
free minds and free hands under the protection of this glorious
Union?" have given way to the somber apprehensions that have shad¬
owed the inaugural pronouncements of the last generation. "Dark
pictures and gloomy forebodings are worse than useless," said
McKinley as late as 1901; but his successor, Theodore Roosevelt, could
not escape the troubling proposition: "Never before have men tried
so vast and formidable an experiment as that of administering the
affairs of a continent under the form of a democratic republic." Power
gave new perplexity to both domestic and foreign affairs.
So the rise of industrialism throughout the nineteenth century
brought grave problems in its wake. As early as 1889 Benjamin
Harrison began to worry about "our great corporations," and four
years later Cleveland described them as too often "conspiracies against
the interest of the people." At the same time, Cleveland, warning
