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Diagrams of
Sentences from the
Inaugural Addresses
of the
Forty-Four Presidents of
the United States by
Eugene R. Moutoux |
| Five U.S. presidents did not deliver an inaugural
address: John Tyler, Millard Fillmore, Andrew Johnson, Chester Arthur, and
Gerald Ford. With respect to the first four, I substituted sentences from their first annual messages. In
the case of Gerald Ford, I used a sentence from a brief speech he gave
upon taking the oath of office following the resignation of Richard Nixon.
One president, Grover Cleveland, was both the 22nd and the 24th president.
I selected one sentence from each of his inaugural addresses. I have tried
to choose sentences that impress me for historical, intellectual, and
linguistic reasons, not by reason of partisan political content. I welcome
your comments. Please write to me at ermoutoux@juno.com. |
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Page Two of Four Planned Pages
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| In due time, as our stability becomes manifest, as more and
more nations come to know the benefits of democracy and to participate in
growing abundance, I believe that those countries which now oppose us will
abandon their delusions and join with the free nations of the world in a
just settlement of international differences.
Harry S. Truman (33), Inaugural Address (January 20,
1949) |
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| Recognition of the falsity of material wealth as the
standard of success goes hand in hand with the abandonment of the false
belief that public office and high political position are to be valued
only by the standards of pride of place and personal profit; and there
must be an end to a conduct in banking and in business which too often has
given to a sacred trust the likeness of callous and selfish wrongdoing.
Franklin D. Roosevelt (32), First Inaugural Address
(March 4, 1933) |
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| They [superficial observers] fail to realize that because
of our abounding prosperity our youth are pressing more and more into our
institutions of learning; that our people are seeking a larger vision
through art, literature, science, and travel; that they are moving toward
stronger moral and spiritual life—that from these things our sympathies
are broadening beyond the bounds of our Nation and race toward their true
expression in a real brotherhood of man.
Herbert Hoover (31), Inaugural Address (March 4, 1929) |
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| We can not barter away our independence or our sovereignty,
but we ought to engage in no refinements of logic, no sophistries, and no
subterfuges, to argue away the undoubted duty of this country by reason of
the might of its numbers, the power of its resources, and its position of
leadership in the world, actively and comprehensively to signify its
approval and to bear its full share of the responsibility of a candid and
disinterested attempt at the establishment of a tribunal for the
administration of even-handed justice between nation and nation.
Calvin Coolidge (30), Inaugural Address (March 4, 1925) |
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| Because we cherish ideals of justice and peace, because we
appraise international comity and helpful relationship no less highly than
any people of the world, we aspire to a high place in the moral leadership
of civilization, and we hold a maintained America, the proven Republic,
the unshaken temple of representative democracy, to be not only an
inspiration and example, but the highest agency of strengthening good will
and promoting accord on both continents.
Warren G. Harding (29), Inaugural Address (March 4,
1921) |
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| We have been proud of our industrial achievements, but we
have not hitherto stopped thoughtfully enough to count the human cost, the
cost of lives snuffed out, of energies overtaxed and broken, the fearful
physical and spiritual cost to the men and women and children upon whom
the dead weight and burden of it all has fallen pitilessly the years
through.
Woodrow Wilson (28), First Inaugural Address (March 4,
1913) |
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| We should have an army so organized and so officered as to
be capable in time of emergency, in cooperation with the national militia
and under the provisions of a proper national volunteer law, rapidly to
expand into a force sufficient to resist all probable invasion from abroad
and to furnish a respectable expeditionary force if necessary in the
maintenance of our traditional American policy which bears the name of
President Monroe.
William Howard Taft (27), Inaugural Address (March 4,
1909) |
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| There is no good reason why we should fear the future, but
there is every reason why we should face it seriously, neither hiding from
ourselves the gravity of the problems before us nor fearing to approach
these problems with the unbending, unflinching purpose to solve them
aright.
Theodore Roosevelt (26), Inaugural Address (March 4,
1905) |
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| It will be my constant aim to do nothing, and permit
nothing to be done, that will arrest or disturb this growing sentiment of
unity and cooperation, this revival of esteem and affiliation which now
animates so many thousands in both the old antagonistic sections, but I
shall cheerfully do everything possible to promote and increase it.
William McKinley (25), First Inaugural Address (March 4,
1897) |
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| While every American citizen must contemplate with the
utmost pride and enthusiasm the growth and expansion of our country, the
sufficiency of our institutions to stand against the rudest shocks of
violence, the wonderful thrift and enterprise of our people, and the
demonstrated superiority of our free government, it behooves us to
constantly watch for every symptom of insidious infirmity that threatens
our national vigor.
Grover Cleveland (24), Second Inaugural Address (March
4, 1893) |
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| And when the harvests from the fields, the cattle from the
hills, and the ores of the earth shall have been weighed, counted, and
valued, we will turn from them all to crown with the highest honor the
State that has most promoted education, virtue, justice, and patriotism
among its people.
Benjamin Harrison (23), Inaugural Address (March 4,
1889) |
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