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Remarks of President Barack Obama
Inaugural Address
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Washington, D.C.
January 20, 2009
My fellow citizens:
I stand here today humbled by the task before us, grateful for the trust you’ve bestowed, mindful of the sacrifices borne by our ancestors. I thank President Bush for his service to our nation, as well as the generosity and cooperation he has shown throughout this transition.
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Addresses the Nation, September 11, 2001
George W. Bush
THE PRESIDENT
Good evening. Today, our fellow citizens, our way of life, our very freedom came under attack in a series of deliberate and deadly terrorist acts. The victims were in airplanes, or in their offices; secretaries, businessmen and women, military and federal workers; moms and dads, friends and neighbors. Thousands of lives were suddenly ended by evil, despicable acts of terror.
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Inaugural Addresses of the Presidents of the United States.
George W. Bush
January 20, 2001
President Clinton, distinguished guests and my fellow citizens, the peaceful transfer of authority is rare in history, yet common in our country. With a simple oath, we affirm old traditions and make new beginnings.
As I begin, I thank President Clinton for his service to our nation.
And I thank Vice President Gore for a contest conducted with spirit and ended with grace.
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1st State of the Union Address 1994
William Jefferson Clinton
Thank you very much. Mr. Speaker, Mr. President, members of the 103rdCongress, my fellow Americans: I'm not at all sure what speech is in the TelePrompter tonight, but I hope we can talk about the State of the Union .I ask you to begin by recalling the memory of the giant who presided over this Chamber with such force and grace. Tip O'Neill liked to call himself "a man of the House." And he surely was that. But, even more, he was a man of the people, a bricklayer's son who helped to build the great American middle class. Tip O'Neill never forgot who he was, where he came from, or who sent him here.
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Iraqi Aggression in the Persian Gulf, 1991
George H. W. Bush
Mr. President, Mr. Speaker, members of the Congress, distinguished guests, fellow Americans, thank you.
We gather tonight, witness to events in the Persian Gulf as significant as they are tragic. In the early morning hours of August 2nd, following negotiations and promises by Iraq's dictator, Saddam Hussein, not to use force, a powerful Iraqi army invaded its trusting and much weaker neighbor, Kuwait. Within three days, 120,000 Iraqi troops...
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Women's Rights are Human Rights
Hillary Rodham Clinton
Remarks to the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women Plenary Session in Beijing, China.
September 5, 1995
Mrs. Mongella, Under Secretary Kittani, distinguished delegates and guests:
I would like to thank the Secretary General of the United Nations for inviting me to be part of the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women. This is truly a celebration; a celebration of the...
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Address before the Democratic National Convention
Jesse Jackson
July 18, 1984, Wednesday
Tonight we come together bound by our faith in a mighty God, with genuine respect and love for our country, and inheriting the legacy of a great party, the Democratic Party, which is the best hope for redirecting our nation on a more humane, just and peaceful course.
This is not a perfect party. We are not a perfect people. Yet, we are called to a perfect mission: our mission to feed the hungry; to clothe the naked; to house the homeless; to teach...
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Address to the People of West Berlin
"Tear Down This Wall"
Ronald Reagan
June 12, 1987
Thank you very much. Chancellor Kohl, Governing Mayor Diepgen, ladies and gentlemen: Twenty-four years ago, President John F. Kennedy visited Berlin, speaking to the people of this city and the world at the city hall. Well, since then two other presidents have come, each in his turn, to Berlin. And today I, myself, make my second visit to your city.
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Address to the House of Commons ("Evil Empire" speech)
Ronald Reagan
Address to Members of the British Parliament
June 8, 1982
My Lord Chancellor, Mr. Speaker:
The journey of which this visit forms a part is a long one. Already it has taken me to two great cities of the West, Rome and Paris, and to the economic summit at Versailles. And there, once again, our sister democracies have proved that even in a time of severe economic strain, free peoples can work together freely and voluntarily to...
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Human Rights and Foreign Policy
Jimmy Carter
Nation: to provide more efficiently for the needs of our people, to demonstrate, against the dark faith of our times, that our Government can be both competent and more humane.
But I want to speak to you today about the strands that connect our actions overseas with our essential character as a nation. I believe we can have a foreign policy that is democratic, that is based on fundamental values, and that uses power and influence, which we have, for humane purposes.
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The American Promise
Lyndon B. Johnson
Just as the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868 had failed to secure full legal rights for the freed slaves, so the 1964 Civil Rights Act did not ensure the slaves' descendants their rightful place in society. In the 1860s, Congress had felt compelled to propose the Fifteenth Amendment to prevent states from restricting the ballot on the basis of race. Now, a century later, the time had come to make that promise a reality.
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"I Have A Dream"
Martin Luther King Jr
As far as black Americans were concerned, the nation's response to Brown was agonizingly slow, and neither state legislatures nor the Congress seemed willing to help their cause along. Finally, President John F. Kennedy recognized that only a strong civil rights bill would put teeth into the drive to secure equal protection of the laws for African Americans. On June 11, 1963, he proposed such a bill to Congress, asking for legislation that would provide "the kind of equality of treatment which we would want for ourselves." Southern representatives in Congress managed to....
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Address to the Southern Baptist Leaders
John F. Kennedy
The Protestant immigrants to the New World brought many things in their baggage, including a deep-seated distrust of Roman Catholicism. Although Catholics had been among the early settlers of the New World, they had been a minority in the thirteen colonies that eventually became the United States. Not until significant numbers of Catholics began migrating to the United States in the mid-nineteenth century did anti-Catholicism emerge as a potent, and ugly, political and social phenomenon.
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The Farewell Address of President
Dwight D. Eisenhower's
"Military-Industrial Complex", 1961
My fellow Americans:
Three days from now, after half a century in the service of our country, I shall lay down the responsibilities of office as, in traditional and solemn ceremony, the authority of the Presidency is vested in my successor. This evening I come to you with a message of leave-taking and farewell, and to share a few final thoughts with you, my countrymen.
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Chance for Peace Speech
Dwight D. Eisenhower
In this spring of 1953 the free world weighs one question above all others: the chance for a just peace for all peoples.
To weigh this chance is to summon instantly to mind another recent moment of great decision. It came with that yet more hopeful spring of 1945, bright with the promise of victory and of freedom. The hope of all just men in that moment too was a just and lasting peace.
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Inaugural Addresses of the Presidents of the United States.
Harry S. Truman
Thursday, January 20, 1949
Mr. Vice President, Mr. Chief Justice, and fellow citizens, I accept with humility the honor which the American people have conferred upon me. I accept it with a deep resolve to do all that I can for the welfare of this Nation and for the peace of the world.
In performing the duties of my office, I need the help and prayers of every one of you. I ask for your encouragement and your support. The tasks we face are difficult, and we can accomplish...
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The Four Freedoms
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
January 6, 1941
Mr. Speaker, members of the 77th Congress :
I address you, the members of this new Congress, at a moment unprecedented in the history of the union. I use the word "unprecedented" because at no previous time has American security been as seriously threatened from without as it is today.
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Abraham Lincoln : The Gettysburg Address
Nov. 19, 1863
Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of it as a final resting place for those who died here that the nation might live.
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The Farewell Address of President
George Washington
Sept. 17, 1796
Friends and Fellow-Citizens:
The period for a new election of a citizen, to administer the executive government of the United States, being not far distant, and the time actually arrived, when your thoughts must be employed designating the person, who is to be clothed with that important trust, it appears to me proper, especially as it may conduce to a more distinct expression of the public voice...
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Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death
March 23, 1775
By Patrick Henry
No man thinks more highly than I do of the patriotism, as well as abilities, of the very worthy gentlemen who have just addressed the house. But different men often see the same subject in different lights; and, therefore, I hope it will not be thought disrespectful to those gentlemen if, entertaining as I do opinions of a character very opposite to theirs, I shall speak forth my sentiments freely and without reserve. This is no time for ceremony. The question before the house is one of awful moment to this country. For my own part...
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Inaugural Addresses of the Presidents of the United States.
George Washington: Second Inaugural Address
In the City of Philadelphia, 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...
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Inaugural Addresses of the Presidents of the United States.
George Washington: First Inaugural Address
In the City of New York, 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...
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