Analyze
Washington’s First Inaugural Address
Genre: Speech | Creator: George Washington | Date: 1789
Background
George Washington delivered his first inaugural address to a joint session of Congress on April 30, 1789, in New York City, the temporary seat of the U.S. government. Originally, the inauguration had been planned for the beginning of March, but because of bad weather, the electoral vote could not be tallied until April 6, 1789. Washington won unanimously.
Fellow-Citizens of the Senate and of the House of Representatives:
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, farther 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 . . . 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 as deeply, perhaps as finally, staked, on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American People.
Excerpted from George Washington’s First Inaugural Address, 1789.
