
Inauguration Day Addresses
ome of the greatest instances of American oratory have come forth on Inauguration Day, spoken by men chosen by their countrymen to guard our Constitution and represent our collective will. Like so many of our traditions, it was begun by our nation’s first President, the inimitable George Washington, and done so of his own accord—like his example of a limited, two-term Presidency, and the swearing of the oath upon the Bible. The tradition of a public inaugural address has been adopted by each of his successors. Representing the eras and ideologies of passing times, a President’s first speech to the nation has come to represent in large part the spirit of the age in which he was elected, along with the goals of his administration, embodying on a global stage Van Til’s principle of “culture is religion externalized.”
 Inauguration Day, January 20, 2017—President Trump’s first inauguration
Just as the young King Josiah of the Bible gathered his people together and read to them from the lost Book of the Covenant and pledged to follow God’s Law and tear down the high places of His enemies, so it is customary for all leaders of Christian countries to come before their peoples and rededicate themselves and their dependents to the King of Kings in whose hands the heart of rulers is like clay.
 King Josiah hearing God’s Law for the first time, after it was lost for several generations
The following excerpts are drawn from three different inaugural addresses, each well received, representing their giver’s intentions and the forthrightness of their moral codes. In each—from the first address given at the birth of our nation, to the second at the dawning of modernity, and the third amidst the strife of the Cold War—there is the connecting thread of gratitude for our exceptional inheritance and submission to the God of Nations, while appealing for a continuation of His favor on us all.
 Inauguration Day, January 20, 2017—President Trump’s first inauguration, aerial view
Saving comes from the Lord Most High, and blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord and the people He has chosen for His own inheritance. Our rulers are directly appointed as methods of blessing or judgement upon us all, and in a republic such as ours, with the precious and greatly-threatened right of self-determination, these secured four years to come are cause for gratitude and rejoicing as well as renewed incentive for pressing the crown rights of Christ into every realm. If He is for us, who can be against us?

George Washington’s first inaugural address, given in New York, April 30, 1789:
“Fellow-Citizens of the Senate and of the House of Representatives:
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...
 George Washington’s first inauguration, New York, April 30, 1789
 Federal Hall, New York City, site of George Washington’s first inauguration, portrayed here—this building was demolished in 1812
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...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...”

Theodore Roosevelt’s second inaugural address, March 4, 1905:
“My fellow-citizens, no people on earth have more cause to be thankful than ours, and this is said reverently, in no spirit of boastfulness in our own strength, but with gratitude to the Giver of Good who has blessed us with the conditions which have enabled us to achieve so large a measure of well-being and of happiness. To us as a people it has been granted to lay the foundations of our national life in a new continent. We are the heirs of the ages, and yet we have had to pay few of the penalties which in old countries are exacted by the dead hand of a bygone civilization. We have not been obliged to fight for our existence against any alien race; and yet our life has called for the vigor and effort without which the manlier and hardier virtues wither away. Under such conditions it would be our own fault if we failed; and the success which we have had in the past, the success which we confidently believe the future will bring, should cause in us no feeling of vainglory, but rather a deep and abiding realization of all which life has offered us; a full acknowledgment of the responsibility which is ours; and a fixed determination to show that under a free government a mighty people can thrive best, alike as regards the things of the body and the things of the soul...
 Teddy Roosevelt’s second inauguration at the East Front of the US Capitol, Washington, DC, March 4, 1905
Much has been given us, and much will rightfully be expected from us. We have duties to others and duties to ourselves; and we can shirk neither. We have become a great nation, forced by the fact of its greatness into relations with the other nations of the earth, and we must behave as beseems a people with such responsibilities. Toward all other nations, large and small, our attitude must be one of cordial and sincere friendship. We must show not only in our words, but in our deeds, that we are earnestly desirous of securing their good will by acting toward them in a spirit of just and generous recognition of all their rights. But justice and generosity in a nation, as in an individual, count most when shown not by the weak but by the strong. While ever careful to refrain from wrongdoing others, we must be no less insistent that we are not wronged ourselves. We wish peace, but we wish the peace of justice, the peace of righteousness. We wish it because we think it is right and not because we are afraid. No weak nation that acts manfully and justly should ever have cause to fear us, and no strong power should ever be able to single us out as a subject for insolent aggression...
 Panoramic of Teddy Roosevelt’s second inauguration at the East Front of the US Capitol, Washington, DC, March 4, 1905
...Though the problems are new, though the tasks set before us differ from the tasks set before our fathers who founded and preserved this Republic, the spirit in which these tasks must be undertaken and these problems faced, if our duty is to be well done, remains essentially unchanged. We know that self-government is difficult. We know that no people needs such high traits of character as that people which seeks to govern its affairs aright through the freely expressed will of the freemen who compose it. But we have faith that we shall not prove false to the memories of the men of the mighty past. They did their work, they left us the splendid heritage we now enjoy. We in our turn have an assured confidence that we shall be able to leave this heritage unwasted and enlarged to our children and our children’s children. To do so we must show, not merely in great crises, but in the everyday affairs of life, the qualities of practical intelligence, of courage, of hardihood, and endurance, and above all the power of devotion to a lofty ideal, which made great the men who founded this Republic in the days of Washington...”

John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address, January 20, 1961:
“We observe today not a victory of party but a celebration of freedom—symbolizing an end as well as a beginning—signifying renewal as well as change. For I have sworn before you and Almighty God the same solemn oath our forbears prescribed nearly a century and three-quarters ago.
The world is very different now. For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty and all forms of human life. And yet the same revolutionary beliefs for which our forebears fought are still at issue around the globe—the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state but from the hand of God.
 John F. Kennedy being sworn in as 35th President of the United States at the East Portico of the United States Capitol in Washington, DC, January 20, 1961
We dare not forget today that we are the heirs of that first revolution. Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans—born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage—and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today at home and around the world.
Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty...
 John F. Kennedy giving his inaugural address
In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility—I welcome it. I do not believe that any of us would exchange places with any other people or any other generation. The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it—and the glow from that fire can truly light the world.
And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.
 President John F. Kennedy and his wife, First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, arrive at the Inaugural Ball the evening of JFK’s inauguration
Finally, whether you are citizens of America or citizens of the world, ask of us here the same high standards of strength and sacrifice which we ask of you. With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God’s work must truly be our own.”

Image Credits:
1 Inauguration Day, 2017 (wikipedia.org)
2 King Josiah (wikipedia.org)
3 Inauguration Day, 2017, aerial (wikipedia.org)
4 Washington swearing in (wikipedia.org)
5 Federal Hall (wikipedia.org)
6 T. Roosevelt’s Inauguration (wikipedia.org)
7 Panoramic of T. Roosevelt’s Inauguration (wikipedia.org)
8 JFK swearing in (wikipedia.org)
9 JFK Inaugural Address (wikipedia.org)
10 Kennedys at Inaugural Ball (wikipedia.org)
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