44

We will have a new President today and I more proud and hopeful than I can possibly express.  So today, I will leave it to people who were eminently more qualified and capable to speak on and about this day than I ever could be.  I am humbled by their words.

"I was summoned by my country, whose voice I can never hear but with veneration and love"   - George Washington's first inaugural speech, April 30, 1789

"A rising nation, spread over a wide and fruitful land, traversing all the seas with the rich productions of their industry, engaged in commerce with other nations who feel power and forget right, advancing rapidly to destinies beyond the reach of mortal eye- when I contemplate these transcendent objects, and see the honor, the happiness, and the hopes of this beloved country committed to the issue and auspices of the day, I shrink from the contemplation and humble myself before the magnitude of the undertaking".   - Thomas Jefferson's first inaugural speech, March 4, 1801

We are not enemies, but friends.  We must not be enemies.  Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection.  The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature".   - Abraham Lincoln's first inaugural speech, March 4th, 1861

"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself- nameless, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance"  - Franklin D. Roosevelt's first inaugural speech, March 4th 1933

"My fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you- ask what you can do for your country.  My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man".  - John F. Kennedy's inaugural speech, January 20th, 1961

"Our democracy must be not only the envy of the world, but the engine of our own renewal.  There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America"   - William J. Clinton's first inaugural speech, January 20th, 1993