The State of the Union Address is an annual message delivered by the president of the United States to a joint session of the United States Congress near the beginning of most calendar years on the current condition of the nation. The State of the Union Address generally includes reports on the nation's budget, economy, news, agenda, progress, achievements and the president's priorities and legislative proposals.
The 1987 State of the Union Address was given by the 40th president of the United States, Ronald Reagan, on January 27, 1987, at 9:00 p.m. EST, in the chamber of the United States House of Representatives to the 100th United States Congress. It was Reagan's sixth State of the Union Address and his seventh speech to a joint session of the United States Congress. Presiding over this joint session was the House speaker, Jim Wright, accompanied by George H. W. Bush, the vice president.
The 1810 State of the Union Address was given during the first term of President James Madison, the fourth president of the United States. It was given on Wednesday, December 5, 1810 in Washington, D.C. It was "concerning the commercial intercourse between the United States and Great Britain and France and their dependencies having invited in a new form a termination of their edicts against our neutral commerce." It was addressed to the Senate and House of Representatives, it was given right before the War of 1812 began. It was given to the 11th United States Congress, which contains both Houses.
The state of union is an address, in the United States, given by the president to a joint session of Congress, the United States House of Representatives and United States Senate. The United States constitution requires the president "from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union." Today the state of the union address is given as a speech, though this is not a requirement of the constitution. George Washington chose to address the congress in a speech annually; on October 25, 1791, he gave his third speech.
The 1955 State of the Union Address was given by the 34th president of the United States, Dwight D. Eisenhower, on Thursday, January 6, 1955, to the 84th United States Congress. He said, "Every citizen wants to give full expression to his God-given talents and abilities and to have the recognition and respect accorded under our religious and political traditions." He also said, "To protect our nations and our peoples from the catastrophe of a "nuclear holocaust", free nations must maintain countervailing military power to persuade the Communists of the futility of seeking their ends through aggression." He is referring to what seemed to be the high likelihood of nuclear warfare of the time. He ended with, "And so, I know with all my heart--and I deeply believe that all Americans know--that, despite the anxieties of this divided world, our faith, and the cause in which we all believe, will surely prevail." This address was given in his first term (1953-1957), in Washington, D.C.
The 1956 State of the Union Address was delivered by Dwight D. Eisenhower, the 34th president of the United States, on Friday, January 5, 1956, to both houses of the 84th United States Congress in written format. Eisenhower did not deliver a speech before a joint session of Congress because he had suffered a major heart attack four months prior and was recovering in Key West, Florida. Instead, Eisenhower opted to pre-record remarks from his office at the Naval Air Station in Key West summarizing his State of the Union Address which were broadcast to the nation in the evening on January 5.
The 1940 State of the Union Address was given by the 32nd president of the United States, Franklin D. Roosevelt, on Wednesday, January 3, 1940, to both houses of 76th United States Congress. It was given after World War II had begun, but before the fall of France, and about a year before the United States entered the war.. He said, "You are well aware that dictatorships--and the philosophy of force that justifies and accompanies dictatorships--have originated in almost every case in the necessity for drastic action to improve internal conditions in places where democratic action for one reason or another has failed to respond to modern needs and modern demands."
The 1914 State of the Union Address was given by Woodrow Wilson, the 28th United States president, on Tuesday, December 8, 1914, to both houses of 63rd United States Congress. He concluded it with, "To develop our life and our resources; to supply our own people, and the people of the world as their need arises, from the abundant plenty of our fields and our marts of trade to enrich the commerce of our own States and of the world with the products of our mines, our farms, and our factories, with the creations of our thought and the fruits of our character,-this is what will hold our attention and our enthusiasm steadily, now and in the years to come, as we strive to show in our life as a nation what liberty and the inspirations of an emancipated spirit may do for men and for societies, for individuals, for states, and for mankind."
The 1901 State of the Union Address was given on Tuesday, December 3, 1901, by the 26th president of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt. It was presented to both houses of the 57th United States Congress, but he was not present. He stated, "The Congress assembles this year under the shadow of a great calamity. On the sixth of September, President McKinley was shot by an anarchist while attending the Pan-American Exposition at Buffalo, and died in that city on the fourteenth of that month." He concluded it with, "Indeed, from every quarter of the civilized world we received, at the time of the President's death, assurances of such grief and regard as to touch the hearts of our people. In the midst of our affliction we reverently thank the Almighty that we are at peace with the nations of mankind; and we firmly intend that our policy shall be such as to continue unbroken these international relations of mutual respect and good will."
The 1792 State of the Union Address was delivered by George Washington to Congress on Tuesday, November 6, 1792. It was presented in Philadelphia's Congress Hall.
The 1801 State of the Union Address was written by Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States, on December 8, 1801. It was his first annual address and presented in Washington, D.C. He did not speak it to the 7th United States Congress because he thought that would make him seem like a king. A clerk instead read : "Whilst we devoutly return thanks to the beneficent Being who has been pleased to breathe into them the spirit of conciliation and forgiveness, we are bound with peculiar gratitude to be thankful to Him that our own peace has been preserved through so perilous a season, and ourselves permitted quietly to cultivate the earth and to practice and improve those arts which tend to increase our comforts."
The 1912 State of the Union Address was given on Tuesday, December 3, 1912. It was written by William H. Taft, the 27th president of the United States. He stated, "The position of the United States in the moral, intellectual, and material relations of the family of nations should be a matter of vital interest to every patriotic citizen." He said, "Our small Army now consists of 83,809 men, excluding the 5,000 Philippine scouts. Leaving out of consideration the Coast Artillery force, whose position is fixed in our various seacoast defenses, and the present garrisons of our various insular possessions, we have to-day within the continental United States a mobile Army of only about 35,000 men. This little force must be still further drawn upon to supply the new garrisons for the great naval base which is being established at Pearl Harbor, in the Hawaiian Islands, and to protect the locks now rapidly approaching completion at Panama."
The 1814 State of the Union Address was given by the fourth president of the United States, James Madison, to the 13th United States Congress. It was given on Tuesday, September 20, 1814, during the height of the War of 1812. It was given during President Madison's turbulent second term. One month after he gave the speech, the British burning of Washington occurred on August 24, and President Madison fled and lived in The Octagon House. Madison lived there until 1816, until the White House could be rebuilt. The three key points are:
The 1815 State of the Union Address was given by the fourth president of the United States, James Madison. It was given to the 14th United States Congress on Tuesday, December 5, 1815, but not verbally by the president. The War of 1812 was over, and he said, "It is another source of satisfaction that the treaty of peace with Great Britain has been succeeded by a convention on the subject of commerce concluded by the plenipotentiaries of the two countries. In this result a disposition is manifested on the part of that nation corresponding with the disposition of the United States, which it may be hoped will be improved into liberal arrangements on other subjects on which the parties have mutual interests, or which might endanger their future harmony." He concluded with, "As fruits of this experience and of the reputation acquired by the American arms on the land and on the water, the nation finds itself possessed of a growing respect abroad and of a just confidence in itself, which are among the best pledges for its peaceful career."
The 1824 State of the Union Address was written by James Monroe, the 5th president of the United States. Delivered to the 18th United States Congress on Tuesday, December 7, 1824. James Monroe presided over the Era of Good Feelings. He began with, "The view which I have now to present to you of our affairs, foreign and domestic, realizes the most sanguine anticipations which have been entertained of the public prosperity. If we look to the whole, our growth as a nation continues to be rapid beyond example;" He ended with, "From the present prosperous and happy state I derive a gratification which I can not express. That these blessings may be preserved and perpetuated will be the object of my fervent and unceasing prayers to the Supreme Ruler of the Universe." In the middle of the address, Mr. Monroe said, "There is no object which as a people we can desire which we do not possess or which is not within our reach. Blessed with governments the happiest which the world ever knew, with no distinct orders in society or divided interests in any portion of the vast territory over which their dominion extends, we have every motive to cling together which can animate a virtuous and enlightened people." James Monroe, a founder of his country, predicts that his country will become a world power, and must animate with virtue and enlightenment.
The 1916 State of the Union Address was given by Woodrow Wilson, the 28th president of the United States, on Tuesday, December 5, 1916. He personally addressed the 64th United States Congress. It was given on the eve of the United States' intervention in World War I. He said, "And, sixth, the lodgment in the hands of the Executive of the power, in case of military necessity, to take control of such portions and such rolling stock of the railways of the country as may be required for military use and to operate them for military purposes, with authority to draft into the military service of the United States such train crews and administrative officials as the circumstances require for their safe and efficient use."
The 1917 State of the Union Address was given by Woodrow Wilson, the 28th president of the United States on Tuesday, December 4, 1917, during his turbulent second term. He spoke in the United States House of Representatives chamber, in the United States Capitol. He said, "I shall not go back to debate the causes of the war. The intolerable wrongs done and planned against us by the sinister masters of Germany have long since become too grossly obvious and odious to every true American to need to be rehearsed." He addressed the 65th United States Congress, and spoke of World War I. He ended with, "A supreme moment of history has come. The eyes of the people have been opened and they see. The hand of God is laid upon the nations. He will show them favor, I devoutly believe, only if they rise to the clear heights of His own justice and mercy." In the middle of the speech, he said this about the German Empire, "The worst that can happen to the detriment the German people is this, that if they should still, after the war is over, continue to be obliged to live under ambitious and intriguing masters interested to disturb the peace of the world, men or classes of men whom the other peoples of the world could not trust, it might be impossible to admit them to the partnership of nations which must henceforth guarantee the world's peace." He is saying that empires' do not promote world peace. A year after he gave this speech, on December 4, 1918, the United States military would swallow Germany in victory, and the saying that is written would come true, "Death has been swallowed up in victory."
The 1918 State of the Union Address was given by the 28th president of the United States, Woodrow Wilson, on Monday, December 2, 1918, to the houses of the 65th United States Congress. He gave these war statistics, "A year ago we had sent 145,918 men overseas. Since then we have sent 1,950,513, an average of 162,542 each month, the number in fact rising, in May last, to 245,951, in June to 278,760, in July to 307,182, and continuing to reach similar figures in August and September, in August 289,570 and in September 257,438." By the end of 1918, America had won the peace, and World War I was over. He said, "And throughout it all how fine the spirit of the nation was: what unity of purpose, what untiring zeal!" He ended with, "I shall make my absence as brief as possible and shall hope to return with the happy assurance that it has been possible to translate into action the great ideals for which America has striven."
The 1805 State of the Union Address was given by the third president of the United States, Thomas Jefferson, on Tuesday, December 3, 1805. He did not give it directly to the 9th United States Congress, but only presented his written address. It was the first of his second term in the White House. He began with, "At a moment when the nations of Europe are in commotion and arming against each other, and when those with whom we have principal intercourse are engaged in the general contest, and when the countenance of some of them toward our peaceable country threatens that even that may not be unaffected by what is passing on the general theater, a meeting of the representatives of the nation in both Houses of Congress has become more than usually desirable." He ended with, "On this first occasion of addressing Congress since, by the choice of my constituents, I have entered on a second term of administration, I embrace the opportunity to give this public assurance that I will exert my best endeavors to administer faithfully the executive department, and will zealously cooperate with you in every measure which may tend to secure the liberty, property, and personal safety of our fellow citizens, and to consolidate the republican forms and principles of our Government."
The 1793 State of the Union Address was given by George Washington, the first president of the United States. It was given in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania at Congress Hall. Washington stood before the 3rd United States Congress on Tuesday, December 3, 1793, and said, "While on the one hand it awakened my gratitude for all those instances of affectionate partiality with which I have been honored by my country, on the other it could not prevent an earnest wish for that retirement from which no private consideration should ever have torn me." He ended with, "Permit me to bring to your remembrance the magnitude of your task. Without an unprejudiced coolness the welfare of the Government may be hazarded; without harmony as far as consists with freedom of sentiment its dignity may be lost."
