The States of the Union

I am a firm believer that in order to judge the present and the future, we must first look to the past. With that said, the State of the Union is tomorrow. I will access this year's speech then, but before that; I will take you on a bit of history lesson through State of the Union speeches. From that first one in 1790 to the last one by President Obama a year ago; the State of the Union has given presidents the opportunity to lay out their agenda for the coming year and tell us where we stand on that day. Some have been during wars. Some have been during depressions and crises. And some have involved landmark decisions. They are what some historians look at as a basis for where we have come from and where some presidents might stand.

As with most things, why not start at the beginning. Looking at the State of the Union given by George Washington in 1790 we see multiple lines crossing as the nation was still building itself up. The Constitution was fresh and the Office of the President was still in its infancy. Part of Washington's speech sticks out to me. Washington said:

"To the security of a free constitution it contributes in various ways - by convincing those who are intrusted with the public administration that every valuable end of government is best answered by the enlightened confidence of the people, and by teaching the people themselves to know and to value their own rights; to discern and provide against invasions of them; to distinguish between oppression and the necessary exercise of lawful authority; between burthens proceeding from a disregard to their convenience and those resulting from the inevitable exigencies of society; to discriminate the spirit of liberty from that of licentiousness - cherishing the first, avoiding the last - and uniting a speedy but temperate vigilance against encroachments, with an inviolable respect to the laws."

President Washington saw the importance of the Constitution and the nation as a whole as they were going through a time of uncertainty. Uncertainty forming a federal government. Uncertainty with powers across the Atlantic. And uncertainty of what challenges lay ahead. But no matter what is what President Washington and that Congress to be the standard bearers. They were the ones who would lay the bricks and mortar for future generations.

He then spoke near the end his second term in office with his last State of the Union and what he and others did and what lay ahead. He said:

"The situation in which I now stand for the last time, in the midst of the representatives of the people of the United States, naturally recalls the period when the administration of the present form of government commenced, and I can not omit the occasion to congratulate you and my country on the success of the experiment, nor to repeat my fervent supplications to the Supreme Ruler of the Universe and Sovereign Arbiter of Nations that His providential care may still be extended to the United States, that the virtue and happiness of the people may be preserved, and that the Government which they have instituted for the protection of their liberties may be perpetual."

And with that, we launched ahead with two more years of addresses. In 1803, Thomas Jefferson hints at the need to go after the area west of the Mississippi River (Louisiana Territory):

"Whilst the property and sovereignty of the Mississippi and its waters secure an independent outlet for the produce of the Western States and an uncontrolled navigation through their whole course, free from collision with other powers and the dangers to our peace from that source, the fertility of the country, its climate and extent, promise in due season important aids to our Treasury, an ample provision for our posterity, and a wide spread for the blessings of freedom and equal laws."

In 1814, James Madison had to bring Congress together and report on the tumultuous state of the country as a war was brewing with Great Britain. He laid it out as such:

"The American people will face it with the undaunted spirit which in their revolutionary struggle defeated his unrighteous projects. His threats and his barbarities, instead of dismay, will kindle in every bosom an indignation not be extinguished but in the disaster and expulsion of such cruel invaders."

It was the first time that a president had to come before the Congress and report on what would be an unstable nation in a time of war. A decade later James Monroe would lay the groundwork for the Monroe Doctrine:

"A precise knowledge of our relations with foreign powers as respects our negotiations and transactions with each is thought to be particularly necessary. Equally necessary is it that we should form a just estimate of our resources, revenue, and progress in every kind of improvement connected with the national prosperity and public defense. It is by rendering justice to other nations that we may expect it from them. It is by our ability to resent injuries and redress wrongs that we may avoid them."

In 1845, James Polk would come before Congress and lay out what in my opinion was one of the most fulfilled State of the Unions. President Polk laid out such things as acquiring the Texas territory and expanding on previous years of westward thoughts and expand the country to the Pacific Ocean. Some might have thought his speech to be lofty, but he spent one term attacking each thing to the about the fullest you could imagine.

In 1860, James Buchanan would speak to Congress in the aftermath of the Election of 1860 and the election of Abraham Lincoln. Throughout the 1850s, there was a growing divide between the North and the South and at its root was the institution of slavery. President Buchanan in his last State of the Union said:

"The Southern States, standing on the basis of the Constitution, have right to demand this act of justice from the States of the North. Should it be refused, then the Constitution, to which all the States are parties, will have been willfully violated by one portion of them in a provision essential to the domestic security and happiness of the remainder. In that event the injured States, after having first used all peaceful and constitutional means to obtain redress, would be justified in revolutionary resistance to the Government of the Union."

This type of language, for its worth, puts President Buchanan near the bottom of the list of presidents all-time. He did not want to anger the South, but only aided their opinions and views. And it would be President Lincoln the following year who would lay out the growing concerns and turmoil of a nation that was divided. No president up to that point nor since has had to deal with such a divided nation. Looking back Lincoln stated:

"A disloyal portion of the American people have during the whole year been engaged in an attempt to divide and destroy the Union. A nation which endures factious domestic division is exposed to disrespect abroad, and one party, if not both, is sure sooner or later to invoke foreign intervention."

Then he framed the current condition and braced the Congress for what lay ahead with:

"The last ray of hope for preserving the Union peaceably expired at the assault upon Fort Sumter, and a general review of what has occurred since may not be unprofitable. What was painfully uncertain then is much better defined and more distinct now, and the progress of events is plainly in the right direction. The insurgents confidently claimed a strong support from north of Mason and Dixon's line, and the friends of the Union were not free from apprehension on the point. This, however, was soon settled definitely, and on the right side. South of the line noble little Delaware led off right from the first. Maryland was made to seem against the Union. Our soldiers were assaulted, bridges were burned, and railroads torn up within her limits, and we were many days at one time without the ability to bring a single regiment over her soil to the capital. Now her bridges and railroads are repaired and open to the Government; she already gives seven regiments to the cause of the Union, and none to the enemy; and her people, at a regular election, have sustained the Union by a larger majority and a larger aggregate vote than they ever before gave to any candidate or any question. Kentucky, too, for some time in doubt, is now decidedly and, I think, unchangeably ranged on the side of the Union. Missouri is comparatively quiet, and, I believe, can not again be overrun by the insurrectionists. These three States of Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri, neither of which would promise a single soldier at first, have now an aggregate of not less than 40,000 in the field for the Union, while of their citizens certainly not more than a third of that number, and they of doubtful whereabouts and doubtful existence, are in arms against us. After a somewhat bloody struggle of months, winter closes on the Union people of western Virginia, leaving them masters of their own country."

As the 20th century approached in 1898, William McKinley saw imperialistic opportunities ahead, but also another war on the horizon. It would a State of the Union given in 1898 that highlighted what lay ahead as the 1800s came to a close. McKinley stated:

"A review of the relation of the United States to other powers, always appropriate, is this year of primary importance in view of the momentous issues which have arisen, demanding in one instance the ultimate determination by arms and involving far-reaching consequences which will require the earnest attention of the Congress."

The Spanish-American War would occur and we would venture to the Far East as well as the Caribbean. McKinley's follower, Theodore Roosevelt, would take the reigns of the Presidency when President McKinley was assassinated. President Roosevelt would be in front of Congress three months later in December 1901. The words he said framed the growing threat that was rising with regard to being the president. President Roosevelt lays it out as such:

"Of the last seven elected Presidents, he is the third who has been murdered, and the bare recital of this fact is sufficient to justify grave alarm among all loyal American citizens. Moreover, the circumstances of this, the third assassination of an American President, have a peculiarly sinister significance. Both President Lincoln and President Garfield were killed by assassins of types unfortunately not uncommon in history; President Lincoln falling a victim to the terrible passions aroused by four years of civil war, and President Garfield to the revengeful vanity of a disappointed office-seeker. President McKinley was killed by an utterly depraved criminal belonging to that body of criminals who object to all governments, good and bad alike, who are against any form of popular liberty if it is guaranteed by even the most just and liberal laws, and who are as hostile to the upright exponent of a free people's sober will as to the tyrannical and irresponsible despot."

This might not be policy related, but it was an awareness that unfortunately took over a half a century later to fully be realized. He would open his State of the Union in 1905 with his perspective of what needed to be addressed in terms of social programs and protection. His insight would truly set many progressives measures of the 20th century on track. President Roosevelt stated:

"The people of this country continue to enjoy great prosperity. Undoubtedly there will be ebb and flow in such prosperity, and this ebb and flow will be felt more or less by all members of the community, both by the deserving and the undeserving. Against the wrath of the Lord the wisdom of man cannot avail; in time of flood or drought human ingenuity can but partially repair the disaster. A general failure of crops would hurt all of us. Again, if the folly of man mars the general well-being, then those who are innocent of the folly will have to pay part of the penalty incurred by those who are guilty of the folly. A panic brought on by the speculative folly of part of the business community would hurt the whole business community. But such stoppage of welfare, though it might be severe, would not be lasting. In the long run the one vital factor in the permanent prosperity of the country is the high individual character of the average American worker, the average American citizen, no matter whether his work be mental or manual, whether he be farmer or wage-worker, business man or professional man."

With the outbreak of the Great War or World War I, President Wilson would to return to Congress through much of his first term stating his intentions to stay out of the war, but early in his second term he was forced to bring America into the war. He would go before Congress in 1917 and state:

"From every point of view, therefore, it has seemed to be my duty to speak these declarations of purpose, to add these specific interpretations to what I took the liberty of saying to the Senate in January. Our entrance into the war has not altered our attitude towards the settlement that must come when it is over. When I said in January that the nations of the world were entitled not only to free pathways upon the sea but also to assured and unmolested access to those pathways I was thinking, and I am thinking now, not of the smaller and weaker nations alone, which need our countenance and support, but also of the great and powerful nations, and of our present enemies as well as our present associates in the war. I was thinking, and am thinking now, of Austria herself, among the rest, as well as of Serbia and of Poland. Justice and equality of rights can be had only at a great price. We are seeking permanent, not temporary, foundations for the peace of the world and must seek them candidly and fearlessly. As always, the right will prove to be the expedient."

Peace and a allied world was what President Wilson was hoping to achieve with a victory in World War I. Two years later, he would return to lay out what he viewed as a League of Nations. He outlined its purpose as such:

"The establishment of the principles regarding labor laid down in the covenant of the League of Nations offers us the way to industrial peace and conciliation. No other road lies open to us. Not to pursue this one is longer to invite enmities, bitterness, and antagonisms which in the end only lead to industrial and social disaster. The unwilling workman is not a profitable servant. An employee whose industrial life is hedged about by hard and unjust conditions, which he did not create and over which he has no control, lacks that fine spirit of enthusiasm and volunteer effort which are the necessary ingredients of a great producing entity. Let us be frank about this solemn matter. The evidences of world-wide unrest which manifest themselves in violence throughout the world bid us pause and consider the means to be found to stop the spread of this contagious thing before it saps the very vitality of the nation itself. Do we gain strength by withholding the remedy? Or is it not the business of statesmen to treat these manifestations of unrest which meet us on every hand as evidences of an economic disorder and to apply constructive remedies wherever necessary, being sure that in the application of the remedy we touch not the vital tissues of our industrial and economic life? There can be no recession of the tide of unrest until constructive instrumentalities are set up to stem that tide."

The League of Nations was a lofty goal as it would take working with the federal government in the United States as well as other nations. It was something almost unheard of, but certainly necessary after what World War I displayed and nations on the victorious side hoped to never have to enter war again if possible.

When Franklin Roosevelt came into office in 1933, he inherited a Great Depression from his predecessor and had a lot of work to do to hopefully get things on the right track. In his 1934 speech, he reinterated the purpose the New Deal and the programs related to it:

"I shall continue to regard it as my duty to use whatever means may be necessary to supplement State, local and private agencies for the relief of suffering caused by unemployment. With respect to this question, I have recognized the dangers inherent in the direct giving of relief and have sought the means to provide not mere relief, but the opportunity for useful and remunerative work. We shall, in the process of recovery, seek to move as rapidly as possible from direct relief to publicly supported work and from that to the rapid restoration of private employment."

While having to deal with the Great Depression is enough of a stress for a president to deal with, President Roosevelt saw an ongoing war in Europe breakout again and thus World War II became a growing concern. President Roosevelt looked to keep America out until an act of war occurred against the United States. That would happen on December 7th, 1941 at Pearl Harbor. In 1942, President Roosevelt addressed Congress with:

"Exactly one year ago today I said to this Congress: "When the dictators. . . are ready to make war upon us, they will not wait for an act of war on our part. . . . They—not we—will choose the time and the place and the method of their attack."

The time and place and aggressors were chosen and thus two things a president hopes to never have to rule and guide under: a depression and a war; were both primary concerns for the president.

In what would be his last address to Congress in 1945, President Roosevelt laid out the barometers of the ongoing war:

"This war must be waged—it is being waged—with the greatest and most persistent intensity. Everything we are and have is at stake. Everything we are and have will be given. American men, fighting far from home, have already won victories which the world will never forget."

He steady hand at the wheel kept Americans' spirits fairly high considering and defended all actions with an ends to justify the means.

With the election of John Kennedy in 1960, there was a sense of a new, fresh, and innovative frontier was ahead of us as a nation. President Kennedy stated his intentions in his first address to Congress in 1961 with:

"I speak today in an hour of national peril and national opportunity. Before my term has ended, we shall have to test anew whether a nation organized and governed such as ours can endure. The outcome is by no means certain. The answers are by no means clear. All of us together--this Administration, this Congress, this nation-must forge those answers."

The Cold War was waging, but as a nation America had so much promise from space to social programs to foreign relations; changes and progress was almost certain in President Kennedy's mind by the end of the decade. President Kennedy would not get to see those great accomplishments as he was assassinated in 1963. But his successor, Lyndon Johnson, would carry the torch for him. In his 1964 address to Congress he stated:

"Let us carry forward the plans and programs of John Fitzgerald Kennedy--not because of our sorrow or sympathy, but because they are right."

And the following year, he would lay out what would become the Great Society:

"And so tonight, now, in 1965, we begin a new quest for union. We seek the unity of man with the world that he has built--with the knowledge that can save or destroy him--with the cities which can stimulate or stifle him--with the wealth and the machines which can enrich or menace his spirit.'

'We seek to establish a harmony between man and society which will allow each of us to enlarge the meaning of his life and all of us to elevate the quality of our civilization. This is the search that we begin tonight."

Take a look at the agenda President Johnson laid out in the speech in 1965 and see where we are because of it over 40 years later:

A NATIONAL AGENDA

-I propose that we begin a program in education to ensure every American child the fullest development of his mind and skills.
-I propose that we begin a massive attack on crippling and killing diseases.
-I propose that we launch a national effort to make the American city a better and a more stimulating place to live.
-I propose that we increase the beauty of America and end the poisoning of our rivers and the air that we breathe.
-I propose that we carry out a new program to develop regions of our country that are now suffering from distress and depression.
-I propose that we make new efforts to control and prevent crime and delinquency.
-I propose that we eliminate every remaining obstacle to the right and the opportunity to vote.
-I propose that we honor and support the achievements of thought and the creations of art.
-I propose that we make an all-out campaign against waste and inefficiency.

Few State of the Union speeches have laid such lofty goals, but they would all be achieved.

Fittingly, I move to a president who looked to take a major step in the wake of the Great Society's accomplishments. When Bill Clinton came into office in 1993, he would look to get health care not just for the elderly (Medicare) but for all. However, before you walk you must trip and a hurdle of a Republican Congress following the 1994 midterm elections all but ended health care debate. President Clinton framed the debate that occurred during his first two years:

"Now, I still believe our country has got to move toward providing health security for every American family. But I know that last year, as the evidence indicates, we bit off more than we could chew. So I'm asking you that we work together. Let's do it step by step. Let's do whatever we have to do to get something done. Let's at least pass meaningful insurance reform so that no American risks losing coverage for facing skyrocketing prices, that nobody loses their coverage because they face high prices or unavailable insurance when they change jobs or lose a job or a family member gets sick."

President Clinton was aware of the steep hill ahead and it was almost of a sign his taking the foot off the gas a bit and as we see; we still do not have comprehensive health care. But another part of his speech stands out to me almost as much if not more:

"It has fallen to every generation since then to preserve that idea, the American idea, and to deepen and expand its meaning in new and different times: to Lincoln and to his Congress to preserve the Union and to end slavery; to Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson to restrain the abuses and excesses of the industrial revolution and to assert our leadership in the world; to Franklin Roosevelt to fight the failure and pain of the Great Depression and to win our country's great struggle against fascism; and to all our Presidents since to fight the cold war. Especially, I recall two who struggled to fight that cold war in partnership with Congresses where the majority was of a different party: to Harry Truman, who summoned us to unparalleled prosperity at home and who built the architecture of the cold war; and to Ronald Reagan, whom we wish well tonight and who exhorted us to carry on until the twilight struggle against communism was won."

I could not have said it better myself. It is the president who takes the mantle for a nation and takes the torch from the previous president. But more importantly it is the people who make up that nation who much take the torch from the past generations who have given and left us better than when they were our age and during their times.

In 2003, George W. Bush would go before Congress and lay out the necessity for going to war with Iraq despite the fact that we were already in Afghanistan. The new threat of terrorism was still fresh in many individuals mind when President Bush stated:

"The world has waited 12 years for Iraq to disarm. America will not accept a serious and mounting threat to our country and our friends and our allies. The United States will ask the U.N. Security Council to convene on February the 5th to consider the facts of Iraq's ongoing defiance of the world. Secretary of State Powell will present information and intelligence about Iraqi's legal--Iraq's illegal weapons programs, its attempt to hide those weapons from inspectors, and its links to terrorist groups."

Shortly thereafter, the United States would enter Iraq and to this day we are still there nearly 7 years later.

To conclude I will merely mention President Obama's speech last year. He laid out several items to attack. Many of which are still being addressed. Health Care reform being one of the biggest items in his speech last year has continued to creep to the finish line and may finally come to be a reality in the coming months. Tomorrow night, President Obama will certainly build on last year's speech as much of what was in his speech is still pertinent today as the recession still rages on, two wars continue to draw much criticism and lack of support, a health care debate that has shown the lesser side of individuals, and so much more. Will we see an agenda laid out like previous State of the Union speeches and how will history stack up next to others.

I would like to think that it is not easy for a president to have to face the United States and in the media age, the American public. Often times when the president addresses the nation things are not ideal. Wars, depressions, recessions, crises, and disputes are the downside. But reforms, progress, change, and a vision to leave the country better for the next president are what certainly drive many holders of the office. The State of the Union was definitely the framers got right all those years ago and I look forward to speech every year.