A brief history of American inaugural speeches

When Barack Obama is inaugurated as the United States' 44th president in Washington DC on January 20, the watching world will expect a speech that history will remember. Ever since he gained his country's attention with his speech at the 2004 Democratic Convention – "There's not a liberal America and a conservative America - there's the United States of America" - Obama's oratory has inspired his supporters and helped convert his opponents.
 
When he lost to Hillary Clinton in the New Hampshire primary, Obama took back the limelight with his "Yes we can" concession speech. And when the Jeremiah Wright controversy threatened to disrupt his campaign, Obama spoke eloquently about race relations and "A more perfect Union"'.  

Surrounded by friends and family, and before a crowd expected be counted in millions, he has the chance to make a truly great speech on January 20. The lessons he can learn from history are simple ones: spread a message of optimism in troubled times, speak about grand themes, be intelligible, and keep it short.
 
Here are four Presidents he'd do well to emulate, and four who failed to inspire America with their first words as its leader...

The good onesAbraham LincolN

When Abraham Lincoln gave his second inaugural address in 1865, he was emerging victorious from the American Civil War, and had finally abolished slavery. However, the tone he takes is one of sadness, not triumphalism: "Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away." The speech, Lincoln's favourite, ends on a resolute note of hope: "With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in."

Franklin D Roosevelt
The only president to serve more than two terms of office, Franklin Roosevelt came to power in 1933 with the Depression at its worst, and one in every four Americans out of work. FDR used his inaugural address to launch a stinging criticism of the banking class: "The money changers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization. We may now restore that temple to the ancient truths." His upbeat promise that "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself" is still fondly quoted today.

John F Kennedy
"Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country." This was John F Kennedy's challenge as America faced up to the escalation of Cold War in 1961. "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", Kennedy pledged. Though some of his rhetoric is bellicose, at other times he champions the virtues of diplomacy: "We must never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate."

Ronald Reagan
As the former Hollywood actor gave his first inaugural address in 1981, the Iranian hostage crisis came to an end. With the economy in desperate straights, Reagan outlined his belief in low taxes and private enterprise: "Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem." He also took the opportunity to talk tough to Russia, saying that "reluctance for conflict should not be misjudged as a failure of will". Reagan's tone was optimistic, and he reassured America by scotching talk of its inevitable decline. "It is time for us to realise that we're too great a nation to limit ourselves to small dreams."

THE BAD ONES
William Henry HarrisoNIn 1841, William Henry Harrison, 68, a distinguished war veteran, attempted to show he was young enough to lead his country. He went outside on a freezing March day to give a tortuous two-hour inauguration speech - at 8,444 words the longest in history - and came back with a cold. Three weeks later he developed pneumonia, and before long he was dead, after being president for only 31 days. By and large, the content of the speech – a repudiation of his predecessors' policies, a plan to reestablish the Bank of the United States and a promise to use his veto sparingly – was turgid.

James BuchananJames Buchanan, the only US President never to marry, had only accepted the Democratic nomination reluctantly, and used his inaugural address in 1857 to tell America that he wouldn't be running again. His was the presidency that failed to stop the Civil War. With the southern states declaring their secession, Buchanan decided to downplay the divisions that slavery had caused: "Most happy it will be for the country when the public mind shall be diverted from this question to others of more pressing and practical importance."

Warren Harding

Fittingly, one of the worst US presidents gave one of the worst inauguration addresses. Starting off with a response to the traumas of World War One, Harding's 1921 speech soon became so boring that, in the words of H L Mencken, "a sort of grandeur creeps into it". Harding set out what he represented: "I speak for administrative efficiency, for lightened tax burdens, for sound commercial practices, for adequate credit facilities, for sympathetic concern for all agricultural problems, for the omission of unnecessary interference of Government with business, for an end to Government's experiment in business, and for more efficient business in Government administration." Soaring oratory it wasn't.

Jimmy Carter

In 1977, America's economy was struggling, and Watergate was still on many people's minds. Jimmy Carter, a little-known politician from Georgia, promised practicality, compromise, and big cuts to the White House staff. "We have learned that more is not necessarily better, that even our great nation has its recognised limits, and that we can neither answer all questions nor solve all problems," he said. It wasn't inspiring, and much of what he said was dismissed as meaningless verbiage. "It is that unique self-definition which has given us an exceptional appeal, but it also imposes on us a special obligation to take on those moral duties which, when assumed, seem invariably to be in our best interests." ·