Focus given on speeches during nation’s pivotal periods
By Tom Ganser
Correspondent
In the final lecture of the Fall 2016 Fairhaven Lecture Series) on Nov. 21, 2016, Richard Haven provided his Fellowship Hall audience with an historical framework for considering Donald Trump’s inaugural address, which is this Friday, Jan. 20.
In his talk, “The Inaugural Address: An American Tradition” on Nov. 21, Haven discussed what he considers to have been the seven most important inaugural speeches among the 56 that have been delivered by 39 presidents.
Besides being an emeritus Professor of Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, Haven joined with 136 scholars in selecting speeches included in “Words of a Century: The Top American Speeches, 1900-1999,” published in 2009 by the Oxford University Press.
Haven characterized the inaugural speeches as generally “playing an important role in our democracy, as it’s the people’s president speaking to them about the nature of the nation and what’s ahead.”
Haven added that he views his selections for the most influential of these addresses as being “very important to our history and really marking something that would affect people later on or affect the times.”
A common theme for speeches Haven saw was that they were delivered during difficult times for the nation, or at or near the start of a new era.
George Washington’s first inaugural address on April 30, 1789 was significant, Haven said, because he was setting a precedent as the first president of “this great experiment in people governing” and for a country that “was not a united country by any means” but really a collection of separate countries” that varied in language, culture and religion. Washington also talked about himself as not really worth to serve as president and as needing to grow and learn in order to be successful in that role.
Thomas Jefferson’s inauguration speech on March 4, 1801, followed the first true and “pretty controversial” election of 1800.
“A lot of mean spirited things (were) said,” Haven said.
In addition, Jefferson, representative of the Democratic-Republican party, faced a fear promulgated by the Federalist party that he would lead the nation into a bloodbath similar to that of the French revolution.
In his speech, Jefferson argued that unity is possible in spite of differences of opinion.
“Every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. We have called by different names brethren of the same principle. We are all Republicans, and we are all Federalists,” Jefferson said.
Abraham Lincoln’s first inaugural speech on March 4, 1861, was given shortly after Jefferson Davis’ inaugural address to the Confederacy on Feb. 18, 1861.
“Lincoln knows what he faces as he steps up to give this speech,” Haven said. “It is the most unusual situation ever faced by a president in our history.”
Haven added that the speech was both eloquent and brilliant in presenting the argument that the secession of states from the Union destroys order and ultimately results in anarchy. Lincoln hoped that conflict might be avoided if people could be “touched … by their better angels.”
“Every so often, we as a country end up in turmoil, and we’ve had some of that this year. There is that hope that we can step back, turn to our better angels, and work through it,” Haven said.
Following a re-election which Lincoln didn’t think he would win, his second inaugural address on March 4, 1865 — carved into a wall at the Lincoln Memorial — occurred near the end of the “bloodiest of wars” for United States.
Haven reported that Lincoln in a Biblical speech said essentially that the Civil War was God’s punishment for slavery, but in it he also talks about what should follow the end of the war.
“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 up the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace amongst ourselves and with all nations,” Lincoln said to conclude his speech.
Haven described Woodrow Wilson’s inaugural address on Mar. 4, 1913 as happening during “a very turbulent time” following an election which Wilson won due to a splintering of the Republican party into the Republican party and the Progressive (or “Bull Moose”) party. The Progressive Movement was also gaining ground.
“The country was trying to come to grips with the Industrial Revolution and the great changes that had come to the nation,” Haven said.
Haven said people have been proud of the country’s industrial achievements, but have not stopped thoughtfully enough to count the human cost, the cost of lives snuffed out and the energies of the overtaxed and broken.
“We forget what labor was like back then,” Haven said. “Wilson eloquently talked about the need to take care of the people who had been doing the labor.”
Noting that by 1932 the nation was a mess with about a third of the workforce unemployed, Haven said that in Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s first inaugural address on Mar. 4, 1933, said little about what he was going to do during the coming dark days of the Great Depression.
However, Haven said Roosevelt’s speech inspired people and helped them feel better and hopeful.
Haven said Kennedy’s inauguration speech on Jan. 20, 1961, resonated with people because of his eloquence, and especially because of Kennedy’s challenge to Americans near the end of his speech.
Haven said Ronald Reagan’s Jan. 20, 1981 speech inauguration speech pointed to a significant change in the direction of how the nation viewed the government.
“Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem,” Reagan said.
With a little hesitation, Haven also compared Trump to Ronald Reagan regarding the role of the elite in government, citing Reagan’s statement in his inauguration speech, “From time to time we’ve been tempted to believe that society has become too complex to be managed by self-rule, that government by an elite group is superior to government for, by and of the people.”
Haven also spoke in regards to the upcoming inaugural address by Trump.
“We’ll see what comes from Mr. Trump,” Haven said. “He faces some very difficult times in terms of giving a speech that will rise to that level (of great inauguration speeches). He may be the only president who ever Tweets while speaking. In any case, he’s got a challenge. He’s not known as an eloquent speaker, by any means, but he can be effective. We’ll see how he approaches it.”
This Fairhaven Lecture Series’ theme was “The Path to the White House and What to Expect Next.”
