Speeches & Addresses · 1796–1963
The words that summoned a nation at its turning points.
Addresses delivered at moments of founding, crisis, war, and renewal.
Founding & Early Republic
Washington's Farewell Address
1796 · Counsel on unity, parties, and foreign entanglements.
The Monroe Doctrine
1823 · A hemisphere closed to European colonization.
Civil War Era
Emancipation Proclamation
1863 · Freedom for the enslaved in rebelling states.
The Gettysburg Address
1863 · “A new birth of freedom.”
Lincoln's Second Inaugural
1865 · “With malice toward none.”
Twentieth Century
FDR's First Inaugural
1933 · “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”
FDR's Four Freedoms
1941 · Freedoms of speech, worship, from want, from fear.
1941 · The address that brought America into WWII.
Eisenhower's Farewell
1961 · A warning about the military-industrial complex.
Kennedy's Inaugural
1961 · “Ask not what your country can do for you.”
"I Have a Dream"
1963 · Dr. King at the March on Washington.