An American Tradition
Earlier this month, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson continued the American tradition of formally inviting the president to present the State of the Union address. This year President Donald J. Trump will address Congress at a televised Joint Session in the House Chamber on Tuesday, February 24.
When George Washington gave the first of such annual speeches on January 8, 1790, he spoke to Congress at the Senate Chamber of Federal Hall in New York City. With that speech, Washington was seeking to fulfill Article II, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution, which states that the president should …
“ … from time to time give to the Congress information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.”
Washington well understood his critical role in defining the American presidency. He made careful decisions about the address, from delivering the speech in person to crafting a message of humble strength. With his second address, Washington established the precedent of reporting to Congress on an annual basis.
John Adams followed suit by giving the address in person, but Thomas Jefferson deviated from the tradition of oral delivery. Jefferson considered the rhetorical practice unsuitable for a Republic because of its roots in the British monarchy’s tradition of giving a speech before new sessions of Parliament. So Jefferson wrote his presidential reports as formal letters addressed to Congress and sent copies to both the House and the Senate, which were read by clerks. More than a century later, Woodrow Wilson revived the tradition of delivering the annual address in person. In addition to reporting on the activities of the Executive Branch, Wilson expanded the address to drive his policy agenda.
From Radio to Social Media
Advances in technology in the 20th and 21st centuries considerably expanded the reach of the annual presidential remarks. Calvin Coolidge delivered the first annual address over radio airwaves in 1923, and Harry Truman gave the first televised broadcast in 1947. Franklin Roosevelt, who made frequent use of radio technology to address the American people, was responsible for coining the modern term for the annual speech, the “State of the Union.” FDR delivered a total of 12 annual addresses to Congress during his four-term presidency.
Lyndon B. Johnson greatly expanded the State of the Union’s audience in 1965 when he moved the time of the TV broadcast from mid-afternoon to 9 p.m. The following year Republican lawmakers, including Gerald Ford, leveraged the exposure by introducing the first response to the presidential address. Remarks delivered by the opposition party have since become a key feature of the State of the Union event.
Access to the speech advanced again through the Internet when George W. Bush streamed the first State of the Union address from the White House website in 2002. In more recent years, engagement with the speech has exploded through social media. President Trump’s 2020 State of the Union spawned 14.1 million social media interactions.
Wisdom from Washington
In a fascinating 2018 article in The Saturday Evening Post, Jeff Nilsson noted a few State of the Union addresses for their impact. Though it’s become common for presidents to use this annual platform to propose laws that support their policies, rarely do any those laws make it out of committee, he said. “Out of 94 spoken addresses, only a handful make a lasting impression upon America or the world.” Memorable ones range from James Polk generating mass migration to the west by confirming reports of gold in California to Lyndon B. Johnson declaring “war on poverty.”
Some lasting effects of previous administrations and State of the Union addresses do, in fact, shape decisions we’re making today at the ballot box. In light of this, a quote from Washington’s first address to Congress proves as relevant to us today as it was in the earliest years of our nation:
“Knowledge is in every country the surest basis of public happiness. … in ours it is proportionably essential. … To the security of a free constitution it contributes in various ways … 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 …”
I’m encouraged by how these wise words reinforce our mission at iVoterGuide. Together with you, our audience, we hold one another accountable to the active pursuit of knowledge when it comes to American elections, candidates, civics, and history, and especially a deep literacy of God’s word. As we work to preserve the national liberties we all hold dear, we advance the transcendent ideals of justice and mercy to the glory of God.
