“The America we want for our kids -- a rising America where honest work is plentiful and communities are strong; where prosperity is widely shared and opportunity for all lets us go as far as our dreams and toil will take us -- none of it is easy. But if we work together; if we summon what is best in us, the way Cory summoned what is best in him, with our feet planted firmly in today but our eyes cast toward tomorrow, I know it's within our reach,” Obama said, adding, “Believe it.”
Throughout the years, presidents have saved their most powerful rhetorical punches for the end. This is where they lay out their vision in colorful phrasing, tie past patriots to their cause and call the nation to some noble purpose.
In that sense, Obama's State of the Union message followed in a long tradition. Here are the endings of 10 other State of the Union addresses:
1. George Washington’s closing lines, Jan. 8, 1790:
"The welfare of our country is the great object to which our cares and efforts ought to be directed, and I shall derive great satisfaction from a cooperation with you in the pleasing though arduous task of insuring to our fellow citizens the blessings which they have a right to expect from a free, efficient, and equal government."
2. *John Quincy Adams, Dec. 5, 1826. John Adams and Thomas Jefferson had died on July 4, 1826.
“Since your last meeting at this place the 50th anniversary of the day when our independence was declared has been celebrated throughout our land, and on that day ... amid the blessings of freedom and independence .. two of the principal actors in that solemn scene—the hand that penned the ever memorable Declaration and the voice that sustained it in debate—were by one summons, at the distance of 700 miles from each other, called before the Judge of All to account for their deeds done upon earth. …“If we turn our thoughts to the condition of their country, in the contrast of the first and last day of that half century, how resplendent and sublime is the transition from gloom to glory! Then, glancing through the same lapse of time, in the condition of the individuals we see the first day marked with the fullness and vigor of youth, in the pledge of their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to the cause of freedom and of man-kind; and on the last, extended on the bed of death, with but sense and sensibility left to breathe a last aspiration to Heaven of blessing upon their country, may we not humbly hope that to them too it was a pledge of transition from gloom to glory, and that while their mortal vestments were sinking into the clod of the valley their emancipated spirits were ascending to the bosom of their God!”
3. *Abraham Lincoln’s often-quoted ending, Dec. 1, 1862.
“In giving freedom to the slave we assure freedom to the free--honorable alike in what we give and what we preserve. We shall nobly save or meanly lose the last best hope of earth. Other means may succeed; this could not fail. The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just--a way which if followed the world will forever applaud and God must forever bless.”
4. *Ulysses S. Grant, Dec. 5, 1876.
“With the present term of Congress my official life terminates. It is not probable that public affairs will ever again receive attention from me further than as a citizen of the republic, always taking a deep interest in the honor, integrity, and prosperity of the whole land.”
5. Woodrow Wilson, Dec. 4, 1917. The United States entered World War I in April 1917.
“I have spoken plainly because this seems to me the time when it is most necessary to speak plainly, in order that all the world may know that even in the heat and ardor of the struggle and when our whole thought is of carrying the war through to its end we have not forgotten any ideal or principle for which the name of America has been held in honor among the nations and for which it has been our glory to contend in the great generations that went before us. A supreme moment of history has come. The eyes of the people have been opened and they see. The hand of God is laid upon the nations. He will show them favor, I devoutly believe, only if they rise to the clear heights of his own justice and mercy.”
6. Franklin Roosevelt in Jan. 6, 1945.
"This new year of 1945 can be the greatest year of achievement in human history."Nineteen forty-five can see the final ending of the Nazi-Fascist reign of terror in Europe.
"Nineteen forty-five can see the closing in of the forces of retribution about the center of the malignant power of imperialistic Japan.
"Most important of all—1945 can and must see the substantial beginning of the organization of world peace. This organization must be the fulfillment of the promise for which men have fought and died in this war. It must be the justification of all the sacrifices that have been made -- of all the dreadful misery that this world has endured.
"We Americans of today, together with our allies, are making history -- and I hope it will be better history than ever has been made before.
"We pray that we may be worthy of the unlimited opportunities that God has given us."
7. Dwight D. Eisenhower, Feb. 2, 1953
“There is, in world affairs, a steady course to be followed between an assertion of strength that is truculent and a confession of helplessness that is cowardly.“There is, in our affairs at home, a middle way between untrammeled freedom of the individual and the demands for the welfare of the whole nation. This way must avoid government by bureaucracy as carefully as it avoids neglect of the helpless.
“In every area of political action, free men must think before they can expect to win.
“In this spirit must we live and labor: confident of our strength, compassionate in our heart, clear in our mind.
“In this spirit, let us together turn to the great tasks before us.”
8. John F. Kennedy, Jan. 30, 1961:
"Life in 1961 will not be easy. Wishing it, predicting it, even asking for it, will not make it so. There will be further setbacks before the tide is turned. But turn it we must. The hopes of all mankind rest upon us--not simply upon those of us in this chamber, but upon the peasant in Laos, the fisherman in Nigeria, the exile from Cuba, the spirit that moves every man and nation who shares our hopes for freedom and the future. And in the final analysis, they rest most of all upon the pride and perseverance of our fellow citizens of the great republic."In the words of a great president, whose birthday we honor today, closing his final State of the Union message sixteen years ago, "We pray that we may be worthy of the unlimited opportunities that God has given us."
9. Ronald Reagan, Jan. 25, 1984:
"I've never felt more strongly that America's best days and democracy's best days lie ahead. We're a powerful force for good. With faith and courage, we can perform great deeds and take freedom's next step. And we will. We will carry on the tradition of a good and worthy people who have brought light where there was darkness, warmth where there was cold, medicine where there was disease, food where there was hunger, and peace where there was only bloodshed."Let us be sure that those who come after will say of us in our time, that in our time we did everything that could be done. We finished the race; we kept them free; we kept the faith.
"Thank you very much. God bless you, and God bless America."
10. Bill Clinton, Jan. 19, 1999
“A hundred years from tonight, another American president will stand in this place and report on the State of the Union. He—or she—he or she will look back on a 21st century shaped in so many ways by the decisions we make here and now. So let it be said of us then that we were thinking not only of our time but of their time, that we reached as high as our ideals, that we put aside our divisions and found a new hour of healing and hopefulness, that we joined together to serve and strengthen the land we love.“My fellow Americans, this is our moment. Let us lift our eyes as one nation, and from the mountaintop of this American century, look ahead to the next one, asking God's blessing on our endeavors and on our beloved country.
“Thank you, and good evening.”
*George Washington and John Adams delivered their annual messages personally. Thomas Jefferson sent a letter, as did every other president up through William Howard Taft. Woodrow Wilson revived the practice of delivering the speech.
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