Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Humble Inaugural speech...


After listening to the Inaugural speech of our newly elected president yesterday, I find it fascinating to compare it to some of the many Inaugural speeches of our past.

My favorite Inaugural speech came from one of my favorite founding fore-fathers ... George Washington. He made some of the shortest but powerful speeches I've ever heard (or read) from a "politician." Remember that many of the colonists clamored to make George Washington the equivalent to a "king."

The following humble words were uttered by our nation's first president following a unanimous vote in the electoral college...

"The magnitude and difficulty of the trust to which the voice of my country called me, being sufficient to awaken in the wisest and most experienced of her citizens a distrustful scrutiny into his qualifications, could not but overwhelm with despondence one who (inheriting inferior endowments from nature and unpracticed in the duties of civil administration) ought to be peculiarly conscious of his own deficiencies."