The State of the Union Address, A Tradition Since 1790

(Required by the U.S. Constitution)

By David Pitts
Washington File Staff Writer

Washington -- On January 28, President George W. Bush is scheduled to deliver his State of the Union address to Congress, and indirectly to the American people and the world. According to White House officials, the president intends to include in his speech a discussion of his domestic agenda as well as the situation with Iraq and the fight against terrorism.

The State of the Union is one of only a few presidential speeches that are televised live in prime time on all major U.S. networks. This has elevated its prominence enormously compared to earlier times. For over a hundred years, it wasn't even delivered in person by the president. Instead, it was sent to Congress as a written message.

The tradition goes back to 1790 when George Washington, the first president of the United States, delivered his "Annual Message," as it was known then, as required by the Constitution. Article II, Section III states that the president shall "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." These "innocuous phrases conferred on the American president what has become, after vicissitudes, a basic tool in his management of Congress and a potent instrument of national leadership," writes the historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. in his book, "The State of the Union Messages of the Presidents."

Washington and his successor, John Adams, delivered addresses in person surrounded by much pomp and ceremony, as was the custom under the rule of the English kings before independence. But the nation's third president, Thomas Jefferson, felt that such elaborate displays ill befit the new democratic republic. He derided the practice as a "speech from the throne," and instead delivered a written message rather than appearing in person. Jefferson's influence was such that for more than a century thereafter, the Annual Message would be written and sent to Congress rather than delivered in person.

In the early decades, most State of the Union messages were laundry lists of bills the president wanted the Congress to enact -- often reflective of the tenor of the times and the practical problems involved in building the young American nation. Until the Civil War (1861-65), the speeches also often dealt with internal threats to the union, reflecting a major concern of the Founding Fathers. During this time, the annual reports "were, understandably, preoccupied with how tenuous were the ties of national union," writes Wayne Fields in his influential book, "Union of Words: A History of Presidential Eloquence."

In addition, the speeches also dealt with the international situation and America's place in the world, not least in this hemisphere. A prime example is President James Monroe's Annual Message to Congress in 1823 opposing European intervention in the Americas. Speaking directly to the European powers of the day, Monroe wrote, "We owe it, therefore, to candor and to the amicable relations existing between the United States and those powers to declare that we should consider any attempt on their part to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety." In the decades that followed, the Monroe Doctrine would often be invoked by presidents to indicate America's determination to keep this hemisphere master of its own destiny.

In particularly turbulent periods, some presidents used the State of the Union as a vehicle to express their view of great issues then at stake and their vision of the road ahead - speaking not just to lawmakers but to their fellow citizens, to the world at large, and, in some instances, to the ages. During the crisis that, more than any other, threatened the very existence of the American union -- the Civil War -- President Abraham Lincoln wrote perhaps the most eloquent and memorable of all presidential messages sent to Congress.

When the speech was delivered on December 1, 1862, it was clear that the state of the union was not good, the outcome of the war still uncertain, the defeat of the Confederate rebellion by no means a foregone conclusion. But Lincoln rose to the occasion. Characteristically, his words went to the heart of the struggle then engulfing the nation -- framing for all Americans, and for the world, the essential choice to be made.

"The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present," he wrote. "The occasion is piled high with difficulty and we must rise to the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country. Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history. We of this Congress and this administration will be remembered in spite of ourselves." He added: "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." It was, wrote historian Arthur Schlesinger, "the highest eloquence of all Annual Messages.... profound and beautiful."

In 1913, Woodrow Wilson revived the practice of delivering the Annual Message in person that had been pioneered by Washington and Adams more than a century earlier. "A president is likely to read his own message rather better than a clerk would," he quipped. The two-term president, famous for championing the League of Nations, the precursor organization to the United Nations, used the occasion to deliver a wide-ranging speech, mostly centered on domestic policy. Wilson's decision to appear in person was prescient. The United States was on the eve of an electronic mass media revolution that would soon bring presidents into the homes of Americans via radio, and, after World War II, via television. Although Wilson's words were not heard by most Americans, his moving image became familiar to them through silent newsreels.

With the election of Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) as president in 1932, Americans would become accustomed to hearing their presidents on radio as well as seeing them - and now hearing them -- on the newsreels at the movies. One of his most enduring speeches was the Annual Message he delivered in 1941. With war raging across Europe, he set forth his famous Four Freedoms.

"In the future days," he said, "which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential freedoms. The first is freedom of speech and expression - everywhere in the world. The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way - everywhere in the world. The third is freedom from want....everywhere in the world. The fourth is freedom from fear....anywhere in the world." Later that year, after the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, Roosevelt addressed a special joint session of Congress to ask for a declaration of war against Japan.

In 1945, the Annual Message formally became known as the State of the Union address. It also was about to become a television as well as radio staple as sales of television sets skyrocketed in the years after World War II. In recognition of the power of television to deliver the president's words to a huge audience, President Lyndon Johnson shifted the time of the address from the traditional midday to evening when more viewers would be watching.

"And now, in 1965, we begin a new quest for union," Johnson said in his first State of the Union address that year. He detailed an expansive vision of a "Great Society," in which poverty would be eliminated and the civil rights of all Americans would be protected. Although his reports are not considered eloquent by most historians, they are reflective of Johnson's sweeping agenda and the liberal ethos then dominant in American society. His speeches were heir to a generation of progressivism in American life - from Roosevelt's New Deal beginning in the early 1930s to John F. Kennedy's New Frontier of the early 1960s.

A very different direction was charted by Ronald Reagan in his first State of the Union address delivered in 1982. Reagan used the occasion to detail an unambiguous, conservative agenda not only in domestic affairs, but also foreign policy. "Together, after 50 years of taking power away from the hands of the people in their states and local communities," he said, "we have started returning power and resources to them." Reagan articulated a new interpretation of limited, federal power in the U.S. system of government, the influence of which was enduring. Even Bill Clinton, a president with very different views to those of Reagan, famously said in one of his state of the unions, "the era of big government is over."

Although Reagan devoted most of his remarks to domestic policy in his 1982 speech, he did not neglect relations overseas, particularly with the Soviet Union. "In the last decade," he said, "while we sought the moderation of Soviet power through a policy of restraint and accommodation, the Soviets engaged in an unrelenting buildup of their military forces. The protection of our national security has required that we undertake a substantial program to enhance our military forces." He added: "A recognition of what the Soviet empire is about is the starting point."

The broadcast of the State of the Union address on television, particularly when it was moved to prime time, has changed the fundamental nature of the message, according to political observers. "As the audience has changed from inside the Beltway to outside," says political scientist Paul C. Light, "the State of the Union has changed from a sometimes windy policy address to a major campaign event," one, it might be added, in which the primary audience is now the American voter, and the wider audience overseas, rather than just the American lawmaker.

This will certainly be true when President Bush delivers his State of the Union address on January 28. Although there will be a major focus on needs here at home, both domestic and overseas observers will be looking closely at the president's words on Iraq and U.S. foreign policy in general.

(The Washington File is a product of the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)