1Editorial Note (Washington Papers)
[New York, 30 April 1789] By early 1789 GW reluctantly accepted the inevitability of his election as president, and as early as January he began consideration of the remarks to Congress that would serve as his first inaugural address. Evidently he requested David Humphreys, at this time in residence at Mount Vernon, to draft for him remarks that could be delivered to Congress in the event of...
2Undelivered First Inaugural Address: Fragments, 30 April 1789 (Washington Papers)
In the fragments of the discarded inaugural address, page numbers without brackets appear on the fragment; those page numbers enclosed in brackets are conjectural. [1] We are this day assembled on a solemn and important occasion—[owned (1974) by Mr. Nathaniel E. Stein, New York] [1–3] not as a ceremony without meaning, but with a single reference to our dependence [recto, privately owned...
3First Inaugural Address: Final Version, 30 April 1789 (Washington Papers)
Among the vicissitudes incident to life, no event could have filled me with greater anxieties than that of which the notification was transmitted by your order, and received on the fourteenth day of the present month. On the one hand, I was summoned by my Country, whose voice I can never hear but with veneration and love, from a retreat which I had chosen with the fondest predilection, and, in...