One of the quickest and best ways to get a feel for the overall course of American political history is to read through the inaugural addresses of the presidents on the Bartleby "Great Books Online" site. Please select *one* of the inaugural addresses from the period we have been studying. Read through the address and cite here a line that seems to you particularly important. Try to find a line that might help you and others reading the blog prepare for one of the exam study questions, e.g., the question on the quality of the men elected to the presidency during this period. Garfield's address might be particularly useful since his time as president was so brief and there is little else to evaluate him on.Ulysses S. Grant: First Inaugural Address, Second Inaugural Address
Rutherford B. Hayes
James A. Garfield
Grover Cleveland: First Inaugural
Benjamin Harrison
James A. Garfield - "Enterprises of the highest importance to our moral and material well-being unite us and offer ample employment of our best powers. Let all our people, leaving behind them the battlefields of dead issues, move forward and in their strength of liberty and the restored Union win the grander victories of peace."
ReplyDeleteI believe this statement has great weight. It encourages forward thinking, putting behind the atrocities of the past and banding together as one to progress as a nation.
"The supremacy of the nation and its laws should be no longer a subject of debate." This statement from the Inaugural address of James Garfield is a reminder that our nation was a governmental experiment. He wanted the people of the US and the world to recognize that this was no longer a joke, it was a real working government. We have had our ups and downs and still the US is here. It is a government of the people and should be considered as one. It is what has made America great all along. In this cases it had been 100 years, and it seems that people and the world should start seeing it as a great accomplishment. It could weather both the good and bad times.
ReplyDelete"The country having just emerged from a great rebellion, many questions will come before it for settlement in the next four years which preceding Administrations have never had to deal with. In meeting these it is desirable that they should be approached calmly, without prejudice, hate, or sectional pride, remembering that the greatest good to the greatest number is the object to be attained."
ReplyDeleteThis is a quote from Ulysses Grant's first inaugural address. I find this quote semi-funny because in the years to come, there are "white" bathrooms and "black" bathrooms and the country is separated by the colors of their skins. I do really like the last line, however: "the greatest good to the greatest number is the object to be obtained." This line is very true and very well put! -- Dani Wolf