According to a piece in the National Review, “George Washington might have had the right idea. Second inaugural addresses should be short and to the point. Of course, speaking only 135 words as Washington did in 1793 might be a little severe.”[1] Consider how short, and (yet?) so momentous Lincoln's Gettysburg Address was. The challenge for second-term-presidents, whether Barack Obama or the sixteen two-term presidents before him, is “how to make a second inaugural address sound fresh, meaningful and forward-looking." Almost all of Obama’s predecessors failed at this. Only Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt made history with their addresses. One stirred a nation riven by civil war; the other inspired a country roiled by a deep depression. All but forgotten are the 14 other addresses, their words having been unable to survive the test of time. Even those presidents famed for their past oratory fell short.”[2] This is a particularly interesting observation: surviving the test of time being the decisive criterion. Even a president whose silver tongue mesmerizes a people of his or her time may not deliver ideas that survive beyond being a cultural artifact of the president’s own time. What of an address that is quite meaningful in its immediate time yet does not pass the test of time so as to be recognized as a classic?
The full essay is at "Inaugural Addresses: Of Leaders?"
2. Ibid.
