Keep it pithy: George Washington kept it to the point the second go-around.

In 1841, William Henry Harrison gave an 8,445 word inaugural address. clocking in at one hour and forty-five minutes.

Harrison died a month later of pneumonia and is barely remembered as a president of the United States.

Lesson: Keep it pithy.

In 1793, George Washington's second inaugural address was 135 words, the shortest ever. It takes approximately two minutes to recite or read.

Monuments, states, and the nation's capital are named for him. Washington appears on currency and Mount Rushmore as well.

Lesson: Keep it pithy.

Is there a correlation between the length of inauguration speeches and worthiness as president?

The facts speak for themselves.

As it is inauguration day, here is the speech Washington wrote for his second inauguration, in a time when presidents prepared and wrote their thoughts.


Fellow Citizens:

I am again called upon by the voice of my country to execute the functions of its Chief Magistrate. When the occasion proper for it shall arrive, I shall endeavor to express the high sense I entertain of this distinguished honor, and of the confidence which has been reposed in me by the people of united America.

Previous to the execution of any official act of the President the Constitution requires an oath of office. This oath I am now about to take, and in your presence: That if it shall be found during my administration of the Government I have in any instance violated willingly or knowingly the injunctions thereof, I may (besides incurring constitutional punishment) be subject to the upbraidings of all who are now witnesses of the present solemn ceremony.

Who wrote the presidential oath of office?

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"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."
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That's it. In just 35 words (or 37 words if you count the alternative "or affirm") an individual swears the Oath of Office to The Presidency of The United States for the next four years. Yet, most Americans don't know who wrote the oath, mainly because no single person did.

The oath is written in the United States Constitution, and appears as the only sentence placed in quotation marks. James Madison--who would later become the fourth president--is largely credited with being the author of the Constitution, but an array of Founding Fathers offered their own thoughts of what to include in the document.

In the middle of the following draft from August 6, 1787, in the National Archives, George Washington annotated the presidential oath with his own thoughts, striking out "judgment" and changing the wording to a president's "abilities" (later changed again to "ability"):

During the Constitutional Convention, multiple committees of delegates debated various factors of the document, including a Committee of Detail and a Committee of Style and Arrangement, the latter of which included Madison and Alexander Hamilton, among others.

In the end, no one person can lay claim to the crafting the words forty-four men have said, and a forty-fifth will say later this week. It seems the presidential oath, like American democracy, is a child born of many fathers.

Well aren't you a Chatty Charlie: Inauguration Day Speeches, George Washington's 1793 Speech

With Inauguration Day upon us, let us look back on yesteryear when presidents actually wrote their own speeches and kept it pretty pithy.

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The first president of the United States of America was also the first president have have a second inauguration. George Washington's first inauguration speech in 1789 was--at the time--a lengthy 1,428 words, akin to about six double-spaced typed pages.

Upon his second election and inauguration in 1793, Washington kept it simple--so simple and to the point that it only took him 135 words to offer his feelings leading into his second term.

Washington's speech in its entirety:

Fellow Citizens:

I am again called upon by the voice of my country to execute the functions of its Chief Magistrate. When the occasion proper for it shall arrive, I shall endeavor to express the high sense I entertain of this distinguished honor, and of the confidence which has been reposed in me by the people of united America.

Previous to the execution of any official act of the President the Constitution requires an oath of office. This oath I am now about to take, and in your presence: That if it shall be found during my administration of the Government I have in any instance violated willingly or knowingly the injunctions thereof, I may (besides incurring constitutional punishment) be subject to the upbraidings of all who are now witnesses of the present solemn ceremony.

I like how he ends on a downer of a note. "If I end up jerking around as president, feel free to not only legally punish me, but everyone here has the right to ofer up their own form of a creative beatdown."

Aww, that Georgie was a cutie.