S3 E1: The Big Speeches™

The Past, the Promise, the Presidency

To kick off season three, The Bully Pulpit, we are starting with an episode on what we are affectionally calling The Big Speeches™. Moments when the president has used his unparalleled microphone and those words have left a major imprint on history.

We start where it all began, with George Washington. In September 1796, Washington printed an address to the American people and announced he would not seek a third term. Not only did Washington buck almost all political precedent, he also gave warnings and guidance to future generations.

Seventy years later, Abraham Lincoln took the oath of office for his second term and delivered a remarkable inaugural address. As the Civil War drew to a close, Lincoln mapped out his vision for the post-war United States and how to win the fight for peace.

Finally, the summer of 1979 was, as Jimmy Carter’s domestic policy advisor described it, the worst of times. There was an energy shortage, rampant inflation, and widespread unrest. But President Jimmy Carter took to the podium to address something much bigger than a gas shortage — a moral crisis in American life.

We have two excellent guests joining us today. John Avlon is senior political analyst and fill-in anchor at CNN, appearing on New Day every morning. He is also the author of two books about our topic for today, Washington's Farewell: The Founding Father's Warning to Future Generations and Lincoln and the Fight for Peace.

Dr. Meg Jacobs is a Research Scholar in the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs. She is the author of Panic at the Pump: The Energy Crisis and The Transformation of American Politics in the 1970s, Pocketbook Politics: Economic Citizenship in Twentieth-Century America, and Conservatives in Power: The Reagan Years, 1981-1989.