Presidential Documents: The Speeches, Proclamations, and Policies That Have Shaped the Nation from Washington to Clinton (review)

Presidential Documents: The Speeches, Proclamations, and Policies That Have Shaped the Nation from Washington to Clinton. Edited by J. F. Watts and Fred L. Israel. New York: Routledge, 2000; pp. v + 396. $75.00.

No book could dramatize more clearly the differences between a rhetorical and a historical approach to presidential discourse. The items included are chosen for historical reasons; in the editors' words, this is "a representative collection of presidential statements or decisions which shaped or reflected American history" (2). Most are excerpts; only shorter documents are complete. The editors' "goal was to excerpt these documents so that they were readable in a reference volume aimed at a wide audience" (3). Each item is introduced with a headnote that provides historical and biographical information.

This is not a book for the rhetorical or historical scholar's bookshelf; both the system of selection and the excerpting severely limit its usefulness. To give a sense of its limitations, here are some of the items omitted: Kennedy's Cuban Missile Crisis speech; LBJ's first presidential speech, his "We shall overcome" speech on civil rights, and the speech in which he steps down; Nixon's Vietnamization address of November 3, 1969, and all of his Watergate defenses; Ford's first speech; Reagan's introduction of Reaganomics on February 5, 1981, all of his State of the Union addresses, his speech on Lebanon and Granada, his speech at Bitburg, his response to Irangate on March 4, 1987, and his farewell; all of Clinton's State of the Union addresses, his speech at Oklahoma City, and all of his speeches regarding race and civil rights. For presidents from Kennedy through Bush, it is instructive to compare the table of contents with that of Theodore Windt's Presidential Rhetoric, 5th ed. (1994).

The excerpting and selection process also affects the discourse of earlier presidents. One paragraph has been removed from George Washington's first inaugural, and his farewell address omits his rather striking view of the unity of the government as a "political fortress against which the batteries of internal and external enemies will be most constantly and actively (though often covertly and insidiously) directed" and his urging citizens to "speak of it as the palladium of your political safety and prosperity" (Richardson, Messages and Papers of the Presidents, 1897, 1:215). Madison's 1812 war message omits key parts of the defense of his request for a declaration of war on the grounds that all other options had failed. Jackson's relatively short first inaugural omits his rather touching comments on his limitations, which echo the humility of Washington's first inaugural. All of Jackson's telling remarks on policy toward Native Americans are omitted. No part of his long, carefully argued special message regarding South Carolina's nullification ordinance is included nor is his proclamation on that matter, both carefully argued prose works. Jackson's farewell omits the phrase for which it is best remembered, "that eternal vigilance by the people is the price of liberty, and that you must pay the price if you wish to secure the blessing" (Richardson, 3:304). Tyler's passionate protest of August 30, 1842, which dramatizes the conflict between the executive and legislative branches that results in movements toward impeachment, is absent. The excerpting of Polk's war message eliminates the historical background through which he argues that all other options have been exhausted; in fact, this abbreviated version does not reflect the arguments well.

I was delighted to see that Buchanan's last annual message was included because its arguments regarding the legitimacy of secession parallel those made by Lincoln in his first inaugural, but partly through an editing error on page 119 (without ellipses from the bottom of Richardson 5:628 to the bottom of 5:629) and because its ending is omitted, much of the...