First Inauguration

“Among the vicissitudes incident to life, no event could have filled me with greater anxieties than that of which the notification was transmitted by your order, and received on the fourteenth day of the present month.”

—from George Washington’s Inaugural Address, April 30, 1789

With these words to the assembled members of the Senate and House of Representatives, George Washington inaugurated the American experiment. It was a momentous occasion and an immensely important moment for the nascent nation. Never before had a people dared to invent a system of government quite like the one that Washington was preparing to lead, and the tensions between hope and skepticism ran high.

In this book, distinguished scholar of early America Stephen Howard Browne chronicles the efforts of the first president of the United States of America to unite the nation through ceremony, celebrations, and oratory. The story follows Washington on his journey from Mount Vernon to the site of the inauguration in Manhattan, recounting the festivities—speeches, parades, dances, music, food, and flag-waving—that greeted the president-elect along the way. Considering the persuasive power of this procession, Browne captures in detail the pageantry, anxiety, and spirit of the nation to arrive at a more nuanced and richly textured perspective on what it took to launch the modern republican state.

Compelling and weighty, The First Inauguration tells the story of the early republic, and of a president who, by his words and comportment, provides for us today a model of leadership, civic life, and democratic governance.