A Potted History of the State of the Union

Before Barack Obama's speech tonight, The Redcoat gives you a brief introduction to the State of the Union

“He shall from time to time give to Congress information of the State of the Union and recommend to their Consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.” This is the constitutional basis of what has become the State of the Union address, but it does not demand a speech. As Toby Ziegler noted in The West Wing: “If the President buys Congress a subscription to The Wall Street Journal, he’s fulfilled his constitutional obligation.”

Indeed, Jefferson believed the speech to be too monarchical and stopped delivering an address in person in 1801, choosing to send a written State of the Union instead. It was Woodrow Wilson, in 1913, who revived the tradition of having a speech, and every President since has done so. Lyndon Johnson moved the speech to the evening, making it a primetime event available to be seen and heard by the entire nation.

The speech is rarely notable in the course of a Presidency, though occasionally, in retrospect, there are moments of great symbolism. For instance, George W. Bush’s first State of the Union, in January 2002, set the tone for the rest of his presidency and his administration’s approach to the war on terror, as he identified the “axis of evil” for the first time. However, the final address before the end of a President’s first term naturally has extra importance.


The notion of a centre-piece speech to the nation by the elected leader is sorely missing from other countries. In Britain, we endure party conference speeches which speak to the hall and not to the country, whilst the Queen’s Speech trounces the Americans for ceremony but is an oratorical void. Tonight is an example of something we could learn from our younger cousins across the pond.