Barack Obama inauguration: best of inaugural addresses

Barack Obama will today deliver the 57th inaugural address by an American president. Here we review some of the highlights from past speeches.

President Barack Obama takes the oath as the 44th U.S. President with his wife, Michelle, and daughters by his side at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on January 20, 2009 Photo: EPA

By Brennan Murray, Washington

9:00AM GMT 21 Jan 2013

Barack Obama - 2009
Begin again the work of remaking America

It was a scene that many Americans never thought they would witness in their lifetimes. Nearly two million visitors - from the US and abroad - carpeted Washington’s National Mall to watch America’s first black president sworn into office.

Although the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court mangled his delivery of the oath, Obama took to the podium and briefly pushed back the clouds of pessimism that had descended over a country gripped by financial crisis and mired in two foreign wars. Among the long list of ambitions was a programme of muscular domestic investment, a call to “roll back the specter of a warming planet”, and promises of “a new way forward” for tattered relations with the Muslim world.

We remain the most prosperous, powerful nation on Earth. Our workers are no less productive than when this crisis began. Our minds are no less inventive, our goods and services no less needed than they were last week or last month or last year. Our capacity remains undiminished. But our time of standing pat, of protecting narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions - that time has surely passed. Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America.