State of the Union Archive

A database and analysis of historical State of the Union addresses.

by Ashutosh Kadakia

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The U.S. Constitution states that the President:

... shall from time to time give to the Congress Information on the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary Occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them ....

George Washington gave his first Annual Message on January 8, 1790. Tonight, just over 215 years later, George W. Bush gave his sixth State of the Union Address. This is a complete archive of the every State of the Union speeches delivered by American presidents. The readability statistics are based on the Flesch-Kincaid test.

Speech Archive

		1st	2nd	3rd	4th	end 4th
George Washington	1789-1793	January 8, 1790	December 8, 1790	October 25, 1791	November 6, 1792
	1793-1797	December 3, 1793	November 19, 1794	December 8, 1795	December 7, 1796
John Adams	1797-1801	November 22, 1797	December 8, 1798	December 3, 1799	November 11, 1800
Thomas Jefferson	1801-1805	December 8, 1801	December 15, 1802	October 17, 1803	November 8, 1804
	1805-1809	December 3, 1805	December 2, 1806	October 27, 1807	November 8, 1808
James Madison	1809-1813	November 29, 1809	December 5, 1810	November 5, 1811	November 4, 1812
	1813-1817	December 7, 1813	September 20, 1814	December 5, 1815	December 3, 1816
James Monroe	1817-1821	December 12, 1817	November 16, 1818	December 7, 1819	November 14, 1820
	1821-1825	December 3, 1821	December 3, 1822	December 2, 1823	December 7, 1824
John Quincy Adams	1825-1829	December 6, 1825	December 5, 1826	December 4, 1827	December 2, 1828
Andrew Jackson	1829-1833	December 8, 1829	December 6, 1830	December 6, 1831	December 4, 1832
	1833-1837	December 3, 1833	December 1, 1834	December 7, 1835	December 5, 1836
Martin van Buren	1837-1841	December 5, 1837	December 3, 1838	December 2, 1839	December 5, 1840
William Henry Harrison	1841	no messages given
John Tyler	1841-1845	December 7, 1841	December 6, 1842	December 1, 1843	December 3, 1844
James Polk	1845-1849	December 2, 1845	December 8, 1846	December 7, 1847	December 5, 1848
Zachary Taylor	1849-1850	December 4, 1849
Millard Fillmore	1850-1853		December 2, 1850	December 2, 1851	December 6, 1852
Franklin Pierce	1853-1857	December 5, 1853	December 4, 1854	December 31, 1855	December 2, 1856
James Buchanan	1857-1861	December 8, 1857	December 6, 1858	December 19, 1859	December 3, 1860
Abraham Lincoln	1861-1865	December 3, 1861	December 1, 1862	December 8, 1863	December 6, 1864
Andrew Johnson	1865-1869	December 4, 1865	December 3, 1866	December 3, 1867	December 9, 1868
Ulysses S. Grant	1869-1873	December 6, 1869	December 5, 1870	December 4, 1871	December 2, 1872
	1873-1877	December 1, 1873	December 7, 1874	December 7, 1875	December 5, 1876
Rutherford B. Hayes	1877-1881	December 3, 1877	December 2, 1878	December 1, 1879	December 6, 1880
James A. Garfield	1881	no messages given
Chester A. Arthur	1881-1885	December 6, 1881	December 4, 1882	December 4, 1883	December 1, 1884
Grover Cleveland	1885-1889	December 8, 1885	December 6, 1886	December 6, 1887	December 3, 1888
Benjamin Harrison	1889-1893	December 3, 1889	December 1, 1890	December 9, 1891	December 6, 1892
Grover Cleveland	1893-1897	December 4, 1893	December 3, 1894	December 2, 1895	December 7, 1896
William McKinley	1897-1901	December 6, 1897	December 5, 1898	December 5, 1899	December 3, 1900
Theodore Roosevelt	1901-1905	December 3, 1901	December 2, 1902	December 7, 1903	December 6, 1904
	1905-1909	December 5, 1905	December 3, 1906	December 3, 1907	December 8, 1908
William H. Taft	1909-1913	December 7, 1909	December 6, 1910	December 5, 1911	December 3, 1912
Woodrow Wilson	1913-1921	December 2, 1913	December 8, 1914	December 7, 1915	December 5, 1916
	1917-1921	December 4, 1917	December 2, 1918	December 2, 1919	December 7, 1920
Warren Harding	1921-1923	December 6, 1921	December 8, 1922
Calvin Coolidge	1923-1925			December 6, 1923	December 3, 1924
	1925-1929	December 8, 1925	December 7, 1926	December 6, 1927	December 4, 1928
Herbert Hoover	1929-1933	December 3, 1929	December 2, 1930	December 8, 1931	December 6, 1932
Franklin D. Roosevelt	1937-1941		January 3, 1934	January 4, 1935	January 3, 1936
	1937-1941	January 6, 1937	January 3, 1938	January 4, 1939	January 3, 1940
	1941-1945	January 6, 1941	January 6, 1942	January 7, 1943	January 11, 1944
	1945	January 6, 1945
Harry S. Truman	1945-1949		January 21, 1946	January 6, 1947	January 7, 1948
	1949-1953	January 5, 1949	January 4, 1950	January 8, 1951	January 9, 1952	January 7, 1953
Dwight D. Eisenhower	1957-1961	February 2, 1953	January 7, 1954	January 6, 1955	January 5, 1956
	1957-1961	January 10, 1957	January 9, 1958	January 9, 1959	January 7, 1960	January 12, 1961
John F. Kennedy	1961-1963	January 30, 1961	January 11, 1962	January 14, 1963
Lyndon B. Johnson	1964-1965				January 8, 1964
	1965-1969	January 4, 1965	January 12, 1966	January 10, 1967	January 17, 1968	January 14, 1969
Richard Nixon	1969-1973		January 22, 1970	January 22, 1971	January 20, 1972
	1973-1974	February 2, 1973	January 30, 1974
Gerald R. Ford	1974-1977			January 15, 1975	January 19, 1976	January 12, 1977
Jimmy Carter	1977-1981		January 19, 1978	January 25, 1979	January 21, 1980	January 16, 1981
Ronald Reagan	1981-1985		January 26, 1982	January 25, 1983	January 25, 1984
	1985-1989	February 6, 1985	February 4, 1986	January 27, 1987	January 25, 1988
George H.W. Bush	1989-1993	February 9, 1989	January 31, 1990	January 29, 1991	January 28, 1992
William J. Clinton	1993-1997	February 17, 1993	January 25, 1994	January 24, 1995	January 23, 1996
	1997-2001	February 4, 1997	January 27, 1998	January 19, 1999	January 27, 2000
George W. Bush	2001-2005	February 27, 2001	January 29, 2002	January 28, 2003	January 20, 2004
	2005-pres.	February 2, 2005	January 31, 2006