#precedent
The State of the Union That Left ‘WASHINGTON AMAZED’
In the early afternoon of April 8, 1913, Woodrow Wilson took a trip down Pennsylvania Avenue. His destination? The U.S. Capitol, where he would deliver a speech to a joint session of Congress.
It was a brief journey that would be repeated by subsequent presidents every year, with varying proportions of enthusiasm and obligation—and with a few notable exceptions—for the next century. It would be conducted with such regularity that the State of the Union address ranks, at this point, among the most routinized of our political spectacles.
At the time, however, Wilson’s speech was revolutionary. In that it was a speech at all.
Read more.[Image: Library of Congress]
Before 9pm ET tonight, take a few mins to read this short piece about the speech that started the SOTU tradition.
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I’m bothered by “civility” politics…
