The Inaugural Address That Warned of the Dangers of ‘Legalized Larceny’ | Lawrence W. Reed

https://fee.org/articles/calvin-coolidge-s-inaugural-address-warned-of-the-dangers-of-legalized-larceny/?utm_source=email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2020_FEEDaily
In accordance with longstanding custom, Joe Biden’s first act upon being sworn in as the 46th US President will be to deliver an Inaugural Address. It will likely be longer than the shortest one (George Washington’s 135-word speech in 1793) but mercifully shorter than the longest one (William Henry Harrison’s two-hour, 8,450-word sleeper in 1841).

Most inaugural speeches are fully forgotten but every now and then, a new president coins a memorable term or utters an enduring phrase for the ages. FDR’s “We have nothing to fear but fear itself”; John Kennedy’s “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country”; and Ronald Reagan’s “Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem” come to mind.

Biden is not known for such eloquence. We will find out if his speechwriters are.

In any event, he will deserve a pat on the back if his address is half as good as that of a previous president who wrote his own speeches. That would be our 30th, Calvin Coolidge, whose Inaugural Address on March 4, 1925 was both profound and substantive.

History teaches endless lessons whether people want to learn them or not. Its pages instruct us painfully that the two greatest dangers from government are mission creep and creeps on a mission. The last thing you would ever hear from the lips of Calvin Coolidge were arrogant pretensions to knowledge or grand plans to “fundamentally transform” America. He was smart enough to know what his job was—to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution,” not to ignore it, shred it or rewrite it.