Editor’s note: This week we are counting down the top five inaugural addresses in U.S. history. At number four is Franklin D. Roosevelt’s first inaugural address. Below, the historian Carl Rollyson of Baruch College of the City University of New York explains the importance of Roosevelt’s address. Rollyson’s complete analysis of the document can be downloaded at MilestoneDocuments.com or Amazon.com.

When Franklin Delano Roosevelt delivered his first inaugural address on March 4, 1933, the United States was still in the midst of the Great Depression, which began after the stock market crash on what came to be known as Black Tuesday, October 29, 1929. The American economy hit rock bottom in the very month Roosevelt took his oath of office. In his first inaugural address, he treated this moment of history as unprecedented. Unlike his predecessor, Herbert Hoover, Roosevelt did not shy away from blaming the business community for incompetent and unethical practices that had led to economic disaster. While he emphasized that “the people of the United States have not failed,” he regarded himself as the leader they elected to restore a sense of “discipline and direction.”

Without outlining a specific program, Roosevelt signaled that the federal government would take a much more direct role in putting people to work and in managing the national economy. Roosevelt argued that only through major improvements on the domestic front could the United States hope to compete successfully in international markets. In effect, he declared a state of domestic emergency and called on Congress to grant him the broad executive powers required to deal with a crisis as great as war and as perilous as the invasion of a foreign foe.

As the historian Kenneth S. Davis reports, Roosevelt’s first inaugural address was received with great calm but also with “powerfully focused attention.” Although his call to action stirred some listeners, others were disturbed because his words seemed “distressingly vague.” Overall, however, the new president conveyed a spirit of courage and optimism. When he declared that he would not hesitate to call for broad executive power to combat the national crisis, he was greeted with a loud burst of applause. After Roosevelt asked for God’s blessing, protection, and guidance, the audience fell silent and then erupted in cheers and applause.

Davis suggests that in the first thirty-six hours after his address, Roosevelt transformed the national mood, vanquishing the “gloomy compound of fear, anger, disgust, cynicism, and despair.” Ted Morgan calls the national response “galvanic,” though he notes that dissenters like Edmund Wilson scorned Roosevelt’s boy scout enthusiasm while others, like the actress Lillian Gish, thought the new president’s performance incandescent. In the week after his address, Roosevelt received a half million letters.

Roosevelt’s ringing phrase, “we have nothing to fear but fear itself,” has remained the signature statement of his first public speech as president. It typified his tendency to believe that in restoring Americans’ confidence in themselves, he was also bringing the country back to a sense of its own greatness and ability to prosper.

Top 5 Inaugural Addresses: No. 5 (Thomas Jefferson’s first inaugural address)