ABSTRACT
The extent to which Washington's first inaugural address was shaped by the immediate circumstances of April 1789 is further underscored when the readers compare it with his second inaugural, presented in the Senate chamber on March 4, 1793. But some variation of these ideas-even if only a perfunctory expression of them-would likely have appeared in his first inaugural address regardless of the political situation, just as similar ideas appeared in other of his speeches and letters accepting political or military posts. Washington was unquestionably familiar with these speeches and his first inaugural manifests a strikingly similar pattern. In addition, the ceremonies surrounding Washington’s inauguration reenacted—albeit on a much grander scale—those surrounding the inauguration of royal governors in colonial America. Rhetorical critics would seem well advised to give more intensive consideration to the interplay of generic constraints and the particular historical situations out of which rhetorical genres evolve and in which they operate.
