Clicking on any year below will take you to that year's address. You can then read the speech or search it for key terms using your browser search commands.

Use our special Google Search Page that allows searching by keywords over all platforms for the Democrats, Republicans, or other parties for all years. Enter a single term like environment; or multiple terms, such as Russia and Soviet and USSR; or a phrase, such as "foreign policy" enclosed within quotation marks. Just click on a year to go to the speech.

Terms or Years Served in Office	President	Year in the four-year term of presidential administration when an address was sent to or spoken before Congress
		1st	2nd	3rd	4th	Outgoing
2013-2017	Barack Obama	2013
2009-2013			2010	2011	2012
2005-2009	George W. Bush	2005	2006	2007	2008
2001-2005			2002	2003	2004
1997-2001	William Jefferson Clinton	1997	1998	1999	2000
1993-1997			1994	1995	1996
1989-1993	George Herbert Walker Bush		1990	1991	1992
1985-1989	Ronald W. Reagan	1985	1986	1987	1988
1981-1985			1982	1983	1984
1977-1981	James Earl Carter		1978	1979	1980	1981
1974-1977	Gerald W. Ford			1975	1976	1977
1973-1974	Richard Millhous Nixon	1973	1974
1969-1973			1970	1971	1972
1965-1969	Lyndon Baines Johnson	1965	1966	1967	1968	1969
1963-1965					1964
1961-1963	John F. Kennedy	1961	1962	1963
1957-1961	Dwight David Eisenhower	1957	1958	1959	1960	1961
1953-1957		1953	1954	1955	1956
1949-1952	Harry S Truman	1949	1950	1951	1952
1945-1949			1946	1947	1948
1945	Franklin Delano Roosevelt	1945
1941-1945		1941	1942	1943	1944
1937-1941		1937	1938	1939	1940
1933-1937			1934	1935	1936
1929-1933	Herbert Hoover	1929	1930	1931	1932
1925-1929	Calvin Coolidge	1925	1926	1927	1928
1923-1925				1923	1924
1921-1923	Warren G. Harding	1921	1922
1917-1921	Woodrow W. Wilson	1917	1918	1919
1913-1921		1913	1914	1915	1916

Article II, Section 3, of the U.S. Constitution states that the president "shall from time to time give to the Congress information of 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 House, or either of them . . ."

That brief passage has provided the authority for presidents to deliver annual reports to Congress. From the beginning, they were known as "Annual Messages." In the first quarter of the 20th century, they began to be called "State of the Union Addresses."

George Washington decided to deliver his messages as speeches before a joint session of Congress. His successor, Thomas Jefferson, chose to send written reports. All subsequent presidents sent written messages until, during his first term, Woodrow Wilson convened Congress in 1913 to hear his address. Wilson continued to deliver his addresses in person until 1919, when he became severely ill for the rest of his second term. Harding resumed the speaking tradition. It remains today and accounts for calling these reports to Congress "addresses" rather than "messages."

According to Karlyn Kohrs Campbell and Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Deeds Done in Words: Presidential Rhetoric and the Genres of Governance (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990), a State of the Union Address is characterized by

1. public meditations on values,
2. assessments of information and issues
3. policy recommendations.

Below is a table of all State of Union Addresses from Woodrow Wilson to Barack Obama. They were collected from various sources but the bulk came from Professor Ronald Brunner at the University of Colorado.