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Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (October 14, 1890-March 28, 1969) was the thirty-fourth president of the United States, from 1953 until 1961. He was a five-star general in the United States Army during World War II and served as supreme commander of the Allied Forces in Europe; he had responsibility for planning and supervising the invasion of North Africa in Operation Torch in 1942-43 and the successful invasion of France and Germany in 1944-45 from the Western Front.

John Calvin Coolidge, Jr. (July 4, 1872-January 5, 1933) was the thirtieth president of the United States (1923-1929). A Republican lawyer from Vermont, Coolidge worked his way up the ladder of Massachusetts state politics, eventually becoming governor of that state. His response to the Boston police strike of 1919 thrust him into the national spotlight and gave him a reputation as a man of decisive action.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 - November 22, 1963), commonly known as Jack Kennedy or by his initials JFK, was an American politician who served as the 35th president of the United States from January 1961 until his assassination in November 1963. This undelivered speech was due to be given on November 22, 1963, to the annual meeting of the Dallas Citizens Council at the Dallas Trade Mart.

Herbert Clark Hoover (August 10, 1874-October 20, 1964) was the thirty-first president of the United States (1929-1933). Hoover, born to a Quaker family, was a professional mining engineer. He achieved American and international prominence in humanitarian relief efforts in war-time Belgium and served as head of the U.S. Food Administration during World War I.

Theodore Roosevelt wrote this message on January 3, 1919. Both by its character and the circumstances of its publication, it's considered his final message to the American people. He sent it to the president of the American Defense Society, and it was read at a great mass meeting under the auspices of that organization in the Hippodrome in New York, on the evening of January 5. It was published on the morning of January 6, the day of his death.

Harry S. Truman (May 8, 1884-December 26, 1972) was the thirty-third president of the United States (1945-53). As the final running mate of President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1944, Truman assumed the presidency on April 12, 1945, when Roosevelt died after months of declining health. Under Truman the Allies successfully concluded World War II; in the aftermath of the conflict, tensions with the Soviet Union increased, marking the start of the Cold War.

William Howard Taft (September 15, 1857-March 8, 1930) was the twenty-seventh president of the United States (1909-1913) and later the tenth chief justice of the United States (1921-1930). He is the only person to have served in both of these offices. Riding a wave of popular support for fellow Republican Roosevelt, Taft won an easy victory in his 1908 bid for the presidency.

Warren Gamaliel Harding (November 2, 1865-August 2, 1923) was the twenty-ninth president of the United States (1921-23), a Republican from Ohio who served in the Ohio Senate and then in the United States Senate, where he played a minor role.

Thomas Woodrow Wilson (December 28, 1856-February 3, 1924) was the twenty-eighth president of the United States, from 1913 to 1921, and leader of the progressive movement. Wilson induced a conservative Democratic Congress to pass a progressive legislative agenda, unparalleled until the New Deal in 1933. This included the Federal Reserve Act, the Federal Trade Commission Act, the Clayton Antitrust Act, the Federal Farm Loan Act, and an income tax.

McKinley led the nation to victory in the Spanish-American War, raised protective tariffs to promote American industry, and maintained the nation on the gold standard in a rejection of inflationary proposals. As an innovator of American interventionism and pro-business sentiment, McKinley's presidency is generally considered above average, though his universally positive public perception was soon overshadowed by Roosevelt.

Stephen Grover Cleveland (March 18, 1837 - June 24, 1908) was the 22nd and 24th President of the United States; as such, he is the only president to serve two non-consecutive terms and to be counted twice in the numbering of the presidents. He was the winner of the popular vote for president three times - in 1884, 1888, and 1892 - and was one of the two Democrats (alongside Woodrow Wilson) elected to the presidency in the era of Republican political domination dating from 1861 to 1933.

During the American Civil War, he served the Union for most of the war as a colonel and on February 14, 1865 was confirmed by the U.S. Senate as a brevet brigadier general of volunteers to rank from January 23, 1865. Afterwards, he unsuccessfully ran for the governorship of Indiana but was later elected to the U.S. Senate by the Indiana legislature.

The Emancipation Proclamation was a presidential proclamation issued by President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, as a war measure during the American Civil War, directed to all of the areas in rebellion and all segments of the Executive branch (including the Army and Navy) of the United States. It proclaimed the freedom of slaves in the eleven states that were still in rebellion, excluding areas controlled by the Union and thus applying to 3 million of the 4 million slaves in the U.S. at the time.

Chester Alan Arthur (October 5, 1829 - November 18, 1886) was the 21st President of the United States (1881-85); he succeeded James Garfield upon the latter's assassination. At the outset, Arthur struggled to overcome his reputation, stemming from his beginnings in politics as a politician from the New York City Republican political machine. He succeeded by embracing the cause of civil service reform.

His inability to calm tensions over slavery kept the country on the path to the American Civil War. Genial and well-spoken, Pierce was a northern Democrat who saw the abolitionist movement as a fundamental threat to the unity of the nation. His polarizing actions in championing and signing the Kansas-Nebraska Act and enforcing the Fugitive Slave Act failed to stem intersectional conflict, setting the stage for Southern secession, and leaving him widely regarded as one of the worst presidents in U.S. history.

Abraham Lincoln led the United States through its Civil War - its bloodiest war and its greatest moral, constitutional and political crisis. In doing so, he preserved the Union, abolished slavery, strengthened the federal government, and modernized the economy. Three days before he was shot, Lincoln delivered this, his last public speech. Dealing with "reconstruction", and especially Louisiana, Lincoln for the first time publicly endorsed black voting rights. John Wilkes Booth, who was in the audience, vowed "That is the last speech he will make."

Ulysses S. Grant (born Hiram Ulysses Grant; April 27, 1822 – July 23, 1885) was the 18th President of the United States (1869–1877). As commanding general, Grant led the Union Armies to victory over the Confederacy in the American Civil War, which ended shortly after Robert E. Lee surrendered to him at Appomattox in 1865. After the war, Grant served as commanding general, implementing Congressional Reconstruction, often at odds with President Andrew Johnson.

Jackson's Farewell Address has been described as an agrarian message in which he tells how he tried to promote traditional ideals while restraining privileged monopolies. He explains that the country's economic health, attributed to new market forces, has led to unprecedented prosperity and that never before had the people "enjoyed so much freedom and happiness.

Fillmore was the only Whig president that did not die in office or get expelled from the party, and Fillmore appointed the only Whig Supreme Court Justice. He is consistently included in the bottom 10 of historical rankings of Presidents of the United States. As Zachary Taylor's vice president, he assumed the presidency after Taylor's death. Fillmore was a lawyer from western New York state, and an early member of the Whig Party.

Polk was the last strong pre-Civil War president. Despite his concern that "It may, indeed, be truly said that my Administration has fallen upon eventful times," scholars have ranked him favorably on the list of greatest presidents for his ability to set an agenda and achieve all of it.