Dwight David Eisenhower rose from Pennsylvania Dutch ancestry to serve as the 34th President of the United States, from 1953-1961, giving two inaugural speeches. He was also a five-star, U.S. Army general during World War II and as Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe.
Under his watch, Eisenhower ended the Korean War, signed the Federal Highway Act of 1956, which authorized $25 billion to construct thousands of miles of U.S. interstate highways, and as signed the Civil Rights Act of 1957 and 1960, which integrated District of Columbia schools.
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He defeated Democrat Adlai Stevenson in the 1952 and 1956 elections. Here are seven highlights from his two inauguration speeches:
1. "We must be willing, individually and as a Nation, to accept whatever sacrifices may be required of us. A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both."
2. "History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid."
3. "Whatever America hopes to bring to pass in this world must first come to pass in the heart of America."
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4. "We seek peace, knowing that peace is the climate of freedom. And now, as in no other age, we seek it because we have been warned, by the power of modern weapons, that peace may be the only climate possible for human life itself."
5. "May the light of freedom, coming to all darkened lands, flame brightly — until at last the darkness is no more."
6. "There must be law, steadily invoked and respected by all nations, for without law, the world promises only such meager justice as the pity of the strong upon the weak."
7. "The unity of all who dwell in freedom is their only sure defense."
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