Constitutional Opinion No. 2026-0731
Case Information
- Source
- The White House / Miller Center archive (millercenter.org)
- Author
- President Barack Obama
- Publication Date
- 2009-01-20
- Content Type
- Presidential Address
- Opinion Issued
- 2026-07-19
- AFCS Version
- 1.0
Holding
This is an idealistic, unifying inaugural, more concerned with values and national purpose than with policy specifics, and on the values it invokes it is more aligned with the Standard than its author's later, more programmatic appearances. It grounds American equality and freedom in the divine — the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free — and closes on faith, with God's grace upon us, the Faith of the Founders (XI). It honors the old, true values — hard work and honesty, courage and fair play — and proclaims a new era of responsibility, duties to ourselves, the self-reliance the Standard prizes. Its foreign-policy posture is restraint: we will begin to responsibly leave Iraq, forge a hard-earned peace in Afghanistan, and our power grows through its prudent use — the non-interventionist clause (XVI). And it connects the nation to its founding ideals and sacrifice (XVII). Against those aligned threads stand the governing-philosophy notes, mixed to adverse: the question is not whether our government is too big or too small but whether it works explicitly sets aside the limited-government priority (XII), and the calls for a watchful eye on markets and against favoring only the prosperous lean regulatory and redistributive (IX). The register is solemn, dignified, and unifying, which the reliability tier credits. Same president scores 64 here, 63 for the gridlock conference (0730), 52 for the 2014 SOTU (0728), 39 for the Arab Spring address (0729) — a forty-point spread across one author, tracking what each speech contained. Tier 1 nets to 60; the result is 64 — Mostly America First.
It is the judgment of this Court that Opinion No. 2026-0731 is hereby entered into the record, in accordance with the America First Constitutional Standard. The score stands. The reasoning is published. The record is public.