Have any U.S. presidents written any great speeches on their own?

Question

I was just wondering, since at least nowadays presidents always have speech writers.

Answer 1

Great oraters seem to be a thing of the past ,especially amoung polititions. The fact that they use speech writers so much seems to me to eliminate or lessen the passion and validity of the seaker. I consider one of the best speeches ever written and delivered by a President to be Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. It made the crowd Ithink somewhat struck with awe. He thought it was a failure because it drew no reaction from the crowd. He wrote it on the back of an envelope while riding on a train to Gettsburg.

Answer 2

Lincoln wrote his Gettysburg address on an envelope on the way to the dedication of the Gettysburg cemetery.

Presidential speeches don't get any better than that one.

Some presidents wrote their speeches others did not. Most modern presidents will write the speech which is then polished and edited by staffers or will be written entirely by a speech writer and they merely read it. (The current one does the latter)

Answer 3

Well the Gettysburg address was definitely written by Lincoln. I THINK Bush as least partially writes some of his speeches. I've heard that in any case. I think speechwriters started mainly with radio/television.

Answer 4

Abraham Lincoln was perhaps the best speech writing president. He always wrote his own speeches. Many are legendary.
Bill Clinton gives a good speech, but I don't believe he writes them himself.

Answer 5

Most of the Presidents prior to the 1950s wrote all of their own speeches.

Answer 6

In the past, they wrote their own speeches...
Abraham Lincoln really wrote the Gettysburg Address... George Washington wrote his own Innaugural addresses...

But I don't honestly know when they started having speech writers.

Answer 7

Lincoln wrote the Gettysburg address.

Answer 8

Lincoln wrote the Gettysburg address on a napkin. And he was disappointed in it.

Answer 9

It is considered "professional" to use a speechwriter...but I would want to do it on my own. Even if you tell a speechwriter what you want to say, you will say it using their words and not your own.

Answer 10

up through Eisenhower, they mostly wrote their own.