New York Times compiled here a word cloud for the presidential inauguration speeches where the size of the word correlates to it's frequency in the speech. One thing that jumped out on me was the use of the words "peace" and "war" during major war times.
In America's early years, the word "war" was used significantly more than "peace." For example: preceding the war of 1812, James Madison said "war" over twice as much as any other word during his second term's inauguration speech. The same thing happened during Abraham Lincoln's speech in 1865 after the American Civil War.
It wasn't until 1901, after the Spanish-American War, that the words "peace" began showing up more during the president's speeches. In William McKinley's speech, "peace" and "war" appeared seven times each. The last time "war" was spoken excessively was in Warren Harding's speech in 1921, two years after World War I ended.
The first time the word "peace" began appearing more in presidential inaugurations was Woodrow Wilson's 1917 speech. It makes sense, especially since he didn't want America to get involved in the war. Franklin Roosevelt's 1945 speech was similar, where "peace" became his most used word.
After World War II ended "peace" became commonplace in the president's speeches. It makes sense, especially since that period was the Cold War. Interestingly, "peace" was used excessively during Dwight Eisenhower's and Richard Nixon's speeches, which took place during the Korean and Vietnam wars. The use of the word "war" was a combined 13 times versus 53 times for peace. During the climatic part of the Cold war, Ronald Reagan's ratio came to a whopping 2 for "war," 21 for "peace."
Since the War on Terror, the frequency of both words declined. The presidents spoke "war" about twice per speech. Although the word "peace" frequency dropped tremendously, it went under the cloak of "freedom" and "liberty" during George W. Bush's inauguration in 2005. Unlike most war-time speeches, Barack Obama's 2009 speech didn't hover around war/peace-related words.
