As the inauguration of 45th US elect-president Donald Trump is just round the corner, organisers are expecting a crowd of about 800,000 people, well below President Obama’s first inaugural function though.
Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue North West in Washington DC, the 21-metre high White House will thus formally change hands and witness the Trumps replacing the Obamas as its new occupants.
A visit to the archives of the United States Capitol Historical Society, a peek through the documents of the US Library of Congress and a study of historian Jim Bendat’s book “Democracy’s Big Day: The inauguration of our president 1789-2009” reveal that the White House has served as the official residence and principal workplace of all the US presidents since 1800.
President John Adams was the first resident of the White House, though the presidency was established in 1789.
Prior to the passing of the 20th Amendment to the Constitution in 1933, presidents were inaugurated on March 4, and not January 20, as we are accustomed to witnessing today.
However, when January 20 falls on a Sunday, the chief justice administers the oath to the president on that day privately and then again in a public ceremony the next day, on Monday, January 21.
The most recent public presidential inauguration ceremony was the swearing-in of President Barack Obama to begin his second four-year term in office, which took place on Monday, January 21, 2013.
Before Obama, this had happened twice in 1957 and 1985.
The first-ever inauguration, that of George Washington, took place on April 30, 1789.
All subsequent (regular) inaugurations from 1793 until 1933 were held on March 4, the day of the year on which the federal government began operations under the US Constitution in 1789. The exception to this pattern being those years in which March 4 fell on a Sunday. When it did, the public inauguration ceremony would take place on Monday, March 5. This happened on four occasions, in: 1821, 1849, 1877 and 1917.
Since 1789, the American presidential oath of office has been administered by 15 chief justices, one associate justice, three federal judges, two New York state judges, and one notary public. While the US Constitution does not mandate that anyone in particular should administer the presidential oath of office, it is typically administered by the chief justice. There have been a few exceptions in history though.
For example, George Washington was sworn into office during his first inauguration, on April 30, 1789, by Chancellor of New York Robert Livingston.
Upon being informed of Warren Harding’s death, Calvin Coolidge was sworn in as president by his father, John Calvin Coolidge, a notary public. Calvin Coolidge was visiting his family home at that time.
Federal Judge Sarah Hughes had administered the oath of office to Lyndon Johnson aboard Air Force One after John F. Kennedy’s assassination on November 22, 1963.
(Reference: Historian Glenn Kittler’s 1965 book “Hail to the Chief: The Inauguration days of our Presidents”).
The oath has been taken on 73 occasions by 43 people; seven have repeated their oath of office (for differing reasons). Nine new presidents have taken the oath after assuming office intra-term due to the incumbent’s death or resignation.
Only two US presidents have taken the constitutional oath of office four times – Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Barack Obama.
Roosevelt took the presidential oath four times because he was elected to four terms – before Congress had gone on to pass the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution, which limited the president to two terms in office.
As far as Obama is concerned, he took the presidential oath four times because during his first inauguration Chief Justice John Roberts had somehow botched the wording in the vow.
Fearing that critics could challenge Obama’s authority because he did not complete the constitutionally mandated oath properly, the president and Chief Justice Roberts correctly completed the oath days later in a private ceremony at the White House.
For transparency purposes, the president and Chief Justice Roberts recited the oath again in a public ceremony on Capitol Hill. One inauguration, one week, three recitations of the oath. The fourth came during Obama’s second inauguration.
Numerous American newspapers like the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times and The New York Times etc have also gone on to write that after the ninth US head of state William Henry Harrison had delivered a 100-minute long inaugural address - the record for the longest inaugural address by a president - in a freezing rainstorm on March 4, 1841 without an overcoat, hat or gloves, doctors said he had caught fatal cold. The 68-year-old Harrison had eventually died of pneumonia just a month later.
While George Washington’s second address was the shortest (135 words), and William Henry Harrison had delivered the longest (8,495 words).
However, many historians don’t believe the speech had anything to do with Harrison’s death. For one, he didn’t become sick until three weeks later, complaining of fatigue, and his lung ailments didn’t arise until later. In fact, most historians believe he actually died from enteric fever, not pneumonia.
According to researchers at the Maryland University’s School of Medicine, tainted drinking water at the White House likely led to Harrison’s death. Remember, in the early 19th century, sewage was dumped in a marsh only blocks away from the White House’s water supply.
In fact, the Maryland report also suggests tainted water could have played a factor in the death of Zachary Taylor, the 12th US president, who had died of cholera 16 months into his term.
During the presidential inauguration for John F. Kennedy, a small electrical fire had sparked at the podium, compelling the Secret Service members jump into action to smother the fire. It was blamed on a faulty heater meant to keep a set of speakers in the podium from freezing.
It was also during Kennedy’s inauguration that several dignitaries were not able to attend due to the inclement weather.
A storm had actually dumped eight inches of snow on Washington the night before the inauguration, leaving officials rushing to get streets cleared for the ceremony.
However, Kennedy’s iconic address is still remembered by many Americans.
He had implored Americans to “ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country”.
By convention, incoming presidents raise their right hand and place the left on the Bible while taking the oath of office since first President George Washington’s time.
However, President John Quincy Adams had taken oath on a book of American laws, viewing that taking the oath on Bible was a conflict to the constitutional separation of church and state, Franklin Pierce had done the same.
Theodore Roosevelt had also not used Bible when taking the oath in 1901. Lyndon Johnson had also not followed the tradition of placing his left hand on the Bible during oath.
Johnson, swearing in aboard Air Force One following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, had taken the oath of office on a Catholic missal, which is a religious book containing prayers.
Questions later emerged as to why Johnson – a Protestant – would use a missal to take the oath. A Washington Post report indicated that President Johnson and Federal Judge Sarah Hughes, who administered the oath, actually mistook the missal for a small, leather-bound Bible.
According to letters from John Wilkes Booth and loosely confirmed through photographs, President Abraham Lincoln’s assassin had attended his second inauguration.
It is believed that Lincoln’s murderer Booth had obtained his ticket for the inaugural ceremony through Lucy Lambert Hale, the daughter of a former senator from New Hampshire. Booth and Hale had a romantic relationship and were secretly engaged.
However, Hale was never investigated as a suspect in Lincoln’s assassination and historians have never found any evidence that she was aware of Booth’s plot.
The inaugurations of William Howard Taft in 1909 and Reagan in 1985 were moved inside the Capitol Hill because of cold weather.
The inaugurations of 1817 and 1945 were held at other locations in Washington DC due to the War of 1812 and World War II respectively.
The outgoing US president customarily attends the president-elect’s inauguration. Only five have chosen not to do so.
In 1800, John Adams did not remain in Washington to witness the inauguration of Thomas Jefferson, his successor.
In 1829, John Quincy Adams also left town, unwilling to be present to see Andrew Jackson’s accession to the White House.
In 1869, Andrew Johnson was angrily conducting a cabinet meeting even as his successor, Ulysses Grant, was being inaugurated. In 1921, Woodrow Wilson did not attend Warren Harding’s inauguration, though he rode to the Capitol with him.
In 1974, Richard Nixon did not attend Gerald Ford’s inauguration. Nixon had left Washington, prior to his resignation taking effect.
Gerald Ford had addressed the nation via broadcast after taking the oath, but he characterised his speech as “not an inaugural address, not a fireside chat, not a campaign speech — just a little straight talk among friends”.
The US vice president-elect is sworn into office at the same ceremony as the president-elect; a practice begun in 1937. Before then, the vice presidential oath was administered in the Senate chamber.
Several variants of the oath have been used since 1789. The current form, which is also recited by senators, representatives, and other government officers, has been in use since 1884:
“I, (full name), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God”.
The wording of the oath is specified in Article II, Section One, and Clause Eight of the United States Constitution.
Until William McKinley’s first inaugural address in 1897, the president-elect traditionally gave the address before taking the oath.
McKinley had requested the change so that he could reiterate the words of the oath at the close of his address.
Presidents John Tyler, Millard Fillmore, Andrew Johnson and Chester Arthur gave no address, but addressed Congress four months later.
In each of these cases, the incoming president was succeeding a president who had died in office, and was not elected as president in the next election.
In 1909, when President William Howard Taft was sworn in, Chief Justice Melville Fuller misquoted the oath, but the error was not publicised at the time. The mistake was similar to the one Taft himself would make some 20 years later when swearing in President Hoover. Recalling the incident, Taft wrote, “when I was sworn in as president by Chief Justice Fuller, he made a similar slip,” and added, “but in those days when there was no radio, it was observed only in the Senate chamber where I took the oath”.
It is imperative to note that in 1929, when Taft became the chief justice, he had garbled the oath while swearing in President Herbert Hoover using the words “preserve, maintain, and defend the Constitution”, instead of “preserve, protect, and defend”.
The error was picked up by a schoolgirl and Taft eventually acknowledged his error. President Hoover did not retake the oath.
According to March 25, 1929 edition of the Time magazine, in Taft’s view, his departure from the text did not invalidate the oath.
Similarly, in 2009, Chief Justice John Roberts had also incorrectly recited part of the oath while swearing in Barack Obama. The oath was hence re-administered the next day by Justice Roberts at the White House.