History Forum / General / General Topics / February 2005

U. S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Another stake in the heart of your position        

http://fpc.state.gov/fpc/40871.htm

Presidential Inaugurations Past and Present: A Look at the History Behind
the Pomp and Circumstance

Donald R. Kennon, Chief Historian, United States Capitol Historical Society
Foreign Press Center Briefing
Washington, DC
January 13, 2005

Donald Kennon at the FPC 2:00 P.M. EST

MR. DENIG: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the
Washington Foreign Press Center. Welcome, also, to journalists assembled in
our New York Foreign Press Center.

As the nation begins to focus on preparing for the presidential
inauguration, the 55th in our history, we thought it would be useful to
present to our journalists a historical briefing on the inaugurations. And
so today we present a briefing on presidential inaugurations, past and
present.

And we have an expert to talk about that. It's Dr. Donald Kennon, the Chief
Historian with the United States Capitol Historical Society. Dr. Kennon
will have opening remarks on the history of the inaugurations, and after
that, will be very glad to take your questions.

Dr. Kennon.

DR. KENNON: Well, thank you very much. I thought what I would do would be
to just briefly outline the day's events for the inauguration, what takes
place; talk a little bit about why we do it the way we do it; and then give
you some of my thoughts on what's significant about presidential
inaugurations, how they have evolved in the history of our nation, and then
take some questions from you, because I know you probably have many
questions about the presidential inauguration and how it's handled in our
nation.

Well, the first thing that will happen on January 20th, related to the
inauguration, is a church service at St. John's Church, a church that's
often referred to as the "Church of the Presidents." It's so near the White
House that many presidents throughout history have attended that church and
its services. The first time a president attended a church service before
an inauguration was in 1933, when Franklin Delano Roosevelt went to a
church service the morning of the inauguration. Now, for those of you who
are reporters on American politics, you probably recognize Franklin
Roosevelt as the great liberal Democrat president who started the New Deal,
something that has dominated 20th century politics in our country. So in
some ways, it might seem rather ironic that a liberal Democrat started this
tradition of the president going to a morning church service before the
inauguration.

After that, there is what we refer to now as the morning procession. And
this is when the president-elect goes from the White House to the U.S.
Capitol building for the inaugural ceremony. The inaugural morning
procession actually goes way back in American history. The first president
inaugurated was George Washington, in 1789. And his procession was to the
Capitol at that time, which was in New York City, in Federal Hall where
Congress met. And Washington traveled from his home at Mount Vernon in
Virginia to New York City, and that, in effect, was almost a triumphal
procession, as the new president, the hero of our American Revolution, made
his way to New York City, greeted along the way by an adoring populace.

Actually, for a good deal of American history, the morning procession took
the place of what today is the post-inaugural parade. The parade actually
went to the Capitol building as people marched along with the president or
accompanied the president's carriage to the Capitol building. There are
famous illustrations of Abraham Lincoln's morning procession in 1861. This
was the inauguration that took place just at the beginning of our American
Civil War. And, if you know something about American history, you'll know
that Washington, D.C. was in the middle of slave states. The states of
Maryland and Virginia were both slave states. And so the president's safety
was of concern at the beginning of the Civil War. And there are a lot of
stories about this, but I'll just tell you that during the morning
procession, Lincoln's carriage, as it went to the Capitol building from the
White House, was flanked on both sides by mounted troops, cavalrymen --
soldiers on horseback. And in fact, people along the parade route said that
it was almost impossible to catch a glimpse of President Lincoln through
this protective guard that he had.

Once the procession reaches the Capitol, the inaugural ceremony, which is
scheduled to begin at noon, begins with the first official act, which is
the swearing in of the vice president. This is important because there
needs to be someone to take the place of the president if something has
happened to the president. So the vice president-elect is always sworn in
first.

Then the president is sworn in, and I'll be speaking much more about that
because that's what I consider and what the Constitution considers, the
most significant aspect of the inauguration: the taking of the oath of
office by the president-elect.

Following the oath of office, the president delivers his inauguration
address. This little historical sidelight: Prior to the 20th century, it
was quite common for the president-elect to give his inauguration address
prior to the swearing-in ceremony, prior to taking the oath of office, but
now, it's always after the oath of office. The president makes his
inaugural address, which is really, in the case of a newly elected
president, his first opportunity to publicly put forth his thoughts, his
agenda, for his presidency.

Following the inaugural ceremony at the Capitol, which is held outdoors at
the Capitol, the president and the members of Congress move inside the
Capitol for a luncheon. This is a tradition that began in 1953 with Dwight
David Eisenhower's inauguration. It's an opportunity for members of
Congress and the president -- the new president or president for a second
term -- to have lunch in a social setting and get to know one another
better.
Then, following that, at 2 o'clock is the parade in the afternoon that goes
back to the White House. And then in the evening, there are the inaugural
balls -- so the official ceremonies with the symbolism of a new president
taking office are followed by a celebration festival of a parade and the
inaugural ball.

Well, what is significant about the way we inaugurate a president? I think
there are three or four things I'd like to leave you with. First of all,
it's a regular and routine change of government. It happens every four
years. This is the 55th inaugural ceremony. Every four years, on January
20th -- since 1933, the date has been January 20th -- the president takes
office at noon. This regular, routine nature of a presidential inauguration
lends a stability and continuity to our form of government. It reassures
the public. It reasserts the faith our nation has in democratic government,
in elected representatives forming the government of our nation.
Historically, democracy is an experiment. Our American Revolution was an
experiment to see if the people could govern themselves. And the regular
and routine nature of a presidential inauguration reassures the people that
the experiment is continuing and succeeding.

It's also a peaceful change in government. The political party can change
who controls the presidency. The agenda may change from one president to
another, but it changes peacefully. Historically, there have been two very
interesting cases. The first was the inauguration of Thomas Jefferson in
1801. This was the first time that the presidency changed political
parties. Washington and John Adams had been Federalists; Thomas Jefferson
was a Democratic Republican. That was the party title at the time. His
party was in opposition to the Federalist Party. He won the presidency. So
there was concern that this would be a peaceful inauguration. John Adams,
his predecessor, actually left town, rather than take part in the inaugural
ceremony, one of only two times in American history that an outgoing
president has not attended the inauguration of his successor. And Adams did
it because he said he was fearful that his presence might incite his
followers, his party, to violence to oppose the inauguration of Jefferson.
But it was a very peaceful inauguration.

Our inaugurations are also public events. The inauguration takes place,
when weather permits, outdoors, in the presence of the public, the
electorate who chose the president. And it involves all three branches of
our federal government: The Executive, of course, the incoming president
and the outgoing president in cases in which there is an outgoing
president. It involves the Judicial Branch of the federal government. The
oath of office is usually given by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.
And it involves the Legislative Branch of government because the
inauguration takes place at the home of Congress, at the U.S. Capitol.

So symbolically, this is one of only two public events -- and I might ask
you if you know what the other one is -- that involve all three branches of
the government. Does anybody have a clue about what the other event might
be?

Pardon?

An impeachment. Impeachment trials are tried in the Senate. The prosecution
is from the House of Representatives. The judge in the trial is the Chief
Justice. And if it's an Executive officer or the president who's being
impeached, then it involves the Executive Branch as well.

Although the pageantry and the parades, the balls and the parties have
become increasingly more elaborate in American history, the only thing that
really matters in an American inauguration is taking the oath of office.
The Constitution specifies in Article 2, Section 1 that, "before he enter
the execution of his office, he shall take the following oath or
affirmation." And the oath, I'll just read it briefly -- "I do solemnly
swear or affirm that I will faithfully execute the office of President of
the United States, and will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect
and defend the Constitution of the United States."

So before he can actually begin to execute his office, he has to take this
oath. And the oath is very interesting. What's he swearing allegiance to?
He's swearing allegiance to this: To the Constitution. To a written
document that provides the blueprint for our form of government. So people
can change, policy agendas can change, parties can change, but the
structure remains the same. The individuals are interchangeable, but the
structure remains the same. And that's what's important.

The oath -- I'll just make a few closing remarks. The oath is usually taken
on a bible. George Washington, again, set the tradition of taking an oath
of office on the bible in 1789. They had to borrow a bible from a nearby
Masonic lodge in order to take that oath and in fact, the so-called
Washington Masonic bible has been used on four occasions since that time.
And it's here in town at the National Archives on display. I don't know if
it's planned to be used at this inaugural or not, but I wouldn't be
surprised if it is. Many presidents use a family bible and often borrow the
Washington bible to take the oath of office, put their left hand on the
bible, raise their right hand, and take the oath.

Now, Washington also set a precedent by adding, after he said the oath of
office, the words: "So help me, God." Now, if you go on the website of the
Presidential Inaugural Committee today, they will give you the text of the
oath of office and they say it's as specified in the Constitution. And then
they have the text. And then they put the, "So help me, God." [But] "So
help me, God" is not in the Constitution. It's not specified. It's
something that was added by Washington and has been said by almost every
president since then. There have been a couple of occasions when that
didn't happen. One was, Franklin Roosevelt in 1933. He simply forgot
because he was in such a hurry to get to his inaugural address – in 1933,
it's his first inauguration, he is facing the Great Depression, and he is
anxious to get to his speech where he -- you may recall the famous words --
"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself," -- a plea for unity in the
face of the Great Depression.

Maybe I'll make just a couple of remarks about inaugural addresses. That's
usually been the theme of inaugural addresses -- a plea for national unity.
Remember, we're a diverse nation. Many different ethnic groups, many
different nationalities, many different religious organizations and groups
have coalesced to create this nation, so the challenge of our governing
system is to bring unity out of this diversity. And so many of the
presidential inaugurations have been pleas for unity. Thomas Jefferson, in
that 1801 Inaugural Address -- remember I spoke about how there was the
fear that there might be another revolution -- in fact, let me just cite a
little bit of that Inaugural Address. He said, "Let us then, fellow
citizens, unite with one heart and one mind. Every difference of opinion is
not a difference of principle. We have called by different names brethren
of the same principle. We are all Republicans. We are all Federalists." So
he was saying that, as Americans, as citizens of the United States, we have
more in common than we have in difference.

The Oath of Office, as I mentioned, is followed by the inaugural speeches.
Let me just give you a couple of brief facts about that before I open up
for questions. The longest inaugural speech came in 1841 when William Henry
Harrison spoke for two hours, nearly a 9,000-word speech. At that time,
inaugurals were held on March 4th. By April 4th, William Henry Harrison was
dead. It was a bitterly cold day. He caught pneumonia and died as a result
of this overexertion with the two-hour speech.

The first time amplification used in a speech was in 1921. Prior to that,
only the people very close to the President could actually hear what was
being said in the inaugural speech. Most people had to wait until the
speech was printed in the newspapers in order to read it.

In addition to Thomas Jefferson's first inaugural, there have been some
other very significant inaugural addresses. I mention Franklin Delano
Roosevelt's 1933 address at the height of the Great Depression. Abraham
Lincoln's two inaugural addresses, one coming at the beginning of the Civil
War and the second at the conclusion of the American Civil War, are, in
many ways, the most important and the best political speeches, I believe,
in American history.

Prior to the 20th century, of course, most presidents wrote their own
speeches. You know, today, of course, presidents have professional
speechwriters to help them write their speeches.

Lincoln wrote his first inaugural and showed it to some of his advisors,
one of whom said, well, you need to make it more of an attempt to pacify
the Southerners, and so he suggested some language. Lincoln took that
language or that paragraph, and then turned it into poetry. And here's what
he said at the closing of his speech. He said, "I am loathe to close. We
are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may
have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords
of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every
living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the
chorus of union when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better
angels of our nature."

What a way to close a speech. Unfortunately, it fell on deaf ears in the
South and the nation was plunged into four years of bitter and bloody civil
war. Lincoln then was inaugurated [a second time] in 1865 as the war was
drawing to a close and he again called for unity and for charity. And you
may have heard some of his immortal lines. The closing of that speech was,
"With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right
as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we
are in to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne
the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve
and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations."

I think I've gone on long enough. Let me take your questions.