Before he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation:--"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."
[edit]Administrator of the oath
William R. King is the only executive official sworn into office on foreign soil. By special act of Congress, he was allowed to take his oath of the office of the Vice President on March 24, 1853 in
Cuba, where he had gone because of his poor health.
[1]He died 25 days later.
President
Franklin D. Roosevelt was administered the oath of office four times, more than any other president. However, since President
Barack Obama's second inaugural is to fall on a Sunday, he is likely to be sworn in twice for his second inauguration with the second falling on Monday. If this occurs as expected, Obama will also have been sworn in four times counting the two from his first inauguration, due to Chief Justice John Roberts and President Obama misstating the wording of the oath on his first attempt, thereby causing a request for a re-administration of the oath shortly after in private quarters.
[edit]Option of taking an oath or an affirmation
The Constitutional language gives the option to "affirm" instead of "swear". While the reasons for this are not documented, it may relate to certain Christians, including Quakers, who apply this scripture literally: "But above all things, my brethren, swear not, neither by heaven, neither by the earth, neither by any other oath: but let your yea be yea; and your nay, nay; lest ye fall into condemnation" (James 5:12, KJV).
[2] Franklin Pierce was the only president known to use the word "affirm" rather than "swear." Herbert Hoover is often listed to have used "affirm" as well, owing to his being a Quaker, but a newsreel taken of the ceremony indicates that the words used were "solemnly swear."
[3] Richard Nixon, who was also a Quaker, also swore, rather than affirm.
[4][5]
[edit]Forms of administering the oath
There have been two forms of administering, and taking, the oath of office.
Under the first form, now in disuse, the administrator articulated the constitutional oath in the form of a question, and modifying the wording from the first to the second person, as in, "Do you George Washington solemnly swear . . ." and then requested an affirmation. At that point a response of "I do" or "I swear" completed the oath.
[citation needed]
It is believed that this was the common procedure at least until the early 20th century. In 1881, the
New York Times article covering the swearing in of
Chester A. Arthur, reported that he responded to the question of accepting the oath with the words, "I will, so help me God."
[6] In 1929, Time magazine reported that the Chief Justice began the oath uttering, "You, Herbert Hoover, do you solemnly swear...",
[7] Hoover replied with a simple "I do".
Under the second, and current form, the administrator articulates the oath in the affirmative, and in the first person, so that the President takes the oath by repeating it verbatim.
[citation needed]
Many times the President-elect's name is added after the "I"; for example, "I, Franklin D. Roosevelt, do. . . ." Lyndon B. Johnson did not add his name when swearing his first oath of office after Kennedy's death since he was never asked to say his name; there is evidence that in all other inaugurations since
Franklin D. Roosevelt's first, the name of the president was added to the oath.
[citation needed]
[edit]Use of Bibles
[edit]Oath mishaps
President Barack Obama being administered the oath of office by Chief Justice John Roberts for the second time, on January 21, 2009.
- In 1909, when President William Howard Taft was sworn in, Chief Justice Melville Fuller misquoted the oath, but the error was not publicized at the time. The mistake was similar to the one Taft himself would make twenty 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."[7]
- In 1929, Taft, later the Chief Justice, garbled the oath when he swore 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 schoolgirl Helen Terwilliger on the radio. Taft eventually acknowledged his error, but did not think it was important, and Hoover did not retake the oath. In Taft's view, his departure from the text did not invalidate the oath.[7][12][13]
- In 1941, Charles Elmore Cropley, the Supreme Court clerk who held the Bible for President Franklin D. Roosevelt's third inauguration dropped the Bible after the oath was given. Photos detailing the mishap filled a full page of Life magazine the next week.[citation needed]
- In 1945, President Harry S. Truman's bare initial caused an unusual slip when he first became president and took the oath. At a meeting in the Cabinet Room, Chief Justice Harlan Stone began reading the oath by saying "I, Harry Shippe Truman...", Truman responded: "I, Harry S. Truman,..."[14]
- In 1965, Chief Justice Earl Warren prompted Lyndon Johnson to say, "the Office of the Presidency of the United States".[15]
- In 2009, Chief Justice John G. Roberts, while administering the oath to Barack Obama, incorrectly recited part of the oath. Roberts prompted, "That I will execute the Office of President to the United Statesfaithfully." Obama stopped at "execute," and waited for Roberts to correct himself. Roberts, after a false start, then followed Obama's "execute" with "faithfully", which results in "execute faithfully," which is also incorrect. Obama then repeated Roberts' initial, incorrect prompt, with the word "faithfully" after "United States."[16][17] The oath was re-administered the next day by Roberts at the White House.[18][19]
[edit]Retaking the oath of office
Seven presidents have repeated their oath of office, for different reasons:
- Presidents Chester A. Arthur (1881)[20][21] and Calvin Coolidge (1923)[22] took their first oath in a private venue (their residences), in the middle of the night, immediately after being notified of the death of a predecessor (James A. Garfield and Warren G. Harding, respectively). They later retook the oath after returning to Washington. In the case of Coolidge, there was an additional doubt whether an oath administered by a public notary (Coolidge's father) was valid.[23]
- Four presidents took a private oath when Inauguration Day fell on a Sunday, and then a second oath in a scheduled public ceremony on the next day (Monday): Rutherford B. Hayes in 1877 (who actually took the private oath on March 3, a Saturday, one day before his term started), Woodrow Wilson in 1917, Dwight Eisenhower in 1957, and Ronald Reagan in 1985. Reagan's public oath was also moved indoors to the Capitol Rotunda due to severe winter weather.[24][25][26][27]
- On January 21, 2009, Chief Justice Roberts administered the presidential oath a second time to Barack Obama "out of an abundance of caution," according to the White House, because, when the oath was administered to President Obama the first time in the public inauguration ceremony, the word "faithfully" was misplaced. The second oath was administered in a simple, private ceremony in the Map Room of the White House.[19][28][29][30] Obama's oath-retaking differed from all his predecessors' in that the private ceremony happened after the public one.
In addition, all incumbent Presidents elected to second or subsequent terms have been re-inaugurated and re-taken the oath at the beginning of their new term, even though it is technically not necessary for an incumbent President to take the oath again.
[citation needed]
[edit]"So help me God"
It is uncertain how many Presidents used a Bible or added the words "So help me God" at the end of the oath, or in their acceptance of the oath, as neither is required by law; unlike many other federal oaths which do include the phrase "So help me God."
[31] There is currently debate as to whether or not
George Washington, the first president, added the phrase to his acceptance of the oath. All contemporary sources fail to mention Washington as adding a religious codicil to his acceptance.
[32]
The historical debate over who first used "So help me God," is marred by ignoring the two forms of giving the oath. The first, now in disuse, is when the administrator articulates the constitutional oath in the form of a question, as in, "Do you George Washington solemnly swear...", requesting an affirmation. At that point a response of "I do" or "I swear" completes the oath. Without verbatim transcripts, the scant existing evidence shows this was the common procedure at least until the early 20th century. In 1865 the Sacramento
Daily Union covered the second inauguration of
Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln finished his oath with "So help me God," and he kissed the bible.
[33] In 1881, the New York Times article covering the swearing in of
Chester A. Arthur, reported that he responded to the question of accepting the oath with the words, "I will, so help me God".
[6] In 1929,
Time magazine reported that the
Chief Justice began the oath uttering, "You, Herbert Hoover, do you solemnly swear..."
[7]Hoover replied with a simple "I do".
A Federal law suit filed in the District of Columbia by
Michael Newdow on December 30, 2008 contended the second, current form of administration, where both the Chief Justice and the President articulate the oath, appending "So Help Me God", to be a breach of the constitutional instructions. The suit distinguishes between the words spoken by the administrator, which must conform to the exact 35 words of the constitution, and the President, who has a right to add a personal prayer, such as "So Help Me God."
[34]
Chief Justice Roberts' reply was that his "prompting" for these four extra-constitutional words were to be recited "after" the oath of office, and not as a part of the oath as claimed in the suit.
[35]
The first Congress explicitly prescribed the phrase "So help me God" in oaths under the
Judiciary Act of 1789 for all U.S. judges and officers other than the President. It was prescribed even earlier under the various first state constitutions
[36] as well as by the Second Continental Congress in 1776.
[37][38] Although the phrase is mandatory in these oaths, the said Act also allows for the option that the phrase be omitted by the officer, in which case it would be called an
affirmation instead of an
oath: "Which words, so help me God, shall be omitted in all cases where an affirmation is admitted instead of an oath."
[39] In contrast, the oath of the President is the only oath specified in the Constitution. It does not include the closing phrase "So help me God", and it also allows for the optional form of an
affirmation which is not considered an oath. In practice, however, most Presidents, at least during the last century, have opted to take the
oath (rather than an
affirmation), to use a Bible to do so, and also to close the oath with the customary phrase.
The earliest known source indicating Washington added "So help me God" to his acceptance, not to the oath, is attributed to
Washington Irving, aged six at the time of the inauguration, and first appears 65 years after the event.
[40]
The only contemporary account that repeats the oath in full, a report from the French consul, Comte de Moustier, states only the constitutional oath,
[41] without reference to Washington's adding "So Help Me God" to his acceptance.
Evidence is lacking to support the claim that Presidents between Washington and
Abraham Lincoln used the phrase "So help me God." A contemporaneous newspaper account of Lincoln's 1865 inauguration states that Lincoln appended the phrase "So help me God" to the oath.
[42] This newspaper report is followed by another account, provided later in the same year after Lincoln's death (April 15, 1865), that Lincoln said "So help me God" during his oath.
[43] The evidence pertaining to the 1865 inauguration is much stronger than that pertaining to Lincoln's 1861 use of the phrase. Several sources claim that Lincoln said "So help me God" at his 1861 inauguration, yet these sources were not contemporaneous to the event.
[44][45] During the speech, Lincoln stated that his oath was "registered in Heaven",
[46] something some have taken as indicating he likely uttered the phrase "So help me God." Conversely, there was a claim made by A.M. Milligan (a Presbyterian minister who advocated for an official Christian U.S. government) that letters were sent to Abraham Lincoln asking him to swear to God during his inaugurations, and Lincoln allegedly wrote back saying that God's name was not in the Constitution, and he could not depart from the letter of that instrument.
[47][48]
Other than the president of the U.S., many politicians (including
Jefferson Davis, sworn in as president of the
Confederate States of America in 1861) used the phrase "So help me God" when taking their oaths.
[49] Likewise, all federal judges and executive officers were required as early as 1789 by statute to include the phrase unless they affirmed, in which case the phrase must be omitted.
[50]
Given that nearly every President-elect since President
Franklin D. Roosevelt has recited the codicil, it is likely that the majority of presidents-elect have uttered the phrase
[51] (as well as some vice presidents, while taking their oaths). However, as President
Theodore Roosevelt chose to conclude his oath with the phrase "And thus I swear," it seems that this current of tradition was not overwhelmingly strong even as recently as the turn of the twentieth century. Only
Franklin Pierce has chosen to affirm rather than swear.
[52] It is often asserted that
Herbert Hoover also affirmed, because he was a
Quaker, but newspaper reports before his inauguration state his intention to swear rather than affirm.
[53]
