The oath of office of the President of the United States is an oath or affirmation required
by the United States Constitution before the President begins the execution of the office.
The wording is specified in Article Two, Section One, Clause Eight:
Before he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation:—
“I do solemnly swear 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.”
Administrator of the oath While the Constitution does not mandate that
anyone in particular should administer the oath, the oath is typically administered by
the Chief Justice, but sometimes by another federal or state judge.
By convention, incoming Presidents raise their right hand and place the left on a Bible or
other book while taking the oath of office.
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.
He died 25 days later.
From 1789 through 2013, the swearing-in has been administered by 15 Chief Justices, one
Associate Justice, three federal judges, two New York state judges, and one notary public.
To date the only person to swear in a president who was not a judge was John Calvin Coolidge,
Sr., Calvin Coolidge's father, a notary whose home the then-Vice President was visiting
in 1923 when he learned of the death of President Warren G. Harding.
Sarah T. Hughes is the only woman to administer the oath of office.
She was a U.S. District Court judge who swore Lyndon B. Johnson into office on Air Force
One after John F. Kennedy's assassination.
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".
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."
Richard Nixon, who was also a Quaker, also swore, rather than affirm.
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.
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."
In 1929, Time magazine reported that the Chief Justice began the oath uttering, "You, Herbert
Hoover, do you solemnly swear ...", 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.
Franklin Roosevelt, in 1933, stood silent as Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes recited
the entire oath, then repeated that oath from beginning to end himself.
By the time of Harry Truman's inauguration in 1949, the practice was for the Chief Justice
to utter the oath in chunks, with the President-elect repeating those chunks, until the oath was
completed.
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.
Use of Bibles Theodore Roosevelt did not use a Bible when
taking the oath in 1901.
Barack Obama, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Harry S. Truman, and Richard Nixon swore the oath
on two Bibles.
John Quincy Adams swore on a book of law, with the intention that he was swearing on
the constitution.
Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in on a Roman Catholic missal on Air Force One.
Washington kissed the Bible afterwards, and subsequent presidents followed suit, up to
and including Harry Truman, but Dwight D. Eisenhower broke that tradition by saying
his own prayer instead of kissing the Bible.
Oath mishaps
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."
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.
In 1941, Charles Elmore Cropley, the clerk of the Supreme Court 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.
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, apparently mistaken about the
meaning of Truman's middle initial, began reading the oath by saying "I, Harry Shipp
Truman...", Truman responded: "I, Harry S Truman,..."
In 1965, Chief Justice Earl Warren prompted Lyndon Johnson to say, "the Office of the
Presidency of the United States".
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 States faithfully."
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."
The oath was re-administered the next day by Roberts at the White House.
Retaking the oath of office Seven presidents have repeated their oath
of office, for different reasons: Presidents Chester A. Arthur and Calvin Coolidge
took their first oath in a private venue, in the middle of the night, immediately after
being notified of the death of a predecessor.
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 was valid.
Five 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: Rutherford B. Hayes in 1877, Woodrow
Wilson in 1917, Dwight Eisenhower in 1957, Ronald Reagan in 1985, and Barack Obama in
2013.
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.
Obama's oath-retaking differed from all his predecessors' in that the private ceremony
happened after the public one.
Obama's two oaths in 2009 and his two oaths in 2013 tie him with President Franklin D.
Roosevelt, each taking the oath four times, the most ever recorded.
"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."
There is currently debate as to whether or not George Washington, the first president,
added the phrase to his acceptance of the oath.
No contemporary sources mention Washington as adding a religious codicil to his acceptance.
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.
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".
In 1929, Time magazine reported that the Chief Justice began the oath uttering, "You, Herbert
Hoover, do you solemnly swear..."
Hoover replied with a simple "I do".
A Federal lawsuit 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."
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.
After rendering the oath to President Barack Obama, Roberts prompted with a question "So
help you God?", to which the President responded, "So help me God."
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 as well as by the
Second Continental Congress in 1776.
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."
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, 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.
The only contemporary account that repeats the oath in full, a report from the French
consul, Comte de Moustier, states only the constitutional oath, 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.
This newspaper report is followed by another account, provided later in the same year after
Lincoln's death, that Lincoln said "So help me God" during his oath.
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.
During the speech, Lincoln stated that his oath was "registered in Heaven", 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 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.
Other than the president of the U.S., many politicians used the phrase "So help me God"
when taking their oaths.
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.
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.
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.
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.
List of oath takings
The oath of office of the President of the United States has been taken on 73 occasions
by 43 people.
See also List of United States presidential inaugurations
Presidential Succession Act United States presidential line of succession
References
External links Forrest Church, Ph.D., "Did George Washington
Say 'So Help Me God'?"
Peter R. Henriques, "'So Help Me God': A George Washington Myth that Should Be Discarded",
History News Network, online, January 12, 2009
Media related to United States presidential inaugurations at Wikimedia Commons
Video on YouTube Video of inaugurations from Franklin D. Roosevelt - Barack H. Obama