Presidential Oaths of Office

Every few years, several thousand people stand in the freezing cold of Washington D.C. and listen to a couple of people recite the following:

 “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.”

Well, technically, the Vice-President takes a slightly different oath.  The oath the president takes comes straight from the constitution, the one for the Vice-President is the same as for Congressmen and Senators as the Veep’s only real job, besides attending funerals and waiting for the boss to croak, is to preside over the Senate.  And if the incumbent President is reelected, he gets a second inauguration, and though he technically doesn’t have to, take the same oath a second time.

So, if Biden wins the coming (looming) election, he doesn’t have to, but will take advantage of the good photo opportunity to take the oath a second time, but if Trump wins, he will have to take the oath again.  Which brings up the obvious—at least to me—question:  Though the constitution does not mandate that during the oath that the president’s left hand rest on a book, most presidents have elected to use a Bible to symbolizes the importance of the oath and the commitment to uphold the Constitution.  Since Donald Trump is now selling the “God Bless the U.S.A Bible” for only $59.95, will he elect to use one if he is elected?

Technically, the Bible Trump is endorsing is a rather standard large print King James translation of the Bible with a copy of the U.S. Constitution added at the end.  So much for the separation of church and state.

There would be a precedent for Trump using his own Bible.  Thomas Jefferson meticulously extracted and rearranged passages from the New Testament to focus solely on the teachings and moral principles of Jesus, excluding all supernatural elements and miracles.  Though his Bible is commonly referred to as the Jefferson Bible, the actual title is “The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth”.  On March 4, 1801, when Thomas Jefferson was sworn in as president, this was the Bible he used for the ceremony.

Both versions of a presidential Bible would have been upsetting to President John Quincy Adams.  An ardent supporter of the separation of church and state, Adams chose to be sworn in on a law book.  Adams also started a fashion trend that remains to this day—he was the first president to wear long trousers at his inauguration, foregoing the traditional knee breeches.

This must have made an impression, since even though we are not sure what kind of book was used by the next four presidents), we do know that immediately after the oath was administered, Andrew Jackson kissed whatever book was used.  Considering the character of Jackson, the book might have been an artillery manual.

Franklin Pierce was sworn in on a law book.  Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in on a Catholic Missal as he was sworn in on Air Force One following the assassination of John F. Kennedy.  And if you are wondering, Kennedy, as the first Catholic president, was sworn in of a Catholic Bible, meaning that it has seven more books than the 66 book Protestant Bible.  The specific Bible he used was an 1850 leather-bound edition of the Douay-Rheims tome, which had been handed down from his mother’s side of the family.

There are a handful of presidents who were sworn in with no book present at all.  These are all vice-presidents who suddenly became president on the sudden death of the President, including Theodore Roosevelt, Andrew Johnson, and Calvin Coolidge.

Some presidents doubled down and used two Bibles, one placed on top of the other.  Harry Truman used his family Bible placed on top of the Gutenberg Bible.  Both George H. W. Bush and Richard Nixon used their family Bibles and the Washington Bible.  Dwight D. Eisenhower used the Washington Bible and the Bible issued to him at West Point.

Which brings us to the Lincoln Bible, probably the most famous Bible used in Presidential inaugurations.  Donald Trump used it atop his family Bible in 2017 and Barack Obama used it along with the personal Bible of Dr. Martin Luther King.  And most famously of all, of course, Abraham Lincoln used it in 1861.  That was before the book was known as the Lincoln Bible.

After Lincoln won the election in 1860, the South moved slowly towards succession.  Due to the threats of violence, Lincoln had to sneak into Washington, leaving most of his family possessions, including his family Bible, to make their way slowly to Washington.  For the inauguration, he borrowed a Bible from the clerk of the Supreme Court, William Thomas Carroll, who kept the Bible in his office for official use.  

This means the Lincoln Bible is actually the Carroll Bible since Abe only saw the book that one time.  When Lincoln was sworn in again in 1865. Just weeks before his assassination, the Bible used was probably one provided by Chief Justice Chase, who administered the oath.  Later, Chase said the Bible was presented to the Lincoln family, but according to information left by Robert Todd Lincoln, the president’s eldest son, the family never received it.  The location of that Bible is still a mystery.

Sometime after the president’s assassination, the Carroll family donated the Bible used in Lincoln’s first inauguration to the Lincoln Family.  In 1928, Robert Todd Lincoln’s widow gifted the Bible to the Library of Congress where it still remains.

Visitors to the Library of Congress can see a copy of the Lincoln Bible, which is the 1853 Oxford University Press edition of the King James Bible.  These copies are not exactly rare:  if you are interested in owning your own “Lincoln Bible”, they sell for about $50 in the used book market.  Search for an Oxford University Press 1853 edition of the King James Bible to locate one.

Or wait until you are elected president and they’ll let you use the real one.