George Washington’s first inaugural, as will President-elect Donald Trump’s, commemorated a dramatic change in the political evolution of this nation. With the 1789 festivities, the United States embarked on its transformation from 13 disparate colonies to a unified nation. The 2025 inauguration will mark quite a different moment in history, one that will celebrate one of the most remarkable comebacks in American politics — a presidential transition unimaginable four years ago, when the ceremony was reshaped and scaled back due to the COVID-19 pandemic and heightened security concerns.
During the 236 years between these two strikingly dissimilar celebrations, America has often changed its mind about what type of person should be president. America’s inaugurals have featured individuals of differing backgrounds, religions, ethnic groups and lifestyles. Before entering politics, one was an actor, another a peanut farmer and a third a journalist. Others were architects, businessmen, engineers, farmers, generals, judges, lawyers, planters, professors, sailors, soldiers, surveyors and teachers.
Not only has the opinion of voters changed about who should lead the country, but the death of eight presidents while in office and resignation of a ninth have left succeeding vice presidents in control of the White House. None of the four presidential successors in the 19th century — John Tyler (1841), Millard Fillmore (1850), Andrew Johnson (1865) and Chester A. Arthur (1881) — would go on to be elected to a full term. Conversely, of the five vice presidents who ascended to the presidency in the 20th century — Theodore Roosevelt (1904), Calvin Coolidge (1921), Harry S Truman (1948), Lyndon B. Johnson (1964) and Gerald Ford (1974) — only Ford did not subsequently win a full presidential term and retake the oath on the traditional inauguration day.
In repeating the 35-word presidential oath, Donald Trump will fulfill every inaugural requirement of the Constitution, which simply prescribes the wording in Article II, Section 1, but makes no other provision for ceremony or celebration. Still, the accompanying pageantry and festivities will be minutely chronicled and another chapter will be added to the ever-evolving inaugural story.
Since Washington’s first inaugural on a small portico between columns of New York City’s Federal Hall, Americans have watched as decisions made by presidents on this transformation day have established, continued and shattered historic traditions. Presidents have taken the oath of office in several cities and states, on different days than the official inauguration date and before intimate groups as well as cheering throngs at the Capitol.
Washington’s second inauguration, as well as that of his successor, John Adams, was held indoors at Independence Hall in Philadelphia. The first president to be inaugurated in the newly completed Capitol in Washington, D.C., was Thomas Jefferson. James Madison’s first inaugural in 1817, the first ceremony since Washington’s to be held outside, took place in front of the “Old Brick Capitol” at First and A Streets, since the Capitol was being rebuilt after having been burned by the British in 1814. Although rain and snow forced Monroe’s second inaugural into the House chamber in 1821, the outdoor swearing-in at his first inaugural set a precedent that with few exceptions has been followed by elected presidents since.
While Franklin D. Roosevelt continued the tradition of an outdoor ceremony for his historic fourth inauguration in 1945, it was not held at the Capitol but instead on the South Portico of the White House. History tells us Roosevelt took the oath of office there due to the exigencies of war or due to FDR’s failing health.
Historians and journalists have mistakenly credited President Ronald Reagan with moving the presidential inauguration in 1981 from the East Front of the Capitol to the West, where it has been held ever since. Donald Ritchie, historian emeritus of the U.S. Senate, corrects the story and tells us the “truth is that the Joint Committee on the Inauguration announced its decision to move the inauguration from the east to the west side of the Capitol in June 1980, more than a month before Republicans nominated Reagan, and for more pragmatic reasons than commentators suspect. The congressional committee calculated that the move would save money, since they could use the West Front terraces as an inaugural platform rather than build one from scratch, and that the Mall side of the Capitol would provide more space for spectators.”
Only one of the smallest and least-anticipated ceremonies, those involving a succeeding vice president, took place at the Capitol, when Millard Fillmore was administered the oath of office in the House chamber a day after the death of President Zachary Taylor. John Tyler and Andrew Johnson took the oath in Washington hotels, while the White House was the setting for Harry S. Truman and Gerald R. Ford. Private homes in New York, Plymouth, Vermont and Buffalo, New York, hosted Chester A. Arthur, Calvin Coolidge and Theodore Roosevelt respectively. Lyndon B. Johnson’s swearing-in took place aboard Air Force One in Dallas, Texas.
Initially, inaugurals occurred on March 4, a date designated first by the Continental Congress and then by the Succession Act of 1792 and the Twelfth Amendment (1804). Passage of the Twentieth Amendment (1933) changed the original date for the beginning of president and vice-president terms from March 4 to January 20, to shorten the period between their election and installation.
Washington’s first inaugural, however, was delayed until April 30, after a quorum of the members of the First Congress belatedly arrived in New York — the temporary capital — to count the Electoral College votes, and Washington was notified and traveled from Mount Vernon. Subsequently, when inauguration day fell on a Sunday — a day when neither court can be held nor legal business transacted — the public ceremony was postponed until Monday. This pattern was followed by James Monroe (1821) and Zachary Taylor (1849).
No such interim occurred in 1877, when the electoral votes in several states were disputed and a special Electoral Commission determined Rutherford B. Hayes to have won by a single electoral vote. Amidst accusations that Samuel J. Tilden, his opponent, had been cheated out of the presidency, Hayes first took the oath privately at the White House on Saturday. Woodrow Wilson (1917), Dwight D. Eisenhower (1957), Ronald Reagan (1985) and Barack Obama (2013) followed the Hayes precedent, taking the oath privately on Sunday and publicly on Monday at the Capitol.
The Constitution does not require a speech, but when, in 1821, President James Monroe considered not delivering one, he was advised not to break with tradition. Inaugural addresses were initially carried by horseback or stage to an awaiting nation, and then later by train and telegraph. The first newspaper extra of an inaugural address was printed by the National Intelligencer in 1801, and The Illustrated London News published the first known newspaper illustration of a presidential inauguration 44 years later. The 1845 inaugural was also the first to be covered by telegraph, while the 1857 inaugural was the first known to be photographed and the 1897 inaugural the first to be recorded by a movie camera. Not until Calvin Coolidge’s 1925 inaugural was an address broadcast by radio. Live television coverage began in 1949 with Harry S. Truman. The first time the ceremony was broadcast live on the Internet was in 1997.
Few inaugural addresses have been universally acclaimed as truly memorable, but all afford a picture window into an ever-changing history of America. On occasion a president’s remarks have accurately sensed the unique demands of an era and helped America move to a higher plateau of social consciousness.
Just 41 days before his assassination, Abraham Lincoln, in his second inaugural, spells out his vision of achieving that transcendent moment when all Americans can say, “With malice toward none; with charity for all ... let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind the nation’s wounds.”
As the Great Depression deepened in early 1933, Franklin D. Roosevelt’s first inaugural address offered hope to the disillusioned nation. “This great Nation,” he assured the American people, “will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper.” Then he asserted his “firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”
On a frigid winter’s day in 1961, John F. Kennedy’s historic words, “ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country,” challenged every American to contribute in some way to the public good. And “let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.”
A majority of the ceremonies have been on a clear day, but several have had overcast skies, strong winds, rain, sleet or snow. Regardless of the circumstances — in war or peace, in times of prosperity or financial crisis, in periods of horses or automobiles and planes, or in eras of the written letter or smartphone, the telegraph, radio, television, internet and social media — the ceremony has gone forward.
It is reassuring that at this challenging moment in history, the presidency will, as it always has, be passed on peacefully. An inauguration, as a good friend and I once wrote, is “a healthy middle ground between a coronation and a coup d’etat,” which affords the nation the opportunity to readjust its course.