Donald J. Trump made history on Jan. 20 when he became the first convicted felon to take the presidential oath of office.
Speaking from the Capitol in Washington—the same building that was infamously attacked by a howling mob of his supporters on Jan. 6, 2021—Trump took the 35-word oath of office, vowing to “faithfully execute the office of President of the United States” and to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” Americans who remain wary and weary of Trump consider his mouthing of those sacred words to be the first lie of his second term.
George Washington was sworn in with those same words in 1789, and ever since then, the presidential oath and inauguration ceremonies have been steeped in history, for better or worse. In 1841, when he succeeded outgoing President Martin Van Buren, President William Henry Harrison caught pneumonia at his bitterly cold inauguration when he gave a long-winded two-hour speech after taking the oath on March 4, 1841. He died a month later, setting a record for the shortest presidential term and the longest inaugural address. Vice President John Tyler became president, making 1841 the first year during which three men occupied the presidency.
Another “year of three presidents” occurred 40 years later in 1881. President Rutherford Hayes left office, and new President James Garfield moved into the White House on March 4, 1881. In his forward-looking inaugural address, Garfield called for equal rights for this nation’s African American citizens. It was not to be. Garfield was shot by an assassin, his wounds were worsened by his doctors, and he died after just six months in office. Vice President Chester Arthur became president, the third man to live in the White House in 1881.
American dissidents came to Washington to protest Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20, but protests coinciding with presidential inaugurations are nothing new. In 1913, President Woodrow Wilson’s inauguration was upstaged by protesters demanding voting rights for American women. Thousands of female suffragists and a smattering of supportive men marched in Washington on the day before the inauguration. They were jeered and shoved by mobs of men on the city’s historic Pennsylvania Avenue near the White House, and not until 1920 would voting rights for women become a reality across America.
In 2017, a day after Trump’s first inauguration, the Women’s March on Washington echoed the hope and determination of the pioneering inaugural protest in 1913. The massive turnout at the Women’s March was larger than the crowd that had attended Trump’s inauguration the day before. The huge and humorous gathering was dotted with signs and banners voicing such sentiments as “Dump Trump” and “Abort Unwanted Presidencies.” My photographs and writing about that historic Washington mega-march can be seen on the Women’s March page of my website at edtant.com.
Protesters against the raging Vietnam War gathered in Washington during both inaugurations of President Richard Nixon in 1969 and 1973. According to the book The War Within: America’s Battle Over Vietnam by Tom Wells, Nixon was furious that protesters were on the streets of Washington during his inauguration, and his anger led to “a growing siege mentality” and the presidential paranoia that would sweep Nixon from office during the Watergate scandal that besmirched his presidency.
On Jan. 20, 2001, when President George W. Bush was inaugurated after a controversial and contested victory over Democrat Al Gore, Americans again protested in the nation’s capital. Time Magazine reported that “at times there were more protesters than well-wishers along the parade route.” Thousands of dissidents carried protest placards with messages like “Hail to the Thief” and “The Emperor Has No Clothes.” The scene was repeated four years later, in 2005, when crowds of Americans lined Pennsylvania Avenue to protest the Bush administration’s Iraq War that had killed or injured thousands of American military men and women with no end in sight. My photos of those 2001 and 2005 inauguration day protests are also posted on my website.
Whether calm or contentious, inaugurations are history. Words by singer Joni Mitchell could describe Trump’s inauguration: “Lord, there’s danger in this land. You get witch hunts and war when church and state hold hands.”
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