Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Kamala Harris will be inaugurated as the next president and vice president of the United States at noon today, January 20, in Washington, DC. The inauguration serves to publically legitimize and formalize the peaceful transition of power, as outlined by the United States Constitution. Harris will become the first woman and first person of color to serve as U.S. Vice President.
The 2021 inauguration is unprecedented in its format due to protective measures during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and heightened security concerns following the violence that took place at the Capitol on January 6, while Congress voted to certify Joe Biden as the winner of November’s election. Typically hundreds of thousands of people line the streets of the nation’s capital for the inaugural parade, but it will be presented virtually this year with a much smaller crowd permitted to gather in front of the Capitol to watch Biden deliver his inaugural address.
James Hedtke, PhD, Professor of History and Political Science, whose research specialties include the American presidency, American Civil War, and World War II, offers his perspectives on the historical context of Biden’s inauguration, including parallels to past presidents who were sworn in during times of national and international strife.
How would you compare the significance or importance of this inauguration with others from American history?
The inauguration of Joe Biden is one of the most important inaugurations in American history. The United States is facing its most perilous time since the Great Depression and World War II. The nation is in the grip of a deadly pandemic, devastated by natural disasters, and financially crippled by a severe economic downturn. On January 6, 2021, we witnessed an assault on our government and democracy when alt-right insurrectionists stormed and occupied the Capitol. There are now over 25,000 troops (more troops than the United States has stationed in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria combined) in Washington, DC, to protect the city, the inauguration, and Americans.
The only comparable inaugurations would be Lincoln's in 1861, on the eve of the Civil War, and FDR's inauguration in 1933 amid the Great Depression. Joe Biden has the unenviable and near-impossible job of healing a divided America during one of its most dangerous times.
Are there any parallels you expect to hear between Joe Biden’s address and those by other presidents who were inaugurated during times of national or international strife?
Joe Biden's inaugural address will have to contain several important elements. First, he must stress that he is the legitimate president of the U.S. Second, he must be firm in his defense of American democracy and its fundamental principles. Third, he needs to be conciliatory toward his opponents and doubters, trying to begin healing the divisions in American society. Finally, he needs to lay out his plan for dealing with the problems that face the U.S.
I am sure he will look at Jefferson's address in 1801. Jefferson tried to heal the rancor of political division caused by the controversial election of 1800 by exclaiming, "We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists."
Lincoln's first and second inaugural should also serve as a template for Biden's speech. At the time of Lincoln's first inauguration, seven southern states had left the union and formed a new country, the Confederate States of America. The nation was on the verge of Civil War. Lincoln tried to heal the nation's divisions by appealing to what Americans shared rather than what divided them. Lincoln concluded his first address with these words: "We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."
In his second inaugural address in 1865, with the North on the cusp of victory, Lincoln extended a conciliatory hand to the South when he stated: "With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds ...”
Finally, Biden might want to look at Franklin Delano Roosevelt's first inaugural address, delivered at height of the Great Depression in 1933, and reassure Americans that "there is nothing to fear but fear itself."
What do we know of security measures in Washington during Lincoln’s 1861 inauguration, just one month before the outbreak of the Civil War?
Lincoln's first inauguration resembled what is currently happening in Washington, DC. There were threats from anti-government, proslavery groups, like the National Volunteers, to block the electoral vote count at the Capitol on February 13, 1861. Thankfully, those threats never materialized. Lincoln had to be secretly brought into Washington because of assassination threats.
On inauguration day, March 4, 1861, the military closed streets, stationed snipers on rooftops and deployed more than 2,000 armed individuals, supplemented by cavalry and artillery, to keep the peace. The show of force was enough to keep secessionists from disrupting the inauguration. In the opinion of Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts, without the show of massive military power, the seat of government would have to have been moved to Philadelphia.
When was the last time an inauguration went awry or was postponed for any reason?
The last time something went awry at an inauguration was in 2009, when Chief Justice John Roberts got the word order wrong when administering the oath of office to Former President Barack Obama. Roberts re-administered the oath of office the following day in the White House Map Room.
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James Hedtke, PhD, joined Cabrini’s History and Political Science Department in 1973. His expertise in the American presidency, the American Civil War, and World War II has yielded four books: The Freckleton, England, Air Disaster; American Civil War: Facts and Fictions; Lame Duck Presidents: Myth or Reality; and Civil War Professional Soldiers, Citizen Soldiers and Native American Soldiers of Genesee County, New York: Ordinary Men of Valor, the latter of which he edited and researched with students.