Federal judiciary has long history of swearing in presidents

With the swearing-in this week of President Barack Obama, U.S. presidents have taken the oath of office 65 times in our nation’s history and a federal jurist has administered that oath on 62 of those occasions.

No constitutional or statutory language mandates that the federal judiciary be involved; the only qualification is the legal authority to administer an oath. Nevertheless, 15 of history’s 17 chief justices, one associate justice, an appeals court chief judge, and two U.S. district judges have participated.

The tradition of the federal judiciary’s participation began when Associate Justice William Cushing swore in George Washington in Philadelphia to begin his second presidential term in 1793. (In 1789, Washington had been sworn in by Robert Livingston, a state judge, in New York City.)

Chief Justice Oliver Ellsworth swore in Washington’s successor, John Adams, in 1797, the first of 57 times that chief justices have administered the oath. Chief Justice John Marshall holds the record, with nine. Chief Justice Roger Taney is next, with seven.

Presidential deaths gave rise to the six other occasions when a chief justice did not administer the 35-word presidential oath contained in Article II of the Constitution.

U.S. District Judge John Hazel (of the Western District of New York) administered the oath to Theodore Roosevelt in 1901 after President William McKinley’s assassination. U.S. District Judge Sarah Hughes (Northern District of Texas) swore in Lyndon Johnson in 1963 after President John Kennedy was killed. Judge Hughes administered the oath aboard Air Force One before it took off from Dallas’ Love Field airport.

A few presidents have taken oaths in both private and public settings. Chester A. Arthur was sworn in by New York Justice John R. Brady in a private 1881 ceremony, following President James Garfield’s killing. Two days later, he also took a public oath, administered by Chief Justice Morrison Waite.

Information compiled by the Architect of the Capitol curator’s office about presidential oaths — and who administered them — are available on the Library of Congress’ website at http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/pihtml/pioaths.html.