Obama’s inauguration
Historian Yonatan Eyal on the pageantry and meaning of the presidential swearing-in
President Lincoln taking oath at his second inauguration. Photograph by Gardner, Washington 1865, Source: www.sonofthesouth.net
Q. When was the last time the presidential inauguration attracted so much interest and excitement?
Moments of crisis or transition naturally come to mind: Thomas Jefferson as the first successful opposition candidate in 1801, Andrew Jackson as the first westerner in 1829, John Tyler as the first to succeed a fallen president in 1841, as well as Lincoln after the secession of the Lower South and Franklin Roosevelt in the grips of financial calamity. More recently, one remembers John F. Kennedy’s and Bill Clinton’s generational changings-of-the-guard, or Nixon’s and Reagan’s ushering in of a new conservative coalition. The most recent parallel to today’s expectant mood would probably be JFK in 1961.
Q. There is a tremendous amount of pageantry around the inauguration of a U.S. president. Why is that so? Has inauguration day always been so ceremonial?
The President of the United States is a ceremonial as well as ministerial figure. Unlike in some other countries, such as Britain, the U.S. President is both the head of the government and the head of state. The pageantry you see on Inauguration Day—and even after—reflects the President’s role as symbol of American ideals and leadership. Since Americans deliberately abolished their monarchy in 1776, they have had to transfer the pomp and circumstance to the President, who now fulfills these dual functions that elsewhere might be separated into a president and prime minister, or a monarch and prime minister.
During the early years of the republic Americans did not invest their president with the same gravitas we see today. Instead, over the course of centuries chief executives such as Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, and Franklin Roosevelt have gradually made the presidency an emotional embodiment of the American people. But at the start of the national government in 1789, it was not at all clear that the president was more important than Congress or the judiciary, the other two branches of the federal regime. Jackson was perhaps the most important agent of this change, opening up his White House to common citizens just after taking office in 1829. Critics decried all the broken furniture, but the more important result was the increasing identification of the presidency with the American people themselves. And that was a change from the earlier days of Washington or Adams. Washington delivered his inaugural address to a joint session of Congress, for example, not to the American citizenry at large.
Q. Is the President’s power and influence commensurate with this pageantry?
For a republic, astoundingly so. Alexander Hamilton and the other Federalists who wrote the Constitution in 1787 specifically championed a vigorous executive in their attempts to leaven the spirit of liberty with some order and control. Presidential power has increased over the centuries, and today the prestige of the office has made it—perhaps despite the intentions of the Founders—the dominant branch of the federal government. American history has veered cyclically between caretaker and activist administrations, to be sure, but recent occupants of the office have not shied away from using the gains of their predecessors. If the anti-Federalists, the opponents of the Constitution, in the 1780s were already charging that the presidency recreated the monarchy, imagine what they might say if they were alive today. In a republic (a society without a monarch and based on popular self-government) there is a built-in suspicion of concentrated, particularly one-person, authority. In this respect it’s quite remarkable that the presidency—more than the other two branches of government—has come to be seen as the tribune of the people.
Q. Why is the inauguration held on the 20th day of January?
Until 1933, with the passage of the 20th Amendment to the Constitution, presidents took their oath of office on March 4 of the year following election. The long lame-duck periods between the November elections and the March inaugurations—periods during which Presidents-elect Lincoln and Roosevelt waited to assume office while national crises erupted—made plain the benefits of a shortened interregnum. Imagine if Barack Obama had to wait until March to take office, given the economic downturn.
Q. Why is there not a similar, grandiose event like this during the swearing in of a Canadian Prime Minister?
As an American recently arrived in Canada, I am wary of weighing in, but I will try nonetheless: the British monarch remains the figurehead, the symbol of state, in Canada, and so the Prime Minister here does not fulfill the dual functions (head of state as well as head of government) that I mentioned above. Because we Americans have no monarch, the President fulfills that symbolic or ceremonial role that here is divorced from the Prime Minister’s office. To put it another way, you Canadians have outsourced your pageantry off to London!
Check out related stories to Barack Obama
YONATAN EYAL is Assistant Professor of American History at the University of Toronto at Mississauga. He is the author of The Young America Movement and the Transformation of the Democratic Party, 1828-1861 (Cambridge University Press, 2007).
Tags: Barack Obama, Behind the Headlines, history, politics, presidential inauguration, U of T Mississauga, Yonatan Eyal
Outstanding analysis
I think I would say that Lincoln’s inauguration would be the best parallel to Obama’s. While not nearly as divisive as Lincoln’s election, this is another moment when not only all of America is watching, but the entire world is too. Both were/are expected to bring about immediate, sweeping changes and both seem to have a similar leadership style. Lincoln would often bring former adversaries over to his side and Obama seems to share that same talent (Hilary Clinton being the obvious example).
Hopefully Professor Eyal will hold another small talk with students this semester as he did just prior to the election last semester.
The analysis is very in depth and makes one want to know more about U.S. history. I am proud to be under the tutelage of Professor Eyal.
Marium.
Your underlying comments suggest that the power of the president is easily abused a la Nixon and Bush Jr. and perhaps needs to be curtailed.
The pageantry of the Canadian PM is non-existent because the election elects the party and the Pm follows. We do not vote for him, thus he doesn’t warrant the show. However, in an non-minority government (which you haven’t experienced) the PM or his party have more power.
Thus your forefathers attempted to curtail this power by creating a third level of government and having all parties elected. Of course when the levels are split then potential mayhem occurs thus the last two years of the bush government.
Unfortunately this has lead to more power to the President.
The current pomp is also a function of the nature of the president elect – a young African American liberal form the north, attracting a relatively new audience, much like the one attracted to JFK in 1961 but more obvious.
Should be fun.
[...] 2005) was interviewed by the University of Toronoto’s Research. The article entitled “Historian Yonatan Eyal on the pageantry and meaning of the presidential swearing-in” was posted on Friday, January 16, [...]