Remembering Inauguration Day

For most of America’s history, today—March 4—marked inauguration day. When the Constitution was being drafted, an early March date seemed practical; votes in the general election were cast for electors, and those electors would have to find the time to make their way to the nation’s capital (then New York City) to choose the president.

The very first inauguration was actually April 29, 1789, when George Washington was sworn in on the balcony of Federal Hall on Wall Street. (Federal Hall National Memorial, an old US Treasury Building, now marks the spot.) Less than a week later, Congress convened in the same building for the first time, and from that point forward March 4 was the day that power transferred. The first March 4 inaugural was in 1797, when John Adams succeeded Washington in a ceremony in Philadelphia. Thomas Jefferson was the first president inaugurated in Washington, D.C., in 1801, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the last to be sworn in on that day. In 1933, the Twentieth Amendment to the Constitution was ratified, shortening the lame duck period for Congress and the President and moving the President’s swearing in to January 20.

Throughout the Nineteenth Century, there were plenty of Presidents who were sworn in on dates that weren’t March 4. If inauguration day fell on a Sunday, it was usually pushed to the next day (though sometimes it was Saturday instead). Beginning with John Tyler, a number of Vice Presidents had to assume the office upon the death of the President. New Yorker Chester Arthur, Vice President under James Garfield, was sworn in September 19, 1881, at his home on Lexington Avenue before heading to DC to assume the presidency.

Among the biggest commemorations today is the 150th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s first inaugural in 1861—which was, not at all coincidentally, also the day that the Confederate Stars and Bars were adopted as the flag of the states in rebellion. You can read Lincoln’s speech here. 

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Read more about the presidency in New York in
Inside the Apple: A Streetwise History of New York City.

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Chester Arthur: The President from Murray Hill

With the media coverage ramping up for next Tuesday’s inauguration of President Barack Obama, we thought we’d take this opportunity to look back at one of the presidential inaugurations that took place in New York City.

There have actually been two presidents who have taken the oath of office in New York. The famous one was George Washington, who was sworn in on April 30, 1789, on the balcony of the old City Hall on Wall Street. (Federal Hall National Memorial stands on the spot today.) The other was one of America’s least remembered chief executives, Chester A. Arthur, who took the oath in his home at 123 Lexington Avenue in Murray Hill.


A lawyer by training, Chester Arthur had risen through the ranks of the Republican Party to become the Collector of the Port of New York, a job secured for him by powerful Senator Roscoe Conkling. When Rutherford B. Hayes (who’ll talk more about in a future post) became president in 1877, Arthur lost his patronage job—in part so that Hayes could show that he was cracking down on patronage positions. But in 1880, Arthur was tapped to be James A. Garfield’s running mate, and in March 1881, was sworn in as Vice President. (The presidential and vice presidential inauguration was still in March back then.)

Just four months after the inauguration, Garfield was shot by Charles Guiteau, a disgruntled civil servant. Garfield lingered until September 19, when he finally succumbed to his wounds.

Word was immediately sent to Chester Arthur, who was at home in Murray Hill. In the middle of night, New York Supreme Court Justice John R. Brady was fetched to come to the Arthurs’ home and administer the oath of office. (A second, more formal inauguration took place two days later in Washington, DC.)*

After his one term in office—marked by distinct efforts at civil service reform—Arthur retired to his Lexington Avenue home where he died on November 18, 1886. The house at 123 Lexington still stands, but the only part you can visit is the ground-floor retail section, which is the Indian grocery store Kaluystan’s.

*UPDATE 1/21/2009

It has come to light in the wake of Barack Obama having to take the oath of office a second time (because of flubbing of his lines) that it was the same sense of wanting to have an "abundance of caution" that caused Chester Arthur to also take his oath twice. Evidently, some in D.C. weren't convinced that Arthur's late-night swearing-in on Lexington Avenue was the real deal, so he was asked to take the oath again once he got to Washington.

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More on the role New York has played in the presidency can be found on our blog post from the weekend before Election Day and—of course—in our new book, Inside the Apple.

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