Inauguration Day — Peaceful Transitions
I’ve written before about my respect for President John Adams and his son President John Quincy Adams. However, even respectable people get their feelings hurt sometimes and then don’t react with the grace they should. That was the case with President John Adams when he ran for president against his good friend Thomas Jefferson in 1800. The campaign was ugly and President Adams was so hurt that he didn’t even attend Jefferson’s inauguration. He slipped quietly away instead.
Still, the transfer of power between Adams and Jefferson was peaceful and eventually the two men became friends again and carried on a long correspondence until they both died on the same day, July 4, 1826, exactly fifty years after the Continental Congress approved the Declaration of Independence.
Peaceful transitions of power from one president to another has become the way America does things. It is one of the most important things that has historically set us apart from the way many countries have changed power during the course of world history.
One hundred years ago in 1917, President Woodrow Wilson was inaugurated for a second term as president, though the inauguration did not happen until March 4 because our inauguration day was once later in the year than it is now. Here Wilson and his wife travel by carriage to the ceremony.
Of course, there was no need for a peaceful transfer of power that day since Wilson was beginning a second term. However, Wilson had participated in a peaceful transfer four years before when he took office after President William Howard Taft.
An usher who worked in the White House for forty-two years described in detail what happened when Wilson joined Taft for photos. Taft remarked that four years before he had stood in that same place to have his photo taken with then-President Theodore Roosevelt. While photographers took pictures, President Taft and Mr. Wilson walked around the room arm in arm.
When Taft and Wilson went out on the porch below for more photos, they were asked to stand with their toes on a line which had been drawn on the floor with face powder supplied by a female photographer. I don’t know why they are laughing in this photo. It may not have anything to do with standing with their toes on a line drawn with face powder, but I do love the way it illustrates a very peaceful transition.
Let’s join in praying that this inauguration is also a peaceful transfer of power, in keeping with our American tradition, but more importantly, in keeping with the will of God.
First of all, then, I urge that
entreaties and prayers, petitions and thanksgivings,
be made on behalf of all men,
for kings and all who are in authority,
so that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life
in all godliness and dignity.
This is good and acceptable
in the sight of God our Savior,
who desires all men to be saved
and to come to the knowledge of the truth.
I Timothy 2:1-4