Presidential Petulance
The inauguration of the incoming President is a demonstration to the American people and the rest of the world of the peaceful transfer of power under the Constitution of the United States. The act of one President withdrawing gracefully and another taking office is one of the most important features of American government. But it has not always been as graceful as it seems. There have been several instances of the outgoing administration withdrawing with anything but grace and not only in the example of pranks within the office spaces of the West Wing.
The first President to refuse to attend the inauguration of his successor in office was the second President to be elected and the first to lose an attempt to be re-elected, John Adams. Adams was in a snit not only because of losing the election but also because of the way he believed Jefferson and his supporters had sabotaged his Presidency. As Jefferson walked to his inaugural – the first President to be inaugurated in Washington DC – Adams was already on his way home to Massachusetts, thoroughly disgusted with his successor’s political beliefs and methods. The two men had once been close friends and eventually resumed a friendship via correspondence, but never saw one another again.
A similar lack of grace was displayed by John Adams’ son John Quincy Adams following the campaign in which he lost the Presidency after just one term. John Quincy was the first son of a President to become President. His campaign to retain the Presidency against Andrew Jackson was one of the nastiest Presidential campaigns in the nation’s history, but most of the personal animosity came from the candidate’s supporters, rather than the candidates themselves. After Jackson won the election of 1828 he did not make the traditional courtesy call on the outgoing President, and a peeved Adams refused to attend the inauguration in retaliation.
Andrew Johnson – the first President to be impeached and tried in the Senate – likewise refused to attend the inauguration of his successor, though it had nothing to do with his treatment in Congress. Johnson and Grant shared a mutual dislike for each other and Grant informed the outgoing President that he would not share his carriage with him from the White House to the Capitol. Johnson remained in the White House signing last-minute orders and legislation while his popular successor took the oath of office and delivered his address, which was well received by the audience and the press.
Richard Nixon announced his resignation from the office of the President on national television – the first President to resign – the evening before it was to take effect. Though the swearing-in of his successor took place in the White House, in the Oval Office, Nixon chose to avoid the cameras there and instead played to them outside as he departed the White House shortly before Ford took the oath. Nixon had made Ford President by nominating him for Vice-President after Spiro Agnew resigned that office in disgrace. Thus Gerald Ford was the first person to occupy both the office of Vice-President and President of the United States without being elected to either of them.
