Bible has a storied role in inaugurations

Although he was a devout Christian, John Quincy Adams took his presidential oath upon a "Volume of Laws" because, he wrote in a March 1825 diary entry, it was the Constitution he swore to preserve, protect and defend.

But Adams is the exception.

Save for some presidents who were sworn in privately on a weekend or hastily upon their predecessor's death, all of the others have placed their hands on a Bible -- or at least on something considered holy.

Lyndon B. Johnson took his oath upon a missal, a Catholic liturgical book. Sworn in aboard Air Force One after John F. Kennedy's assassination in 1963, Johnson used a copy found on a side table in the president's airplane bedroom.

When he began his second term, in 1965, he returned to the family Bible he had used for his vice presidential inauguration.

Many presidents select a Bible that holds personal or historical significance.

When Barack Obama takes the presidential oath of office Tuesday, he will place his hand on the same Bible that Abraham Lincoln used at his inauguration in 1861.

Obama will be the first incoming president to use the 156-year-old Lincoln Bible, which is bound in burgundy velvet and has heavily gilded edges.

The Constitution does not require a Bible, but like many practices on Inauguration Day, it's tradition.

"So help me God," for example, is not part of the presidential oath, but many presidents add the words. Many historians think George Washington was the first to use the phrase, but Donald R. Kennon, a historian at the United States Capitol Historical Society, said there was little evidence to support the idea.

Well documented, however, is the Bible that the first president used for his oath.

Four chief executives -- Warren G. Harding, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush -- have sworn upon the Bible that Washington used at the first presidential inauguration in 1789.

This particular tome was a late addition to the festivities. Because a Masonic lodge played a role in the ceremony, held at Federal Hall in New York, the group continues to recount the story. In 1918, Adolph Geering, once a master of St. John's Masonic Lodge in New York, said, "Everything was ready for the administration of the oath of office."

But there was no Bible.

New York Chancellor Robert Livingston, who was to administer the oath, and the inaugural parade marshal were both Freemasons, like many early American leaders. The marshal retrieved a Bible from the altar of their nearby lodge so the oath could begin.