The inauguration of John F. Kennedy, 20 January 1961
15 January 2025
Our present-day English word inauguration comes from the Latin inauguratio. Augury was the practice of interpreting the behavior of birds as omens. Hence inauguratio connoted the beginning of an endeavor with favorable omens. The Latin noun appears in the writings of Tertullian (c. 155–c. 220 CE), but the word does not appear to have been widely used in classical Latin. It appears in Anglo-Latin c. 1360 in reference to the consecration of a bishop and in 1549 to refer to a university commencement.
The word does not, however, appear in English until the sixteenth century. John Hooper’s 1547 Detection of the Devils Sophistrie references the inauguration of Pope Leo V in July 903. Leo V’s papacy was short lived; he was deposed in February 904 and died shortly thereafter. But the passage is perhaps even more noteworthy for the story of one of Leo’s predecessors, Stephen VI. Stephen had put the rotting corpse of Pope Formosus on trial in 897. The corpse was found guilty, but the political outcry over the trial resulted in Stephen being deposed and strangled:
Stephene the sixt was byshope of Rome and for a priuate hattred he had unto his predecessour and benefactor fformosus abrogatid all the lawes and statutes that he made in the time of his being byshope, pluckyd the ded body out of his sepulchre, cut of too fingers of his right hand and cast them into the fflud Tyber. After the death of Stephene succedid Romanus primus, and after him too orher. Theodorus secundus, & Ioannes decimus. These thre disanullid all the decrees of Stephyne, and restoryd the actes and statutes of fformosus Sthephanes Ennymie. Alitle after was leo the ffyghe made byshope, and within xl. dayes of his inauguracion, is uery ffrend Christopher cast hym in to pryson.
Another early English use was by Scottish theologian John Knox in 1558 in reference to the installation of priests:
Nothing did God reueale particularely to Aaron, but altogither was he commaunded to depend from the mouth of Moses: Yea nothing was he permitted to do to hym self or to his children either in his or theyr inauguration and sanctification to the preesthode, but all was committed to the care of Moses.
By 1569 it was being used in a secular context, that of the coronation of James VI of Scotland (later James I of England) two years prior:
The namis of the Estatis of this realme convenit at Edinburgh in the month of December MDLXVII. quhair our Soverane Lordis coronatioun and inauguratioun in his kingdom was ratyfeit and found gude.
Inauguration makes its appearance in an American political context in the Federalist 52, in reference to the start of a new governmental structure under the recently drafted constitution. As printed in the Independent Journal of 9 February 1788:
It is true that all these difficulties will by degrees be very much diminished. The most laborious task will be the proper inauguration of the government, and the primeval formation of the federal code.
The use of inauguration to refer specifically to the installation of a president of the United States dates to the very first instance, that of George Washington on 30 April 1789. Inauguration appears in print in this context in the Journal of the House of Representatives the following day:
The Speaker laid before the House a copy of the Speech of the President of the United States, to both Houses of Congress, delivered yesterday in the senate-chamber, immediately after his inauguration.
And a letter from Alexander Hamilton to Washington, dated 5 May 1789, outlines his thoughts on how the newly installed president might avoid implications of favoritism:
The President to accept no invitations: and to give formal entertainments only twice or four times a year on the anniversaries of important events in the revolution. If twice, the day of the declaration of Independence, and that of the inauguration of the President, which completed the organization of the Constitution, to be preferred; if four times, the day of the treaty of alliance with france & that of the definitive treaty with Britain to be added.
Following Washington’s first term, presidential terms were inaugurated on 4 March until 1933, when the twentieth amendment to the U.S. Constitution changed the date and time to noon, 20 January. The change was instituted to shorten the lame-duck period after the transition from the Hoover to the Franklin Roosevelt administration in the depths of the Great Depression when urgent action was needed and not forthcoming from the outgoing administration.
Sources:
Campbell, Hugh, ed. “Part of the Early of Murray’s Instructions to Robert Commendatur of Dunfermling, His Ambassador Sent to the English Queen, 15th October, 1569.” In The Love Letters of Mary Queen of Scots to James Earl of Bothwell. London: Longman, et al., 1824, Appendix 59. HathiTrust Digital Archive.
Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2013, s.v. inaugurare. Brepols: Database of Latin Dictionaries.
Hamilton, Alexander. Letter to George Washington, 5 May 1789. US National Archives.
Hooper, John. Detection of the Devils Sophistrie. Zurich: Augustyne Fries, 1547. Early English Books Online (EEBO).
Journal of the House of Representatives, vol. 1: First Congress, First Session (1 May 1789). Martin P. Claussen, ed. Wilmington, Delaware: Michael Glazier, Inc., 1977, 29. HathiTrust Digital Archive.
Knox, John. The Appellation of Iohn Knoxe from the Cruell and Most Iniust Sentence Pronounced against Him by the False Bishoppes and Clergie of Scotland. Geneva: 1558, 18. ProQuest: Early English Books Online (EEBO).
Latham, Ronald E., David R. Howlett, and Richard K. Ashdowne, eds. Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources. Oxford: British Academy, 2013, s.v. inauguratio, n. Brepols: Database of Latin Dictionaries.
Lewis, Charlton T. and Charles Short, eds. A Latin Dictionary (1879). Oxford: Oxford UP, 1933, s.v. inauguratio, n. Brepols: Database of Latin Dictionaries.
Madison, James and Alexander Hamilton. “Federalist 52.” Independent Journal (New York), 9 February 1788, 2. NewsBank: America’s Historical Newspapers.
Oxford English Dictionary, second edition, 1989, s.v. inauguration, n.
Photo credit: US government photo, 1961. Wikimedia Commons. Public domain image.