John Wilsey: Celebrating Inauguration Day

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Friday, January 20th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Well, it’s inauguration day. The 20th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution specifies the time of day when one executive term of office ends and the next one begins: noon Eastern Time.

EICHER: Our country is one where the transition of power is a cause for celebration. But WORLD Opinions contributor John Wilsey reminds us that’s not typical.

JOHN D. WILSEY: Since the rule of the Roman emperors, transitions of power in the West have generally taken place through heredity, oligarchic election, or civil war.

After Augustus established the Roman Empire in 27 B.C., succession was a thorny problem because Rome had been a republic for more than five centuries. Most of the emperors in the immediate aftermath of Augustus’s death had short reigns and violent deaths because army factions usually were the force behind the rise of new rulers.

The Holy Roman emperor was elected by the German dukes beginning in the 10th century. The papacy has also been decided by election by the cardinals since the 11th century.

The monarchies of Western Europe have been ruled by families. The monarchy of France was held by one family, the Capetians and their relatives, from 987 to 1848…with a few interludes resulting from the French Revolution and Napoleonic rule. England’s ruling families came from further afield…Normandy in 1066, and later Scotland, the Netherlands, and Germany.

Even with hereditary succession, civil wars among rival claimants were common, the most famous of which perhaps being the overthrow and beheading of Charles II in 1649 and the rule of Oliver Cromwell until 1658 in England. After the American Revolution and drafting of the U.S. Constitution in 1787, the founders were determined not to see the chaos resulting from succession crises threaten union and liberty.

Alexander Hamilton wrote in Federalist (number) 1 “that the vigour of government is essential to the security of liberty; that, in the contemplation of a sound and well informed judgment, their interests can never be separated; and that a dangerous ambition more often lurks behind the specious mask of zeal for the rights of the people, than under the forbidding appearance of zeal for the firmness and efficiency of government.”

Meaning a government that is just, stable, and predictable.

The Constitution provided for a government that was under the law, not above it. It outlined procedures and principles for its functions that were clearly and simply articulated. And it ensured a set of rules and systems that were difficult to change—not impossible, but difficult, so that the government’s processes could be knowable, anticipated, and certain. A just, stable, and predictable government would be the key to the security of liberty.

There has been tension in American history in the lame-duck period between Election Day and Inauguration Day. From 1792 to 1932, March 4 was the day specified for the swearing-in of a new president, first by Congress and then by the 12th Amendment. John Adams famously did not attend Thomas Jefferson’s inauguration in 1801, leaving Washington before dawn on that March 4. Adams could have contested that election, one of our most bitter, since it was decided in the House of Representatives. But he set an important precedent of laying down power and letting the constitutional processes take their course.

The only time in American history that the minority did not accept the will of the majority in a presidential election was in 1860. Abraham Lincoln received the majority of electoral votes, and 11 states seceded from the Union as a result. The spark that lit the powder keg of the Civil War was a presidential succession crisis—secessionists in the South would not accept the outcome of the 1860 presidential election.

Today, we will observe the nation’s 69th Inauguration Day. Today is a celebration of a uniquely American contribution to civilization: a peaceful transfer of power that is, by and large, assumed as a matter of course. It is assumed because it is a picture of our constitutional system: just, stable, and predictable.

When we watch Donald Trump take the oath of office, as prescribed in Article 2, Section 1 of the Constitution, we will witness a lawful procedure according to principle and tradition. If we feel gratitude for being Americans as we witness that event, we will be entirely justified.

I’m John Wilsey.

WORLD Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of WORLD Radio programming is the audio record.