When a president of the United States is sworn into office, he repeats the thirty-five words specifically required by the U.S. Constitution:

"I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." While the oath is required by the Constitution, presidents also adhere to customs started by George Washington and followed by succeeding presidents.

New York City was the capital of the young Unites States when George Washington was inaugurated as the country's first president. Federal Hall on Wall Street was already crammed with congressmen and foreign ambassadors when Washington arrived for the ceremony on April 30, 1789. However, as Washington prepared to take the oath, it suddenly was discovered that a Bible was not present, and it was impossible to take the oath without a Bible! New York State Chancellor Robert Livingston remembered that the Masonic Lodge just down the street had a beautiful Bible, which was quickly brought so the ceremony could begin.

The Bible was placed on a red velvet cushion and opened at random to Genesis 49:50. Americans would later consider it providential that the Bible opened to Genesis 49:50, the chapters in which Jacob reassured his sons of their promise of a new land. Washington placed his hand on the opened Bible and recited the Presidential oath, adding the words, "I swear, so help me God!" He then bent down and kissed the open Bible. When he added the words and kissed the Bible, Washington was following a practice used in royal coronations and in British and colonial courts of the day. Later Presidents have continued to follow the precedent Washington established.

Many presidents have chosen to use their own personal or family Bibles for the oath taking, often opening the Bible to a particular passage of Scripture meaningful to them. Since the Civil War, a record has been kept of their choices. U. S. Grant, whose father's name was Jesse, chose Isaiah 11:1-3, a Messianic passage which begins, "And there shall come forth a rod of the stem of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. . ." Though Rutherford B. Hayes was an effective President, his election in 1876 was particularly tumultuous. The night of the election, Hayes went to bed thinking he had lost. However, there were contested elections in Louisiana, South Carolina, and Florida (who would have thought?). The uncertainty went on for months. Congress finally established an Electoral Commission to decide the dispute. Hayes won the final electoral count by one vote: 185 to 184. Hayes chose Psalm 118:11-13 for his inauguration: "They compassed me about, yea they compassed me about: but in the Name of the Lord, I will destroy them--Thou hast thrust sore at me that I might fall: but the Lord helped me."

Both William McKinley and William Howard Taft used passages from Solomon's prayer before his coronation, found in II Chronicles 1:10 and I Kings 3:9-11: "Give me now wisdom and knowledge, that I may go out and come in before this people. For who can judge this thy people, that is so great?" In his first inauguration, Woodrow Wilson, the son of a Presbyterian minister, chose Psalm 119. For his second inauguration, with World War I raging, Wilson chose Psalm 46: "God is our refuge and strength: a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth be removed: and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea. . .Be still and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth. The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge."