'Long Live George Washington'

On April 30, 1789, the hero of the American Revolution took the oath of office that made him the first chief executive in a new federal government that, for centuries to come, would serve as the model of how to strike a delicate balance between freedom and stability.

The oath was administered by Chancellor Robert Livingston of New York who, on completion of the brief ceremony, turned to the crowd that had gathered in front of Federal Hall in Lower Manhattan and proclaimed, "Long live George Washington, president of the United States."

It marked the first time that the majestic phrase - president of the United States - had been uttered at a public event.

In fact, during the weeks leading up to that first inauguration, well-meaning allies of the new leader suggested that his title should be His Highness or His Excellency. But in the end, more democratic impulses prevailed and it was decided that he should simply be addressed as Mr. President.

The recently ratified Constitution required the president to deliver an annual State of the Union message to Congress. But the Founding Fathers said nothing about an inaugural address.

That was Washington's own idea. He felt the momentous occasion called for a few formal remarks to set the proper tone, and thus was established a tradition that has been followed by all of his successors.

In his speech, Washington dedicated himself and his office to "the preservation of the sacred fire of liberty and the destiny of the republican model of government."

The unity and harmony of Washington's first few years as president eventually splintered into factional disputes and the formation of opposing parties - Federalists and Republicans. And that led to the sharply partisan election of 1800, in which the Federalist president, John Adams, was defeated by his Republican challenger, Thomas Jefferson.

In an effort to heal the wounds from that campaign, Jefferson struck a conciliatory note at his 1801 inauguration. "We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists," he declared.

And he followed that up with a strong assertion of his faith in freedom and the right of free men to disagree: "If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it."

Jefferson was the first president to be inaugurated in the new federal city that had been built and named in honor of the first president. On the day of the ceremony, he refused a fancy carriage ride from the modest boarding house where he was staying and simply walked over to the Capitol.

That gesture was very much in keeping with Jefferson's easy, democratic manner and it signaled the dawn of a far more casual era in our national politics.

The young republic moved even further in that direction in 1828 when the leader of a new political factio- the Democratic Party - was elected.

Andrew Jackson was the first candidate from a frontier state (Tennessee) to win the presidency, and he heartily embraced the cause of his core constituents, a rising coalition of farmers and laborers that in later generations would become known as the Common Man.

Jackson was such an ardent populist that on the day of his inauguration, he insisted on opening the White House reception to the public. As a result, the guests included hundreds of rustic frontiersmen who overindulged on the spiked punch and behaved in a rowdy fashion.

The stately guardians of Washington protocol looked on in horror as the new president's more exuberant supporters stood on satin-covered chairs in their muddy boots and clumsily broke all kinds of expensive china and crystal.

"I never saw such a mixture," lamented Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story. "The reign of King Mob seemed triumphant."

The first member of the Whig Party to capture the White House was William Henry Harrison, and he also has the distinction of being the only president to become a victim of his own poor judgment on the day of his inauguration.

Like Jackson, Harrison was a military hero who first gained fame on the frontier, mainly as an Indian fighter when he was governor of what was then called the Indiana Territory.

But the old warrior was 67 when he took the oath of office on March 4, 1841, and even though it was a bitterly cold day, he chose to brave the elements without an overcoat or hat or gloves. To make matters worse, his inaugural speech - the longest in history - ran on for more than two hours.

The upshot was that Harrison caught a bad cold, which turned into pneumonia, and on April 4 - one month to the day after he was sworn in - he became the first president to die in office. And the only one of whom it could be said that he literally talked himself to death.

Twenty years later, when Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated, the nation was in grave peril. In fact, it was Lincoln's election that brought the growing crisis to the flash point of civil war.

As the nominee of the new Republican Party, Lincoln opposed the extension of slavery to the territories and was resolved to preserve the Union. That made him anathema to the South and in the months between his election and inauguration, seven Southern states seceded from the Union.

The new president regarded secession as illegal, a point he drove home in his inaugural address on March 4, 1861: "In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war…. You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have the most solemn one to preserve, protect and defend it."

Then abruptly shifting his tone, Lincoln made one last effort to reach out in friendship to his rebellious countrymen and he did so in soaring, poetic language that earned him his reputation as our most eloquent presdent.

"We must not be enemies," he implored. "Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."

But to no avail. On April 12, Confederates fired on Fort Sumter in South Carolina, and thus began the Civil War.

Four years later, as the long and bloody war was drawing to a close, Lincoln ended his second inaugural speech with words that rank - along with the Gettysburg Address - as the finest he ever uttered in public:

"With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds…."

Taken as a whole, these early inaugurations form the foundation on which was built the splendid tradition that will be enacted and observed once again on Jan. 20.

Nor should we forget the 20th Century, which had its share of memorable inaugurations. One of them occurred on March 4, 1933, when Franklin D. Roosevelt, taking office in the depths of the Great Depression, rallied the spirits of his troubled countrymen with these stirring words: "Let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself."

The theme of John F. Kennedy's inaugural speech on January 20, 1961, was a call to sacrifice and duty as he urged his fellow Americans to "ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country."

The high point of Jimmy Carter's inauguration came after he delivered his speech when he chose to walk - hand-in-hand with his wife, Rosalynn - down Pennsylvania Avenue from Capitol Hill to the White House.

That populist touch reminded historians of Jefferson's casual stroll from his boarding house to the Capitol in 1801.

But no inauguration was more dramatic than that of Ronald Reagan on January 20, 1981. Moments after he was sworn in, there came the news that 52 American hostages had been released from the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, where they had been held in captivity for more than a year.

That was joyous news for the country and for Reagan who - unlike Lincoln and FDR - was spared the ordeal of having to commence his presidency with the nation in a state of crisis.

And barring some unforeseen calamity, that is the happy situation George W. Bush will enjoy when he takes the oath of office later this month.

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