12 surprising facts about the Inauguration
Which president did not swear the oath of office on the bible?
Credit: Library Of Congress/Getty Images
Only one American president has gone down in history as using a book other than the Bible to swear the oath of office. President John Quincy Adams – who came to be elected following a confused and tricky election in which none of the candidates won the necessary majority – took the oath with his hand placed on a book of law, containing the Constitution. Though it isn't constitutionally mandated that a president use a Bible, all others who were recorded used one – sometimes more than one. President Obama will use two in his public ceremony on Monday. The Bible to likely be on top belonged to Martin Luther King, Jr. The larger Bible was used at Lincoln's Inauguration in 1861 and again at Obama's first Inauguration in 2009. Read more about Obama's Bible selection here.
