Washington: When Donald Trump takes the oath of office on Friday, he will do so with his hand on two Bibles: his own, and one used by Abraham Lincoln in 1861. Only one other president has used that Bible for the oath: Trump’s predecessor.

Thomas Barrack Jr., chairman of Trump’s inaugural committee, said in a statement earlier this week that the president-elect “is humbled to place his hand on Bibles that hold special meaning both to his family and to our country”.

Trump’s personal Bible was given to him by his mother in 1955, two days before his ninth birthday, according to a statement from the inaugural committee. He had just completed the Sunday Church Primary School at the First Presbyterian Church in Queens, where he grew up.

To use the Lincoln Bible, the inaugural committee has to borrow it from its permanent home at the Library of Congress.

Lincoln swore the oath on it at his first inaugural in 1861, as the US stood on the cusp of the Civil War. It was not used again at an inauguration until the election of Barack Obama, who was sworn in on it in 2009 and again in 2013.

Conservationists at the Library of Congress said the book was ready for another big day, though they have wary eyes turned toward a weather forecast that hints at the possibility of rain.

“We always have it in the back of our mind that this might be happening,” said Elmer Eusman, who is the head of conservation. “So we’re prepared.”

“We already had made a protective box for it for Obama’s inauguration,” he said, adding that the library is creating a Mylar wraparound for the cover to protect it from rain.

Eusman said the library would also have someone on standby who will be notified immediately if the Bible has been damaged and will whisk it back to a conservation lab for immediate repair.

The steps are mostly precautionary. The Lincoln Bible is in good shape, and “it can certainly sustain this kind of activity,” said Mark Dimunation, the head of rare books and special collections.

The Bible was given to the library by Mary Lincoln, the widow of Robert Todd Lincoln, the president’s son, Dimunation said. The collection also included the contents of President Lincoln’s pocket from the night he was killed.

“We’ve used it from time to time in exhibitions, and when we talk about Lincoln, it gives us the opportunity to bring out the Bible and talk about the content of the first inaugural address,” Dimunation said. “It does have a certain kind of electricity about it because of the nature of that inaugural event.”

Because his election had been so divisive — between the election and the inauguration, seven states had seceded from the Union — there was real concern that Lincoln would be attacked and so he was smuggled into Washington. His household effects, including his family Bible, were still being shipped from Springfield, Illinois, Dimunation said. A clerk for the Supreme Court, William Thomas Carroll, was sent out to buy what became the Lincoln Bible.

The book is an 1853 Oxford University Press printing of the King James Bible, Eusman said, and it is bound in burgundy velvet with metal trim. It is approximately 6-by-4 inches and about an inch and a quarter thick. “It’s not very big,” he said. The back holds a large blue paper seal on yellow paper, where Carroll recorded the events of the day.

“It has an accretion of ceremonial use that really gives this object an emotional and historical weight at this point,” Dimunation said.

 

Does He Have to Use a Bible?

While the Constitution requires presidents to take an oath of office, there is no rule requiring them to do so with their hands on a religious book, or any book at all. Most have used a family Bible.

The Bible used by George Washington at the first inauguration has been popular with his successors. Warren G. Harding, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush all used it, and in 2001, George W. Bush had made preparations to be the sixth president to do so. Members of the New York Masonic temple that cares for the Bible carried it to the Capitol, but rain intervened. Bush used his father’s family Bible instead.

In 1825, John Quincy Adams was sworn in on a law book, according to the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies. Adams was also, according to the committee, the first president to wear long trousers at his inauguration, breaking with the five presidents before him, who all had worn knee breeches.

Lyndon B. Johnson, a Protestant, was sworn in aboard Air Force One using a Roman Catholic missal, after the assassination of John F. Kennedy. The prayer book had been found at Kennedy’s bedside table on the plane.

And in 1901, Theodore Roosevelt was hiking in the Adirondack Mountains when he received word that William McKinley was not likely to survive being shot in Buffalo. By the time Roosevelt got there, McKinley had died.

“When he arrived there was a fair amount of confusion,” said Mark Lozo, director of education and interpretation at the Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural Site in Buffalo. “They were still making arrangements for administering the oath of office.”

No Bible could be found for the 10-minute ceremony at the home of Roosevelt’s friend Ansley Wilcox, now the site of the museum.

“With the ceremony already underway, they decided to proceed without one,” Lozo said.