Questions On "unbroken Tradition"
Many critics have taken Prager to task for saying that swearing in with a Bible is a "tradition that has been unbroken since George Washington." They point out that "In 1825, John Quincy Adams took the presidential oath using a law volume instead of a Bible, and in 1853, Franklin Pierce affirmed the oath rather than swearing it. Herbert Hoover, citing his Quaker beliefs, also affirmed his oath in 1929 but did use a Bible, according to the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies. Theodore Roosevelt used no Bible in taking his first oath of office in 1901, but did in 1905." Other sources have noted that after John F. Kennedy was assassinated a Catholic Missal was used as no Bible could be found when Lyndon B. Johnson (who was not even Catholic himself, but a Disciple of Christ) had to assume the Presidency.
Prager has responded to some of this information in interviews. Eugene Volokh pointed out on "Paula Zahn Now" that Hoover didn’t swear on a Bible, but affirmed and took no oath. Prager replied "Herbert Hoover had a Bible. ...He just didn't swear by it, because I believe he was a Quaker. That's a very different story." On "Hannity and Colmes" Prager stated "The only president who did not have a Bible was Theodore Roosevelt, first term, and it was because McKinley had just been shot. Every president used a Bible." (Prager also questioned Colmes’ Boston Globe source that said in 1991 Massachusetts Gov. William Weld was sworn in without a Bible.)
The Library of Congress notes that "As the first Catholic elected president, Kennedy was the first to use a Catholic (Douay-Rheims) version of the Bible for his oath." This means that Kennedy’s Bible was different from the Bibles of all other Presidents (past or present) as it contained the Deuterocanonical books which Protestants call the Apocrypha and reject, claiming these works are non-canonical.
Read more about this topic: Qur'an Oath Controversy Of The 110th United States Congress
Famous quotes containing the words questions, unbroken and/or tradition:
“Do not shut up the young people against their will in a pew, and force the children to ask them questions for an hour against their will.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“we, outlaws on God’s property,
Fling out imagination beyond the skies,
Wishing a tangible good from the unknown.
And likewise death will drive us from the scene
With the great flowering world unbroken yet,
Which we held in idea, a little handful.”
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“But, with whatever exception, it is still true that tradition characterizes the preaching of this country; that it comes out of the memory, and not out of the soul; that it aims at what is usual, and not at what is necessary and eternal; that thus historical Christianity destroys the power of preaching, by withdrawing it from the exploration of the moral nature of man; where the sublime is, where are the resources of astonishment and power.”
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