Lincoln's Inaugural Bible

The Lincoln Bible is the iconic name for a modest 1853 King James Version (KJV) printed by Oxford University Press, which Abraham Lincoln used for his presidential oath of office on March 4, 1861. Though not originally his personal copy, it became forever associated with him and has since served as a powerful symbol in American political and cultural life. Housed in the Library of Congress Rare Book and Special Collections Division, this small volume—approximately 6 inches by 4 inches by 1.75 inches, bound in burgundy velvet with gilt edges and a gold-washed metal shield engraved “Holy Bible” on the front cover—embodies the interplay of faith, crisis, and continuity in U.S. history.

The back flyleaf bears a handwritten certification by Supreme Court Clerk William Thomas Carroll, sealed with the Supreme Court emblem on a bright blue wafer: “I, William Thos. Carroll, clerk of the said court do hereby certify that the preceding copy of the Holy Bible is that upon which the Honble. R.B. Taney, Chief Justice of said Court, administered to His Excellency, Abraham Lincoln, the oath of office as President of the United States.” At the time of its 1928 donation to the Library of Congress, it contained markers at Deuteronomy 31:6 (“Be strong and of a good courage… for the Lord thy God… will not fail thee, nor forsake thee”) and Hosea 4:1–3 (a passage decrying national sin and the land mourning), verses that resonated deeply with the Civil War’s themes of divine providence and judgment.

The Improvised Oath and Immediate Context

Lincoln arrived in Washington under secrecy after an assassination plot in Baltimore; his personal belongings, including any family Bible, were still en route from Springfield, Illinois. Carroll simply fetched the small volume he kept for official use. Chief Justice Roger B. Taney administered the oath on this borrowed Bible in a ceremony shadowed by the secession of seven Southern states and the imminent fall of Fort Sumter. The moment was fraught with irony and tension, yet it proceeded calmly, with Lincoln later delivering his First Inaugural Address appealing to “the better angels of our nature.”

The Bible was returned to Carroll afterward. It passed to the Lincoln family at an unknown date (possibly after the 1865 assassination) and remained a private heirloom until Mary Harlan Lincoln (widow of Robert Todd Lincoln) donated it to the Library of Congress in 1928. Its unremarkable commercial value belies its transformation into a national treasure.

Role in the History of America: Symbol of Constitutional Faith and Civil Religion

Though the U.S. Constitution requires only that the president “shall take the following Oath or Affirmation” (Article II, Section 1) and does not mandate a Bible, the practice of swearing on scripture has been customary since George Washington’s 1789 inauguration. The Lincoln Bible reinforced this tradition at a pivotal juncture, embedding the Bible in the ritual of American power during the republic’s greatest existential crisis. Its later reuse by President Barack Obama in 2009 (his first inauguration) and 2013 (stacked with Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s traveling Bible on the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation and 50th of the March on Washington) explicitly linked emancipation to civil rights.

President Donald Trump used it in 2017 (alongside his childhood Bible) and again in 2025, demonstrating the artifact’s bipartisan symbolic power across decades. It has also been employed for other high oaths, such as Carla Hayden’s swearing-in as Librarian of Congress in 2016. In this way, the Lincoln Bible has become a tangible thread in America’s “civil religion”—the quasi-sacred veneration of founding documents, oaths, and national destiny infused with biblical language and imagery.

The Dramatic Role It Played

The drama of the Lincoln Bible unfolds on multiple levels. In 1861, it was a humble stand-in at a near-apocalyptic moment: a divided nation, a president-elect traveling incognito, an oath administered by the jurist most associated with the legal defense of slavery. The very act of placing hand on scripture amid gathering armies underscored Lincoln’s evolving reliance on biblical frameworks to interpret national suffering.

Lincoln himself was a profound student of the Bible, memorizing long passages and weaving them into his greatest speeches. His Second Inaugural Address (1865)—though the Lincoln Bible itself was not used then—is saturated with scriptural echoes, framing the Civil War as divine judgment on the sin of slavery: “Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God… The Almighty has His own purposes… Fondly do we hope—fervently do we pray—that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk… so still it must be said ‘the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.’” The marked passages in the Lincoln Bible suggest he may have turned to these exact verses in private reflection during the war’s darkest hours.

The artifact’s 20th- and 21st-century revival added new dramatic layers. Obama’s choice in 2009 instantly connected the first Black president to the Great Emancipator in the eyes of millions; the 2013 stacking with King’s Bible on historic anniversaries created a visual and symbolic crescendo of American progress. Trump’s repeated use extended that chain across partisan lines. Each loan from the Library of Congress for inauguration—carefully transported, handled with white gloves—recalls the Bible’s improbable journey from a clerk’s shelf to the world stage.

Even its physical modesty heightens the drama: a common 19th-century printing elevated by history alone, its velvet now faded, its pages yellowed, yet capable of evoking reverence in millions.

Conclusion

The Lincoln Bible is far more than a ceremonial prop. It is a quiet witness to America’s most perilous hour, a bridge across centuries of struggle over freedom and equality, and a enduring emblem of how biblical language and imagery have shaped the nation’s self-understanding. This small volume has dramatized the republic’s resilience, its moral reckonings, and its ongoing aspiration to live up to the ideals inscribed in both its founding documents and its most cherished scriptures. In the history of America, few objects so compactly embody the tension—and the hope—between faith, crisis, and constitutional continuity.