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A brief history of some of America’s most fraught presidential transitions

A brief history of some of America’s most fraught presidential transitions

A brief history of some of America’s most fraught presidential transitions
Jan 18, 2021 1 min, 56 secs

President Donald Trump’s final days in office have been historically tumultuous.

presidents have long been called “lame ducks,” a comment on how they are rendered weak by their dwindling days in office.

Lame-duck presidents are expected to spend their waning days quietly carrying out administrative business and aiding an orderly transition as the nation looks to its newly elected leader to set a policy agenda.

And for most of the country’s history, they had more time to do so because inauguration took place in March and was not moved to January until the 1930s.

In December 1800, Federalist President John Adams had just lost reelection when Supreme Court Chief Justice Oliver Ellsworth resigned his post.

After Southern secessionists fired on a ship delivering supplies to Fort Sumter in South Carolina on January 9, 1861, outgoing President James Buchanan did not retaliate against the rebels.

Tensions grew until the Civil War erupted in April, only months into President Abraham Lincoln’s term.

By Lincoln’s inauguration on March 4, 1861, a total of seven had seceded—with four more soon to follow, forming the Confederate States of America and igniting the Civil War.

But even as the economy was beginning to turn under Harrison’s administration, Cox Richardson says Republicans spent the lame-duck period warning Americans that the incoming Democratic administration was going to bankrupt the country, urging them to take their money out of the stock market.

Hoover and Roosevelt didn’t get along personally, either, and had several contentious meetings right up until Inauguration Day on March 4, 1933.

But Roosevelt would be the last president to be forced to wait until March to take office: Earlier that year—having already decided that the lame-duck period was too long—the nation ratified the 20th Amendment that moved up Inauguration Day to January 20.

President Jimmy Carter successfully negotiated the hostage release on January 18, 1981, only two days before the end of his term.

Even with a shortened transition period, the final days of recent presidencies have seen their share of turmoil.

As the White House Historical Association writes, “in those last weeks, the return of the hostages was almost an obsession with him.” On January 18, 1981, Iran announced that it had accepted the Carter Administration’s proposed agreement for the release of the hostages

on January 20, just a half hour after Reagan had been sworn into office

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