FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS IN THE WASHINGTON, D.C.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 4, 1801

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Chief Justice John Marshall administered the first executive oath
of office ever taken in the new federal city in the new Senate
Chamber (now the Old Supreme Court Chamber) of the partially built
Capitol building. The outcome of the election of 1800 had been in
doubt until late February because Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr,
the two leading candidates, each had received 73 electoral votes.
Consequently, the House of Representatives met in a special
session to resolve the impasse, pursuant to the terms spelled out
in the Constitution. After 30 hours of debate and balloting, Mr.
Jefferson emerged as the President and Mr. Burr the Vice
President. President John Adams, who had run unsuccessfully for a
second term, left Washington on the day of the inauguration
without attending the ceremony.

***

Friends and Fellow-Citizens:

Called upon to undertake the duties of the first executive office
of our country, I avail myself of the presence of that portion of
my fellow-citizens which is here assembled to express my grateful
thanks for the favor with which they have been pleased to look
toward me, to declare a sincere consciousness that the task is