Subsequently the oath by Presidents-elect, with few exceptions,
was taken in the House Chamber or in a place of the Capitol
associated with the Congress as a whole. The Vice Presidential
oath of office for most administrations was taken in the Senate
Chamber. President Jefferson watched the ceremony, but he joined
the crowd of assembled visitors since he no longer was an office-
holder. The mild March weather drew a crowd of about 10,000
persons.

***

Unwilling to depart from examples of the most revered authority, I
avail myself of the occasion now presented to express the profound
impression made on me by the call of my country to the station to
the duties of which I am about to pledge myself by the most solemn
of sanctions. So distinguished a mark of confidence, proceeding
from the deliberate and tranquil suffrage of a free and virtuous
nation, would under any circumstances have commanded my gratitude
and devotion, as well as filled me with an awful sense of the
trust to be assumed. Under the various circumstances which give
peculiar solemnity to the existing period, I feel that both the
honor and the responsibility allotted to me are inexpressibly
enhanced.

The present situation of the world is indeed without a parallel
and that of our own country full of difficulties. The pressure of
these, too, is the more severely felt because they have fallen
upon us at a moment when the national prosperity being at a height
not before attained, the contrast resulting from the change has
been rendered the more striking. Under the benign influence of our