Editing Congress Hall (section)

== Presidential Inaugurations ==

Two presidential inaugurations occurred in Congress Hall, both in the second-floor Senate chamber. George Washington, having been inaugurated in New York in 1789 for his first term, took his second oath of office in Philadelphia on March 4, 1793. The ceremony was notably brief—Washington delivered the shortest inaugural address in American history (just 135 words) and returned to his residence without elaborate celebration. The simplicity reflected Washington's ambivalence about serving another term and his distaste for monarchical display, but it also established a precedent for relatively modest inaugural ceremonies that persisted for decades.<ref name="ferling">{{cite book |last=Ferling |first=John |title=The Ascent of George Washington: The Hidden Political Genius of an American Icon |year=2009 |publisher=Bloomsbury Press |location=New York}}</ref>

John Adams was inaugurated as the second president in the same chamber on March 4, 1797, succeeding Washington in the first peaceful transfer of power between elected leaders in American history. The ceremony was more elaborate than Washington's second inauguration, with Adams delivering a substantial address and Washington attending as a private citizen to witness his successor take office. This orderly transition established the precedent that American presidents would voluntarily relinquish power at the end of their terms—a practice that seemed unremarkable to Americans but that observers from monarchical Europe found extraordinary. The Senate chamber where these inaugurations occurred has been restored to its 1790s appearance and can be visited today.<ref name="mccullough">{{cite book |last=McCullough |first=David |title=John Adams |year=2001 |publisher=Simon & Schuster |location=New York}}</ref>