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I suppose swearing on any old shoe will do.
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Charlie, it might. If the president-elect is an honest person although atheist or of some other faith, a shoe will do as well as a leather-clad treatise with antiquated and phobic content.
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By convention, incoming Presidents raise their right hand and place the left on a Bible or other book while taking the oath of office.
Theodore Roosevelt did not use a Bible when taking the oath in 1901. John Quincy Adams swore on a book of law, with the intention that he was swearing on the constitution. Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in on a Roman Catholic missal on Air Force One. Harry S. Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, and Barack Obama each swore the oath on two Bibles. Washington took his oath of office with an altar bible borrowed from the St. John's Lodge No. 1, Ancient York Masons lodge in New York and he kissed the Bible after taking the oath of office. Subsequent presidents followed suit, up to and including Harry Truman, but Dwight D. Eisenhower broke that tradition by saying his own prayer instead of kissing the Bible.
It is uncertain how many Presidents used a Bible or added the words "So help me God" at the end of the oath, or in their acceptance of the oath, as neither is required by law; unlike many other federal oaths which do include the phrase "So help me God.
For more, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oath_o...nited_Stat es
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