Four years ago when I made this presentation I said that that precedent [regarding adding the phrase “so help me God”] at the close of the oath had been established by George Washington. I was wrong, and I’m happy to admit it. In fact when this presentation was placed on the internet I got an e-mail from someone I’d never heard of before and I want to personally thank him. His name is Raymond Soller. He asked me, what’s your source of that? I said well, all of the other writing and research on presidential inaugurations says that George Washington when he finished saying the oath said, “so help me God,” and kissed the Bible. And as far as I knew the primary source of that was the multi-volume definitive biography of Washington by historian Douglas Southall Freeman many years ago [1954]. He point out to me well, have you ever checked Freeman’s source? I said I know what his source was, it was a [May 3, 1789] letter by George Washington’s private secretary Tobias Lear [to George Augustine Washington]. He said, have you ever looked at that letter? I said, well no, I’ve not been to the [Duke University] Archives in North Carolina to look at it. He says, well I have, and it’s not there. So I checked it out and he’s right. There is no primary contemporary source that states that George Washington said, “so help me God.”.

Why is this important? It’s important because there are a lot of people who are upset that over the years, and especially in the 20th Century [since FDR's 1933 inauguration], it’s become commonplace for the Chief Justice to add that phrase, “so help me God,” to the oath of office, and it’s not in the Constitution.

As you may have seen, there’s currently a lawsuit in the Supreme Court seeking to prevent the Chief Justice from adding the phrase. As the lawsuit states, they have no objection whatsoever if President Obama chooses voluntarily to say “so help me God,” and of course President-elect Obama has stated that he will say “so help me God,” so that’s where it is. An interesting, I think, example of how history works and historical fellowship works.

By the way, further research, I don’t want to take too much time on this, further research has been done and we found that the real source that Freeman was using was a book [by Rufus W. Grswold] that had been written in 1854 that said Washington added “so help me God,” and it [presumably] used as its source the memories of Washington Irving, a New York writer. Washington Irving was six years old in 1789, so it’s not terribly likely that his [alleged] memory was ideal.

But in the 20th Century it’s been commonplace to add that.

[end of excerpt - my notes within brackets are not part of the original speech].
Source: Historical Perspectives on the Inaugural Swearing in Ceremony – http://fpc.state.gov/114510.htm.

Peter Henriques also published a January 11, 2009 History New Network article,
“’So Help Me God’: A George Washington Myth that Should Be Discarded.” It’s available at http://hnn.us/articles/59548.html. It’s good reading.

Professor Henriques also published a 1-11-2009 History New Network article,
“So Help Me God”: A George Washington Myth that Should Be Discarded. A companion version with footnotes is available here. It’s good reading.

What is startling to me, as a lawyer and historian, is the fact that the chief justice now also says those four words. It is one thing to suggest that a president adds those words on his or her own. A president certainly has the right to do so. But it is another matter entirely for the chief justice to also add those four words, as a prompt to the president, as if those words are a part of the oath itself.

Much of this is discussed in my book on presidential inauguration history. A new edition, “Democracy’s Big Day: The Inauguration of our President 1789-2013″ will be realeased next year. A chapter on this subject will be called “So Help Me, So Help Me Not.”

That is not the only reason his assertion in his book is not considered to be viable evidence for what happened. The real reason that it is not at all clear that Washington Irving was an eyewitness in any meaningful sense. Everyone who attended the event did not hear the words that were spoken (there were no amplifiers). Washington Irving himself never claimed to have heard of the oath recitation, nor did he identify a person who claimed to hear it. Eliza Morton Quincy, in her memoir, places herself immediately across the street from the balcony, said she was “so near,” that she “could almost hear him [George Washington] speak” when he took his oath. But Washington Irving was at the corner of New Street and Wall Street, which is about 200 feet west from Federal Hall. From that distance and sideway viewing angle it is unlikely anyone would have a clear view of the activities or be able to hear what was said. Just as importantly, we do have a single eyewitness account that quotes the oath recitation, that was written immediately after the event by an adult who stood on the balcony with George Washington, that identifies in detail what happened before and after the oath recitation, and that makes no mention of George Washington, or anyone else, adding any monotheistic codicil to the oath. That person is the French counsel, Comte de Moustier, whose letter was written in French to the Foreign Minister of France. In contrast, Washington Irving’s book, published over six decades after the event when all of the adult eyewitnesses were dead, is considered to be mostly based on the previously published biography of George Washington by Mr. Sparks, from George Washington’s manuscripts in the Department of State, and apparently copied (without acknowledgement or permission) from Memoir of the life of Eliza S. M. Quincy.

There’s no disputing. Griswold and Irving were two peas in a pod. Here’s what Irving wrote of himself, “I am always at a loss to know how much to believe of my own stories.” (from Tales of a Traveler, by Washington Irving, 1824)

As for “Reverend” Griswold, “Even his friends knew him as a consummate liar and had a saying:
‘Is that a Griswold or a fact?’” – Perry G Miller, The Raven and the Whale (1957), pg 204
Miller cites Rufus Wilmot Griswold: Poe’s literary executor (1943) pg 134, Joy Bayless.