Decision rare but not unprecedented

President Donald Trump isn’t the first to skip the inauguration of his successor, though one must go back to Andrew Johnson in 1869 for the most recent example. John Adams and John Quincy Adams also opted not to participate in a tradition that began with George Washington.

The White House Historical Association notes that John Adams was never formally invited to the event by successor Thomas Jefferson and perhaps didn’t want to impose. The association also noted it was the first time the presidency was transferred to an opposing party, and “he may have wanted to avoid provoking violence between Federalists and Democratic-republicans.” Following in his father’s footsteps, John Quincy Adams officially left the White House on the evening of March 3, the day before the inauguration of President Andrew Jackson. Jackson had been in Washington for about three weeks. He didn’t call on Adams, and Adams didn’t invite Jackson to the White House. Some four decades later, President-elect Ulysses S. Grant refused to ride with President Andrew Johnson from the White House to the Capitol for the ceremony. When it was suggested that two carriages carry them separately, Johnson said he simply wouldn’t attend the ceremonies, remaining instead at the White House with friends and colleagues and signing last-minute legislation.

“To me, he is much, much different from the two Adamses in that they truly were statesmen and they just had their reasons to be bitter. But they weren’t bad men,” said Barbara Perry, director of presidential studies at the University of Virginia. “Johnson was a bad man and a bad president.”