Gerald Ford Was Sworn In as US President
On this day · 9 August 1974
He is the only person to serve as US president without ever being elected to the office or the vice presidency.
On August 9, 1974, Gerald R. Ford took the oath of office to become the 38th president of the United States. The brief ceremony unfolded in the White House East Room, just hours after Richard Nixon formally resigned rather than face near-certain impeachment over the Watergate scandal. Chief Justice Warren Burger administered the oath.
Ford’s path was constitutionally unique. He had never won a national ballot: he was appointed vice president under the 25th Amendment in 1973 after Spiro Agnew resigned, then succeeded to the presidency when Nixon stepped down. That makes him the only US president never elected to either the presidency or the vice presidency.
“My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over.”
With those words, Ford sought to steady a country exhausted by scandal, declaring that “our Constitution works” and that the republic remained “a government of laws and not of men.” His acknowledgment that he assumed office under “extraordinary circumstances” framed a transfer of power unlike any other in American history.
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