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March 4 as Inauguration Date
When our country was first created the Congress of the Confederation set presidential inauguration day to March 4th, around four months after the election. During this time there was no specific date set for elections to take place, so the "lame duck" period from election day until inauguration day varied greatly. Source: (http://www.history.com/news/8-things-you-may-not-know-about-presidential-inaugurations) -
Election Date
In 1792, Congress met and declared that elections must take place in November or early December of every election year. Before this there was never a law that specified when an election should be, so elections would be put off or rushed. The Inauguration date was still okay because many of the elected presidents needed 4-5 months to deal with their prior businesses before they could move. Source:(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twentieth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution) -
Abe Lincoln
In 1861, issues with the extended lame duck period came up when Abraham Lincoln was forced to wait to deal with the issues around the southern states succeeding from the Union until he was inaugurated on March 4th. No one had much power to stop these states because between the election day and inauguration nothing was being done. Source:(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twentieth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution) -
20th Amendment Proposed
Senator George Norris proposed the 20th Amendment in 1932. Though he first began the process of writing the amendment in 1923 he finished before the 1932 election. The original authoring of this amendment provided a base for Congress to quickly create this amendment, but it wasn't in effect with the inauguration of Roosevelt, which posed a huge problem with the Great Depression. Source: (http://www.commondreams.org/views/2008/10/28/lessons-learned-1932-1933-presidential-transition) -
Virginia Ratifies Amendment
Only two days after Congress proposed this new amendment changing the Inauguration date from March 4 to January 20th for the president and January 3rd for congressmen, Virginia became the first state to ratify the amendment. The amendment also explained that the elected vice president would be sworn into the presidential office if something happened to the upcoming president. Source: (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twentieth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution) -
Franklin Roosevelt
In 1932, Franklin Roosevelt was elected as president. All the programs he discussed were not able to be put into action to help the Americans through the Great Depression because he had no power. Hoover tried to ban these programs with the little power he had during the lame duck period. Banks continued to fail, workers weren't getting paid, and unemployment rates managed to rise rapidly. Source: http://www.commondreams.org/views/2008/10/28/lessons-learned-1932-1933-presidential-transition -
Missouri Final State to Ratify
The following year after the 20th amendment was proposed, Missouri became the final state needed to equal 3/4 of the states to ratify the proposed amendment. This created the new law. Soon after the rest of the states followed by ratifying the amendment as well. Source:(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twentieth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution) -
74th Congress begin the transition
The 20th amendment was put into place on January of 1933, but was first used in the following election of 1934 for that years elected congressmen. On January 3 the new congressmen were inaugurated into office. The amendment also stated that the congressmen were to begin their first meeting at 12 p.m. on this day. Source: (http://history.house.gov/Historical-Highlights/1901-1950/The-20th-Amendment/) -
President Roosevelt under the amendment
The first president that was affected by the 20th amendment was President Roosevelt on his second term of office. Being his second term and already holding office Roosevelt and his vice president, Garner, weren't impacted to the extent of a new president, but instead of the regular March 4th inauguration date he was inaugurated into his second term on January 20, 1937. Source: http://history.house.gov/Historical-Highlights/1901-1950/The-20th-Amendment/ -
Bill Clinton
Congress was dominated by Republicans in 1998 when articles of impeachment were brought up against Democrat Bill Clinton. The House was scheduled to make an official vote with the newly sworn in 1999 Congress but some fought that there should be a revote because of the newly sworn in congressmen Source: http://www.usconstitution.net/constamnotes.html#Am20
