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Woodrow Wilson
Second Inaugural Address
Monday, March 5, 1917

March 4 was a Sunday, but the President took the oath of office at the Capitol in the President's Room that morning. The oath was taken again the next day, administered by Chief Justice Edward White on the East Portico of the Capitol. The specter of war with Germany hung over the events surrounding the inauguration. A Senate filibuster on arming American merchant vessels against submarine attacks had closed the last hours of the Sixty-fourth Congress without passage. Despite the campaign slogan "He kept us out of war," the President asked Congress on April 2 to declare war. It was declared on April 6.