Episode 1 of 3

Refusal to Swear In on Sunday

When: March 4, 1849
Where: Washington, D.C.
Part of: Zachary Taylor becomes 12th president; the Atchison 'president for a day' legend

Taylor refused to take the oath on March 4 because it fell on a Sunday, delaying his inauguration to the next day.

Inauguration Day, March 4, 1849, fell on a Sunday. President-elect Zachary Taylor did not take the presidential oath of office on that day due to religious concerns. The public ceremony was postponed to Monday, March 5.

Sources

David Rice Atchison Wikipedia, revision of 2026-08-29
United States presidential inauguration Wikipedia, revision of 2026-07-10

Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.