Obama to be sworn in on Lincoln Bible

President-elect Barack Obama will take the oath of office using the same Bible used by Abraham Lincoln at his first inauguration in 1861, according to the Presidential Inaugural Committee.

"President-elect Obama is deeply honored that the Library of Congress has made the Lincoln Bible available for use during his swearing-in," Inaugural Committee Executive Director Emmett Beliveau said in a news release. He said the use of this historic Bible will provide a powerful connection to our common past and common heritage."

Obama, the first African American to be elected president, will be the first president sworn in using the Lincoln Bible since its initial use in 1861, according to the Inaugural Committee. The decision to use the Lincoln Bible brings American history in full circle as Lincoln famously signed the Emancipation Proclamation that ended slavery in 1863.

Annotated in the back of the bible, along with the Seal of the Supreme Court, are the following words: "I, William Thomas Carroll, clerk of the said court do hereby certify that the preceding copy of the Holy Bible is that upon which the Honble. R. B. Taney, Chief Justice of the said Court, administered to His Excellency, Abraham Lincoln, the oath of office as President of the United States ..."

Ironically, it was Justice Taney who presided over the infamous Dred Scott v. Sandford decision in 1857 that held that blacks were not citizens of the United States. As Justice Taney wrote:

"We think they are not, and that they are not included, and were not intended to be included, under the word 'citizens' in the Constitution, and can therefore claim none of the rights and privileges which that instrument provides for and secures to citizens of the United States. On the contrary, they were at that time considered as a subordinate and inferior class of beings, who had been subjugated by the dominant race, and, whether emancipated or not, yet remained subject to their authority, and had no rights or privileges but such as those who held the power and the Government might choose to grant them."