Calvin Coolidge’s Homestead Oath of Office

Calvin Coolidge served as the 30th President of the United States from August 2, 1923 through March 4, 1929. He was notably the only president to share a birthday with America, having been born in Plymouth Notch, Vermont, on July 4, 1872. Coolidge’s presidency coincided with the 150th anniversary of American independence on July 4, 1926, on which occasion he delivered one of the more notable and learned presidential addresses in history. But Coolidge presiding as President over the American sesquicentennial was something of an accident of history, for had everything gone according to plan, Coolidge would have been the Vice President of the United States on July 4, 1926. He had been elected Vice President on a ticket with Warren G. Harding in a landslide victory in the 1920 Presidential election. Harding was popular while he was in office, but he unexpectedly died in office on August 2, 1923, at the age of 57. With his death, Coolidge would become the sixth Vice President to assume the…