What Went Down During Joe Biden’s Inauguration

This is crazy and embarrassing to say, but the @POTUS Twitter handle looks to have been transferred to Biden, and that somehow feels like a big deal?

Biden addresses those who didn’t vote for him in the classic expression of, “I will be a president for all Americans.” He says to them, “Hear me out as we move forward, take a measure of me and my heart.”

A quick search suggests that no inaugural address has made reference to the Emancipation Proclamation before. The Emancipation Proclamation is a fascinating reference because it was a use of presidential war power, in a fairly narrow and technical sense, to attain a much larger goal — to make the Civil War, unquestionably, a war to end slavery. It was criticized at the time for applying to enslaved people in the Confederacy but not to those in states that had remained loyal to the Union. It speaks to different aspects of presidential power, and how presidents can follow the Constitution closely, not overstepping the bounds of their power, and still make incredible change.