Washington Following a memorial service attended by his family, Vice President Kamala Harris, members of Congress, and other authorities, former President Jimmy Carter arrived to the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday to lie in state.
The 39th president was praised by congressional leaders for his volunteerism, faith, and work in office.
Harris recounted that she was in middle school when Jimmy Carter was elected president. “Jimmy Carter was that all too rare example of a gifted man who also walks with humility, modesty, and grace,” Harris remarked.
“He lived his faith, he served the people, and he left the world better than he found it,” she continued.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., emphasized Carter’s volunteerism by pointing to his 1994 initiative in South Dakota, Thune’s home state, when he built homes for the charity organization Habitat for Humanity.
“He was here to get down in the weeds and the dirt, and he did that, literally, on numerous Habitat builds,” said Thune.
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, a Republican from Louisiana, commended him for his “enduring legacy that he leaves, not only upon this nation, but upon the world.”
At approximately 4:30 p.m. ET, Carter’s casket arrived at the Capitol in a horse-drawn caisson, and family members gathered at the top of the Capitol steps as canons were fired. The late president was carried into the Rotunda by honorary pall bearers, and his body was placed on the Lincoln catafalque, a platform that was constructed to hold President Abraham Lincoln’s casket and is currently utilized for these kinds of rituals. The public can observe it from approximately 7 p.m. till midnight. The Rotunda is lined with monuments of Abraham Lincoln as well as former presidents, such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Harry Truman, and Gerald Ford, whom Carter beat in 1976.
The U.S. Naval Academy Glee Club sang “My Country, ‘Tis of Thee,” and officials from Congress placed wreaths on the coffin after the eulogies.
At the service, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, and many Supreme Court justices, including Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Brett Kavanaugh, and Justice Elena Kagan, paid their respects. Mayor Muriel Bowser of D.C. was also present.
Carter’s remains will remain in state until Thursday morning, when a ceremony will be held at the National Cathedral in Washington.
Carter’s remains were transported from his presidential library in Atlanta to Joint Base Andrews, which is close to Washington, early Tuesday. From there, Carter and his family took a motorcade to the U.S. Navy Memorial, which is located between the Capitol and the White House on Pennsylvania Avenue.
The former president’s remains were moved from a hearse to a horse-drawn caisson for the burial procession to the Capitol at the Navy Memorial, which Carter approved in 1980 after Congress gave its approval. According to the military announcement, the procession is intended to replicate Carter’s inaugural parade on January 20, 1977, when he and his family chose to walk from the Capitol to the White House rather than take the presidential limousine.
“This was the first time a president walked the pavement of Pennsylvania Avenue after the inauguration ceremony,” according to the White House Historical Association, highlighting Carter’s intention to make the presidency accessible to all citizens.
According to his family, the funeral procession route on Pennsylvania and Constitution avenues to the Capitol is open to the public to commemorate and celebrate Carter’s life.
George H.W. Bush was the final president to lie in state at the Capitol in 2018.
On December 29, Carter, the longest-living former president, passed away at the age of 100. Since February 2023, he had been receiving hospice care in his Plains, Georgia, home.
President Joe Biden has proclaimed Thursday a national day of mourning and is scheduled to deliver a eulogy at the cathedral service on Thursday morning. Following the service, Carter will have a private burial when his body is flown back to Plains and taken to the Maranatha Baptist Church, where he spent decades teaching Sunday school.
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