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Even the word “oratory,” from our postmillennial point of view, seems outdated, the rhetorical equivalent of knee breeches and frock coats.

John Quincy Adams was the first president to ditch knee breeches for long pants on his big day, in 1825.

But this isn’t the architectural equivalent of requiring federal workers to wear knee breeches and a tricorn hats.

He is wearing a black gown and not a wig or knee breeches or silk stockings like those in the other portraits.

Bercow has dispensed with the traditional knee breeches, silk stockings and wig.