The delegates to the Federal Convention reconsidered the draft Presidential Succession Clause less than two weeks before the Convention’s end. The Brearley Committee on Leftovers, a group of eleven delegates who met separately to work out the details of the presidency and other thorny issues,1 reported a revised Succession Clause to the Convention on September 4.2 This draft, which designated the newly created office of the Vice President as the President’s successor,3 provided that

On September 7, 1787, the delegates approved language authorizing Congress to determine by law who would act as President if both the President and Vice President were unable to discharge the powers and duties of the presidency.5 The Committee of Style, which prepared the Constitution’s final draft, combined this newly approved language on simultaneous vacancy or inability with the Brearley Committee’s language on presidential succession.6 As revised, the final draft of the Succession Clause in Article II, Section 1, Clause 6 of the original Constitution provided that:

The original Constitution thus provided for the Vice President to assume the President’s powers and duties upon the President’s removal, death, resignation, or inability. Congress was empowered to establish the line of succession to the presidency if both the President and Vice President were unable to discharge the powers and duties of the presidency. However, the original Succession Clause left many issues unresolved, including how to define presidential inability, who would determine such inability, and how such determinations would be made. As revised by the Committee of Style, the Clause did not definitively resolve the question of whether the Vice President would become President or merely exercise the President’s powers and duties as “Acting President” during a presidential vacancy or inability. This omission later resulted in debates about whether the President could resume his office upon recovering from an inability if the Vice President had assumed the President’s powers and duties.8

Footnotes

1

See 1 The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, 481, 493 (Max Farrand ed., 1911) [hereinafter Farrand’s Records] (Madison’s notes, Aug. 27 and Sept. 4, 1787). The Brearley Committee was also known as the “Committee on Postponed Parts.”

2

Id. at 495 (Madison’s note’s Sept. 4, 1787).

3

During its deliberations, the Brearley Committee created the office of Vice President to assume the President’s powers and duties in the event of the President’s removal, death, absence, resignation, or inability. Id. at 495.

4

Id.

5

Id. at 532 (Madison’s notes, Sept. 7, 1787) ( “The Legislature may declare by law what officer of the United States shall act as President in case of the death, resignation, or disability of the President and Vice President; and such Officer shall act accordingly, until such disability be removed, or a President shall be elected.” ). This language reflected revisions suggested by James Madison, who wanted to ensure that Congress could call a special election to fill a presidential vacancy before the next scheduled election. Id. at 535.

6

See id. at 495, 573, 575, 598–99 (Report of the Committee of Style, Sep. 10–12, 1787).

7

Id. at 659 (reproducing the Constitution’s final text). See also U.S. Const. art. II, § 1, cl. 6. For more information on presidential succession under the original Constitution, see ArtII.S1.C6.1 Succession Clause for the Presidency.

8

See