From President George Washington’s 1789 inauguration to the Twenty-Fifth Amendment’s 1967 ratification, eight Presidents died while in office.1 In 1841, President William Henry Harrison became the first President to die in office when he succumbed to illness shortly after his inauguration.2 Vice President John Tyler took the presidential oath of office and claimed that he had succeeded to the presidency automatically for the remainder of Harrison’s term by operation of Article II, Section 1, Clause 6.3 However, some of Tyler’s contemporaries questioned whether Tyler had actually become the President or would merely exercise the President’s power and duties as “Acting President” until a special election could fill the vacancy.4 After debating the issue, the House and Senate enacted a joint resolution addressing Tyler as the President.5 Tyler’s actions established a historical precedent that subsequent vice presidents would follow for more than a century until the Twenty-Fifth Amendment formally incorporated this succession rule into the Constitution.6
After Tyler succeeded to the presidency following Harrison’s demise, seven other presidents died in office before the Twenty-Fifth Amendment’s ratification:
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1850: President Zachary Taylor died of illness. Vice President Millard Fillmore, following Tyler’s precedent, succeeded to the presidency.7
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1865: Less than a week after the Civil War’s end, President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C. Vice President Andrew Johnson assumed the presidency.8
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1881: President James Garfield died 80 days after he was wounded by an assassin’s bullet. Vice President Chester A. Arthur became President.9
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1901: President William McKinley died eight days after he was shot by an assassin. Vice President Theodore Roosevelt became President.10
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1923: President William G. Harding died of a heart attack. Vice President Calvin Coolidge became President.11
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1945: President Franklin D. Roosevelt died of a cerebral hemorrhage during his fourth term in office. Vice President Harry Truman became President.12
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1963: President John F. Kennedy was assassinated while on a campaign trip to Dallas, Texas. Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson became President.13
In addition to the eight presidential vacancies that resulted from the incumbent’s death, the vice presidency was vacant 16 times for a total of more than 37 years before the Twenty-Fifth Amendment’s ratification.14 These vacancies resulted from the Vice President’s death, resignation, or succession to the presidency.15 Because the Presidential Succession Clause empowered Congress to provide by law only for simultaneous presidential and vice presidential vacancies, it was unclear whether Congress could address sole vice presidential vacancies by enacting ordinary legislation.16
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Footnotes
- 1
- During this time, no President resigned or was removed from office as a result of impeachment proceedings.
- 2
- See S. Rep. No. 89-66, at 5 (1965); President John Tyler, Address Upon Assuming the Office of President of the United States (Apr. 9, 1841), Am. Presidency Project, https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/address-upon-assuming-the-office-president-the-united-states.
- 3
- See S. Rep. No. 89-66, at 5 (1965).
- 4
- E.g., Cong. Globe, 27th Cong., 1st Sess., 4–5 (1841). The original Presidential Succession Clause provided that “[i]n Case of the Removal of the President from Office, or of his Death, Resignation, or Inability to discharge the Powers and Duties of the said Office, the Same shall devolve on the Vice President . . . ” U.S. Const. art. II, § 1, cl. 6 (emphasis added). Debate centered on whether “the Same” referred to the full office of the presidency or merely the President’s “powers and duties.”
- 5
- Cong. Globe, 27th Cong., 1st Sess., 4–5 (1841). The joint resolution contained traditional language creating a committee to inform the President that Congress was assembled and able to receive communications from him. The Senate rejected an amendment to the joint resolution that would have addressed Tyler as “the Vice President, on whom, by the death of the late President, the powers and duties of the office of President have devolved.” Id. See also >id. at 3–4 (House’s rejection of an amendment offered by Rep. McKeon that would have addressed the President as “Vice-President, now exercising the office of President” ).
- 6
- See U.S. Const. amend. XXV, § 1.
- 7
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Millard Fillmore Event Timeline, Am. Presidency Project, https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/millard-fillmore-event-timeline.
- 8
- See
Assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, Libr. of Cong., https://www.loc.gov/collections/abraham-lincoln-papers/articles-and-essays/assassination-of-president-abraham-lincoln/; Andrew Johnson, The White House, https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/presidents/andrew-johnson/.
- 9
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James Garfield Assassination: Topics in Chronicling America, Libr. of Cong., https://guides.loc.gov/chronicling-america-james-garfield-assassination. In 1886, after Vice President Thomas Hendricks’s death, Congress modified the line of presidential successors after the Vice President by replacing congressional leaders with the heads of the Cabinet departments in the order of each department’s creation. Act of Jan. 19, 1886, ch. 4, §§ 1–3, Pub. L. No. 49-4, 24 Stat. 1, 1–2 (Succession Act of 1886) (repealed 1947).
- 10
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William McKinley Assassination: Topics in Chronicling America, Libr. of Cong., https://guides.loc.gov/chronicling-america-william-mckinley-assassination.
- 11
- See President Calvin Coolidge, Statement on the Death of Warren G. Harding (Aug. 3, 1923), Coolidge Found., https://coolidgefoundation.org/resources/statement-on-the-death-of-warren-g-harding/.
- 12
- Franklin D. Roosevelt: Death of the President, UVA Miller Ctr., https://millercenter.org/president/fdroosevelt/death-of-the-president. At President Harry Truman’s urging, Congress restored congressional leaders to the front of the line of presidential succession after the Vice President. Presidential Succession Act of 1947, ch. 264, § 1, Pub. L. No. 80-199, 61 Stat. 380 (codified, as amended, at ); Harry S. Truman, Special Message to the Congress on the Succession to the Presidency (June 19, 1945), Am. Presidency Project, https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/special-message-the-congress-the-succession-the-presidency (arguing that the President should not have the power to nominate his immediate successor and that “[i]n so far as possible, the office of the President should be filled by an elective officer.” ).
- 13
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November 22, 1963: Death of the President, John F. Kennedy Pres. Libr. & Museum, https://www.jfklibrary.org/learn/about-jfk/jfk-in-history/november-22-1963-death-of-the-president.
- 14
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About the Vice President: Vice Presidents of the United States, Senate.gov, https://www.senate.gov/about/officers-staff/vice-president/vice-presidents.htm.
- 15
- Id.
- 16
- See U.S. Const. art. II, § 1, cl. 6.