Delegates to the state conventions that met to consider the Constitution’s ratification discussed the Presidential Succession Clause only briefly as part of broader debates over the vice presidency.1 At the Virginia Convention, George Mason, who had declined to sign the Constitution at the Federal Convention, argued that the Vice President was an “unnecessary” and “dangerous officer.” 2 Mason recited the Presidential Succession Clause before expressing concerns that the Vice President, while serving as Acting President, might prevent the prompt holding of a special election to choose another President.3 Nonetheless, Mason stated that the Constitution properly gave Congress the authority “to provide what officer shall act, in case both the President and Vice President be dead or disabled.” 4

Although James Madison did not respond directly to Mason’s concerns, he defended the Presidential Succession Clause at the Virginia Convention.5 Addressing the Clause’s provision on dual vacancies, Madison contended that in the rare circumstance in which both the President and Vice President died, “the election of another President [would] immediately take place.” 6 If Congress had not called for a special election to take place immediately, then Congress would merely “continue the government in motion” by appointing an “officer” to exercise the President’s powers and duties until the next scheduled presidential election.7

Writing in the Federalist Papers supporting the Constitution’s ratification, Alexander Hamilton briefly alluded to the Presidential Succession Clause. Hamilton argued that the office of the vice presidency would not be “superfluous” or “mischievous.” 8 Rather, in Hamilton’s view, a Vice President could beneficially and “occasionally” serve as “a substitute for the President” and in such circumstances “exercise the authorities and discharge the duties of the President.” 9

Article II’s Presidential Succession Clause was ratified as part of the original Constitution in 1788. The Clause supplied rules on presidential succession and inability until the Twenty-Fifth Amendment modified these rules in 1967.

Footnotes

1

3 Jonathan Elliot, The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution 486–90 (2d ed. 1836) [hereinafter Elliot’s Debates].

2

Id. at 486.

3

Id. at 487.

4

Id.

5

Id. at 487–88.

6

Id.

7

Id. at 488. For a discussion of brief and contradictory remarks on succession at other state ratifying conventions, see John D. Feerick, The Problem of Presidential Inability—Will Congress Ever Solve It?, 32 Fordham L. Rev. 73, 87–88 (1963).

8

The Federalist No. 68 (Alexander Hamilton), https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed68.asp.

9

Id.