Section 1:
In case of the removal of the President from office or of his death or resignation, the Vice President shall become President.
Section 2:
Whenever there is a vacancy in the office of the Vice President, the President shall nominate a Vice President who shall take office upon confirmation by a majority vote of both Houses of Congress.
Section 3:
Whenever the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that he is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, and until he transmits to them a written declaration to the contrary, such powers and duties shall be discharged by the Vice President as Acting President.
Section 4:
Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.
Thereafter, when the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall resume the powers and duties of his office unless the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive department or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit within four days to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. Thereupon Congress shall decide the issue, assembling within forty-eight hours for that purpose if not in session. If the Congress, within twenty-one days after receipt of the latter written declaration, or, if Congress is not in session, within twenty-one days after Congress is required to assemble, determines by two-thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President; otherwise, the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office.
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.