April 1865 by Jay Winik

Author:Jay Winik
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins

When the Founders first debated the matter of executive succession upon presidential death, resignation, or disability, the Virginia and New Jersey plans were silent on the matter. It was only Alexander Hamilton, who, on June 18, 1787, first presented a plan for dealing with such a crisis: “On the death[,] resignation or removal of the Governour his authorities to be exercised by the President of the Senate till a Successor be appointed.” By August, his suggestions were taken up, and the Committee of Detail reported that “the President of the Senate” was to exercise the duties of the office “until another president of the United States was Chosen.” The subject was debated at greater length on August 24 and 25, and then referred to the Committee of Eleven, a body specially created to consider unique problems of state. On September 4, the committee finally issued its report, with a stunning new twist: instead of the president of the Senate, they recommended that a vice president be made the heir apparent. But, they also made clear, the vice president was not to become the president; he was only to exercise “the powers and discharge the duties” of the presidential office until “another President was chusen.” And for this to occur, it would have to be “supplied by” special election (or be until “the President’s inability ceased”). This conclusion was further enshrined in a motion offered by James Madison: “the Legislature may declare by law what officer of the United States shall act as president and Vice president[,] in case of the death, resignation, or disability of the President…; and such officer shall act accordingly, until such disability be removed, or a President shall be elected.” After some debate, the Committee of Style reported this “succession clause” out on September 12 with some stylistic changes, including a clause that was widely understood to limit the tenure of an acting president to a shorter period (“until … a President shall be elected.”) And even after the Committee of Eleven introduced the office of the vice president, nobody ever suggested that he should succeed to the higher office; only that he was to exercise the “presidential powers and duties” in an “acting” capacity. Thus the record was established: from the notes, reports, and debates in the Convention, what clearly comes across is that the Framers did not intend for a vice president (or an officer named by Congress) to be anything other than an interim caretaker, and most certainly, it seems, they did not intend for the vice president to become president.

Unlike a host of other contentious issues roiling the Founders, notably those separating the Federalists and the anti-Federalists, this provision was not terribly controversial. Whenever the matter came up, delegates reflected a unanimous understanding of what the convention called for. At the state ratifying conventions themselves, they were always careful to draw a bright line between “the president” and an “acting president,” or in the words of James Bowdin, the Boston delegate at the Massachusetts Convention, “the Vice president when acting as President.

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