February 10, 1967: The legislature of the State of Nevada approves the 25th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. They are the 38th State to do so. With three-quarters of the States having approved the Amendment, it is ratified as part of the Constitution, and takes effect.
The Amendment has 4 Sections:
1. In case of the removal of the President from office or of his death or resignation, the Vice President shall become President.
This was required as a clarification. The 1st time a President had died in office, William Henry Harrison on April 4, 1841, the Constitution wasn't clear whether Vice President John Tyler would merely be the Acting President, or would be the President in full. He interpreted the Constitution as saying he was the President in full, and served out the rest of Harrison's term.
That set the precedent for each successive occurrence: July 9, 1850, Zachary Taylor to Millard Fillmore; April 15, 1865, Abraham Lincoln to Andrew Johnson; September 19, 1881, James Garfield to Chester Arthur; September 14, 1901, William McKinley to Theodore Roosevelt; August 2, 1923, Warren Harding to Calvin Coolidge; April 12, 1945, Franklin D. Roosevelt to Harry Truman; and November 22, 1963, John F. Kennedy to Lyndon B. Johnson. On none of those occasions was the Vice President being treated as the new President in full seriously questioned.
However, every time the Vice President filled the vacancy in the office of the President, that created a vacancy in the office of the Vice President. And the original text of the Constitution provided no means of filling that vacancy, other than the next election of a President and a Vice President. Therefore, Section 2 of this Amendment was necessary:
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.
In addition to the examples provided above, vacancies in the office of Vice President had included: April 20, 1812, George Clinton died; November 23, 1814, Elbridge Gerry died; December 28, 1832, John C. Calhoun resigned (not as a result of scandal); April 18, 1853, William Rufus King died; November 22, 1875, Henry Wilson died; November 25, 1885, Thomas A. Hendricks died; November 21, 1899, Garret Hobart died; and October 30, 1912, James S. Sherman died.
On October 2, 1919, President Woodrow Wilson suffered a stroke which left him paralyzed on one side of his body. So, for the last year and a half of his 2nd term, he was still alive, but his health left him incapable of carrying out the duties of the office. And he had come to distrust his Vice President, Thomas R. Marshall.
No President had ever resigned to that point, and Wilson, determined to get the U.S. Senate to approve the Treaty of Versailles, refused to hand the job over to Marshall. (The Senate did not approve the treaty.) And there was no constitutional means to force Wilson's hand: He would have to die, or change his mind about resignation. He refused to do that, and it was hard enough to convince him to not run for a 3rd term in 1920. He lived out his term, and died 3 years after that.
This was right after World War I, but before the great growth of the federal government as a result of FDR's New Deal and the building of the military-industrial complex needed to win World War II. So it could have been a lot worse.
And the potential for it to get worse was there. To the general public, FDR's death was a shock; but to those who knew him, it was not a surprise. His smoking had given him heart disease, and the pressures of the war had given him very high blood pressure.
In 1955, Dwight D. Eisenhower suffered a heart attack. In 1957, Eisenhower suffered a stroke. There was no constitutional means for Vice President Richard Nixon to temporarily take command. And in 1965, LBJ underwent surgery to remove his gallbladder. The Amendment was then being voted on by the States, but there was still no means for Vice President Hubert Humphrey, elected when LBJ was elected to a full term in 1964, to take command.
Therefore, Sections 3 and 4 were necessary:
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.
And then there had to be a provision for when the President is unable to make the determination himself:
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.
In this case, "the executive department" is the Cabinet. In other words, if the Cabinet believes that the President is physically or mentally incapable of carrying out the office, they can remove him, and install the Vice President. If the President actually is mentally capable of making his own decisions -- or if he believes that he is -- Section 4 allows him the constitutional means to fight back. And that provided the potential for the biggest constitutional crisis in the nation's history.
From the Amendment's adoption in 1967 through 2021, the 25th Amendment has been invoked on these occasions:
* October 10, 1973, Section 2: Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned in scandal. On October 12, Richard Nixon, by this point President, and himself mired in scandal, appointed House Minority Leader Gerald Ford to be Vice President. Ford was qualified, and well-liked by both parties, and, although hearings as to his fitness for the office were necessary, there was never any doubt that Congress would confirm him. They did so on December 6. But Ford did not serve the entirety of the rest of Agnew's term as Vice President, because...
* August 9, 1974, Section 1: Nixon resigned, and Ford was sworn in as President.
* December 19, 1974, Section 2: Ford had appointed former Governor Nelson Rockefeller of New York to be Vice President. Although not as popular with Congress as Ford -- even some Republicans didn't trust him, because he wasn't conservative enough, dooming his bids for President in 1960, '64 and '68 -- he was confirmed, mainly because it had been a long 2 years in Washington, and nobody really wanted a fight. Ford served the rest of Nixon's term as President, and Rockefeller served the rest of Agnew's term as Vice President.
* July 13, 1985, Section 3: President Ronald Reagan signed a letter noting his temporary disability, and underwent cancer surgery. He signed a second letter reclaiming the powers and duties of the office. Vice President George H.W. Bush was Acting President from 11:28 AM to 7:22 PM (in each case, Eastern Time), and there was no issue with Reagan returning to the job. Whether Reagan's later-acknowledged Alzheimer's disease had already begun to take effect before he left office on January 20, 1989 has been debated, but no action was taken in regard to that possibility. Bush was elected President in his own right in 1988, and his son was elected in 2000.
* June 29, 2002, Section 3: President George W. Bush transferred power to Vice President Dick Cheney, so that he could undergo a colonoscopy. Cheney held the office from 7:09 to 9:24 AM. Democrats had already been joking that Bush was just a puppet, and Cheney was "the real President" anyway. But Cheney took no dictatorial action in his 135 minutes as Acting President, though he did hold 2 meetings.
* July 21, 2007, Section 3: Bush underwent another colonoscopy, and Cheney had the power of the Presidency from 7:16 to 9:21 AM. Again, Cheney took no action as Acting President. This time, he didn't even leave the official Vice Presidential residence and go to the White House.
* November 19, 2021: Section 3: President Joe Biden underwent a colonoscopy, and Vice President Kamala Harris became the 1st woman ever to hold the power of the Presidency, from 10:10 to 11:35 AM. As of February 10, 2022, no details of her activities during those 85 minutes has been released. Nevertheless, there was no emergency, foreign or domestic, that required her to take action.
President Bill Clinton was caught up in scandal for most of 1998. Early on, there was the question of whether he would resign, and who Vice President Al Gore would select as his Vice President under Section 2. Clinton never resigned, and, though impeached, there was never any question that he would be acquitted, and he and Gore served out their respective terms.
Likewise, Donald Trump's time as President was one scandal after another, and he became the only President ever to be impeached twice. But with a firewall of protection from the Republican-controlled Senate, there was no way he was going to be convicted and removed, thus elevating Vice President Mike Pence to the Presidency, invoking Sections 1 and 2.
Nor did Trump consider invoking Section 3 after he caught COVID on October 2, 2020 -- 101 years to the day after Woodrow Wilson's stroke -- and was hospitalized for 3 days. Nor did the Cabinet consider invoking Section 4 at that time.
Through February 10, 2022, Section 4 has never been invoked. As far as is publicly known, there have been 4 occasions on which it was seriously considered:
* March 30, 1981: Reagan was shot in an assassination attempt. Reagan did not invoke Section 3. Vice President Bush was on a plane, and he ordered it turned around and flown back to Washington. By the time he landed, Reagan was out of surgery. Bush held Cabinet meetings until Reagan was released from the hospital on April 12, but he and the Cabinet never invoked Section 4.
Dr. Daniel Ruge, Physician to the President, later said that he should have told Reagan, while he was still conscious, to invoke Section 3, and that, in light of that not happening, Bush and the Cabinet should have invoked Section 4.
* February 27, 1987: Former Senate Majority Leader Howard Baker took office as White House Chief of Staff on this day. He had been one of Reagan's competitors in the Republican Primaries in 1980, and Reagan had enjoyed watching Baker get his policies through the Senate. Some White House employees went to Baker, and told him to look for signs of Reagan's cognitive decline, and consider invoking Section 4. But Reagan seemed all right that day, and the question did not come up again.
Dr. Ruge only served as Physician to the President in Reagan's 1st term, and claimed he saw no evidence of cognitive decline. But he wasn't there during the 2nd term.
* May 9, 2017: Trump fired FBI Director James Comey, one of many actions he took that seemed too crazy for a President to do. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein approached Pence to discuss the possibility of invoking Section 4, but Pence has denied that the invocation was going to be seriously considered.
* January 6, 2021: The Capitol Insurrection. Demonstrators chanted, "Hang Mike Pence!" Pence was not hanged, but, this time, he did seriously consider asking the Cabinet to invoke Section 4. But with the insurrectionists dispersed, and the Electoral Vote certified, and Trump having just 2 weeks left in office, Pence decided there was no point. There was: Trump was never mentally fit for the Presidency.
On the 2002-03 season finale of the NBC drama The West Wing, Zoey Bartlet (played by Elisabeth Moss), daughter of President Jed Bartlet (Martin Sheen), was kidnapped. The President thought he was psychologically compromised by this, so he invoked Section 3. Since the Vice President, John Hoynes (Tim Matheson), had resigned due to scandal, and no new Vice President had yet been confirmed, this transferred power to the next man in line, the Speaker of the House of Representatives. This was Glenn Walken (John Goodman), meaning the Presidency passed from a Democrat to a Republican.
Walken held the office for 3 days, until Zoey was rescued in the 2nd episode of the next season, and, invoking Section 3 a 2nd time, Bartlet reclaimed the office. Both transitions of power were peaceful.
*
John Tyler, the Vice President whose rise to the Presidency forced the question, but didn't get a definitive answer for another 126 years, had served Virginia in both houses of Congress, and had served a term as Governor. In order to make their Presidential nominee, William Henry Harrison, more appealing nationwide, the Whig Party nominated Tyler, a Democrat, on their ticket.
It was the 1st rhyming ticket in Presidential history, as songs were written with the words, "Tippecanoe and Tyler too!"
Harrison Statue, Cincinnati
Most of Harrison's Cabinet resigned shortly into Tyler's term, and the Whigs expelled him from the Party, dubbing him "His Accidency." He vetoed more bills than the previous 9 Presidents combined, and was the 1st President to have one of his vetoes overridden by Congress.
On his last full day in office, he signed a bill annexing Texas. In 1861, with Virginia having seceded from the Union, he was elected to the Confederate House of Representatives, but died early the next year, without having taken his seat.
Under the law then in effect, the next person in the line of succession after the Vice President was the President Pro Tempore of the Senate -- in other words, the Vice Vice President. So if something happened to Tyler from April 6, 1841 to May 31, 1842, the next President of the United States would have been Senator Samuel Southard of New Jersey; and from then until March 4, 1845, Senator Willie Mangum of North Carolina.
The City and the County of Tyler, in Texas, and its high school, are named for John Tyler. Virginia Route 5, between Richmond and Williamsburg, is named the John Tyler Highway. Tyler's plantation, Sherwood Forest in Charles City, is on that Highway; while Harrison's, Berkeley Plantation, is just off it, 11 miles away.
Thomas Ewing, a once-and-future Senator from Ohio, served as Secretary of the Treasury for the start of the Harrison-Tyler term. In 1849, President Zachary Taylor named him the 1st U.S. Secretary of the Interior. He is the only man to be appointed to the Cabinet by 2 Presidents who then died in office. He was the last surviving member of Harrison's Cabinet, and also the last of Tyler's Cabinet, living until 1871.
Harrison was played by Douglass Dumbrille in Ten Gentlemen from West Point in 1942, James Seay in The Brave Warrior in 1952, and David Clennon in Tecumseh in 1994. There are at least 6 towns, including one in Hudson County, New Jersey, named for Harrison; and 4 Counties: In Ohio, Indiana, Iowa and Mississippi.
Harrison, Ohio is home to a William Henry Harrison High School. So are Evansville, Indiana, near Harrison's Grouseland mansion; West Lafayette, Indiana, home of Purdue University, and not far from the site of the Battle of Tippecanoe in 1811, where Harrison's victory got him the nickname "Old Tippecanoe" (or "Old Tip" for short).
Though born in Virginia, as was Tyler, Harrison was the 1st President to represent Ohio, and the 1st President to represent Indiana.
NOTE: My cutoff date for this project is 1869, the year of the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad, the 1st openly professional baseball team, and the 1st American football game. I had managed to work in references to most pre-1869 Presidents. This was the only way I could think of to do it for "Tippecanoe," or for Tyler, too.
*
February 10, 1967 was a Friday. Actress Laura Dern was born, to actors Bruce Dern and Diane Ladd. Writer-director Vince Gilligan, creator of the TV series Breaking Bad, was also born that day.
Baseball and football were out of season. And no NHL games were scheduled. But there were 4 games played in the NBA that night:
* The New York Knicks beat the Chicago Bulls, 122-121 at the International Amphitheatre in Chicago. This was the Bulls' 1st season. They moved to the Chicago Stadium the next season.
* The Boston Celtics beat the San Francisco Warriors, 137-136 in double overtime at the Boston Garden. For the Celtics, John Havlicek scored 28 points, and Bill Russell had 19 points and 32 rebounds. For the Warriors, Rick Barry had 43 points.
* The Philadelphia 76ers beat the Los Angeles Lakers, 148-131 at the Philadelphia Civic Center. For the Sixers, soon to win their 1st NBA Championship, Wilt Chamberlain scored 37, had 24 rebounds and 12 assists. At the time, blocked shots were not kept as a statistic. He probably had at least 10. This would have been a quadruple-double. For most players, this would have been the game of a lifetime. For Wilt, it was just another day at the office.
* And the Cincinnati Royals beat the Detroit Pistons, 133-104 at the Cincinnati Gardens.
