Chapter XXIII: Section 1: The representatives of the Democratic party of the (4)

Six Vice-Presidents have died in office: Clinton in 1812, after having presided over the Senate for seven years; Gerry in 1814, after little more than a year of service; William R. King, in 1853, who took the oath as Vice-President on the 4th of March of that year in Cuba, and died soon thereafter; Henry Wilson in 1875, having served but little more than half his term; Thomas A. Hendricks in 1885, having served less than a year, and Hobart in 1899, leaving nearly a year and a half of his term unexpired.

No President _pro tem._ of the Senate has ever reached the Presidency. There was only one occasion in the history of the Government when it seemed probable that the President _pro tem._ might be called to the chief executive office of the nation. Johnson, as Vice-President, had succeeded Lincoln as President, and Senator Wade, of Ohio, was president _pro tem._ of the Senate. In 1868, some ten months before the expiration of Johnson’s term, he was impeached by the House, and acquitted in the Senate by a single vote. The question was then raised as to whether the President _pro tem._ of the Senate was such an officer as was contemplated by the Constitution to fill the office of President, and there was considerable agitation from time to time on the subject in Congress, which finally culminated in the passage of the Presidential Succession bill of January 18, 1886, by which the succession to the Presidency is fully defined and eligibles are provided quite sufficient in number to meet any possible emergency. The following is the full text of the present law regulating the Presidential succession:

_Be it enacted, etc._, that in case of the removal, death, resignation, or inability of both the President and Vice-President of the United States, the Secretary of State, or if there be none, or in case of his removal, death, resignation, or inability, then the Secretary of the Treasury, or if there be none, or in case of his removal, death, resignation, or inability, then the Secretary of War, or if there be none, or in case of his removal, death, resignation, or inability, then the Attorney-General, or if there be none, or in case of his removal, death, resignation, or inability, then the Postmaster-General, or if there be none, or in case of his removal, death, resignation, or inability, then the Secretary of the Navy, or if there be none, or in case of his removal, death, resignation, or inability, then the Secretary of the Interior shall act as President until the disability of the President or Vice-President is removed, or a President shall be elected: _provided_, that whenever the powers and duties of the office of President of the United States shall devolve upon any of the persons named herein, if Congress be not then in session, or if it would not meet in accordance with law within twenty days thereafter, it shall be the duty of the person upon whom said powers and duties shall devolve to issue a proclamation convening Congress in extraordinary session, giving twenty days’ notice of the time of meeting.