Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - David Rice Atchison: President For A Day?

Episode Date: March 4, 2021

At 12 noon on March 4, 1849, the presidential administration of James Polk ended. 24 hours later, at noon on March 5, President Zachary Taylor took the oath of office to become president. During those 24 hours in-between, who was the president? According to some, it was a member of the United States Senate. Learn more about David Rice Atchison, and if he was president of the United States for a single day, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

At 12 noon on March 4th, 1849, the presidential administration of James Polk ended. 24 hours later, at noon on March 5th, President Zachary Taylor took the oath of office to become president. During those 24 hours in between, who was the president of the United States? According to some, it was a member of the United States Senate. Learn more about David Rice-Acheson and if he was president of the United States for a single day on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. What if your perceptions about the past were wrong? ThruLine is a podcast that takes you back in time to uncover the parts of the story that may have gone unnoticed. It effectively turned day into night.

And how it shaped the world now. Time travel with us every week on the ThruLine podcast from NPR. This episode is sponsored by the Restoration Depot. Do you want more fun in your life? It can be tough finding the year. you time we all need. Here's a way to feel more energized. Join the Restoration Depot where friends can meet for all sorts of health and wellness options online. The Restoration Depot is created for people like you. It's convenient and affordable. Just log in to any one of their online classes

like yoga, Tai Chi, meditation, music, and many more. Check out all of the classes at therestoration depot.com and try your first class for only $5 by selecting first class. special at checkout. Remember, that is, the Restoration Depot.com. David Rice-Acheson was a Democratic Senator from the state of Missouri. He served in the Senate for 12 years from 1843 to 1855. He had a reputation for being extremely pro-slavery. He owned slaves, supported all of the slave state issues in the run-up to the Civil War, and when the war finally commenced, he served in the Confederate Army as a Brigadier General commanding Missouri troops. So he's not the finest of people to sit in the upper chamber of Congress.

Quite frankly, if it wasn't for the events that I'll be discussing in this episode, David Rice Acheson would probably be mostly forgotten to history. I first came across his name years ago in a children's book of fun facts, which said that he was the President of the United States for one day. This fact has been repeated on and off for over 150 years. In fact, the words, President of the United States for one day are on his tombstone in Missouri, as sort of a testament to his greatest achievement. So, is this true? Was David Rice Acheson really the President of the United States for a single day?

To answer the question, we need to understand exactly what happened. In the election of 1848, Whig Party candidate Zachary Taylor comfortably defeated Democrat Lewis Cass and free soil candidate Martin Van Buren. Incommon president James Polk made a pledge to only seek a single term in office, and he honored that pledge by not running. Taylor was a career military man who had never expressed any political opinions prior to the election, and in fact, he had never voted. He had a great deal of success as a general during the Mexican-American War, which led to his popularity and calls for him to run for president. He was, in fact, recruited by both the Whigs and the Democrats, the two major political parties at the time, to seek office.

Prior to the passage of the 20th Amendment to the Constitution, the President and all members of Congress would take office at noon on March 4th. This lengthy lame duck period made more sense when everyone had to travel by horseback, and that's why it was eventually changed. Nonetheless, March 4th was the date everyone took office. In 1849, March 4th landed on a Sunday. Zachary Taylor, being a devout man, didn't want to have his inauguration ceremony take place on the Sabbath. so he postponed it one day until Monday, March 5th. His vice president, Millard Fillmore, also delayed his oath of office until March 5th. According to the law at the time, which was the Presidential Succession Act of 1792,

the next person in line to the presidency after the vice president was the president pro-temporary of the United States Senate. The vice president is technically the president of the Senate. The president pro-temporary is the person who presides over the Senate when the vice president is not present. The president pro temporee was David Rice Acheson. At the time, the position was actually a competitive election. Today, the president pro tempore is just the senior ranking member of the majority party in the Senate. So the argument is that because neither Zachary Taylor nor Millard Fillmore didn't take the oath of office on March 4th and waited until March 5th, that they weren't president from noon on March 4th until noon on March 5th.

That means that the next in line would have been the president pro temporettes. of the Senate, David Rice-Acheson. So is this true, and does this argument hold water? The answer is pretty clear, and the answer is no. And there are a whole bunch of reasons why this is the case. First, while the Constitution does stipulate that the president and the vice president must take the oath of office, it only says, quote, before he enters upon the execution of his office, unquote.

This is legal hair splitting, but it means before a president can do anything presidential, i.e. sign a law, appoint officials, sign a treaty, etc., they must first take the oath of office. However, they can still be the president before taking the oath. To illustrate the point, President Kennedy was shot at 1230 p.m. on November 22nd, 1963. He was declared dead at 133 p.m. And Lyndon Johnson took the oath of office on Air Force 1 at 238 p.m. The moment President Kennedy was dead, or at least declared dead, Lyndon Johnson became the president, in the same way that someone becomes a king the moment the old king is dead, even if they haven't been coronated. The oath of office is just a way to legally unlock the powers of the presidency

after becoming president. As I said, this is legal hair splitting, and for all practical purposes, it doesn't really matter. But for the 24-hour period before the oath of office, Zachary Taylor was the president. If there was an emergency, he could have quickly taken the oath of office in private and without a public ceremony and dealt with the crisis as president. The second argument as to why Atchinson was never president is that he never took the oath of office either. If Taylor isn't president because he didn't take the oath of office, then Atchinson also can't be president by the same logic. The third argument is that he officially wasn't the president pro-tempory of the Senate. He was the president

protemporary during the previous session of Congress. His term expired on March 4th at noon, just like the presidential term did. He needed to be reelected again on March 5th, which he was. Moreover, this wasn't the first time that this had happened. In 1821, James Monroe delayed taking the oath by a day for the exact same reason. Yet, no one assumes

that someone else was president for a day. Atchinson himself never claimed to be president. At the time, no one seriously thought he was the president, and there's nothing in the congressional record to indicate that he was. There are no constitutional scholars, presidential historians, or even Atchinson's own biographer, who thinks that he was actually president. At best, if you applied a very strict rule to the taking of the oath to become president, then you could maybe say that there was a one day interregnum where there was no president, but it doesn't follow that Atchinson was president. The next time March 4th fell on a Sunday, precautions were taken to make sure that this didn't happen. In 1877, Rutherford B. Hayes, who, if you remember from my previous episode, is a really big deal in Paraguay, took the oath of office privately on March 3rd before taking it publicly on March 5th.

And that, of course, raises the question. If Ulysses S. Grants administration ended on March 4th, and Rutherford B. Hayes took the oath of office on March 3rd, Does that mean we actually had a day with two presidents? The associate producer of Everything Everywhere daily is Thor Thompson. If you'd like to support the show, please donate over at patreon.com. There is content only available to supporters, merchandise, and even opportunities for a show producer credit. If you know someone you think would enjoy the show, please share it with them. Also remember, if you leave a five-star review, I'll read your review on the show.