On December 6, 1973, Gerald Ford was sworn in as the first Vice President of the United States to be nominated and confirmed by Congress under the auspices of the 25th Amendment. Spiro Agnew, the original Vice President in the Richard Nixon administration, had resigned the office due to scandal arising from alleged financial improprieties (allegations which proved true), and the office sat vacant. Under the original law set out by the Constitution there were no legal means for filling the office of the Vice President before the next scheduled election, which had led to a number of interesting presidential situations over the years.
The first section of the 25th Amendment states clearly: “In case of the removal of the President from office or of his death or resignation, the Vice President shall become President.” At this point in time, this section was merely affirming the universally agreed upon notion that should a President die or leave office for any reason, the Vice President will serve out his term as President. While it was agreed upon, it wasn’t exactly ironclad law, but instead a precedent set by President John Tyler.
Exactly one month after taking his oath of office, our nation’s 9th President, William Henry Harrison, died. This was the first time in our young nation’s history that a President had the audacity to die while in office, and so it wasn’t entirely clear what would happen next. All the Constitution had to say on the matter was wrapped up in a decidedly vague clause in Article II, Section 1:
“In 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…”
While it was clear that the Vice President would discharge the duties of the office of the President, it was left wide open how permanent this assignment would be. John Tyler presumed that he was now the President. Others, including several high-ranking politicians in the federal government, believed John Tyler was merely the Acting President until an election could be held to select a new Commander in Chief. Tyler made a show of his assertion, taking the oath of office again (even though he believed his Vice Presidential oath already swore him to duty) and even refusing to answer mail addressed to the Acting President. Although it was not explicitly required, Congress passed a joint resolution affirming Tyler as the new President, and establishing a precedent that upon the death of a President, the Vice President fully assumed the office. This wouldn’t be codified into law until the passage of the 25th Amendment over a century later.
Another key component of the 25th Amendment is the ability to temporarily hand over the powers of the office of the President in times of short-term incapacitation. This has been utilized numerous times, including when President George W. Bush was placed under general anesthesia during a routine medical procedure and gave his powers to Vice President Dick Cheney for the duration. And while it is useful in times of planned indisposition, the clause in the 25th was intended to prevent more grievous situations, like when Woodrow Wilson suffered a stroke and his wife was, for all intents, running the country for a period of around a month. The tricky situation faced by Wilson is that he was recovering slowly, and would make a full recovery, but his only option aside from retaining the office was to resign fully and permanently. With the 25th Amendment, not only could Wilson have temporarily handed over power to his Vice President, but his Vice President could have removed him from office (with the consent of his cabinet and Congress) for being unable to discharge his duties.
When you place it in the context of history, it is really quite astonishing that the it took us so long to pass laws that codified these crucial elements of the continuance of Presidential power. By the time the 25th was passed in 1967, the Vice President had succeeded the President upon his death or resignation in eight different cases. The Vice Presidency, for which there was previously no means to fill before an election, had been left vacant sixteen times due to presidential ascendancy, or the death or resignation of the Vice President. It had been clear for quite some time before this law was discussed that it would be a somewhat regular occurrence that the offices of President or Vice President would need to be filled, and without any law was left up to interpretation and precedent. And while this is disconcerting, so much of our political process in the modern American system is left to precedent that if we begin to let it bother us we may just lose our minds.