Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Aging, Illness, and Addiction
- 3 The Exacerbation of Personality: Woodrow Wilson
- 4 Leading While Dying: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1943–1945
- 5 Addicted to Power: John F. Kennedy
- 6 Bordering on Sanity: Richard Nixon
- 7 The Twenty-fifth Amendment
- 8 Presidential Care
- Appendix: Foreign Leadership and Medical Intelligence: The Shah of Iran and the Carter Administration
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
7 - The Twenty-fifth Amendment
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 May 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Aging, Illness, and Addiction
- 3 The Exacerbation of Personality: Woodrow Wilson
- 4 Leading While Dying: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1943–1945
- 5 Addicted to Power: John F. Kennedy
- 6 Bordering on Sanity: Richard Nixon
- 7 The Twenty-fifth Amendment
- 8 Presidential Care
- Appendix: Foreign Leadership and Medical Intelligence: The Shah of Iran and the Carter Administration
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Rules surrounding presidential succession have never been entirely clear or straightforward. The original framers of the Constitution spent relatively little time on this issue and were heavily influenced by the existing state constitutions on gubernatorial provisions in designing their language on executive succession. The original Constitution signed in 1787 did not contain a succession clause. It took until 1790 to obtain the necessary thirteen state approvals for Article II, Section 1, Clause 6, to be ratified:
In Case of 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, and the Congress may by Law Provide for the Case of Removal, Death, Resignation or Inability, both of the President and Vice-President, declaring what Officer shall then act as President, and such Officer shall act accordingly, until the Disability be removed, or a President shall be elected.
This section of the Constitution does not discuss the vice president taking over the president's job in full, but rather as serving temporarily until the president recovers or a presidential election is held. Note also that disability, or what should be considered to constitute disability, is not defined. Further, this paragraph conflates permanent kinds of disability, such as death and resignation, with potentially temporary forms of “inability.”
One of the delegates from Delaware, John Dickinson, asked at the time: “What is meant by the term disability and who shall be the judge of it?
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- Presidential Leadership, Illness, and Decision Making , pp. 197 - 218Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2007