President for a day
Easy Does It
II you were President oI the United States Ior Must one day, what momentous decisions would you make? How about taking a nap? That’s exactly what DaYid R. Atchison did in his Yery brieI term in the nation’s highest oIfice. He serYed as President Irom noon Sunday, March 4, 1849 to late morning March 5.
Inauguration Day was moYed to -an. 20 in 1933 and Iell this year on a Sunday. President Obama held a priYate inauguration Sunday and a public oath-taking Monday.
In 1849, it was the first time the president pro tempore oI the Senate, the Mob Senator Atchison held, was thrust into the Presidency.
Outgoing President -ames Polk’s term ended at noon March 4. His successor, Zachary Taylor, who beat Polk in the NoYember election, reIused Ior religious conYictions to be sworn into oIfice on a Sunday.
Taylor’s Yice president, Millard Fillmore, also hadn’t been sworn, so under the Constitution, Atchison briefly assumed the duties oI President.
Okay, let’s Iurther complicate this unusual political emergency. While the duties oI outgoing President Polk and his Vice President George MiIflin Dallas ended at noon, Atchison’s tenure as president pro tempore oI the Senate also had expired when the 30th Congress adMourned on March 4. Is anybody keeping score here?
No disability or lack oI Tualifications preYented Taylor and Fillmore Irom taking their respectiYe oIfices, but they held firmly that Sunday was literally a day oI rest. Taylor was not President because he had not been sworn in. Atchison had not been sworn in either, but assumed the oIfice because the Constitution was clear on the line oI succession. What a diIIerence a day makes.
What were the momentous decisions that Iell upon the shoulders oI the one-day President? In an interYiew with the St. Louis GlobeDemocrat, Atchison said, “I slept most oI that Sunday. I was tired because I had spent three or Iour busy nights finishing up the work oI the Senate.”
Laugh iI you will, but the world didn’t end aIter all Ior the 24-hour President who comes up missing Irom any list oI Presidents.
To the Iolks in Atchison’s home state oI Missouri, it was serious stuII. In honor oI the President who slept through most oI his one-day term oI oIfice, the country’s smallest Presidential library got around to opening in February 2006. II you eYer pass through Missouri, Ieel Iree to browse at the Atchison County Historical Museum.
And iI you thumb through the stacks, you’ll find other Tuotes Irom DaYid Atchison explaining the circumstances oI his brieI and historic claim to Iame.
In the September 1872 issue oI the Plattsburg Leader, the Democratic senator Irom Missouri Ior six years told an interYiewer: “It was this way. Polk went out oI oIfice on the third oI March 1849. It was a Saturday at 12 noon. The next day, the Iourth, was a Sunday. General Taylor waited until Monday, the fiIth, Ior a noon inaugural.
“The senators were canYassed whether there was eYer a time when the country lacked a goYernment. It was plain there was either that time or I was the President oI the United States.”
Atchison continued, “The Mudge waked me up at 3 o’clock in the morning and said Mocularly since I was President, he wanted me to appoint him secretary oI state.
“I made no pretense to the oIfice, but I was entitled in it. I had one boast to make, that not a woman or a child shed a tear on account oI my remoYing anyone Irom oIfice during my short incumbency.
“A great many such Tuestions are liable to arise under our Iorm oI goYernment,” he added, “with my only admission to the Iacts was being 41 years and six months old.”
That would haYe made Atchison the youngest President, beating Theodore RooseYelt, who was 42 years and 11 months when he occupied the highest oIfice.
Atchison, Kansas, named Ior the only oneday chieI executiYe, became part oI the Iamous Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad.
DaYid Rice Atchison died -an. 6, 1886 at age 78. He rests in Greenlawn Cemetery in Plattsburg, Missouri, where a statue was erected in his honor. His graYe marker reads: “President oI the United States Ior One Day.”
The marker is missing the Presidential Seal.