What do Benjamin Wade, Willie P. Mangum, Lafayette S. Foster, Thomas W. Ferry, and John Nance Garner all have in common? If not for a last-second decision, or a twist of fate, they might have become Acting President of the United States, in an era before the 25th Amendment was ratified.
This week is the anniversary of Vice President Gerald Ford’s ascension to the presidency in 1974 after Richard Nixon’s resignation. But without the 25th Amendment, it would have been Carl Albert, and not Ford, in the White House.
To paraphrase a term President Ford used when he pardoned Nixon, the 25th Amendment’s ratification in 1967 ended “our long national nightmare” about the rules of presidential succession.
The 25th Amendment allows a President to appoint a Vice President in the case of a vacancy, with the approval of Congress. The idea gained momentum after President John F. Kennedy’s death in 1963, when Lyndon Johnson served out the remainder of Kennedy’s term without his own Vice President.
