This is just the beginning! Our collection holds over 300 years of history, including rare newspapers, obituaries, marriage records, birth records, and so much more—most of which you won’t find anywhere else!
The Death of Hendricks and the Rise of Succession Law
The 1885 death of Vice President Hendricks prompted Congress to enact a presidential succession law in 1886. It outlined line of succession from the secretary of state downward, later expanded by the 20th Amendment. The piece traces prior vice presidential vacancies and how the office evolved into a presidential fallback.
MENTIONED IN THIS ARTICLE
Thomas Andrews Hendricks
United States
Indianapolis
Ind
Hendricks
Washington
Grover Cleveland
Indiana
Congress
United States Senate
General Hancock
Horatio Seymour
Samuel J. Tilden
White House
Secretary of the Treasury
Atorney
Navy
Interior
Agriculture
Commerce
Labor
Republic
John Adams
George Wash
Ington
Thomas Jefferson
Aaron Burr
Jefferson
Burr
George Clinton
Clinton
James Madison
Madison
Elbridge Gerry
Daniel D. Tompkins
Monroe
Tompkins
John Quincy Adams
Adams
John C. Calhoun
South Carolina
Andrew Jackson
Calhoun
Jackson
Martin van Buren
van Buren
Richard M. Johnson
Kentucky
Tecumseh
Senate
Francis Granger
John Tyler
William Smith
Granger
Tyler
Smith
Johnson
William Henry Harrison
Harrison
Virginia
Zachary Taylor
Millard Fillmore
Franklin A. Pierce
William R. King
King
Cuba
William L. Sharkey
Havana
Sharkey
Alabama
Lincoln
Andrew Johnson
Tennessee
Henry Wilson
New Hampshire
Jeremiah Jones Colbaith
Wilson
Grant
Garret A. Hobart
William McKinley
Hobart
McKinley
Theodore Roosevelt
James Schoolcraft Sherman
William Howard Taft
Sherman
Republican National Committee
New York City
Hilles
Nicholas Murray Butler
Columbia University
Woodrow Wison
Western Newspaper Union