Talk:Living Presidents of the United States

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[edit] The "Second" Hoover entry

I have made an edit to the list because, legally, it is completely false. Originally, the list stated that from the time of Franklin D. Roosevelt's death at 3:35 PM ET, April 12, 1945 until Harry S Truman's taking of the Oath of Office some time later (forgive my lack of source for that fact), that Herbert Hoover was the only living United States President. (It also made mention of this in the opening paragraph, mentioning that there were seven times when there was a single living United States President, two of which belonged to Hoover.

This, of course, is completely impossible. Because of the laws regarding succession, including, but not limited to, in the United States Constitution: Article 2, Section 1, Clause 6; Amendment 20, Section 3 and Amendment 25 Section 1; and by law, the Presidential Succession Acts of 1792 and 1947, once a President is relieved of office, either via resignation, forceable removal or death, the first in line of succession (in every case, except possibly the David Rice Atchison case, being the Vice-President) automatically becomes President, oath of office notwithstanding. In every case, the Oath has been purely ceremonial. It is the basis upon which John Tyler became the first Vice-President to assume the office of President on the occaision of William Henry Harrison's death.

The other part of this, of course, is that the list did not state that at the time of Kennedy's assassination eighteen years later, that there was any point where Johnson was not president, or, for that matter, any other of the eight instances of a Vice President becoming President.

I hope this clears up the matter. ToddC4176 04:20, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for the help on the article!

There are several issues that we all need to come to an agreement on. The first one is is that seemingly simple question that stymied the US for over a century - "When does a person become the President?" Your discussion seems to come from the standpoint that this is a cut and dried question and the answer is simple: upon his inauguration or the removal or death of his predessesor. However, no such concensus existed for this answer and that question eventually resulted in the 25th amendment.

Second, this is a list of presidents. So the key moment is when a person becomes president, not when the powers of the office are available to him. There is a strong argument that, for example when FDR died, Truman got the powers of the office but did not become president until he took the oath of office.

Finally, this is a list of each moment of US history. Accordingly, we must view the situation as it existed at that moment. Prior to 1967, there was no 25th amendment and thus it's wording does not apply to John Tyler, et al.

My view would be that prior to the passing of the 25th amendment, there is a clear period of time between the death of a president and the inauguration of the vice president. After the 25th Amendment was passed, the phrase "In case of the removal of the President from office or of his death or resignation, the Vice President shall become President." does still leave room to question whether this change occurs immediately. Your arguments haven't addressed this question directly. Please do! --Don Sowell 17:12, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

With no answers to these questions having been given here are my views on it.

The Constition says the following: "Before he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation: "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

From this I take "Before he enter on the Execution of his Office" to mean that until he takes that oath, he is not executing *his* office. In the case of death or resignation, the sucessor is executing the powers of the presidency, it's just not his office yet. This list is about who was the president and when. It is that oath that determines the when as per the Constitution. The 25th Amendment does not contradict this since it says the Vice President shall become President. It does not say that it happens immediately nor does it give the right to forego the oath of office. And, of course, the Constitution is the only US legal instrument that could give someone the right to forgo the oath of office.

Accordingly, I will revert the removal of the periods between the death or resignations of presidents as my time allows. If anyone else wants to do this, please feel free. If you think this is not the thing to do, please state your case and address these points. --Don Sowell 21:03, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

There has been no response to this discussion in 2 and a half months, so I assume that there are no objections to the reasonings given for Presidential succession and what the chart is saying about those people. Accordingly, I've made the appropriate edits. --Don Sowell 20:41, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Disputed tag

Since the article doesn't claim that there was no living president during 1945 and there was no discussion given on the talk page to accompany the disputed tag, I'm removing the tag. If you'd like to dispute something in the article, please feel free to both reapply the tag and state the nature of the dispute on the talk page. --Don Sowell 00:37, 24 April 2007 (UTC)