By: History.com Editors

1947

Harry S. Truman signs second Presidential Succession Act

History.com Editors

Published: November 16, 2009

Last Updated: January 31, 2025

On July 18, 1947, President Harry S. Truman signs the Presidential Succession Act. This act revised an older succession act that was passed in 1792 during George Washington’s first term.

The original succession act designated the Senate president pro tempore as the first in line to succeed the president should he and the vice president die unexpectedly while in office. If he for some reason could not take over the duties, the speaker of the house was placed next in the line of succession. In 1886, during Grover Cleveland’s administration, Congress removed both the Senate president and the speaker of the house from the line of succession.

From that time until 1947, two cabinet officials, (their order in line depended on the order in which the agencies were created) became the next in line to succeed a president should the vice president also become incapacitated or die. The decision was controversial. Many members of Congress felt that those in a position to succeed the president should be elected officials and not, as cabinet members were, political appointees, thereby giving both Republican and Democratic parties a chance at controlling the White House.

In 1945, then-Vice President Truman assumed the presidency after Franklin Roosevelt died of a stroke during his fourth term. As president, Truman advanced the view that the speaker of the house, as an elected official, should be next in line to be president after the vice president. On July 18, 1947, he signed an act that resurrected the original 1792 law, but placed the speaker ahead of the Senate president pro tempore in the hierarchy. Truman’s critics at the time claimed that the president did so because he had a close friendship with then-Speaker Sam Rayburn, and a less congenial relationship with Kenneth McKellar, the president pro tempore.

To this date, there has never been an instance in which the presidency has had to pass to anyone other than the vice president. However, one vice president who did rise to the Oval Office, Gerald Ford, was not elected as VP. He was nominated for the job by President Richard Nixon under the provisions of the 25th amendment after VP Spiro Agnew resigned amid tax evasion charges. Ford had been the House minority leader, the highest ranking Republican in that chamber.

Reagan Aides Once Raised the Possibility of Invoking the 25th Amendment

White House staff reportedly said that Reagan was inattentive and acting strangely, but his chief of staff dismissed the possibility of trying to remove him.

By: Becky Little

Timeline

Also on This Day in History

Discover more of the major events, famous births, notable deaths and everything else history-making that happened on July 18th

1792

Naval hero John Paul Jones dies in Paris

On July 18, 1792, the Revolutionary War naval hero John Paul Jones dies in his Paris apartment, where he was still awaiting a commission as the United States consul to Algiers. Commander Jones, remembered as one of the most daring and successful naval commanders of the American Revolution, was born in Scotland, on July 6, […]

1863

Robert Gould Shaw leads Black infantry’s doomed assault on Fort Wagner

Union Colonel Robert Gould Shaw and 272 of his troops are killed in an assault on Fort Wagner, near Charleston, South Carolina. Shaw was commander of the 54th Massachusetts Infantry, perhaps the most famous regiment of African American troops during the war. Fort Wagner stood on Morris Island, guarding the approach to Charleston harbor. It […]

1925

Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” is published

On July 18, 1925, Volume One of Adolf Hitler’s philosophical autobiography, Mein Kampf, is published. It was a blueprint of his agenda for a Third Reich and a clear exposition of the nightmare that will envelope Europe from 1939 to 1945. The book sold a total of 9,473 copies in its first year. Hitler began […]

1940

FDR nominated for unprecedented third term

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who first took office in 1933 as America’s 32nd president, is nominated for an unprecedented third term. Roosevelt would eventually be elected to a record four terms in office.

FDR Re-Elected

1947

First female army officer is commissioned

In a ceremony held at the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, General Dwight D. Eisenhower appoints Florence Blanchfield to be a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army, making her the first woman in U.S. history to hold permanent military rank. A member of the Army Nurse Corps since 1917, Blanchfield secured her commission following the passage […]

1969

Senator Ted Kennedy drives car off bridge at Chappaquiddick Island

Shortly after leaving a party on Chappaquiddick Island, Senator Edward “Ted” Kennedy of Massachusetts drives an Oldsmobile off a wooden bridge into a tide-swept pond. Kennedy escaped the submerged car, but his passenger, 28-year-old Mary Jo Kopechne, did not. The senator did not report the fatal car accident for 10 hours. On the evening of […]

1976

Gymnast Nadia Comăneci scores first perfect “10” in Olympic history

In her Olympic debut at the tender age of 14, Nadia Comăneci becomes the first gymnast to score a perfect 10 in Olympic history. The young Romanian’s performance at the Montreal Olympic Games launches her into the international spotlight. Comăneci stirred up excitement on the first day of the Montreal games—July 18, 1976—which began with […]

1984

Twenty-one people are shot to death at McDonald’s

James Oliver Huberty opens fire in a crowded McDonald’s restaurant in San Ysidro, California, killing 21 people and wounding 19 others with several semi-automatic weapons. Minutes earlier, Huberty had left home, telling his wife, “I’m going hunting…hunting for humans.” Huberty, who had a history of mental problems, lost his job in Ohio the previous year. […]

1986

Video of Titanic wreckage released

On July 18, 1986, new close-up videotapes of the sunken ocean liner Titanic are released to the public. Taken on the first manned expedition to the wreck, the videotapes are stunning in their clarity and detail, showing one of the ship’s majestic grand staircases and a coral-covered chandelier swinging slowly in the ocean current. At […]

1989

Sitcom actress murdered; death prompts anti-stalking legislation

On July 18, 1989, the 21-year-old actress Rebecca Schaeffer is murdered at her Los Angeles home by Robert John Bardo, a mentally unstable man who had been stalking her. Schaeffer’s death helped lead to the passage in California of legislation aimed at preventing stalking. Schaeffer was born November 6, 1967, in Eugene, Oregon. She worked as a […]

1995

Barack Obama’s “Dreams from My Father” is published

On July 18, 1995, Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance, a memoir by a little-known law professor named Barack Obama, is published. Obama wrote the book before entering politics; 13 years after it was published, he was elected America’s 44th president. Dreams from My Father tells the story of Obama’s family—he […]

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Citation Information

Article title
Harry S. Truman signs second Presidential Succession Act
Website Name
History
Date Accessed
March 26, 2025
Publisher
A&E Television Networks
Last Updated
January 31, 2025
Original Published Date
November 16, 2009

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