THE DEAD PRESIDENTS - NIXON'S RESIGNATION

THE DEAD PRESIDENTS - PRINT THIS!!!

THE DEAD PRESIDENTS - JOHNSON-17 SMASH!!!

THE DEAD PRESIDENTS - THE MAGIC WORD IS O.K.

THE DEAD PRESIDENTS - GRANT HIM A DRINK ON HIS DEATHDAY!

THE DEAD PRESIDENTS - FORD 101

the First Funny - Reagan & Clinton 69

THE DEAD PRESIDENTS - ON THIS DAY

In 2004 Ronald Reagan became a

DEAD PRESIDENT

THE DEAD PRESIDENTS - DEAD HOPE - JACKSON

THE DEAD PRESIDENTS - ABE DEFENDING HIS MEMORIAL

Today in history Andrew Johnson became the 17th POTUS and Abe Lincoln became a DEAD PRESIDENT!

THE DEAD PRESIDENTS - FDR PROTECTING THE WHITE HOUSE

Today in history, Vice President Harry S. Truman became the 33rd president of the United States after Franklin D. Roosevelt passed on and became a member of THE DEAD PRESIDENTS...

THE DEAD PRESIDENTS - MOCK, YEAH, MOCK COVER

THE DEAD PRESIDENTS - THE A-TEAM

Illustrated by Jeremy Massie

Pointless Presidential Pfacts #50 - "Presid--...er-uh WASHINGTON's BIRTHDAY!"

There is no federal holiday called Presidents (or President's or like the State of California labels it: Presidents') Day no matter what the stores tell you. It is George Washington's Birthday (which is actually the 22nd).

So, happy not-officially-presidents-day-but-really-the-day-we-observe-Washington's-Birthday-which-is-really-on-the-22nd-day! Now go out and save money on that mattress and who knows maybe you'll produce a future POTUS!

THE DEAD PRESIDENTS - ABE's 205th Birthday!

Today in POTUStory - RR40 Turns 103!

Pointless Presidential Pfacts #49 - "Mailing It In"

While Washington and Adams 2 delivered their annual messages to Congress, Jefferson broke with tradition and established sending the annual message which would then be read by a clerk to the joint-session. This was the tradition until Wilson when he addressed a joint-session, something I'm sure Theodore Roosevelt would've loved to start up again just a few years before Wilson. Bully!

(Vice) Pointless (Vice) Presidential (Vice) Pfacts #47 - "It Has Nothing to Do with 47% of Anything Except a Warm Bucket of Spit"

The 47th vice president is the incumbent, Joseph Biden of Delaware. President Barack Obama is the 44th POTUS but only the 43rd man to be president. President Grover Cleveland's two non-consecutive terms established how we count our presidents since Cleveland was the 22nd POTUS and his popular vote losing successor, Benjamin Harrison, was the 23rd POTUS and when the two had a rematch in 1892 Cleveland became the 24th POTUS instead of simply being known as just the 22nd POTUS.

For the vice presidency, there has not been a non-consecutive vice president to serve. But the reason there are more vice presidents than presidents, and only by 3, is because some vice presidents have served more than one president, some have been dropped and replaced by another, and then with the passage of the 25th Amendment, some have been appointed to fill a vacancy.

Only two vice presidents have served two different presidents. George Clinton was the first as Thomas Jefferson's second vice president, and first elected under the 12th Amendment, and while President Jefferson left office, Vice President Clinton was reelected to a second term with the newly elected James Madison. Clinton would also become the first vice president to die in office in 1812 as President Madison was seeking reelection that year. Interestingly, Clinton's replacement Elbridge Gerry would be the second vice president to die in office. The other vice president to serve two different presidents was John C. Calhoun. He was elected vice president with a majority of votes in 1824, unlike the presidential winner. Calhoun ran on 2 tickets in the same race so he was guaranteed to win enough votes to be the vice president. John Quincy Adams became president in 1825 and by the 1828 election the incumbent vice president was running against the administration. The ticket of Andrew Jackson and Calhoun won but the would become so antagonistic toward each other that Vice President Calhoun resigned, becoming the first to do so, and win election to the Senate to better combat President Jackson.

Vice President George Clinton.

While Clinton and Calhoun are the only two vice presidents to stick around for more than one president, some vice presidents haven't even been asked back for another term. Vice President Burr was not on the first ticketed election in 1804, Clinton was the first vice president to replace another in a second term of a presidency. Since Calhoun resigned in 1832, President Jackson got a new vice president for the second term, Martin Van Buren. Jump to 1860 when Abraham Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin won the general election with a plurality of the popular vote, but four years later President Lincoln would win 55% of the vote but without Vice President Hamlin. For his reelection, Lincoln ran on the Union Party ticket which represented not just the unity of the States and the Federal Government but the political factions within. So he chose a southern Democrat that remained loyal to the Union during the sectional crisis, a.k.a. the Civil War. That Democrat was Andrew Johnson of Tennessee. Ulysses S. Grant would get a new vice president for his second term. Franklin Roosevelt would have 3 different vice presidents over his four runs at the office. Gerald Ford was the last incumbent to drop the incumbent vice president for a new one. But FDR is the last to drop a vice president and win with a new one and Ford was the first to try since.

Gerald Ford being sworn-in as Vice President.

Ford is also a product of the 25th Amendment. After the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963, the threat of nuclear war brought the presidential line of succession into focus. Throughout the history of the presidency the vice presidency never had a remedy for a vacancy. Whenever the office was vacant it wasn't replaced until the next election and for some that was a whole four years. Such a thing could not happen in the Cold War era, so by 1967 the amendment was ratified. Just six years later in 1973, the amendment would be invoked and Gerald Ford would be the first appointed vice president. Then as President Ford, he too would appoint his own vice president, the moderate Republican Nelson Rockefeller...before dumping him in '76 for the more conservative Bob Dole.

Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, Senator and Vice Presidential-Nominee Bob Dole, President Gerald Ford and First Lady Betty Ford.

Gixing Fovernment - Redefining a Presidential Term

Currently a presidential term is four years, from January 20th at noon one odd numbered year following an election in an even numbered year to then next one. That term can be repeated only once more for a total of eight years, which is not the limit on the number of years a president can serve and that's ten. But that's later.

Redefining what a presidential term is probably my least favorite reform of the government but it's probably a tradition worth breaking. I like how it neatly works out every four years since electors cast their unanimous choice for George Washington in 1788 and with the exception of death (natural or by the assassin's bullet) or resignation every four years the voice of the People would be made clear, not always crystal clear.

But if the definition of what a term length is should be changed to six and limit the person to one term. Or they cannot run for consecutive office. That throws the opportunities for more Grover Clevelands, non-consecutive 2-termer. Presidents have suggested this change since they feel they enter office with reelection on their mind and not governing. The president of Mexico serves a single six year-term.

Traditionally, meaning starting with Washington, after serving two terms, a president stepped down from power. Thomas Jefferson, the second president to serve a second four year term, followed Washington's lead in 1808 and so did all those that followed. There's an UNTIL coming. Ulysses S. Grant pondered a third non-consecutive term in 1880 but the Republican Party chose dark horse and became the last incumbent member of the House of Representatives, so far, to win the presidency, James A. Garfield. The Democratic Party briefly considered Grover Cleveland for another non-consecutive term in 1900. Theodore Roosevelt considered breaking his promise of not running for another term in 1908 (TR considered William McKinley's second term 1901-1905 as his first term since it was only 6 months old when he became the 26th POTUS) but put his 3rd term plans off until 1912 when he came in second to Woodrow Wilson and ahead of the incumbent, William Howard Taft. 1912 was the last time a third party placed second in both popular and electoral votes. Twenty years later Franklin Roosevelt would come into office in March of 1933 with such hope and optimism that happy days were really here again.

FDR won reelection in 1936 and expected that to be it. He too would do what all the other two termers before him, give up power and build a library. Well, the library thing was something new. But the threat of Adolf Hitler and war in Europe worried FDR. Roosevelt 32 thought the isolationists would get someone elected and keep the United States from interfering in a foreign war and he knew of no Democrat that he could trust to maintain the New Deal programs. So while some opposed the idea of FDR seeking a third consecutive term, he still won a nice majority in both popular and electoral votes. The People spoke. He came in with a new vice president, Henry A. Wallace, a progressive and liberal from Iowa replacing the two term VPOTUS John N. Garner, a conservative Texan that wasn't a fan of FDR running again for a third term but also the New Deal, which equals big government.

Roosevelt 32 would of course go for a fourth term. Just like there was in 1940, there was opposition to a 4th term but still the People spoke and FDR was off to a 4th term. Had FDR lived his term would have ended on January 20, 1949. There is no evidence that FDR would've run a 5th time. It is rather believed that FDR would've been the first to resign the presidency once the war was over, but I guess he would want a better outcome than a 44 year cold war. But he died a little over 2 months into his historic 4th term and the successor president was a new vice president. Part of FDR's fourth nomination, the Democratic Party replaced the left leaning Wallace with a more moderate choice in Missouri's Senator Harry S. Truman, who led hearings into military spending during the war. President Truman would follow in the footsteps of the other 20th Century VPOTUS turned POTUS before him and win a term as president in his own right in 1948. He could've tried again in 1952 if he wanted. The idea that someone had the freedom to run as many times as they wanted appalled the opposition.

Truman stepped aside when he saw there was a serious challenge within his own party. But the next person to serve in the Oval Office would be limited to two terms. Jealous of the monopoly held by a single individual and thus a political party on the presidency did not sit well with the other minority party. The People knew FDR was breaking with tradition and if they disagreed they would have chosen someone else and same with the party that nominated him a third time before the entire country voted of course. The Republicans were successfully able to amend the Constitution in 1947 (Ratified in 1951) in the brief moment they controlled the Congress limiting the term of a president to 2 and the years in office 8-10. The amend did not apply to the current office holder. Truman could pull a Roosevelt 32 and run forever!!! But he didn't.

Dwight Eisenhower was limited by the new Amendment and wished he could have the opportunity to serve the people another four years...if that is what they wanted, he was down. John F. Kennedy tragically did not get to see reelection but all bets were he was cruising to a comfortable reelection in 1964. Lyndon B. Johnson won a landslide in '64, as a vice president turned president. But now the 22nd Amendment was in effect.

LBJ finished the remainder of Kennedy's first term November 22, 1963-January 20, 1965, just a little over a year. That means Johnson 36 could've ran for another term in 1968 and his announcement of not running seeking or accepting the nomination was a shock because it was expected since he could run. Since he only served a little over a year as POTUS before his first full term, LBJ could've served until January 20, 1973. But Vietnam did him in.

The shock of LBJ not seeking another term is because it is expected that a president would seek reelection. James K. Polk kept his word and served one term. Rutherford B. Hayes did too, although he came into office with having lost the popular vote and winning electoral votes chosen by a committee because the Congress was too wimpy to follow the Constitution and they themselves vote like in 1800 and 1824. I remember John McCain's campaign in 2008 considering the idea of saying he'd serve a single term, but that announcement, while great, makes the new president a lame-duck as they become in the second term under a 22nd Amendment.

Another what if within a what if is if Gerald Ford won the 1976 election he would not be able to run (or at least complete a term since it would end in 1985 and that would be a year more than the Constitution allows under the 22nd Amendment). So Ford would probably not run in 1980 but if he was super popular could've and resigned once he reached the maximum number of years allowed. Or he could've challenged the Amendment by staying in office and not running again in 1984, sort of like Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York City from 2002-2013.

But if the country were to amend the Constitution to switch to a six year presidential term, there would be no more constant electioneering, presidents could focus on the job and if they wanted could seek the office again after having been out of power for six years, always knowing that you'll never have to challenge the incumbent. A huge downside is of course we are stuck with that POTUS for SIX whole years as opposed to the every-four years of getting to switch him (or her) out...just have to wait an extra two years.

RE:POTUS - Summary of Presidential Impeachment

Impeachment of the President of the United States is the only way to remove a president from office outside of death, resignation, or rejection by the American people in an election. Politicians say they do not want to go down the road of impeachment. Impeachment is part of the checks and balances within the Constitution. In the 224 years under the Constitution, the House of Representatives, the chamber with the power to impeach, has only written articles of impeachment on three different occasions. Of those three instances only two of those three were actually impeached, however they survived the trial in the Senate so they were not removed from office. To impeach a president, the House of Representatives in session determines the meaning of “high crimes and misdemeanors,” part of the definition of impeachment in the Constitution.

Seventy-nine years into the government under the Constitution, the House impeached a president for the first time. Andrew Johnson, from Tennessee, was the only southern senator to remain loyal to the Union after eleven southern States seceded from the Union from 1860-61. His loyalty was repaid with a spot on the bottom of the presidential ticket in the election of 1864. The Union Party of Republican Abraham Lincoln and Democrat Andrew Johnson won the election. Just a little over a month into Lincoln’s second term, Lincoln was shot by John Wilkes Booth while watching “Our American Cousin” at Ford’s Theater. Lincoln died the next morning elevating the loyal southern Democratic vice president to the highest office in the land.

Vice President Andrew Johnson taking the presidential oath of office on April 15, 1865, after President Abraham Lincoln's death from an assassin's bullet.

President Johnson would continue, to the best of his ability, the plan for Reconstruction of the Union as Lincoln had intended. By 1868, the Radical Republicans in the Congress were not happy with the President and his handling of Reconstruction. The legislative branch sought to curb Johnson’s executive power. The first attempt to curb Johnson’s power came in the form of the Tenure of Office Act. The act required the approval of the Senate for the President to fire anyone in a position the Senate gave their consent to. Johnson disagreed with the law and knew its true meaning, an attempt to weaken the executive. Johnson decided to test the new law by firing Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, without the consent of the Congress.

The House wrote up eleven articles of impeachment, eight having to do with Johnson’s violation of the Tenure of Office Act. Johnson knew it was more political than rational. In the Senate, Johnson survived the impeachment by a single vote on three of the articles of impeachment. Since Johnson survived three of the articles, the Senate adjourned without further consideration of the remaining eight articles. In the end, Johnson quietly finished out the remainder of the term as the Congress took control of rebuilding the Union. His impeachment was a blow to presidential power and an increase in legislative authority that would dominate the government for the next twenty years.

The Impeachment Trial of Andrew Johnson in the U.S. Senate from March to May 1868.

The Radical Republicans in the Congress wanted to be in charge of Reconstruction and were not happy with Johnson and his handling of Reconstruction and his leniency toward ex-Confederates. They created a political situation or confrontation via the Tenure of Office Act, seizing on Johnson’s violation of the law as means for removal from office.

It would be 106 years until the House of Representatives would write articles of impeachment for another president, Richard Nixon. What would seem like a “third-rate burglary” would turn into a Constitutional crisis. In 1972, operatives connected to the White House broke into the Democratic National Committee Headquarters at the Watergate hotel. Nixon knew of the break-in and began a cover up which would bring down his presidency.

President Richard Nixon released 1,254 pages of edited transcripts of 20 audio tapes on April 30, 1974, to avoid handing over subpoenaed tapes to the House Judiciary Committee. It did not help.

By the summer of 1974 impeachment of the president was being considered by the House. That summer the “smoking gun,” an audio tape implicating Nixon’s involvement, was discovered. The House Judiciary committee wrote up three articles of impeachment and voted on the articles. The three articles consisted of obstruction of justice, abuse of power, and contempt of Congress. While the Congress of the United States was a Democratic majority, Nixon was advised by leading Republicans in the Senate, headed by Barry Goldwater of Arizona, that he would not survive a trial in the Senate. Republican National Committee Chairman George Herbert Walker Bush suggested the same. Nixon resigned on August 9, 1974, at noon before the articles of impeachment could be voted on by the entire House.

In this instance, the House Judiciary committee used the political solution of impeachment to uphold the Constitution, whereas the House of the late 1860s used impeachment as a weapon in a political fight between an embattled president and Congress. Investigation into another president would begin twenty years after Nixon’s resignation.

Kenneth Starr headed the independent council’s office and began the investigation of potential illegal dealings done by the Clintons, such as the Whitewater land development. In 1998, Monica Lewinsky, a White House intern, gave a false affidavit about her relationship with President William Jefferson Clinton in the case involving Paula Jones. Clinton also lied under oath about his relationship with Lewinsky. This led Starr to begin an investigation into the Lewinsky allegations, stemming from the Jones case. Lewinsky’s stained blue dress became the “smoking gun” in this instance.

The House Judiciary voted on four articles of impeachment, three for lying under oath and one for obstruction of justice. The full House passed two articles of impeachment; both had to do with lying under oath. The president survived the trial in the Senate and completed the remaining years of his second term as popular as ever.

First Lady Hillary Clinton watches as President Bill Clinton addresses his impeachment by the House of Representatives to the press and the nation on December 19, 1998.

Johnson and Clinton were both impeached because of those that ran the House of Representatives did not like the Chief Executive. The House sought to remove from office someone they did not agree with or get along with. The attempt to impeach Nixon was justifiable, an effort to uphold the Constitution, however he resigned before a full House vote of impeachment could take place. Nixon would not have survived a trial in the Senate. The three terms of Congress which made up George W. Bush’s first six years of the presidency did not contemplate impeachment. The Republicans who led the Congress did not see the need to investigate the president. When the Democratic Party took control of the House of Representatives in 2007, an assurance of no impeachment was given in the run up to the 2006 mid-term elections. Comparing the possible impeachable offenses made by Bush and his administration to his impeached or would be impeached predecessors leads to the realization that the sitting members of the House of Representatives do determine what is a “high crime and misdemeanor.”