US Presidency
1868

It is enough to state that they are both interested in producing a vacancy, and, according to the provisions of the Constitution, are members of the tribunal by whose decree a vacancy may be produced. Under such circumstances the impropriety of designating either of these officers to succeed the President so removed is palpable. The framers of the Constitution, when they referred to Congress the settlement of the succession to the office of President in the event of a vacancy in the offices of both President and Vice-President, did not, in my opinion, contemplate the designation of any other than an officer of the executive department, on whom, in such a contingency, the powers and duties of the President should devolve. Until recently the contingency has been remote, and serious attention has not been called to the manifest incongruity between the provisions of the Constitution on this subject and the act of Congress of 1792.