Presidential disability is any condition in which the President is unable to exercise the powers and duties of his office. Ten presidents have been disabled while in office. In six instances the disability resulted in the President's death. In 1841 William Henry Harrison was bedridden for a week before dying of pneumonia. Zachary Taylor was bedridden for five days before his death from an acute intestinal obstruction (or perhaps appendicitis) in 1850. Abraham Lincoln was unconscious for nine hours before dying of a gunshot wound in 1865. James Garfield was bedridden for 80 days and William McKinley for 8 days before they died from gunshot wounds. Warren Harding was incapacitated for four days before his death from food poisoning (or a heart attack).
Four Presidents recovered from major disabilities. Woodrow Wilson was incapacitated with a stroke for 280 days. During that time his wife communicated to government officials from his bedside, refusing to allow cabinet secretaries to see her husband while he was making his slow and only partial recovery. Dwight Eisen-hower was incapacitated for 143 days by his first heart attack in 1955 and later convalesced from a stroke. He was also incapacitated briefly during an operation for ileitis. Ronald Reagan was incapacitated for 20 hours while undergoing surgery after suffering a gunshot wound in 1981 and later while undergoing surgery for colon cancer.
The Constitution makes no mention of the procedures involved when a President is disabled and the Vice President must assume the duties of the office as acting President. After Eisenhower's heart attack, he wrote a letter to Vice President Richard Nixon stating that if he were again disabled, Nixon would serve as acting President until the President announced he was able to resume his duties. If Eisenhower could not communicate, then Nixon was to make the determination himself about taking over the duties. Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson continued this arrangement, which was later superseded by the specific provisions of the 25th Amendment to the Constitution.
See also Succession to the Presidency; 25th Amendment
Sources
- Robert E. Gilbert, The Mortal Presidency (New York: Basic Books, 1992).
- Richard Hansen, The Year We Had No President (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1962).
- John Moses and Wilbur Cross, Presidential Courage, (New York: Norton, 1980)
