But did it? Back then, presidential terms expired at noon on March 4. But because the day fell on a Sunday, Taylor didn’t want to take the oath of office in violation of the Sabbath. The situation created one of history’s strangest footnotes — a controversy over who, if anyone, was actually president on that date 175 years ago.
It also led some people to believe that the 12th president wasn’t actually Taylor but Sen. David Rice Atchison (D-Mo.), the Senate president pro tempore at the time, whose tombstone reads “President of the United States for One Day.”
Polk himself was unsure whether his term expired at 12 a.m. or 12 p.m. on March 4, which was the constitutionally mandated Inauguration Day from 1793 to 1933, roughly a month and a half later than it is today. In an attempt to follow the Constitution and advance the appropriation bills, he split the difference and stayed up all night, working into the morning of March 4.
“Whether that was out of expediency because he was concerned about that appropriations bill getting passed or he believed that really from a constitutional standpoint is debatable,” said Tom Price, who served as the curator of the Polk home and museum in Columbia, Tenn., for 21 years. “But it’s kind of interesting that nobody seemed to know.”
After writing in his diary that his term was over, Polk exited the White House and stayed at the Irving Hotel in Washington. Because Taylor wasn’t sworn in until the following day, who ran the country that day remains a debate of constitutional interpretation and presidential succession that has never been fully answered. (Polk died of an illness just three months after leaving office, and Taylor died in office less than a year and a half into his presidency.)
Had an emergency situation arisen after noon on March 4, 1849, it might have been the ultimate test of presidential power and succession.
Years after Polk’s and Taylor’s deaths, Atchison’s legend grew.
Atchison served as president pro tempore of the Senate more than a dozen times while Polk was in office. At the time, the president pro tempore served as a substitute for the vice president when the latter was absent from Congress, and he was third in line to the presidency. (The speaker of the House is third in line today.)
Two days before Polk left office, his vice president, George Dallas, ended his term by taking a leave from the Senate session. Atchison was elected president pro tempore in his place.
Polk’s term technically expired at noon that Sunday, even though indications are he was out of the White House before then. In theory, with Taylor not sworn in until Monday, Atchison would have become president at that point.
But constitutional scholars have argued Atchison’s term expired when Polk’s did. So how did he get the title of “President for a Day?”
On March 12, a week after Taylor was sworn in, the Alexandria Gazette reported that Atchison was president on March 4. The story began to take on a life of its own and changed over the years, making its way into numerous profiles of Atchison and even a congressional directory. It gained a second life in the early 1900s after more newspapers began running the story.
Atchison lived until 1886, almost 40 years after Polk and Taylor, making him the lone protagonist able to weigh in on the matter. In 1880, he wrote that he had never served as president, and he put some humor behind his argument. Given the all-night Senate session that seeped into the day in question, Atchison said the long evening might have caused him to sleep through his term. He…
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