Atchison, Kansas is planning to open what’s being billed as ‘the world’s smallest presidential library’ in honor of David Rice Atchison who some believe was President for one day in 1849.
"Atchison became a senator in 1843 at age 36 and served until 1855. He also was Senate president pro tem most of that time, including 1849.
Whether he ever was president has been debated for decades.
James K. Polk’s term expired at noon March 4, when the next president normally would have been sworn in. However, March 4 was a Sunday, so Zachary Taylor waited until the next day to take the oath."
Since Atchison didn’t take the oath, he was never legally president. Since Taylor didn’t take it until the next day, nobody was president on that particular day. I’m not sure why this is considered some enormous anomaly. Vacancies routinely happen in other offices. There is no reason why the U.S. having a vacancy in the office of president for one day should be seen as so threatening the integrity of the space-time continuum that people imagine that some one must have been president during that time.
Right. We certainly wouldn’t want that to happen today, but it of course doesn’t have to. The famous picture of LBJ getting sworn in on the plane from Dallas can attest to that. But back then, heck, nobody would even know about it soon enough to do anything, plus there wasn’t this Information Age Microwave mentality now now now thing we have today.
There is no specific mention of what happens when the office of President is vacant when a term expires. So Atchison may not even have been eligible to succeed to the office in that particular circumstance. Since Taylor had already been elected President, he would really have been the only one eligible to be sworn in.