No Vice-President

You forget the Secretary of the Navy, which was coequal with the Secretary of War.

In any case, IMHO those departments would be at the bottom of the list.

Attorney General and Treasury would come first, representing core elements of the Executive Branchj.
I said Defense, meaning the modern one (aka the structure of command of all US military)... The War part was a mistake as l simply forgotten who the Department of War was not the exact predecessor of the Department of Defense (but included only Army and a not yet independent AirForce)...
A department of War who do not include Navy will be after Treasury and Attorney General, that is sure (War will be 7th and Navy 8th in the order of succession)... Now I will correct my previous post
 
Actually it would have been plausible for Adams to have been first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, instead of Jay. Jay was initially going to be Secretary of State and would wind up n Washington's cabinet. Edmund Randolph loses the game of musical chairs, and the Attorney General post is taken by either Jay or Jefferson, probably Jay, with the other as Secretary of State.
 

Marc

Donor
An amusing, if macabre, footnote is that there were(are) contingency plans for succession after the last Cabinet Secretary. During the height of the Cold War at least two lists were drawn up, one with succession continuing through the Cabinet, those officials that required a Senate confirmation: for example #18 on the succession would be the Deputy Secretary of State and then similar ranked individuals in each subsequent Department. The other that I know of had the succession go back to Congress by senior Senator (in the case of ties, by ratification of the Constitution of their States), followed through into the House, and then to Governors by their respective States seniority (that would be Delaware followed by Pennsylvania).
Note that these were never officially voted on, just intended to be guideline in case...
 
An amusing, if macabre, footnote is that there were(are) contingency plans for succession after the last Cabinet Secretary. During the height of the Cold War at least two lists were drawn up, one with succession continuing through the Cabinet, those officials that required a Senate confirmation: for example #18 on the succession would be the Deputy Secretary of State and then similar ranked individuals in each subsequent Department. The other that I know of had the succession go back to Congress by senior Senator (in the case of ties, by ratification of the Constitution of their States), followed through into the House, and then to Governors by their respective States seniority (that would be Delaware followed by Pennsylvania).
Note that these were never officially voted on, just intended to be guideline in case...

Sounds like an "in case of an absolute grade-one ultimate fuck up of an emergency, break glass" sort of scenario. If there was ever a situation where that many people got knocked off, very, very, very bad things would be going down.
 
Considering that the in US the Executive and Legislative powers are so divided and in conflict, then possible heirs of the President should be from: a) either just Executive ( because the President is head of Executive power, so Cabinet secretaries ) or b) if not them, then just President of Senate and Speaker ( from Legislative, being an elected officials ). Not all of them together.
 
Considering that the in US the Executive and Legislative powers are so divided and in conflict, then possible heirs of the President should be from: a) either just Executive ( because the President is head of Executive power, so Cabinet secretaries ) or b) if not them, then just President of Senate and Speaker ( from Legislative, being an elected officials ). Not all of them together.
Well the OTL line of succession of the US put both the two leaders of the Congress and the Cabinet secretaries in the list of succession. No Vice-President would not change the necessity of balancing elected and confirmed persons in that list...
 
Actually it would have been plausible for Adams to have been first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, instead of Jay. Jay was initially going to be Secretary of State and would wind up n Washington's cabinet. Edmund Randolph loses the game of musical chairs, and the Attorney General post is taken by either Jay or Jefferson, probably Jay, with the other as Secretary of State.

Makes sense to me. :)

Something that occurred to me is that until the Twety-fifth the consitution doesn't name specifically any department, how many there would be, the composition of them, just that there would be departments and the President is required to get the opinion of the principal officer of said departments.

Maybe one small difference the Consitution would name the departments there would be instead of being establish through Congress and establish the order in which the succession takes place.

Constitutionally speaking, I don't think there is any stopping the President from making cabinet system more akin to the system to that of UK or Canada. I think the advisory-cabinet style is style the they would have choose as it seems to me that's the more powerful executive option. I would argue that it's also against the idea of separation of powers, but that doesn't make it illegal.

Here's a wild idea would the consitution be silent on succession who succedes ? Perhaps, in this scenario the original consitution would be just as silent on succession beyond authorizing Congress to develop a succession.In our timeline, the unamended Consitution just names VP. Maybe Congress goes back and forth with fighting over who gets maybe in a few decades. The Cabinet are successors for a time. Then the President of Senate takes it for a few decades, then maybe Speaker House takes for a few decades.
 
Makes sense to me. :)

Something that occurred to me is that until the Twety-fifth the consitution doesn't name specifically any department, how many there would be, the composition of them, just that there would be departments and the President is required to get the opinion of the principal officer of said departments.

Maybe one small difference the Consitution would name the departments there would be instead of being establish through Congress their and establish the order in which the succession takes place.

Constitutionally speaking, I don't think there is any stopping the President from making cabinet system more akin to the system to that of UK or Canada. I think the advisory-cabinet style is style the they would have choose as it seems to me that's the more powerful executive option. I would argue that it's also against the idea of separation of powers, but that doesn't make it illegal.

Here's a wild idea would the consitution be silent on succession who succedes ? Perhaps, in this scenario the original consitution would be just as silent on succession beyond authorizing Congress to develop a succession.In our timeline, the unamended Consitution just names VP. Maybe Congress goes back and forth with fighting over who gets maybe in a few decades. The Cabinet are successors for a time. Then the President of Senate takes it for a few decades, then maybe Speaker House takes for a few decades.
I think Secretary of State would be the first, then President of Senate, then Speaker of the House, then other secretaries staring with Treasury and Attorney General. If we have a modern style Department of Defense, it’s Secretary will be likely just after Secretary of State, if we have more than one military department in the Cabinet their heads will be just after Attorney General
 

marktaha

Banned
Just that one change.
1841 President -?
1850 President Atchison
1865 President Foster
1881 President -?
1901 President Hay .Stepped down 1904, President Theodore Roosevelt 1905-13.
1923 President Hughes. Probably there until 1933.
1945 President Stettinius. Probable disaster!
1949 President Dewey.
1957 President Eisenhower.
1965 President Kennedy
1968 JFK rather than Bobby assassinated; President McCormack fillin until January
1969 President Nixon
1974 President Albert-didn't want job
1977 President Bobby Kennedy
1981 onwards Same
 
Where Lincoln still assassinated reconstruction may have happened under a radical Republican such as Charles Sumner


Why?
The OTL President of the Senate, Lafayette S Foster, was not particularly radical. Nor was Secretary of State Seward or (had he also died) Treasury Sec Hugh McCulloch..
 
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