alternatehistory.com

Another go at my initial "Upside Down Again" TL I started a couple years ago. Updated, modified, etc.

So without further ado:

Two Presidents-Elect and Two Presidents


January-April 1853


On January 13, 1853 the Democratic President-elect was killed in a train wreck in Andover Massachusetts, along with his wife Jane and young son Benjamin when an axle broke, derailing the coach in which he was riding en route to his home state of New Hampshire.

As the nation mourned for Pierce, questions were raised about who should become president next. The laws of the country stipulated that the Vice-President was to be promoted to the presidency if the president died during his term, but there was no procedure in place for the death of a president-elect. Just as some had insisted a decade before that John Tyler was merely "Acting President", several Whig politicians suggested that another presidential election had to be held. Complicating the situation was the status of Pierce's running-mate, William Rufus King, who was terminally ill with tuberculosis and in Cuba for this reason. However, the majority view that King had been promoted to President-elect because of Pierce's untimely death won out without serious opposition. Under these circumstances, King was inaugurated as President of the United States on March 4, 1853 while he was still in Cuba; the privilege of taking the oath on foreign soil was extended by a special act of Congress for his long and distinguished service in government.

King's presidency surpassed that of William Henry Harrison's as the shortest in length: the dying President only held office for forty-five days before passing away after he arrived at his plantation in Alabama on April 16.

According to the presidential succession established in the 1792 Presidential Succession Act, President pro tempore of the Senate David Atchison was sworn in as President of the United States on April 17, and plans were made to hold another presidential election that November.
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