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America's One-Day President
In 1849, David Rice Atchison was technically president of the United States for one day. It happened because of a quirk in the inauguration schedule. Atchison spent most of his "presidency" sleeping. He later joked that he had the most honest administration in American history.
In 1849, David Rice Atchison was a senator from Missouri and president pro tempore of the Senate (a high-ranking senator of the majority party who presides over the US Senate in the absence of the vice president). He was described as "a man of imposing presence, six feet, two inches high. He was the soul of honor, a fine conversationalist, and possessed a great memory. As a man he was plain, jovial, and simple in his tastes." 4 He was "popular with his Senate colleagues," who elected him pro tempore thirteen times.
Atchison was also deeply pro-slavery, sometimes to deadly effect. He formed part of the influential F Street Mess that championed the Kansas-Nebraska Act, allowing slavery to expand into western states. 5 He was a rhetorical leader of the Border Ruffians, who crossed into Kansas in 1855 to elect a pro-slavery legislature at gunpoint. During one speech, Atchison told his followers to "give a horse thief, robber, or homicide a fair trial, but to hang a negro thief or Abolitionist, without judge or jury."
Atchison and his politics have since faded into relative public obscurity. His name is most often connected with his claim—reproduced on his tombstone—to be America's only interregnum President.
The 11th and a Half President? The Myth of David Rice Atchison
Who was president on March 4, 1849? Depending on who you ask, it might be a man you've never heard of: David Rice Atchison.
