"that the duties prescribed by act of Congress shall devolve on the following officers: first, on the chief justice, when he has not participated in the trial of the President; and next, on the justices of the Supreme Court, according to the date of their commissions. . . ."[1]
This was the single constructive recommendation. It is, however, noteworthy that the authors first of all stated their belief that the members of the cabinet "in some prescribed order" were
the proper functionaries to fill the vacancy. In cases of death they would be the persons most fit for the occasion. There are other circumstances, however, which would make the cabinet officers unfit to occupy the place of the President. In case of his impeachment for high political offences, the cabinet might be implicated, as participes criminis, and ought not to be in position of allies. . .
Moreover, the question as to whether the cabinet could be considered official after the official functions of the President—their principal—had terminated or were suspended, was puzzling to the committee and was left unanswered.[2]
Within a week of the shooting of Garfield, the Butler Report was referred to in public discussions over the possible consequences of the tragedy. In particular Senator Beck of Kentucky wrote of it in a letter to the Louisville Courier-Journal.[3] In the following autumn—Garfield having died on September 19—it happened that the country was without either a President of the Senate or a Speaker of the House. Should President Arthur die, there would be no legal provision for a successor. Statesmen were alarmed. Efforts to remedy the law were begun as soon as Congress assembled in December, and they continued at intervals during three successive congresses, the forty-seventh, the forty-eighth and the forty-ninth. Senator Hoar's persistency was finally rewarded in 1886.[4]
