President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s health problems and President John F. Kennedy’s assassination heightened support for a constitutional amendment to address the exercise of presidential power in the event of presidential disability and to provide a…

In this undated memo, Everett Dirksen (R-IL), the Minority Leader of the Senate, placed himself on record as opposing Bayh’s amendment. Dirksen stated that the proposed constitutional amendment was too detailed and filled with ambiguities. He…

Representative Emanuel Celler sponsored H. J. Res. 1, a companion to the resolution passed by the Senate, and reported it from the House Judiciary Committee on March 24, 1965. This engrossing copy of the resolution passed in the House on April 13,…

After the House agreed to the conference report on June 30, 1965 and the Senate agreed on July 6, the resolution was sent to the General Services Administration for transmittal to the states. On July 9, 1965, Senator John Stennis (D-MS), a senior,…

In the spring of 1964, President Johnson sent a request to Congress to authorize special aid to the economically depressed Appalachian region, and on September 25, 1964, the Senate passed an Appalachia bill that closely followed the president’s…

On January 21, 1965, Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield (D-MT) wrote Senator Randolph Jennings (D-WV) urging him to make “a special effort” to complete the subcommittee hearings and report S. 3 to the full committee chaired by Senator Pat McNamara…

S. 3 moved through the House of Representatives quickly. It was reported by the House Committee on Public Works, chaired by George H. Fallon (D-MD), on February 17, 1965. On February 26, 1965, Fallon sent this telegram to North Carolina Governor…

On February 1, 1965, President Johnson announced the launching of a “nationwide job development program.” The following day, Senator Joseph S. Clark (D-PA) introduced S. 974 that provided for an expanded federal jobs training program to address an…

The insights of former President Eisenhower, which advised replacing the Speaker of the House in the chain of succession with a sequence of Cabinet members, were sought and incorporated. Knowing that the House, despite having 22 proposals related to…

A key barrier was Senator Ken Keating of New York, who had favored an enabling amendment rather than one specifying procedures in the event of Presidential disability. On March 26 he sent Bayh a letter with a detailed analysis of S. J. Res. 139,…