Happy No Presidents Day!

Today is No Presidents Day. Today we commemorate the day 161 years ago that there was no President of the United States for one day.

Sunday, March 4th, 1849. That was the day that James Polk's term as President expired, and his successor Zachary Taylor refused to take the oath of office on a Sunday, the Sabbath. And yes, while you and I know that Sunday is the Lord's Day, not the Sabbath, cast your mind back to the simpler times of 1849. A time when an incoming President would be willing to throw the entire country into anarchy for a day just to be freakishly faithful to an already antiquated religion. One day we'll have a President that isn't a Christian and I will declare that a holiday too.

Anyway. March 4th, 1849. Zachary Taylor, afraid to anger the God that would strike him down a year later anyway, refused to take the oath of office. James Polk's term had expired. Millard Fillmore, his vice-president, likewise didn't take office. So who was President? The legend is that David Rice Atchison, President pro tempore of the Senate, was President for that day, since he was next in line at the time. But. His term had also expired, and he also never took any oath. So if he wasn't President, who was? I am going to argue quite simply that no one was.

For one day the country had no leader. And everything was fine. No cities burned down in mass looting and orgies. The trains still ran, or at least they would have if they had trains in 1849. Not switching over to Wikipedia to research that one, enough is enough. The point is, for one day the government had no head.

We remember this until it becomes the every day reality.