John D. Feerick, dean emeritus and the Norris professor of law at Fordham Law School, was instrumental in getting the amendment passed. In October 1963, Feerick, then a recent graduate from Fordham Law, published an article in the Fordham Law Review on the subject, and just a month later, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, prompting members of Congress to revisit the subject. Four years later, in February 1967, the amendment was passed.

We sat down with him to learn more.

Full transcription below:

John D Feerick: I suppose my expectation, at that point, was the article would be retired to a library as a scholarly treatment on the subject, but what happened instead was two days later I got a call from the media because they had become aware of my article and all of a sudden people were asking me to share with them knowledge I had in the subject, and that just grew in intensity.

Patrick Verel: The 25th amendment to the US Constitution is probably best known for what is the fourth and final section, which spells out the way the president of the United States can be removed from office if they’re alive, but unable to fulfill the duties of the office. But the second section, which clarifies the process for replacing a vice president, is actually worthy of consideration as well, now, that President Trump has become the third president in the country’s history to be impeached and is facing a trial in the U.S. Senate.

John D. Feerick, sean emeritus and the Norris Professor of Law at Fordham Law School was instrumental in getting the amendment passed. In October 1963, Feerick, then a student at Fordham Law, published an article in the Fordham Law Review on the subject. And, just a month later, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated prompting members of Congress to revisit the subject. Four years later, in February 1967, the amendment was passed. We sat down with him to learn more.

I never realized that if it were not for the passage of the 25th amendment, Richard Nixon would not have had a clear path to choosing a replacement for his vice president, Spiro Agnew, when he resigned before him in 1973. Because he was able to appoint Gerald Ford as a replacement, Nixon could afford to resign, which he did in August 1974, without fear that the then democratic speaker of house would become president. Now, of course, it’s something that could come into play if the US Senate removed Trump from office and Mike Pence needed to then appoint a new vice president, lest Nancy Pelosi be next in line for the presidency.

When you were working with Senator Birch Bayh to craft the amendment, were you playing through these kinds of scenarios?

JF: Yes. And the reason they were part of the conversation is because if you look back in the history of the country, there was a period of 37 years where there was no vice president, and the next in line was in a statute. So there was no way to replace the vice president, and we saw all the reasons why there should be a replacement provision because the line of succession made it possible, the 1947 line of succession, for the other party to take over halfway through a president’s term if something happened to the president and there was no vice president. And so that kind of scenario was very much in not only on our minds but in conversations.

PV: And then you got to see it be tested in real-life when Spiro Agnew then resigned. I mean, how shocking could that have been?

JF: It was very shocking to me, I was a young lawyer at the time. And the idea of allegations of criminal conduct by the vice president, I think, prior to his vice presidency, but there might’ve been some lingering aspects to it. It was new, and shocking. And yet, there was this new amendment in place to replace the vice president and Gerald Ford was chosen for that purpose.

PV: Now, the issue of succession, obviously, was not new at the time. And, in fact, the law had been changed just 20 years earlier when President Truman presided over a law that restored the Speaker of the House to third in line from the presidency. Now, there are proposals to change the law again. What should be done, in your opinion?

JF: My own view of the subject, which I first expressed when I wrote a book published by the Fordham University Press called From Failing Hands, was ideally a cabinet line of succession. So that if anything happened to the president, and the vice president having a cabinet line of succession, that assures the continuation of the administration that began at beginning of a presidential term. And, we’ve had such a line of succession from 1886 to 1947, and I think that line was much better at assuring continuity in the presidency than the ’47 law.

PV: What were they thinking in 1947? Why did they do that? I mean, if it seems like they had a process that, you say, was a good one in the first place, why did they feel the need to change it anyway?

JF: Well, I think the theory was that the existing president could choose his successor because the successor would be in the cabinet where the sitting president then have a chance to nominate. And once that person’s confirmed, he would have, essentially, put in place, if something happened to the vice president at that time, a person. And President Truman felt a more democratic process in terms of choosing a president would be to have an elected person such as the Speaker tapped for that kind of service. And so the Speaker went in the line of succession, the 86th line of succession. Speaker went in first, president pro temp went in second, and then the cabinet. So the cabinet was kept in place in the line of succession after the speaker and the president pro temp.

PV: So it was a way of sort of empowering, I guess, members of Congress as opposed to the presidency, bringing that branch of the government into more of a equal stature, I guess, to the presidency?

JF: Not so much that. It’s more the fact that, say, the Speaker is chosen by the representatives of the people from all over the country to be the Speaker, and so there’s an indirect but very strong democratic presence there because of people being elected.

PV: When did you know that this was a thing you really wanted to put a lot of work into?

JF: I would say about the time I was graduating from law school, in 1961, I was a political science major at Fordham College. I fell in love with the constitution because of, maybe, the best teacher I ever had, professor at Fordham college, William Frasca. And then, at law school I expressed my interest in the constitution on the law review by writing notes for publication, as other students were doing, on constitutional subjects. So, I had a hankering for continuing to write, which I had done on the law review at the law school. And I happened to see that subject as a subject of disability of a president being a lingering weakness in the constitution. And it just struck me as something that would be very interesting to tackle.

And I had some experience with succession when I was vice president of the student body at Fordham College. I was vice president of the student body at Fordham, and the vice president had authority to decide election issues. And an issue developed during my tenure when the people who were going to replace our group, we were in senior year, you had third year people were elected to be the new officers. The president who was just elected in that ticket the year after me, was medically not well, and he resigned the position. Others said, then, it’s the other person, the other candidate for the presidency should become the president. And I said, no, because under the student constitution, the vice president succeeds to the presidency and that ruling stuck by the Fordham Court.

PV: So you had a little practice here for a much bigger issue.

JF: I had a little succession experience. When I got out of law school, I became interested in the subject and I wrote this article after looking at how other countries dealt with presidential succession, how the States dealt with succession to the Governor’s Office. I read all the articles and the debates, and the like. And I finally finished the article and it was published in October 1963. And my thought, at that point, was I sent reprints of the article around to people who had an interest in the subject. And little did I realize that a month later president of the United States would be assassinated. The week before President Kennedy was assassinated, I had communications from his brothers and The White House, because they got a copy of the reprint of my article, and said they had an interest in the subject. They, thanked me for sending the reprints.

And also from President Nixon. He was former vice president, at that point, for Eisenhower. And I suppose my expectation, at that point before the assassination, was the article would be retired to a library as a scholarly treatment on the subject. But what happened instead was a day after the president’s assassination, I got a call from the media … or two days later I got a call from the media because they had become aware of my article because it was commented on in The New York Times on Sunday, the 24th of 1963. And all of a sudden people were asking me to share with them knowledge I had on the subject and that just grew in intensity.

I was asked by the American Bar Association to be part of a small group, 12 people, most of whom were very senior to me to look at the constitution, and see how it might be addressed in terms of disability. And our recommendations became very important to Senator Bayh, and leaders of Congress, and we joined together, so to speak, in terms of promoting the idea of a constitutional amendment.

PV: Thinking a little bit about impeachment, since that’s what’s in the news right now, we now have two articles of impeachment that have been passed by the House of Representatives, and are going to be debated in the United States Senate. The current articles of impeachment are, to paraphrase, number one, President Trump abused his power by soliciting foreign interference by pressuring an ally, Ukraine, to announce an investigation into a political rival, former vice president Joe Biden, while withholding military aid and dangling a head of the state meeting, thereby corrupting the integrity of the United States elections. And number two, Trump obstructed Congress, a coequal branch of government, by withholding documents and preventing witnesses from testifying, thereby impeding Congress’ investigatory power.

So this will be the third time this has happened in your life, if you count Richard Nixon who resigned before he could be impeached. What’s different this time around?

JF: Let me come at that question a little broadly. An impeachment trial or an impeachment in the House of a president is a very horrible kind of thing. And yet because there’s serious allegations that have been brewing and it needs to be dealt with in the process, laid out in the constitution. And back in the time of Lincoln, we probably never had a more hostile relationship between the Congress and the president because of reconstruction. And in terms of Nixon, we had a situation where the president counselors and advisors, as I see it, encouraged him to resign. And so we never went to have an impeachment vote or a trial. In terms of Clinton, of course, there were allegations about sexual misconduct that became a part of the articles of impeachment, and we had a trial.

And the one thing I noticed, in just the limited reading I’ve done, about Clinton is that the leaders in the Senate, both political parties Lott and Daschle, worked very closely together to develop rules that were eventually approved by the whole Senate. And were very tenant to the constitution in terms of the seriousness of the matter and the obligations members of Congress had in the two different bodies. I’m not sure where this is at right now in terms of if it hasn’t gotten to the Senate, it may get to the Senate very shortly. And I, certainly as a citizen, will be looking very carefully at how the leaders in the Senate of both parties go about their responsibilities under the constitution.

My expectation would be that this Congress, as their predecessor congresses, despite the differences that are there, obviously, will be very mindful of their obligations under the constitution.

PV: So you still have faith that what was written down and the rules that were set forth will help us kind of get through this?

JF: I believe so. And it has in the past. And I think it was 1868, it was more hostility, I mean between the president … between the executive and the legislature than probably ever before in the history of our country, including now.

PV: Yeah, it’s interesting. I feel like when you think about these things, knowing the history of the country and how we’ve gone through periods of strife, as it were, it must be somewhat comforting to you when you look around and seeing what’s happening now.

JF: Oh, very much so. I think we have a process. If, after this experience, people want to reexamine what the constitution has given us, they have a right to do so. And we have changed provisions in the constitution, but this impeachment process comes into the constitution influenced greatly by English legal history and parliamentary history involving impeachments, involving high crimes and misdemeanors, the very same terminology we have in our constitution, has a long history. And I think it’s how do you make it work? What are your rules? How do you deal with getting information? How do you deal with witnesses? There’s a lot yet to be done here.

PV: Now, I understand you’ll be delving into a lot of this in a memoir that’s going to be coming out in April.

JF: For the last 18 years, I’ve been taking account of where I am in life. And as the oldest of immigrant parents who came here and they had no high school education, but America offered them a promise of a better life. And I talk about that the history in my family. And then, I talk about my own life because my own life was very much tied to the dream my parents had for all of their children. Pursue opportunities that come your way, and contribute as best you can. All of that’s wrapped up in this book. It’s called That Furthest Shore: A Memoir of Irish Roots and American Promise.

PV: So you’ve been working on it for 18 years?

JF: 18 years.

PV: Wow. That’s going to be very gratifying to see that finally hit the shelves.

JF: I’m glad it’s over. Really.

PV: Was it hard to do? Was it hard to sum it all up?

JF: Yeah, very hard. And initially the idea of my writing a book about myself, so to speak, I’m not comfortable with that, but I said it wasn’t about myself really. Yes, it’s about myself, in one sense. It really was about my parents, and their dreams, and I did have experiences that fulfill their dreams.

In celebration of University Press Week, Nov. 6 through 11, Fordham University Press is highlighting its 3rd edition of THE TWENTY-FIFTH AMENDMENT: Its Complete History and Applications, by John D. Feerick, former dean of the Fordham School of Law and the Norris Professor of Law.

Feerick was one of the original drafters of the 1964 amendment, which lays out the succession process for the U.S. presidency and establishes procedures for when the president is disabled or cannot fulfill his responsibilities, and when a vice presidency vacancy must be filled. The amendment has been applied in several instances, including in the appointment of Nelson Rockefeller as vice president in 1974 upon the elevation of Gerald Ford to the presidency.

The book was originally published in 1976. In this most recent edition, published in 2013, Feerick has updated his landmark study with the amendment’s uses in the past 20 years and how those uses have changed perceptions of presidential disability.

Fred Nachbaur, director of the press, said the press chose to highlight Feerick’s book to promote the Association of American University Presses (AAUP) chosen theme for the week, “#LookItUP: Knowledge Matters.” It is, he said, a theme that should resonate in an era of fake news.

“In today’s political climate the high level of misinformation and alternative facts circulating is disconcerting and dangerous,” said Nachbaur, who served as chair of the task force for the AAUP’s University Press Week. “As a group, we felt it was critical to highlight the expertise of university presses, which relies on deeply researched scholarship thoroughly evaluated by external peer reviewers and held to the highest methodological standards.”

The American Bar Association recently awarded its highest honor, the ABA Medal, to Feerick. “Throughout his distinguished career as a labor lawyer, legal educator, and public servant, his unimpeachable integrity and brilliance has made him a giant in the legal community and an invaluable aide to our government and our democracy,” said Linda Klein, ABA president.

The archive includes personal correspondence and other materials from John Feerick, who helped draft the 25th Amendment as a 27-year-old lawyer fresh out of Fordham Law School while working as an associate at Skadden Arps. Feerick went on to serve as dean of Fordham Law from 1982 to 2002 and currently holds the school’s Sidney C. Norris Chair of Law in Public Service. He and members of the Feerick Center for Social Justice at Fordham Law collaborated with The Maloney Library to develop this online resource for use by scholars, journalists, and citizens.

The archive offers an interactive timeline of the history and events that prompted Congress to create the amendment, which provides legal mechanisms for handling presidential inabilities and filling vice presidential vacancies. In addition, the archive provides access to the legal and scholarly discourse on the 25th Amendment since its ratification on February 10, 1967.

Materials also include law review and scholarly articles, books, congressional reports, executive branch documents, conference and symposium videos, photographs, and think-tank reports. All items in the archive may be viewed or downloaded. The repository will continue to grow in size and scope as additional materials are added.

As of August 9, 2017, materials from the archive have been downloaded approximately 42,127 times by users from 134 countries.

Feerick received the ABA Medal on August 12 at the 2017 ABA Annual Meeting in New York. The medal is the highest honor awarded by the American Bar Association.

On September 27, in conjunction with Feerick, Fordham Law School will present a symposium on the 25th Amendment. Learn more about Feerick and Fordham Law’s history with the 25th Amendment via Fordham Lawyer magazine.

Long before the 25th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was adopted in February 1967, a lesser-known constitution was put to the test: the student government constitution at Rose Hill.

In 1958, John D. Feerick, a senior political science major, was elected vice president of the campus student government. When the winning candidate for president resigned two weeks later for medical reasons, there was a great deal of consternation among the student body, with many questioning how a person could run for office while aware that they had such a condition.

A reelection was demanded, but Feerick pointed out that under the constitution approved by the students, there was no provision for it. His view was upheld.

“I became fascinated by constitutions,” Feerick, Norris Professor of Law and former dean of the Fordham School of Law, told a student pre-law symposium on Oct. 2. “I fell in love as a political science major with reading the Constitution, and understanding the Constitution as best I could.

“I carried that into law school, and as I was graduating from Fordham Law School three years later, I recognized an issue that existed in the United States at the time, which was, how do we handle the disability of the president of the United States?”

Although Article 2 of the Constitution addresses what happens when a president dies, is impeached, or resigns, it is silent on the issue of a president who is temporarily disabled, said Feerick.

“A press article I read at the time indicated that there was a major issue [over it], and I said to myself, ‘Gee, this is what we had to deal with at Fordham College,” he said.

He published an article laying out his prescriptions for addressing the issue. Although it was considered at the time to be an esoteric pursuit, just one month after it was published President John F. Kennedy was assassinated.

That set the stage for the 25th Amendment’s passage four years later. Today, Feerick is one of 11 people credited with writing the amendment, which clarifies the rules for succession to the presidency and establishes procedures both for filling a vacancy in the office of the vice president, as well as responding to presidential disabilities.

Feerick said he was proud that its existence helped smooth the 1973 transition caused by the resignations of Vice President Spiro Agnew and President Richard Nixon.

“That was a time of tremendous fury and concern for the country and its stability, but the 25th Amendment operated in a way to provide stability,” he said.

“Every provision of the Constitution . . . has a history and an importance to giving us the kind of liberty we have and enjoy in this country.”

Feerick’s talk was part of a belated celebration of Constitution Day at Rose Hill. Earlier in the afternoon, during a roundtable discussion with pre-law students, he reiterated the “Four H’s” speech that he emphasized as dean: Honesty, Hard work, Helping each other, and Harmony

He urged students not to be discouraged by the state of the legal field today, which is in great flux. Having spent a great deal of his career working in public service, and having founded a center for social justice at the law school, Feerick also challenged students to volunteer for just causes.

“Conflict is not going away; there’s nothing in the last 2,000 years-plus that suggests that,” he said. “I see lawyers as increasingly important in helping people [resolve]conflict.”