Acting President of the United States On April 4, 1841, only one month after his inauguration, President William Henry Harrison died. He was the first U.S. president to die in office. Afterward, a constitutional crisis ensued over the Constitution's ambiguous presidential succession provision (). Shortly after Harrison's death, his Cabinet met and decided that Vice President John Tyler would assume the responsibilities of presidency under the title "Vice-President acting President". Instead of accepting the Cabinet's proposed title, however, Tyler asserted that the Constitution gave him full and unqualified powers of the office and had himself sworn in immediately as President, setting a critical precedent for an
1840 and 1841 United States Senate elections for the term beginning March 4, 1841; ordered by state. All of the elections involved the Class 2 seats. In this special election, the winner was elected in 1841 after March 4; ordered by election date. Whig Isaac C. Bates was elected January 13, 1841 to finish the class 2 term of his Whig predecessor, John Davis, who had resigned to become Governor of Massachusetts. Bates was also elected, on the same day, to the next term. He would only serve, however, until he died March 16, 1845. Whig Rufus Choate was elected February 23, 1841, to finish the class