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
President of the Church titles in his lifetime (although not necessarily with consistency). Smith died in 1844 without having indisputably established who was to be his successor. Therefore, his death was followed by a succession crisis in which various groups followed leaders with succession claims. Years later, the office of President was reorganized in many of the resulting , the largest of which are The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), the Community of Christ (formerly the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints), and The Church of Jesus Christ (Bickertonite). Some smaller denominations, such as the Church of