President of the United States first ballot. Pursuant to the Twentieth Amendment, the four-year term of office for both the president and vice president begins at noon on January 20. The first presidential and vice presidential terms to begin on this date, known as Inauguration Day, were the second terms of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Vice President John Nance Garner in 1937. Previously, Inauguration Day was on March 4. As a result of the date change, the first term (1933–37) of both men had been shortened by days. Before executing the powers of the office, a president is required to recite the presidential oath
Vice President of the United States Speaker of the House Carl Albert would have become Acting President when Nixon resigned, under the terms of the Presidential Succession Act of 1947. For much of its existence, the office of vice president was seen as little more than a minor position. John Adams, the first vice president, was the first of many frustrated by the "complete insignificance" of the office. To his wife Abigail Adams wrote, "My country has in its wisdom contrived for me the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man ... or his imagination contrived or his imagination conceived; and as I can