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Abraham Lincoln was voted as president on this day, but had to wait out the lame duck period before he could take office.
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1861 was during the time of the civil war. Lincoln needed to get into office as soon as possible so he could deal with this issue. This sparked the thought of the 'lame-duck' period being too long. By the time he was inaugurated, 7 states had seceded.
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The 20th amendment was proposed by Congress on this date. It would change part of Article 1, Section 4, and part of the 12th amendment. It would change the 'lame-duck' period from March 4th to January 20th for the president, and it would change Congress to January 3rd. Senator George Norris of Nebraska wrote the first draft of this proposal.
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Virginia became the first state to ratify this amendment. Overall, the amendment was ratified very quickly, taking about 9 months to ratify it.
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The 20th amendment was officially ratified on January 23rd,1933. Missouri was the 36th state to ratify the amendment, meeting the requirement of 3/4 of the 48 states. Article 6 states that this amendement would not take effect unless it was ratified within 7 years of proposal.
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On this day, FDR was the target of an unsuccessful assassination attempt. According to section 3 of the 20th amendment, vice president electee, John N. Garner, wouldn't have become president until March 4, 1933
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Herbert Hoover was an awful president during the time of the Great Depression. The people wanted FDR to come in to office ASAP so he could start making changes for the country. This was the last inauguration day that was held on March 4th.
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Section 5 of the 20th amendment said that sections 1 and 2 were not to take effect until this date.
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On this day, the 74th Congress met for the first time under the 20th amendment.
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This date would have been the deadline if the 20th amendment had not been ratified by 3/4 of state legislatures. Luckily, this amendment was quickly ratified.
