Speaker of the United States House of Representatives in the context of "James K. Polk"

Millard Fillmore (January 7, 1800 – March 8, 1874) was the 13th president of the United States, serving from 1850 to 1853. He was the last president to be a member of the Whig Party while in the White House, and the last to be neither a Democrat nor a Republican. A former member of the U.S. House of Representatives, Fillmore was elected vice president in 1848, and succeeded to the presidency when Zachary Taylor died in 1850. Fillmore was instrumental in passing the Compromise of 1850, which led to a brief truce in the battle over the expansion of slavery.

Fillmore was born into poverty in the Finger Lakes area of upstate New York. He had little formal schooling, but studied to become a lawyer. Fillmore became prominent in the Buffalo area as an attorney and politician, and was elected to the New York Assembly in 1828 and the House of Representatives in 1832. Fillmore initially belonged to the Anti-Masonic Party, but became a member of the Whig Party as it formed in the mid-1830s. He was a rival for the state party leadership with Thurlow Weed and his protégé William H. Seward. Throughout his career, Fillmore declared slavery evil but said it was beyond the federal government's power to end it. Conversely, Seward argued that the federal government had a role to play. Fillmore was an unsuccessful candidate for Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives when the Whigs took control of the chamber in 1841, but was made chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. Defeated in bids for the Whig nomination for vice president and for New York governor in 1844, Fillmore was elected Comptroller of New York in 1847, the first to hold that post by election.

Presidential elections were held in the United States on November 8, 1932. Against the backdrop of the Great Depression, the Republican ticket of incumbent President Herbert Hoover and incumbent Vice President Charles Curtis were defeated in a landslide by the Democratic ticket of Franklin D. Roosevelt, the governor of New York and John Nance Garner, the Speaker of the House. This realigning election marked the effective end of the Fourth Party System, which had been dominated by Republicans, and the beginning of an era of Democratic dominance under the New Deal coalition.

Despite disastrous economic conditions due to the Great Depression, Hoover faced little opposition at the 1932 Republican National Convention. Roosevelt was widely considered the front-runner at the start of the 1932 Democratic National Convention, but was not able to clinch the nomination until the fourth ballot of the convention. The Democratic convention chose a leading Southern Democrat, Speaker of the House John Nance Garner of Texas, as the party's vice presidential nominee. Roosevelt united the party, campaigning on the failures of the Hoover administration. He promised recovery with a "New Deal" for the American people.

The secretary of war was a member of the U.S. Cabinet, beginning with George Washington's administration. A similar position, called either "Secretary at War" or "Secretary of War", had been appointed to serve the Congress of the Confederation under the Articles of Confederation between 1781 and 1789. Benjamin Lincoln and later Henry Knox held the position. When Washington was inaugurated as the first president under the Constitution, he appointed Knox to continue serving as secretary of war.

The secretary of war was the head of the War Department. At first, he was responsible for the United States Army and the Navy. In 1798, the secretary of the Navy was created by statute, and the scope of responsibility for the War Department was reduced to the Army. From 1886 onward, the secretary of war was in the line of succession to the presidency, after the vice president of the United States, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, the president pro tempore of the Senate and the secretary of state.

Henry Clay (April 12, 1777 – June 29, 1852) was an American lawyer and statesman who represented Kentucky in both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. He was the seventh House speaker as well as the ninth secretary of state. Clay unsuccessfully ran for president in the 1824, 1832, and 1844 elections. He helped found both the National Republican Party and the Whig Party. For his role in defusing sectional crises, he earned the appellation of the "Great Compromiser" and was part of the "Great Triumvirate" of Congressmen, alongside fellow Whig Daniel Webster and Democrat John C. Calhoun.

Clay was born in Hanover County, Virginia, in 1777, and began his legal career in Lexington, Kentucky, in 1797. As a member of the Democratic-Republican Party, he won election to the Kentucky state legislature in 1803 and to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1810. Clay was chosen as Speaker of the House in early 1811 and, along with President James Madison, led the United States into the War of 1812 against Great Britain. In 1814, he helped negotiate the Treaty of Ghent, which brought an end to the War of 1812, and then after the war, Clay returned to his position as Speaker of the House and developed the American System, which called for federal infrastructure investments, support for the national bank, and high protective tariff rates. During 1820, Clay helped bring an end to a sectional crisis over slavery for many years by leading the passage of the Missouri Compromise. He finished with the fourth-most electoral votes in the multi-candidate 1824–1825 presidential election and used his position as speaker to help John Quincy Adams win the contingent election held to select the president. President Adams then appointed him to the prestigious position of Secretary of State. As a result, critics alleged that the two had agreed to a "corrupt bargain".

John Bell (February 18, 1796 – September 10, 1869) was an American politician, attorney, and planter who was a candidate for President of the United States in the election of 1860.

One of Tennessee's most prominent antebellum politicians, Bell served in the House of Representatives from 1827 to 1841, and in the Senate from 1847 to 1859. He was Speaker of the House for the 23rd Congress (1834–1835), and briefly served as Secretary of War during the administration of William Henry Harrison (1841). In 1860, he ran for president as the candidate of the Constitutional Union Party, a third party which took a neutral stance on the issue of slavery. He won the electoral votes of three states by a slim margin.

Massachusetts's 11th congressional district is an obsolete district that was active during three periods: 1795–1843, 1853–1863, and 1873–1993. The district was located in several different areas of the state. It was most recently eliminated in 1993 after the 1990 U.S. census. Its last congressman was Brian J. Donnelly.

Notable persons elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from the 11th congressional district include John Quincy Adams following his term as president, John F. Kennedy prior to his term as president, and Tip O'Neill prior to his selection as Speaker of the House.

The inauguration of Jimmy Carter as the 39th president of the United States was held on Thursday, January 20, 1977, at the East Portico of the United States Capitol in Washington D.C. This was the 48th inauguration and marked the commencement of the only term of both Carter as president and Walter Mondale as vice president. Chief Justice Warren E. Burger administered the presidential oath of office to Carter, and Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill administered the vice presidential oath of office to Mondale. This was the last inauguration held on the East Portico of the Capitol building as well as the last time the chief justice would stand to the left of the podium, with the audience facing them, while swearing in a president. Exactly forty years later, Carter attended the first inauguration of Donald Trump, becoming the first U.S. president to mark the 40th anniversary of his inauguration.

The United States presidential line of succession is the order in which the vice president of the United States and other officers of the United States federal government assume the powers and duties of the U.S. presidency (or the office itself, in the instance of succession by the vice president) upon an elected president's death, resignation, removal from office, or incapacity.

The order of succession specifies that the office passes to the vice president; if the vice presidency is simultaneously vacant, the powers and duties of the presidency pass to the speaker of the House of Representatives, president pro tempore of the Senate, and then Cabinet secretaries, depending on eligibility.