Donald Trump: The 45th President…or the 44th? Answer: Both

By Don Allen

I was asked a question a while ago about the Presidency of the United States and how it works. Specifically this (paraphrased anyway):

President Donald Trump is the 44^th person to hold the office of President of the United States. And yet he is called the 45^th President. Why?

 

 

The reason for this is both simple and complicated, and when I explained it to the customer it took a moment for them to completely understand. So, I figured a quick blog post about it would be interesting.

The reason why Pres. Trump is known as the 45^th President of the United States, when only 44 different men (including Trump) have held the position, is all due to Pres. Grover Cleveland, who was the 22^nd AND 24^th President.

 

Pres. Grover Cleveland

 

Cleveland was elected the 22^nd President in 1884, serving his first term from 1885-1889. While he ran for another term in 1888, he lost to Benjamin Harrison, who became the 23^rd President and served from 1889-1893.

 

Pres. Benjamin Harrison

So far, so simple.

But.

Cleveland ran again in 1892, and this time defeated Harrison, serving his second term from 1893-1897. He is the only person to be elected president to two non-consecutive terms, and herein lies the numbering problem. Because every other president who was elected to multiple terms before Cleveland did so consecutively, the numbering was straightforward. It was numbered by the individual, not the presidential term. So George Washington wasn’t the 1^st and 2^nd President, he was the 1^st who served two terms. Andrew Johnson wasn’t the 16^th President when he succeeded Abraham Lincoln months into Lincoln’s second term, he was the 17^th even though he hadn’t won (and wouldn’t win) a presidential election.

Cleveland’s second term however presented a conundrum. If he was considered the 22^nd President only, i.e. numbered solely on being the 22^nd distinct individual to have held the office, the Presidential numbering timeline would look like this when you add in Cleveland’s second successor as President, William McKinley:

 

22^nd President- Cleveland

23^rd President- Harrison

22^nd President- Cleveland

24^th President- McKinley

 

Pres. William McKinley

 

See the problem? In this telling, the 22^nd President was both before and after the 23^rd, and the 24^th President, McKinley, followed the 22^nd. Logically this doesn’t make any sense. But, at the same, you couldn’t completely change the numbering to count only the Presidential term, because then Washington WOULD have been the 1^st and 2^nd Presidents, Abraham Lincoln would have been the 19^th President (and the 20^th), not the 16^th, and so on. This would throw off the entire century of numbering and historical reckoning. So, what was to be done?

Well, the answer became to regard Cleveland as both the 22^nd and 24^th President. It’s purely a logistical decision. Rather than re-work every Presidents number in the pecking order, literally changing a century of history, it was simply easier to number Cleveland twice.

And if for some reason you need to know how many individuals have been President, just subtract one from the current President’s number:

Donald Trump, 45^th President, minus one = 44th person who has been President.

Easy peasy.