I'd have been a Federalist but that was very shortsighted of them. All because they didn't want Jefferson to be 2nd in line.
It was equally as shortsighted of the 80th Congress to put the Speaker and President Pro Tem BACK in (after they were removed by the 1886 act) during the early Truman administration with the Vice Presidency vacant.
Putting the Speaker and the Senate PPT back in the line of succession (they had been removed in 1886; prior to that the PPT went first, but in the 1947 statute the Speaker went first) was done upon Truman’s insistence; Truman (who did not have a vice president for the almost four years from FDR’s death until January 20, 1949) thought that it was important for the Acting President to be a popularly elected officer, apparently not minding that the Speaker was elected by voters in one of 435 congressional districts so he is by no means someone elected by the Anerican people writ-large. F’n Harry Truman.
What the Federalists should have done to keep Jefferson from being next in line after the VP was to place the Secretary of the Treasury first, then the Secretary of War, then the Attorney General, and only then the Secretary of State. A few years later, when presidents started appointing Secretaries of State from their same party and the position was one of great prominence, it would have been simple enough for Congress to amend the law to place the Secretary of State first. But the House and Senate of 1791 didn’t merely wish to keep Jefferson out of the presidency, they wanted to place their own leaders as the successors to executive power, which would be something quite dangerous.