Vice Presidency History in the United States

Vice President of the United States History of the Vice Presidency Early Years

Introduction to Vice Presidency History

For much of U. S. history the vice presidency was considered a minor position. Vice President John Adams, who served as vice president from 1789 to 1797, called it ‘the most insignificant office ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived.’ Until the 1950s the vice presidents served mainly as social stand-ins for their presidents. This particular role has grown with the increase in presidential responsibilities. During his years as the nation’s first president, George Washington set aside times to receive ordinary citizens in his office and at the presidential residence. The growth of the country’s population, and the rise of numerous interest groups demanding special attention, led presidents after Washington to turn over some of this responsibility to their vice presidents.

In the early 19th century competing political parties jockeyed for control of the presidency and the vice presidency. In the election of 1800 the Democratic-Republican Party, which advocated states’ rights, offered Thomas Jefferson as president and Aaron Burr as vice president. The Constitution specifies that the candidate who wins a majority of votes in the electoral college wins the presidency, but Jefferson and Burr each polled 73 electoral votes. The tie in the electoral college sent the decision to the House of Representatives, which was controlled by the Federalist Party. The Federalists, who supported a strong central government, opposed both Burr and Jefferson, and voted 35 times over six days before Jefferson secured the necessary majority to win the presidency. The lengthy partisan spectacle in the House led to the adoption of the 12th Amendment to the Constitution in 1804, which specifies that the electoral college use separate ballots to vote for the president and vice president.

During the first four presidential elections, vice presidents were selected on the basis of their qualifications to assume the presidency. Beginning in 1804, presidential candidates and their political parties sought vice-presidential candidates who could draw support from voters who might not otherwise back the presidential ticket. One of the clearest examples of this ticket balancing came in 1840, when the Whigs selected John Tyler, a former Democrat, as the vice-presidential candidate to complement presidential candidate William Henry Harrison. Harrison, a military hero who appealed to the growing nationalistic feelings of the American people, won the election largely because of Tyler’s support among Democrats and his reputation as a champion of states’ rights.” (1)

Resources

Notes and References

• Information about Vice Presidency History in the Encarta Online Encyclopedia

Guide to Vice Presidency History

Vice President of the United States History of the Vice Presidency Increased Responsibilities in the 1930s and After

Introduction to Vice Presidency History

In 1933 President Franklin D. Roosevelt revived the practice of including vice presidents in Cabinet meetings, and since then vice presidents have regularly attended Cabinet meetings. Roosevelt’s action signaled an increase in stature for the vice presidency, but Roosevelt failed to keep the last of his own vice presidents, Harry Truman, informed about key national security issues. Most importantly, Roosevelt kept Truman in the dark about the Manhattan Project, the top-secret program to develop atomic weapons during World War II. Roosevelt died in April 1945 with the war still raging in the Pacific. Upon Roosevelt’s death, Truman suddenly found himself in the difficult position of being a wartime president who was unaware of all of the military’s strategic options. Truman was forced to rely on briefings from Secretary of War Henry Stimson and other officials. The need to keep vice presidents informed about issues of national security led Congress to include the vice president as one of four statutory (legal) members of the National Security Council, which was established in 1947 to advise the president on military matters and foreign affairs.

In the years after World War II the vice presidency became more prominent, gaining staff, office space, policy responsibility, and public visibility. Franklin Roosevelt’s second vice president, Henry Wallace, established the vice president’s role as an important foreign emissary with his many trips to China, South America, and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) in the 1940s, and this practice became the norm for subsequent vice presidents. Richard Nixon, vice president under Dwight Eisenhower, made headlines around the world when he traveled to the USSR in 1955 and engaged in a political debate with Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev. The vice presidency gained new policy responsibilities in 1961 when President John F. Kennedy created NASA to guide his aggressive space program under the leadership of Vice President Lyndon Johnson.” (1)

Resources

Notes and References

• Information about Vice Presidency History in the Encarta Online Encyclopedia

Guide to Vice Presidency History

Vice President of the United States History of the Vice Presidency How Vice Presidents Make Their Mark

Introduction to Vice Presidency History

The history of the vice presidency has largely been a story of frustrated ambitions. When the first two vice presidents-Adams and Jefferson-were elected to the presidency in their own right, it was assumed that the vice presidency was a kind of breeding ground for the highest office. But with the rise of political parties and the change made by the 12th Amendment in the way vice presidents are elected, the vice presidency lost its claim on the presidency. After Jefferson, only two incumbent vice presidents immediately won election to the presidency: Martin Van Buren in 1836 and George Bush in 1988. Richard Nixon also won the office in his own right, but only on a second try in 1968, eight years after he had left the vice presidency and lost the 1960 presidential election.

Nine other vice presidents also became president, eight by the death of a president, and Gerald Ford by Nixon’s resignation in 1974. In addition to Ford, the other vice presidents who assumed a vacated presidency were Tyler, Millard Fillmore, Andrew Johnson, Chester A. Arthur, Theodore Roosevelt, Coolidge, Truman, and Lyndon Johnson. Of these nine, only Roosevelt, Coolidge, Truman, and Lyndon Johnson subsequently won election to the presidency in their own right.

Taking office did not guarantee, however, that a vice president would be an effective president. Of the 14 vice presidents who served as presidents, including those who won election to the White House in their own right, most historians contend that only Adams, Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, Truman, Lyndon Johnson, and Nixon made a substantial mark on the presidency. Van Buren, Tyler, Fillmore, and Arthur stand in the ranks of forgettable presidents about whom most Americans know very little, if anything. Although Ford and Bush enjoy much greater name recognition because of their recent service, many scholars predict they are unlikely to be well remembered in another hundred years, when all their contemporaries have passed from the scene. Andrew Johnson’s term as president is remembered by historians and the public, but only because of his meager accomplishments and the unenviable fact that he was the first president to be impeached and tried by the Senate, which acquitted him by just one vote.” (1)

Resources

Notes and References

• Information about Vice Presidency History in the Encarta Online Encyclopedia

Guide to Vice Presidency History

Vice President of the United States History of the Vice Presidency Following in the Right Footsteps

Introduction to Vice Presidency History

Of the 14 vice presidents who went on to serve as president, several found themselves limited by crises or problems only the most exceptional politician could have mastered. When Adams won election to the presidency in 1796, for example, he faced the impossible task of trying to match the leadership of his predecessor, George Washington. Washington, sometimes called the Father of the Country, held a stronger grip on the public imagination than any other leader could. With Washington as a predecessor, Adams’s presidency was certain to pale in comparison. To make matters worse, Adams was confronted by an urgent need to pull the country together to deal with rising tensions with Great Britain and France.

In 1974, nearly 200 years after Adams took office, Vice President Ford faced a very different set of problems when he assumed the presidency after Nixon resigned. Ford had not even been elected to the vice presidency-he was the first appointed vice president. Moreover, although he had been the minority leader in the House of Representatives, he had never run in a national election. In addition, he was burdened with the Watergate scandal, which had driven Nixon from power. Although Ford had nothing to do with Watergate, his decision to pardon Nixon for any crimes he may have committed as president tainted Ford with the scandal and greatly hampered his efforts to win the presidency in his own right.” (1)

Resources

Notes and References

• Information about Vice Presidency History in the Encarta Online Encyclopedia

Guide to Vice Presidency History