Vice Presidency

Vice-Presidency in the United States

Vice-Presidency

United States Constitution

According to the Encyclopedia of the American Constitution, about its article titled VICE-PRESIDENCYThe American vice-presidency has historically occupied an ambiguous position. Although protocol ranks it the nation’s second office, the duties assigned it have not been commensurate with that status. Pundits have frequently ridiculed the office and reformers have generously proposed
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Some Constitutional Law Popular Entries

Vice President of the United States History of the Vice Presidency Kennedy’s Assassination and Constitutional Reform

Introduction to Vice Presidency

The assassination of President Kennedy in 1963 shocked the nation and raised questions about presidential succession that the Constitution left unanswered. With Vice President Johnson assuming the presidency, there was no mechanism to fill the vacant vice presidency. In addition, the shooting of Kennedy and his subsequent hospitalization raised the question of who leads the country if the president is unable to perform duties, and who has the power to declare that the president is in such a state. In some previous administrations, the president and vice president had informal agreements to deal with succession, but such agreements did not have any legal status and might have led to political disputes. The long-standing questions of vice-presidential succession and presidential disability were answered in 1967 with ratification of the 25th Amendment to the Constitution. The amendment provides that a president fill a vacancy in the vice presidency by nominating a candidate who must be confirmed by a majority vote of both houses of Congress. The amendment also specifies that the vice president should take over if the president resigns from office. Further, the 25th Amendment details procedures for replacing a president who is incapacitated.

The 25th Amendment’s provision for filling a vacancy in the vice presidency was first used in 1973, when President Richard Nixon appointed Gerald Ford as vice president. Nixon’s first vice president, Spiro Agnew, resigned to avoid a trial on corruption charges. It was used again in 1974 when Ford, who succeeded Nixon as president upon Nixon’s resignation, appointed Nelson A. Rockefeller to fill the vacated vice presidency.

Presidents have rarely become incapacitated since the 1967 ratification of the 25th Amendment, and its official provisions have never been formally invoked. In 1981 President Ronald Reagan was shot and seriously wounded, but Reagan’s aides never attempted to hand over power to Vice President George Bush.

Reagan was again briefly unable to perform his duties when he underwent cancer surgery in 1985. Before the surgery, Reagan sent a note to Congress making Bush acting president, but he explicitly stated that he did not want to invoke the 25th Amendment. Bush, the first acting president in United States history, took no action based on his temporary authority.” (1)

Resources

Notes and References

Guide to Vice Presidency

Vice President of the United States History of the Vice Presidency Models of Success

Introduction to Vice Presidency

Although Adams, Ford, and several other vice presidents have been hobbled by political circumstances beyond their control, some vice presidents who assumed the presidency have enjoyed significant success as president. Theodore Roosevelt, Truman, and Lyndon Johnson are three 20th-century vice presidents whose successions to the presidency were brought about by difficult circumstances that they turned to their advantage. Each of these men provided a smooth transition from the preceding administration and showed skill in managing important issues of the day.

Roosevelt came to office in 1901 after President McKinley was assassinated. McKinley was a popular president who had just won reelection with a strong majority of the popular vote and a nearly two-to-one margin in the electoral college. Roosevelt, who had a reputation for personal assertiveness, took every opportunity to emphasize his determination to continue McKinley’s cautious approach to national economic and political affairs. Only after Roosevelt had established himself as a steady backer of the former president’s plans did he address national problems that the country was, in fact, eager to confront.

Similarly, Truman, the ‘little man from Missouri,’ as some referred to him as vice president, took pains to continue the policies of the widely popular Franklin Roosevelt. Roosevelt had been the longest-serving president in American history, and his death in the closing months of World War II made him all the more compelling a public figure. Faced with the challenge of bringing the war to a successful conclusion, which he did through the widely supported decision to use atomic bombs against Japan, Truman quickly established himself as a reliable promoter of Roosevelt’s war policies.

Johnson faced as difficult a transition as Roosevelt and Truman. The Kennedy assassination demoralized a nation shocked at the senseless death of a young and popular president at the height of his powers as a leader. Johnson, by contrast, was little known to the country despite his many years as a congressman, senator, and vice president. Johnson moved with lightning speed to assure the country that he would follow all of Kennedy’s plans, telling a joint congressional session, ‘Let us continue.’ Pressuring Congress to approve tax cut legislation, a civil rights bill, and a war on poverty favored by Kennedy, Johnson used a martyred president’s prestige to become a national leader and to entrench Kennedy’s political legacy.

The vice presidency is no longer ‘the most insignificant office,’ as John Adams said it was. Although occupants of the position remain essentially presidents-in-waiting, in the last hundred years more vice presidents have used the office to run for and win the presidency than was the case in the first 112 years of the nation. Only 5 vice presidents ran for the presidency before 1900, but 11 have done so since. The pattern seems unlikely to change soon. In the 11 elections between 1960 and 2000, only two of them, 1980 and 1996, did not feature a former or incumbent vice president as a candidate. In 1968 the country had the unique situation of choosing between two men, Hubert Humphrey and Richard Nixon, who had both served as vice president. A far cry from the position’s meager stature early in American history, the vice presidency has truly arrived as the best stepping stone to the presidency.” (1)

Resources

Notes and References

Guide to Vice Presidency


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