Vice President Duties in the United States

Vice President of the United States History of the Vice Presidency A Job with Few Duties

Introduction to Vice President Duties

For more than a century, vice presidents had few responsibilities. Between the vice presidencies of John Adams (from 1789 to 1797) and Thomas Marshall (from 1913 to 1921), for example, no vice president attended a meeting of the president’s Cabinet. Marshall attended the meetings only when President Woodrow Wilson was in Europe for the Paris Peace Conference in 1918 and 1919. Under President Warren G. Harding, Vice President Calvin Coolidge attended Cabinet meetings, but this practice was discontinued after Coolidge replaced Harding, who died in office in 1923.

Until the vice presidency of Theodore Roosevelt, most of those who held the office remained marginal political figures. Before Roosevelt, none of the four vice presidents who replaced a sitting president went on to win election to a full term in his own right. Roosevelt was vice president to President William McKinley, who was struck down by an assassin in 1901. The quirky and brash Roosevelt proved enormously popular, and he easily won the presidential election in 1904. After Roosevelt, three other vice presidents who replaced sitting presidents-Calvin Coolidge, Harry Truman, and Lyndon Johnson-won subsequent elections to a full four-year term.” (1)

Resources

Notes and References

• Information about Vice President Duties in the Encarta Online Encyclopedia

Guide to Vice President Duties