The Vice President of the United States

The Vice President of the United States

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Prior to the adoption of the Twelfth Amendment in 1804, the candidate who ran second in a presidential race automatically become vice-president. Thomas Jefferson became John Adams' vice president in this way.

PAGE CONTENTS:

Why Would Anyone Actually Want to be VP?
What Does the Vice President Do?

Why Would Anyone Actually Want to be VP?

The simplest answer, of course, is that the vice president is "a heartbeat away" from the most powerful office on earth. In U.S. history, 43 men have been president. Nine of them have succeeded directly to the job from the vice presidency.

But here's another question: Who was the first VP to succeed his passed-on boss? Answer: Think "Tippecanoe and Tyler Too." Then think controversial thoughts.

Before there were Republicans in America, there were Whigs, who borrowed their name from a British party dedicated to reducing the power of the monarchy. It seemed to fit. Initially, the American Whig party was a mix-and-match bunch held together by their opposition to President Andrew Jackson (1829-37), whom they called "King Andrew I."

By the election of 1840, the Whigs were ready for presidential primetime--not least because the country had been in an economic depression since Martin Van Buren (Jackson's former VP) became president in 1837. To unseat Van Buren, the Whigs nominated William Henry Harrison for president and John Tyler for vice president.

Harrison was a former governor of the Indiana Territory who had gained fame fighting Native Americans, specifically those who lived near the junction of the Tippecanoe and Wabash rivers. Tyler was a Virginian, an ex-Jacksonian, and a supporter of Senator Henry Clay, the man who had served as the unofficial epicenter of the Whig party for some 25 years.

The Whigs presented "Old Tippecanoe" as the candidate of the common man and depicted Van Buren as an effeminate fop (campaign techniques they stole directly from the Jacksonians). None of it was true, but it worked anyway. Harrison won in an electoral landslide. Then, while delivering the longest inaugural address ever given, Harrison caught a cold. One month later, he died.

At first, no one was quite sure what to do. Article II of the Constitution doesn't clearly say whether the vice president should then assume the office of the presidency or simply its "powers and duties." Article II reads, "In case of the removal of the President from office, or of his death, resignation, or inability to discharge the powers and duties of the said office, the same shall devolve on the Vice President." Does "the same" refer to "office" or "powers and duties"?

Big Whig Henry Clay argued that Tyler should think of himself merely as an "acting president," and that a committee of Whigs (chaired by Clay) should make executive decisions. Given the Whigs' historical antipathy to a strong presidency, Clay's position was more principled than it sounds, and many agreed with it. Tyler should only "discharge the powers and duties" of the presidency, without succeeding to that office.

Tyler didn't buy it. He insisted that the Constitution authorized him to take over as president. So that's what he did, establishing a precedent that has been followed eight times--three times when presidents died, four times when they were assassinated, and once when a president resigned.

At first, Tyler and Clay tried to get along, but within months they were locked in a dispute over the reestablishment of a national bank (dissolved under Jackson). After Tyler vetoed a series of bank bills, five of his six cabinet members resigned. A few days later, party leaders kicked Tyler out of the Whigs. For the rest of his term, "His Accidency," as critics called him, was a president without a party.

--Steve Sampson

What Does the Vice President Do?

What does the Constitution say about the vice president's job? How have former vice presidents (and others) described it?

What the Constitution Says

"The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no Vote, unless they be equally divided." - Article I, Section 3
"After the Choice of the President, the Person having the greatest Number of Votes of the Electors shall be the Vice President." - Article II, Section 1
"In Case of the Removal of the President from Office, or of his Death, Resignation, or Inability to discharge the Powers and Duties of the said Office, the Same shall devolve on the Vice President." - Article II, Section 1

What Constitutional Amendments Say

"The Electors shall . . . name in their ballots the person voted for as President, and in distinct ballots the person voted for as Vice-President." - 12th Amendment, 1804

"In case of the removal of the President from office or of his death or resignation, the Vice President shall become President." - 25th Amendment, 1967

"Whenever the President transmits . . . his written declaration that he is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, and until he transmits . . . a written declaration to the contrary, such powers and duties shall be discharged by the Vice President as Acting President." - 25th Amendment, 1967

(This also applies if "the Vice President and a majority of . . . the principal officers of the executive departments" say the president is "unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office." If the president says it isn't so, "Congress shall decide the issue.")

What Vice Presidents (and Others) Say

"My country has in its wisdom contrived for me the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived."
- John Adams, vice president 1789-97

"I do not propose to be buried until I am really dead."
- Daniel Webster, U.S. senator 1827-41 and 1845-50, on not accepting a nomination for the vice presidency

"This is a helluva job. I can do only two things here. One of them is to sit up here on this rostrum and listen to you birds talk without the ability to reply. The other is to look at the newspapers every morning to see how the president's health is."
- Charles Gates Dawes, vice president 1925-29, to Senator Alben Barkley(vice president himself 1949-53)

"The vice presidency isn't worth a pitcher of warm spit."
- John Nance Garner, vice president 1933-41
(and witnesses vow that "spit" was the press's euphemism for another warm liquid)

"Look at all the vice presidents in history. Where are they? They were about as useful as a cow's fifth teat."
- Harry Truman, vice president 1945

--Michael Himick

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