Search This Blog

Saturday 16 February 2019

Vice President of the United States

Under the original terms of the U.S. Constitution, the President could not choose his vice president, instead it was the candidate with the second most votes.

John Adams was elected as the first Vice President under George Washington in 1789. He served two terms as Vice President before being elected President in 1796.

Portrait of Adams by John Trumbull, 1793

Aaron Burr was still Vice President of the United States when he shot Alexander Hamilton and continued to perform his duties despite being wanted for murder in New Jersey and New York.

The current holder of the title "worst vice president of the United States of America" according to the Time Magazine is held by Aaron Burr.

Senator Daniel Webster was offered the office of Vice President by both William Henry Harrison and Zachary Taylor, he did not accept either as he thought the position would lead nowhere, choosing instead to make three failed Presidential campaigns. Both Taylor and Harrison died in office.

When, Calvin Coolidge became Vice President in 1921, he was so obscure that Major League Baseball sent him free passes that misspelled his name,

Calvin Coolidge was the first Vice President to attend Cabinet meetings on a regular basis, at the invitation of President Warren G. Harding. Prior to Coolidge, all Vice Presidents had been excluded from Cabinet meetings.

Charles Curtis, who served as the Vice President of the United States from 1929 to 1933, was of Native American ancestry and was enrolled as a member of the Kaw-Nation. English was his third language after Kansa and French.

Charles Curtis
In 1984, Walter Mondale selected Geraldine Ferraro to be his running mate in the upcoming election. Ferraro was the first woman to be a vice-presidential nominee. In the general election, Mondale and Ferraro were defeated in a landslide by incumbent President Ronald Reagan and Vice President George H. W. Bush.

Only five sitting vice presidents—John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Martin Van Buren, and George H.W. Bush—have been elected president.

Richard Nixon is the only person to have served both as a vice president and then president but not back to back. He was first the 36th Vice President under President Dwight D. Eisenhower from 1953-1961. He ran for president in 1960, but lost to John F. Kennedy.  In 1968 he ran for the presidency again and was elected, defeating incumbent Vice President Hubert Humphrey.


Fourteen vice presidents have become president during their tenures (eight because the president died; one because the president resigned).

No comments:

Post a Comment