A brief history of the vice presidency

The 25th Amendment has only been spoken of for removing a president, when it had the dual purpose of adding a president or vice president. For most of America’s history, when the president died and the vice president took the slot, the vice presidency stayed vacant until the next election. Prior to the election of 1804, only the candidates for president were on the ballot. The winner was president. The 2nd place candidate was vice president. Candidates of opposing political parties were supposed to work together. They didn’t. That led to the 12th Amendment and what we have now, tickets of presidents and vice presidents of the same party running together.

The process of picking a vice president using the 25th Amendment would first be used by Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford.

Authored by Indiana Senator Birch Bayh, the 25th Amendment, ratified in 1967, formalized what to do if LBJ or another leader in his position met a JFK fate. If the vice presidency became vacant, a nominee would require majority approvals from the House and Senate. Before the 25th Amendment, a vacancy in the office was simply left unfilled.

• The 2nd vice president under James Madison, Eldridge Gerry, died in office. The position stayed vacant for two years as there was no process to replace him.

• 10th President William Henry Harrison would be the first president to die in office (from pneumonia), leading Vice President John Tyler to succeed Harrison after only one month in office. “What should be done?” Congress wondered. “Should Tyler be ‘acting president’? “Should a new election be held right away?” Tyler turned out not to be too bad so he stayed, completing the 3 years and 11 months left in Harrison’s term. His succession is the model that is followed to this day.

• Only nine years later, 12th President Zachery Taylor died 9 months into his term from a digestive aliment. The undistinguished Millard Fillmore took over.

• 16th President Abraham Lincoln was our first assassinated president. In his first term, Hannibal Hamlin of Maine was Vice President. To win a second term he dumped Hamlin and picked border state governor Andrew Johnson. Johnson would serve almost the entire 2nd term of Lincoln and had no vice president.

• 20th president James A. Garfield was assassinated. Garfield was the first and only president elected directly out of the House of Representatives. He was a proponent of advanced agriculture techniques, civil rights for African Americans, and an educated electorate. He was replaced by Chester A. Arthur, who had no vice president.

• William McKinley, the 25th president, was assassinated shortly after beginning his second term. Vice President Theodore Roosevelt succeeded McKinley and would serve one partial term (3 ½ years), followed by one full term.

• Warren Harding, 29th President of the United States died 2 years and 9 months into his term. It seems he died from a heart attack but that’s never been confirmed. Vice President Calvin Coolidge, took over from the scandal ridden Harding administration, cleaned up the corruption and gained a reputation for stability and respectability. Coolidge is the only president sworn in by his father. He would earn his own term in 1924.

• Franklin D. Roosevelt. The 32nd president not only was elected to the most terms (4) but had the most vice presidents (3). John Nance Garner, Henry A. Wallace, and Harry S. Truman. Truman would succeed FDR

• Harry Truman would serve essentially the entire Roosevelt 4th term without a vice president of his own. That changed when he was elected in 1948 with Alben Barkley.

• John F. Kennedy is assassinated November 22nd 1963. Lyndon B. Johnson takes the oath of office aboard Air Force One in Dallas with Mrs. Kennedy by his side. Johnson will not have a vice president until he’s elected in 1964 with Hubert H. Humphrey.

• President Richard M. Nixon will make the 1st use of the 25th Amendment by nominating Rep. Gerald R. Ford of Michigan to replace the resigned vice president Spiro T. Agnew. Nixon had a strategy. No one would want the “bumbling Ford” to replace him for Watergate. Fooled Nixon.

• President Gerald Ford nominates New York’s Nelson Rockefeller as his Vice President for Congressional confirmation. Ford and Rockefeller become the only unelected president and vice president in the nation’s history.

While the president is limited to two consecutive terms or 10 years in office, the vice president is not term limited. Al Gore could have served 8 years under Bill Clinton and 8 years under Barack Obama.

So, there is your thumbnail history of the American vice presidency.