Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - The Vice President of the United States

Episode Date: May 11, 2022

At the 1787 Constitutional Convention, the delegates worked hard to create a document that would govern their new country.  At the end of the convention, they had a session titled “Leftover Business.” It was here in the “leftover business” section of the constitutional convention where the Vice Presidency was born.  Some say it has been leftover business ever since. Learn more about the Vice President of the United States, its history, and the men and women who have held the job on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Learn about how you can invest in art at https://www.masterworks.io/ Subscribe to the podcast!  https://podfollow.com/everythingeverywhere/ -------------------------------- Executive Producer: Darcy Adams Associate Producers: Peter Bennett & Thor Thomsen   Become a supporter on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/everythingeverywhere Update your podcast app at newpodcastapps.com Discord Server: https://discord.gg/UkRUJFh Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/everythingeverywhere/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/everywheretrip Website: https://everything-everywhere.com/everything-everywhere-daily-podcast/ Everything Everywhere is an Airwave Media podcast." or "Everything Everywhere is part of the Airwave Media podcast network Please contact [e-mail] to advertise on Everything Everywhere. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

At the 1787 Constitutional Convention, the delegates worked hard to create a document that would govern their new country. At the end of the convention, they had a session titled Leftover Business. It was here in the Leftover Business section of the Constitutional Convention where the vice presidency was born. And some say it's been leftover business ever since. Learn more about the vice president of the United States. It's history and the men and women who have held the job on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. What if your perceptions about the past were wrong? ThruLine is a podcast that takes you back in time to uncover the parts of the story that may have gone unnoticed.

It effectively turned day and tonight. And how it shaped the world now. Time travel with us every week on the ThruLine podcast from NPR. When the delegates to the Constitutional Convention first arrived, pretty much no one was thinking about creating a position of vice president. The thing on everyone's mind was the role of president. There were many debates about what role the president should have and how they should be selected. Determining the duties and powers of the president was done first, and afterwards they tackled the problem of how to select the president. As I mentioned in the introduction, this was done in the last session dubbed leftover business.

The initial idea was simply to allow Congress to select the president. This would be more akin to how a prime minister is selected, but it would be a little different. The president wouldn't necessarily be a member of Congress, and it would be for a fixed term. However, the idea of Congress electing a president was scrapped because it was felt that there would be too much vote trading. Members of Congress would tie their votes for president to those who would promise them things in return. So they went to Plan B. Instead of having Congress select the president, they would just create a mirror of Congress to elect the president. This mere body would be the same size as Congress and have the same representation by the states, but the

individuals would not and could not be members of Congress. However, they soon saw another problem. They thought that every state would just vote for someone from their own state for president. So they figured if everyone was going to waste a vote for someone from their own state. They gave everyone a second vote, which had to be for someone from a different state. They assumed that the second vote would be the real vote to determine who would be the president. To guard against electors wasting their second vote, they created the office of vice president to make the vote meaningful. The person receiving the most votes would be the president,

and the runner-up would be the vice president. There was a great deal of thought put into the powers and duties of the president. For the vice president, however, not so much. In the end, the vice president was simply made the president of the Senate. This was the only official duty given to the vice president in the original constitution. Even then, as president of the Senate, they could only vote on a bill to break a tie. The first two vice presidents were chosen in this manner. John Adams was the runner-up to George Washington,

and he spent most of his time presiding over the Senate. This was fine as both Washington and Adams were members of the same Federalist Party. However, the next vice president was Thomas Jefferson. He ran against Adams, and they were very bitter rivals, with very different views on how the country should be run. Adams was now stuck with a vice president who was not a member of his party. Jefferson was a member of the Democratic Republican Party and didn't support many of Adams' policies.

This all came to a head in 1800, when each person, party selected a person for both president and vice president. The idea was that the electors would cast both of their votes for the candidates from their party. Unfortunately, it worked a bit too well. Both Thomas Jefferson and his running mate, Aaron Burr, received the same number of electoral votes. This made the election go to the House of Representatives, where Burr refused to step aside. So the presidential candidate was running against his own running mate. Eventually, Jefferson won, and Aaron Burr turned out to be one of the words. vice presidents in history. Not only did he kill Alexander Hamilton while still in office,

but he was actually brought up on treason charges after he was out of office. Everyone quickly realized that this system was dumb. The assumption that everyone would vote for someone from the same state was wrong. Both of the elections of 1796 and 1800 were results that didn't please anyone. So the 12th Amendment was passed, which changed the system for selecting the vice president. Now, instead of the runner-up becoming vice president, each elector would get one vote for president and a separate vote for vice president. This solved the immediate problem, but it didn't change the fact that the vice president really didn't do anything. The position was widely thought of as a joke.

However, there was, of course, one important duty that the vice president had. Article 2, Section 1, Clause 6 of the Constitution stipulates, quote, In case of removal of the president from office, or of his death, resignation, or inability, to discharge the powers and duties of said office, the same shall devolve on the vice president, end quote. Now, if you read it closely, it does not say that the vice president becomes president upon the president vacating the office. It says that the vice president shall receive the powers and duties of the office. This might sound like a minor distinction, but it became a big deal in 1841, when President William Henry Harrison died only 31 days after his inauguration. For the first time,

in American history, a sitting president had died in office, and for the first time a vice president had to step up. And that person was John Tyler. Harrison's cabinet met within an hour of his death and determined that Tyler would continue to hold the office of vice president and would serve the duties of the acting president. He would be, quote, the vice president acting as president. Tyler, on the other hand, assumed that he was now actually the president, and went and took the oath of office from a local district court judge. He then wrote the cabinet and said the following. Quote,

I beg your pardon, gentlemen. I am sure I am very glad to have in my cabinet such able statesmen as you have proven yourself to be, and I shall be pleased to avail myself of your counsel and advice, but I can never consent to being dictated as to what I shall or shall not do. I, as president, will be responsible for my administration. I hope to have your cooperation in carrying out its measures. So long as you see fit to do this, I shall be glad to have you with me. When you think otherwise, your resignations will be accepted."

End quote. He was eventually accepted as president, but many people still refer to him as his accidentcy. I should also note that Tyler also became treasonous, as after the Civil War broke out, he served in the Confederate Congress. The precedent of the vice president not only taking the duties of the president, but the office and title itself became important. On eight separate occasions, including Tyler, the vice president has ascended to the presidency on the death of the president.

The other times that occurred were Millard Fillmore, following the death of Zachary Taylor in 1850, Andrew Johnson following the assassination of Abraham Lincoln in 1865, Chester Arthur following the assassination of James Garfield in 1881, Theodore Roosevelt following the assassination of William McKinley in 1901, Calvin Coolidge following the death of Warren G. Harding in 1923, Harry Truman following the death of FDR in 1945, and Lyndon Johnson following the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963. In each of these cases, once the vice president ascended to the presidency, there was no vice president for the remainder of their term. The office was simply vacant. There have been

49 vice presidents as of the time of this recording, so the odds of becoming president via death or resignation is about 18%. Likewise, seven vice presidents have died in office. George Clinton, who served under James Madison, Elbridge Gary, who also served under James Madison, William Rufus King, who served under Franklin Pierce, Henry Wilson, who served under Ulysses S. Grant, Thomas Hendricks, who served under William McIntyreveld, and James Sherman, who served under William Howard Taft. Two vice presidents have resigned from office, John C. Calhoun and Spiro Agnew. The office of vice president has been vacant for over 37 years in total throughout U.S. history. After the death of President Kennedy, it was decided that the issue of presidential succession and vice presidential vacancy had to be addressed. This led to the passage of the 25th Amendment in 1967. The 25th Amendment explicitly states that the vice president becomes the president, clearing up the issue which existed since John Tyler.

It also provided a process for filling a vacancy in the vice presidency, as well as for temporary presidential incapacitation. The first real test of the 25th Amendment took place in the early 1970s. Seventh-President Spiro Agnew resigned in 1973 due to a financial scandal. With the office vacant, Richard Nixon nominated Representative Gerald Ford as vice president, which the Senate approved. He took the oath of office for vice president on December 6, 1973. However, just about nine months later, on August 9th, Nixon himself resigned the presidency, elevating Ford to the office of president.

He became the first and only person ever to hold the office of president without having been elected. He then appointed Nelson Rockefeller as vice president, so you now had two unelected officials holding the two highest offices in the country. The next test of the 25th Amendment occurred when Section 3 was exercised. Section 3 specifies that the president may temporarily transfer the powers of the presidency if they are to be incapacitated. This happened for the first time in 1985 when Ronald Reagan had to undergo colon cancer surgery. For eight hours on July 13, 1985, George H.W. Bush was the acting president. resident. Section 3 has been invoked on three other occasions. On June 29, 2002, and July 21, 2007, George W. Bush ceded power to Dick Cheney for under 90 minutes when undergoing a colonoscopy.

Most recently occurred on November 19, 2021, when Joe Biden seated power to Kamala Harris for under 90 minutes when he also underwent a colonoscopy. Section 4 involves the involuntary transfer of power, and so far it has never been invoked. This actually became a controversy in 1981 after the assassination attempt on President Reagan. Many members of Congress felt that Section 4 should have been invoked because the President was in surgery. However, it was never done. Likewise, a Section 3 transfer of power was prepared for Reagan to sign, but he never did. Presidential succession aside, the issue of the value of the Office of Vice President has remained since the position was created. Today, the Vice President will seldom show up to the Senate

chamber outside of special events and do break a tie vote. The number of tie votes, which are broken can vary greatly depending on who the vice president is. Both Dan Quail and Joe Biden never had to break a tie vote. Kamala Harris did it 17 times in a little over a year, and at this rate she will break the record of 31 tie-breaking votes set by John C. Calhoun. Today, the vice president is often sent as a high-ranking representative to state funerals, and they're usually given some assignments like overseeing the space program. But no fewer than seven times in the first 100 years of the country,

constitutional amendments were proposed that would completely eliminate the position of vice president. Vice presidents themselves felt the futility of the office. John Adams, the first vice president, wrote to his wife Abigail, and said, quote, My country has in its wisdom contrive for me the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man, or his imagination contrived, or his imagination conceived. And as I can do neither good nor evil, I must be borne away by others and met the common fate. End quote. Daniel Webster declined the offer to be vice president by saying,

I do not propose to be buried until I am really dead and in my coffin. Harry Truman said the vice presidency was, quote, as useful as a cow's fifth teat. But perhaps the job was best described by the 33rd vice president, John Nance Garner, who said that the vice presidency was, quote, not worth a bucket of warm spit. Everything Everywhere Daily is an airwave media podcast. The executive producer is Darcy Adams. The associate producers are Thor Thompson and Peter Bennett. I just wanted to remind everyone that if you want to give some feedback on an episode or give me a suggestion,

or just ask some questions, you can join me on my Discord server. I'm usually around on and off throughout the day, and you can find a link to join in the show notes. It's been getting more active over time. So stop over, say hi, and meet some other curious people.