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VICE PRESIDENTS OF THEUNITED STATES

1789–1993

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President Gerald R. Ford congratulating Vice President NelsonRockefeller after his swearing in on December 19, 1974

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VICE PRESIDENTS

OF THE UNITED STATES

1789–1993

Mark O. HatfieldUnited States Senator

Donald A. RitchieJo Anne McCormick Quatannens

Richard A. BakerWilliam T. Hull

U.S. Senate Historical Office

Edited byWendy Wolff

U.S. Senate Historical Office

U.S. Government Printing OfficeWashington

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104th Congress, 2d SessionS. Con. Res. 34

Senate Document 104–26U.S. Government Printing OfficeWashington: 1997

Supt. of Docs. No.: 052–071–01227–3

Much of the material in this volume is protected by copyright. Photographs have been used with the consent of their respec-tive owners. No republication of copyrighted material may be made without permission in writing from the copyright holder.

Cover illustration: Vice President Henry A. Wallace (center); Senator Harry S. Truman (right), who had recently won theDemocratic nomination for vice president; and Senate Majority Leader Alben W. Barkley (left) in August 1944.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Vice Presidents of the United States, 1789–1993 / Mark O. Hatfield . . .[et al.] ; edited by Wendy Wolff.

p. cm.Includes bibliographical references and index.1. Vice-Presidents—United States—Biography. I. Hatfield, Mark O.,

1922– . II. Wolff, Wendy.E176.49.V53 1997973’ .09’9[B]—DC21 96–51492

CIP

For sale by the U.S. Government Printing Office, Superintendent of Documents,Mail Stop; SSOP, Washington, DC 20402–9328

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To Gerald W. Frank

An exemplary citizen and leader in many civic causes.A longtime friend, chief of staff, and confidant.

MOH

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CONTENTS

Alphabetical List of Vice Presidents ..................................................................................................... ix

Introduction ........................................................................................................................................... xi

1 John Adams(George Washington, 1789-1797) .................................................................................... 1

2 Thomas Jefferson(John Adams, 1797-1801) .................................................................................................. 15

3 Aaron Burr(Thomas Jefferson, 1801-1805) ......................................................................................... 29

4 George Clinton (died in office, April 12, 1812)(Thomas Jefferson, 1805-1809; James Madison, 1809-1812) ....................................... 47

5 Elbridge Gerry (died in office November 23, 1814)(James Madison, 1813-1814) ............................................................................................ 61

6 Daniel D. Tompkins(James Monroe, 1817-1825) .............................................................................................. 71

7 John Caldwell Calhoun (resigned December 28, 1832)(John Quincy Adams, 1825-1829; Andrew Jackson, 1829-1832) ................................ 81

8 Martin Van Buren(Andrew Jackson, 1833-1837) .......................................................................................... 103

9 Richard Mentor Johnson(Martin Van Buren, 1837-1841) ....................................................................................... 119

10 John Tyler (succeeded to presidency, April 6, 1841)(William Henry Harrison, 1841) ..................................................................................... 135

11 George Mifflin Dallas(James K. Polk, 1845-1849) ............................................................................................... 149

12 Millard Fillmore (succeeded to presidency, July 10, 1850)(Zachary Taylor, 1849-1850) ............................................................................................ 165

13 William Rufus King (died April 18, 1853)(Franklin Pierce, 1853) ...................................................................................................... 179

14 John Cabell Breckinridge(James Buchanan, 1857-1861) .......................................................................................... 191

15 Hannibal Hamlin(Abraham Lincoln, 1861-1865) ........................................................................................ 201

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16 Andrew Johnson (succeeded to presidency, April 15, 1865)(Abraham Lincoln, 1865) .................................................................................................. 211

17 Schuyler Colfax(Ulysses S. Grant, 1869-1873) .......................................................................................... 221

18 Henry Wilson (died in office, November 22, 1875)(Ulysses S. Grant, 1873-1875) .......................................................................................... 231

19 William Almon Wheeler(Rutherford B. Hayes, 1877-1881) ................................................................................... 241

20 Chester Alan Arthur (succeeded to presidency, September 20, 1881)(James A. Garfield, 1881) ................................................................................................. 249

21 Thomas Andrews Hendricks (died in office, November 25, 1885)(Grover Cleveland, 1885) ................................................................................................. 259

22 Levi Parsons Morton(Benjamin Harrison, 1889-1893) ...................................................................................... 267

23 Adlai Ewing Stevenson(Grover Cleveland, 1893-1897) ........................................................................................ 277

24 Garret Augustus Hobart (died in office, November 21, 1899)(William McKinley, 1897-1899) ....................................................................................... 287

25 Theodore Roosevelt (succeeded to presidency, September 14, 1901)(William McKinley, 1901) ................................................................................................ 295

26 Charles Warren Fairbanks(Theodore Roosevelt, 1905-1909) .................................................................................... 311

27 James Schoolcraft Sherman (died in office, October 30, 1912)(William H. Taft, 1909-1912) ............................................................................................ 323

28 Thomas Riley Marshall(Woodrow Wilson, 1913-1921) ........................................................................................ 335

29 Calvin Coolidge (succeeded to presidency, August 3, 1923)(Warren G. Harding, 1921-1923) ..................................................................................... 345

30 Charles Gates Dawes(Calvin Coolidge, 1925-1929) ........................................................................................... 357

31 Charles Curtis(Herbert C. Hoover, 1929-1933) ...................................................................................... 371

32 John Nance Garner(Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1933-1941) ................................................................................. 383

33 Henry Agard Wallace(Frankin D. Roosevelt, 1941-1945) .................................................................................. 397

34 Harry S. Truman (succeeded to presidency, April 12, 1945)(Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1945) .......................................................................................... 409

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35 Alben W. Barkley(Harry S. Truman, 1949-1953) ......................................................................................... 421

36 Richard Milhous Nixon(Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1953-1961) ............................................................................... 431

37 Lyndon Baines Johnson (succeeded to presidency, November 22, 1963)(John F. Kennedy, 1961-1963) .......................................................................................... 451

38 Hubert Horatio Humphrey(Lyndon B. Johnson, 1965-1969) ..................................................................................... 463

39 Spiro Theodore Agnew (resigned October 10, 1973)(Richard M. Nixon, 1969-1973) ....................................................................................... 479

40 Gerald Rudolph Ford (succeeded to presidency, August 9, 1974)(Richard M. Nixon, 1973-1974) ....................................................................................... 491

41 Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller(Gerald R. Ford, 1974-1977) ............................................................................................. 503

42 Walter Frederick Mondale(James E. (Jimmy) Carter, 1977-1981) ............................................................................ 515

43 George H.W. Bush(Ronald Reagan, 1981-1989) ............................................................................................. 527

44 J. Danforth Quayle(George H.W. Bush, 1989-1993) ...................................................................................... 541

Appendix: Major Party Presidential and Vice-Presidential Candidates, 1788-1992 ......................... 555

Bibliography ........................................................................................................................................... 559

Credits for illustrations ......................................................................................................................... 571

Index ....................................................................................................................................................... 573

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VICE PRESIDENTS(Alphabetical)

Vice President Chapter Page

Adams, John 1 1Agnew, Spiro Theodore 39 479Arthur, Chester Alan 20 249Barkley, Alben W. 35 421Breckinridge, John Cabell 14 191Burr, Aaron 3 29Bush, George H. W. 43 527Calhoun, John Caldwell 7 81Clinton, George 4 47Colfax, Schuyler 17 221Coolidge, Calvin 29 345Curtis, Charles 31 371Dallas, George Mifflin 11 149Dawes, Charles Gates 30 357Fairbanks, Charles Warren 26 311Fillmore, Millard 12 165Ford, Gerald Rudolph 40 491Garner, John Nance 32 383Gerry, Elbridge 5 61Hamlin, Hannibal 15 201Hendricks, Thomas Andrews 21 259Hobart, Garret Augustus 24 287Humphrey, Hubert Horatio 38 463Jefferson, Thomas 2 15Johnson, Andrew 16 211Johnson, Lyndon Baines 37 451Johnson, Richard Mentor 9 119King, William Rufus 13 179Marshall, Thomas Riley 28 335Mondale, Walter Frederick 42 515Morton, Levi Parsons 22 267Nixon, Richard Milhous 36 431Quayle, J. Danforth 44 541Rockefeller, Nelson Aldrich 41 503Roosevelt, Theodore 25 295Sherman, James Schoolcraft 27 323Stevenson, Adlai Ewing 23 277Tompkins, Daniel D. 6 71Truman, Harry S. 34 409

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Vice President Chapter Page

Tyler, John 10 135Van Buren, Martin 8 103Wallace, Henry Agard 33 397Wheeler, William Almon 19 241Wilson, Henry 18 231

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INTRODUCTION

Holding the least understood, most ridiculed, and most often ignored con-stitutional office in the federal government, American vice presidents have in-cluded some remarkable individuals. Fourteen of the forty-four former vice presi-dents became president of the United States—more than half of them after apresident had died. One defeated the sitting president with whom he served. Onemurdered a man and became a fugitive. One joined the Confederate army andled an invasion of Washington, D.C. One was the wealthiest banker of his era.One received the Nobel Peace Prize and composed a popular melody. One servedas a corporal in the Coast Guard while vice president. One had cities in Oregonand Texas named after him. Two resigned the office. Two were never elected bythe people. One was the target of a failed assassination plot. One was mobbedin his car while on a goodwill mission. Seven died in office—one in his roomin the U.S. Capitol and two fatally stricken while on their way to preside overthe Senate. And one piano-playing vice president suffered political repercussionsfrom a photograph showing him playing that instrument while famous movie ac-tress Lauren Bacall posed seductively on top of it.

I have encountered these and many other stories over the past four yearsin the course of my inquiry into the history of the American vice-presidency. Asis apparent from such examples, the men who served as vice president of theUnited States varied greatly in their talents and aptitude for the post. What theygenerally had in common was political ambition and experience in public office.Most hoped the position would prove a stepping stone to the presidency, butsome—old and tired near the close of their careers—simply hoped that it wouldoffer a quiet refuge from political pressures and turmoil.

The stories of these diverse individuals attempt to sketch the developmentof the vice presidency itself—that colorful, important, and routinely disparagedAmerican political institution.

I. Constitutional Origins and Structural Changes

Electoral systemOur Constitution’s framers created the vice-presidency almost as an after-

thought. In setting up a system for electing presidents, they devised an electoralcollege and provided that each of its members was to vote for two persons, ‘‘ofwhom one at least shall not be an Inhabitant of the same State with themselves.’’In those days when loyalty to one’s state was stronger than to the new nation,the framers recognized that individual electors might be inclined to choose aleader from their own immediate political circle, creating the danger of a crip-pling deadlock, as no one candidate would win a plurality of all votes cast. Bybeing required to select one candidate from outside their own states, electorswould be compelled to look for individuals of national stature. Under the system

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the framers created, the candidate receiving the most electoral votes would bepresident. The one coming in second would be vice president.

In the election of 1800, however, the constitutional system for electing presi-dents broke down, as both Jefferson and Aaron Burr received the same numberof electoral votes. This impasse threw the contest into the House of Representa-tives, where for thirty-five separate ballots, neither candidate was able to gain amajority. When the stalemate was finally broken, the House elected Jeffersonpresident, thus making Aaron Burr our third vice president. Within four yearsof this deadlocked election, Congress had passed, and the necessary number ofstates had ratified, the Twelfth Amendment to the Constitution, instituting thepresent system wherein electors cast separate ballots for president and for vicepresident.

Presidential successionAlthough the office of vice president did not exist under the Continental

congresses or the Articles of Confederation, the concept of a concurrently electedsuccessor to the executive was not without precedent for the framers of the Con-stitution in 1787. Prior to the Revolution, lieutenant governors presided over thegovernors’ councils of the royal colonies—which, in their legislative capacities,functioned as upper houses. John Adams was certainly familiar with this arrange-ment, since the lieutenant governor presided over the upper house in his ownstate of Massachusetts. After the states declared their independence, they adoptednew constitutions, retaining, in some instances, earlier forms recast to meet cur-rent needs. As Alexander Hamilton noted in The Federalist No. 68, New York’s1777 constitution provided for ‘‘a Lieutenant Governor chosen by the people atlarge, who presides in the senate, and is the constitutional substitute for the Gov-ernor in casualties similar to those, which would authorise the vice-president toexercise the authorities and discharge the duties of the president.’’ The Constitu-tion established the office of vice president primarily to provide a successor inthe event of the president’s death, disability, or resignation.

The document, however, was vague about the way the presidential succes-sion would work, stating only that, in cases of presidential death or disability,the ‘‘Powers and Duties of the said Office . . . shall devolve on the Vice Presi-dent’’ (Article II, section 1). What did ‘‘devolve’’ mean? Would the vice presidentbecome acting president until another was chosen, or would he become presidentin his own right? A half-century would pass before the nation would have to ad-dress that murky constitutional language. Although the Constitution’s framerskept their intentions about presidential succession shrouded in ambiguity, theyleft no doubt about vice-presidential succession. There was to be none. ‘‘[I]n theabsence of the Vice President, or when he shall exercise the Office of the Presi-dent of the United States’’ the Senate would simply choose a president protempore.

The framers’ failure to provide a method for filling a vice-presidential va-cancy continued to plague the nation. In 1792 Congress made a first stab at ad-dressing the problem by adopting the Presidential Succession Act, providing that,if a president should die when there was no vice president, the Senate presidentpro tempore and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, in that order,would succeed to the office. In 1886, responding to a concern that few presidents

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pro tempore had executive branch experience, Congress altered the line of succes-sion to substitute for the congressional officials cabinet officers in order of rank,starting with the secretary of state. In 1947, after the vice-presidency had beenvacant for most of a presidential term, Congress again changed the line of succes-sion. Concerned that cabinet officers had not been elected, it named the HouseSpeaker as the first official to succeed if a president died during a vacancy inthe vice-presidency, followed by the president pro tempore.

Finally, after the death of President John F. Kennedy in 1963 and the result-ing vice-presidential vacancy, Congress debated what became the second con-stitutional amendment related to the structure of the vice-presidency. In 1967, theTwenty-fifth Amendment, addressing presidential vacancy and disability, becamepart of our Constitution. The absence of any provision for filling a vice-presi-dential vacancy had become intolerable in the nuclear age. Added impetus forthe change came from a growing public concern at the time about the advancedages of President pro tempore Carl Hayden, who was eighty, and House SpeakerJohn W. McCormack, who was seventy-six. The amendment states that the presi-dent may appoint a vice president to fill a vacancy in that office, subject to ap-proval by both houses of Congress. Before a decade had passed, the provisionwas used twice, first in 1973 when President Nixon appointed Gerald R. Ford toreplace Spiro Agnew, who had resigned, and again in 1974, with the appointmentof Nelson Rockefeller after Nixon himself resigned and Ford became president.The amendment also sets forth very specifically the steps that would permit thevice president to serve as acting president if a president becomes ‘‘unable to dis-charge the powers and duties of his office.’’ Each of these changes further re-flected the increased importance of the office.

Vice-presidential dutiesThe framers also devoted scant attention to the vice president’s duties, pro-

viding only that he ‘‘shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no Vote, un-less they be evenly divided’’ (Article I, section 3). In practice, the number of timesvice presidents have exercised this right has varied greatly. More than half thetotal number of 233 tie-breaking votes occurred before 1850, with John Adamsholding the record at 29 votes, followed closely by John C. Calhoun with 28.Since the 1870s, no vice president has cast as many as 10 tie-breaking votes.While vice presidents have used their votes chiefly on legislative issues, theyhave also broken ties on the election of Senate officers, as well as on the appoint-ment of committees in 1881 when the parties were evenly represented in theSenate.

The vice president’s other constitutionally mandated duty was to receivefrom the states the tally of electoral ballots cast for president and vice presidentand to open the certificates ‘‘in the Presence of the Senate and House of Rep-resentatives,’’ so that the total votes could be counted (Article II, section 1). Onlya few happy vice presidents—John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Martin Van Buren,and George Bush—had the pleasure of announcing their own election as presi-dent. Many more were chagrined to announce the choice of some rival for theoffice.

Several framers ultimately refused to sign the Constitution, in part becausethey viewed the vice president’s legislative role as a violation of the separation

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of powers doctrine. Elbridge Gerry, who would later serve as vice president, de-clared that the framers ‘‘might as well put the President himself as head of thelegislature.’’ Others thought the office unnecessary but agreed with Connecticutdelegate Roger Sherman that ‘‘if the vice-President were not to be President ofthe Senate, he would be without employment, and some member [of the Senate,acting as presiding officer] must be deprived of his vote.’’

Under the original code of Senate rules, the presiding officer exercised greatpower over the conduct of the body’s proceedings. Rule XVI provided that‘‘every question of order shall be decided by the President [of the Senate], with-out debate; but if there be a doubt in his mind, he may call for a sense of theSenate.’’ Thus, contrary to later practice, the presiding officer was the sole judgeof proper procedure and his rulings could not be turned aside by the full Senatewithout his assent.

The first two vice presidents, Adams and Jefferson, did much to shape thenature of the office, setting precedents that were followed by others. During mostof the nineteenth century, the degree of influence and the role played within theSenate depended chiefly on the personality and inclinations of the individual in-volved. Some had great parliamentary skill and presided well, while others foundthe task boring, were incapable of maintaining order, or chose to spend most oftheir time away from Washington, leaving the duty to a president pro tempore.Some made an effort to preside fairly, while others used their position to promotethe political agenda of the administration.

During the twentieth century, the role of the vice president has evolved intomore of an executive branch position. Now, the vice president is usually seen asan integral part of a president’s administration and presides over the Senate onlyon ceremonial occasions or when a tie-breaking vote may be needed. Yet, eventhough the nature of the job has changed, it is still greatly affected by the person-ality and skills of the individual incumbent.

II. The Individuals

Political ExperienceMost of our former vice presidents have brought to that office significant

public service experience. Thirty-one of the forty-four served in Congress, and fif-teen had been state or territorial governors. Five—Schuyler Colfax, Charles Cur-tis, John Garner, Alben Barkley, and Lyndon Johnson—gave up powerful con-gressional leadership posts to run for that much-derided office. Another, HouseMinority Leader Gerald Ford, observed that he had been trying for twenty-fiveyears to become Speaker of the House. ‘‘Suddenly, I am a candidate for the Presi-dent of the Senate, where I can hardly ever vote, and where I will never get achance to speak.’’

Nineteen former vice presidents came to their role as president of the Senatealready familiar with the body, having served as U.S. senators. Several vice presi-dents later returned to serve again in the Senate, among them former PresidentAndrew Johnson. Nine vice presidents won renomination and election to a sec-ond term. Two of these, George Clinton and John C. Calhoun, held the officeunder two different presidents.

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Of the fourteen vice presidents who fulfilled their ambition by achieving thepresidency, eight succeeded to the office on the death of a president. Three ofthese and six other former vice presidents were later elected president. Fourformer vice presidents ran unsuccessfully for president. Two unlucky vice presi-dents, Hannibal Hamlin and Henry Wallace, were dropped from the ticket aftertheir first term, only to see their successors become president months after takingoffice, when the assassination of Abraham Lincoln made Andrew Johnson presi-dent and the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt raised Harry Truman to the presi-dency. Similarly, when Spiro Agnew resigned, he was replaced under the Twen-ty-fifth Amendment by Gerald R. Ford, who became president when Richard M.Nixon resigned less than a year later.

The vice-presidency was generally held by men of mature years—thirty-twoof them were in their fifties or sixties when they took office—but ten were intheir forties, and the youngest, John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky, was thirty-sixat the beginning of his term. At seventy-two, Alben Barkley, another Kentuckian,was the oldest when his term began.

The earliest vice presidents: Adams and JeffersonThe nation’s first vice presidents were men of extraordinary ability. Both

John Adams and Thomas Jefferson gained the office as runners-up in presidentialcontests, with the support of those who believed they were amply qualified tohold the top office. Each recognized, in assuming this new and as yet loosely de-fined position, that his actions would set precedents for future vice presidents.But one precedent established by Adams and Jefferson would not be repeated forover three decades; although both men won election as president immediatelyfollowing their terms as vice president, no sitting vice president would repeat thispattern until 1836, when Martin Van Buren succeeded Andrew Jackson. (The gapthereafter was even longer. More than 150 years elapsed before George Bush wonthe presidency in 1988 at the conclusion of his eight years as Ronald Reagan’svice president.)

During his two vice-presidential terms, Adams maintained a cordial, but dis-tant, relationship with the president, who sought his advice only occasionally. Inthe Senate, Adams played a more active role, particularly during his first term.On at least one occasion, he persuaded senators to vote against legislation he op-posed, and he frequently lectured the body on procedural and policy matters. Hesupported Washington’s policies by casting the twenty-nine tie-breaking votesthat no successor has equalled.

Thomas Jefferson, learning in 1797 that he had been elected vice president,and always happy to return to his beloved Monticello, expressed his pleasure. ‘‘Amore tranquil and unoffending station could not have been found for me. It willgive me philosophical evenings in the winter [while at the Senate] and rural daysin the summer [at Monticello].’’ Unlike Adams, who shared the political beliefsof the president with whom he served, Jefferson and his president belonged todifferent political parties. Although two later vice presidents, George Clinton andJohn C. Calhoun, joined with anti-administration forces in their efforts to preventthe reelection of the presidents with whom they served, Jefferson’s situationwould prove to be unique in all the nation’s history. No one expected Jeffersonto be President Adams’ principal assistant. Instead he devoted his four-year term

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to preparing himself for the next presidential election and to drafting a guidebookon legislative procedure. Jefferson hoped that his Manual of Parliamentary Practicewould allow him and his successors to preside over the Senate with fairness, in-telligence, and consistency. That classic guide has retained its usefulness to boththe Senate and the House of Representatives through the intervening twocenturies.

Nineteenth-century vice presidentsAdoption of the Twelfth Amendment, together with the strategy employed

by the Republicans in their successful effort to capture the presidency in 1800—and to retain it for the next quarter century—proved to have a serious impacton the overall quality of individuals drawn to the vice-presidency.

Aaron Burr, whose refusal to defer to Jefferson had precipitated the electoralcrisis of 1800, became one of the most maligned and mistrusted figures of his eraand, without question, the most controversial vice president of the early republic.He was also a man of extraordinary ability, and a key player in New York poli-tics—a consideration of overriding importance for Republicans, given the fact thatNew York’s electoral votes accounted for over 15 percent of the total needed toachieve an electoral majority. Burr was the first of a series of vice presidents whohailed from the northern states, chosen more for their ability to bring geographi-cal balance to presidential tickets headed by Virginia Republicans than for theircapacity to serve as president. During the quarter century that the ‘‘Virginia dy-nasty’’ presidents (Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe) held sway, thevice-presidency was the province of men widely regarded as party hacks or menin the twilight of illustrious careers. Much of the scholarship on the vice-presi-dency makes but passing mention of these individuals, or focuses on their obvi-ous shortcomings. But these vice presidents (Burr, George Clinton, ElbridgeGerry, and Daniel D. Tompkins)—all of them New Yorkers, with the single ex-ception of Elbridge Gerry, a Massachusetts man—helped cement the ‘‘Virginia-New York’’ alliance that enabled the Republicans to control the presidency forsix consecutive terms. Their ties to local and state party organizations, which theymaintained during their vice-presidential terms, helped ensure the continued alle-giance of northern Republicans. For the most part, these vice presidents presidedover the Senate with an easy or indifferent hand, while a series of presidents protempore attended to administrative matters at the beginning and end of each leg-islative session.

John C. Calhoun’s vice-presidency stands in vivid contrast to the experienceof his immediate predecessors. He accepted the second office, under John QuincyAdams, after his 1824 presidential bid failed, offering himself as Andrew Jack-son’s running mate four years later in hopes of eventually succeeding Jackson.A man of formidable intellect and energy, Calhoun approached his legislative du-ties with a gravity, dedication, and concern for maintaining order not seen sincethe time of Adams and Jefferson. A scrupulous guardian of the Senate’s writtenrules, he disdained its unwritten customs and practices. After a quarter centuryof ineffective or incapacitated vice presidents, the Senate chafed under Calhoun’stutelage and began a lengthy examination of the role of its presiding officer. Cal-houn’s endorsement of nullification effectively killed his chances of becoming

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president. In 1836, his successor and rival, Martin Van Buren, became the firstvice president since Jefferson to win the presidency.

Richard Mentor Johnson, Martin Van Buren’s vice president, came to the of-fice along a unique path not yet followed by any subsequent vice president. TheTwelfth Amendment provides that if no vice-presidential candidate receives amajority, the Senate shall decide between the two highest vote getters. A con-troversial figure who had openly acknowledged his slave mistress and mulattodaughters and devoted himself more to the customers of his tavern than to hisSenate duties, Johnson received one electoral vote less than the majority neededto elect. The Senate therefore met on February 8, 1837, and elected Johnson bya vote of 33 to 16 over the runner-up.

Johnson’s successor, John Tyler, wrote an important chapter in Americanpresidential and vice-presidential history in 1841 when William Henry Harrisonbecame the first president to die in office. Interpreting the Constitution in a waythat might have surprised its framers, Vice President Tyler refused to considerhimself as acting president. What ‘‘devolved’’ on him at Harrison’s death werenot the ‘‘powers and duties’’ of the presidential office, he contended, but the of-fice itself. Tyler boldly claimed the presidency, its full $25,000 salary (vice presi-dents were paid 20 percent of that amount—$5,000), and all its prerogatives. Con-gressional leaders and members of Harrison’s cabinet who were inclined to chal-lenge Tyler eventually set aside their concerns in the face of the accomplishedfact. Nine years later, when Vice President Millard Fillmore succeeded to thepresidency after Zachary Taylor’s death, no serious question was raised about thepropriety of such a move.

During the nineteenth century, the vice-presidency remained essentially alegislative position. Those who held it rarely attended cabinet meetings or other-wise involved themselves in executive branch business. Their usefulness to thepresident generally ended with the election. While those who had served in Con-gress might offer helpful political information and connections to a presidentialcandidate, or might attract electoral votes in marginal states, their status andvalue evaporated after inauguration day. In fact, as political circumstances alteredduring their first term, some presidents began considering a new running matefor the reelection campaign. Abraham Lincoln, for example, had no need of VicePresident Hannibal Hamlin of Maine for a second term, since his state was cer-tain to vote to reelect Lincoln in 1864. Success being less assured in the borderstate of Tennessee, party leaders chose Senator Andrew Johnson to replace Ham-lin in the second position.

Relegated to presiding over the Senate, a few nineteenth-century vice presi-dents took that task seriously. Men such as George Dallas, Levi Morton, and Gar-ret Hobart studied the Senate’s rules and precedents and presided most effec-tively. Others, such as Henry Wilson—Grant’s second vice president—spent theirtime as they pleased. As vice president, Wilson wrote a three-volume history ofslavery before dying in his Capitol office.

The vice-presidency in the nineteenth century seldom led to the WhiteHouse, because vice presidents of the era were rarely men of presidential stature.Of the twenty-one individuals who held that office from 1805 to 1899, only Mar-tin Van Buren managed to be elected president. Four others achieved the presi-

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dency only because the incumbent died, and none of those four accidental presi-dents subsequently won election in his own right.

Twentieth-century vice presidentsThe twentieth century opened without a vice president. Vice President Gar-

ret Augustus Hobart had died in November 1899, leaving the office vacant, asit had been on ten previous occasions for periods ranging from a few months tonearly four years. The nation had gotten along just fine. No one much noticed.

People noticed the next vice president. Cowboy, scholar, naturalist, impetu-ous enthusiast for numerous ideas and causes, Theodore Roosevelt owed hisnomination to the desire of New York state political bosses to get him out of thestate’s politics. The former Rough Rider held presidential ambitions and worriedthat the job could be ‘‘a steppingstone to . . . oblivion.’’ He also felt that he lackedthe financial resources needed to entertain on the grand scale expected of his im-mediate predecessors. Roosevelt argued in vain that the party should find some-one else, but Republican leaders wanted him, believing he would bring a newkind of glamour and excitement to President McKinley’s candidacy. When hismagnetic presence at the national convention fired the enthusiasm of his par-tisans, the nomination was his. Roosevelt then defied conventional practice bywaging an active national campaign for the ticket, publicizing the Republicancause in a way that President McKinley could not. Had not an assassin’s bulletin September 1901 propelled Roosevelt to the White House, his impact on thevice-presidency during a four-year term would most likely have been profound.In 1904, Theodore Roosevelt became the first vice president who succeeded to thepresidency to be elected president in his own right.

For the next forty years, the role of the office grew slowly but perceptibly.Party leaders rather than presidential candidates continued to make vice-presi-dential selections to balance the ticket, often choosing someone from a differentparty faction who was not personally close to the presidential nominee. In fact,Presidents Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and Herbert Hoover pro-tested the individuals selected to be their running mates. The feeling was oftenmutual. When Charles Curtis gave the customary vice-presidential inaugural ad-dress in the Senate chamber, he omitted any reference to his running mate, Presi-dent Hoover. A few minutes later, Hoover returned the favor by neglecting tomention Curtis in his official remarks on the Capitol’s east portico.

The principal twentieth-century growth in the vice president’s role occurredwhen the national government assumed a greater presence in American life, be-ginning with the New Deal era and extending through the cold war years. Thatera brought to the vice-presidency such major political leaders as House SpeakerJohn ‘‘Cactus Jack’’ Garner and Senate Majority Leaders Alben Barkley and Lyn-don Johnson. This distinguished cast of elected vice presidents also included Sen-ators Harry Truman, Richard Nixon, Hubert Humphrey, Walter Mondale, and AlGore (who is serving as vice president at this writing and is therefore not in-cluded in this book). The group also includes George Bush, whose previous expe-rience ranged from the House of Representatives to the Central Intelligence Agen-cy. With the exception of Garner and possibly Truman, these men were selectednot by party wheelhorses but by the presidential candidates themselves. Com-petence and compatibility became the most sought-after qualities in a running

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mate. These characteristics were especially evident in the Truman-Barkley andClinton-Gore tickets, both of which set aside the traditional selection consider-ations of geographical and ideological balance.

During the twentieth century, the focus of the vice-presidency has shifteddramatically from being mainly a legislative position to a predominately execu-tive post. As modern-era presidents began playing an increasing role as legisla-tive agenda setters, their vice presidents regularly attended cabinet meetings andreceived executive assignments. Vice presidents represented their presidents’ ad-ministrations on Capitol Hill, served on the National Security Council, chairedspecial commissions, acted as high level representatives of the government to for-eign heads of state, and assumed countless other chores—great and trivial—at thepresident’s direction. Beginning with Richard Nixon, they have occupied spaciousquarters in the Executive Office Building and assembled staffs of specialists to ex-tend their reach and influence. From fewer than 20 staff members at the end ofNixon’s vice-presidency, the number increased to 60 during the 1970s, with theaddition of not only political and support staff but advisers on domestic policyand national security. Walter Mondale expanded the vice president’s role as pres-idential adviser, establishing the tradition of weekly lunches with the president,and subsequent vice presidents have continued to be active participants in theiradministrations.

Expansion of the office did not come without a cost, however. In assumingsubstantive policy responsibilities, vice presidents often ran afoul of cabinet sec-retaries whose territories they invaded. As administration lobbyists, they also irri-tated members of Congress. My favorite example of this problem occurred in1969. President Nixon had pledged to give his vice president a significant policy-making role and—for the first time—an office in the White House itself. SpiroAgnew was determined to make the most of that role and to expand his legisla-tive functions as well. Since he lacked previous legislative experience, he had theSenate parliamentarian tutor him on the intricacies of Senate floor procedure.Soon he began to inject himself into the course of Senate proceedings, contraryto the well-worn practice that constrained his predecessors. During the debateover the Anti-Ballistic-Missile Treaty, Agnew approached Idaho Republican Sen-ator Len Jordan and asked how he was going to vote. ‘‘You can’t tell me howto vote!’’ said the shocked senator. ‘‘You can’t twist my arm!’’ At the next regularluncheon of Republican senators, Jordan accused Agnew of breaking the separa-tion of powers by lobbying on the Senate floor, and announced the ‘‘JordanRule.’’ Under his rule, if the vice president tried to lobby him on anything, thesenator would automatically vote the other way. Agnew concluded from this ex-perience, ‘‘after trying for a while to get along with the Senate, I decided I wouldgo down to the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue and try playing the executivegame.’’

In 1886 the Senate initiated the practice of honoring former vice presidentsby acquiring marble busts of those who had held the office, with the expensespaid from the contingent fund of the Senate. The previous year, in 1885, the Sen-ate had placed in the Vice President’s Room a bust of Henry Wilson, who haddied in that room a decade earlier. Under the 1886 resolution, busts of formervice presidents, beginning with those of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, wereplaced in the niches around the gallery level of the Senate chamber. Once those

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twenty spaces were filled, the Senate adopted an amended resolution in 1898 toplace future vice-presidential busts elsewhere in the Senate wing of the Capitol.The practice continues today.

III. Goals and Execution of the ProjectDuring the commemoration of the bicentennials of the U.S. Constitution and

the U.S. Congress in the late 1980s, I realized that the vice-presidency and thosewho have held the office were largely neglected in the various two-hundred-yearcelebrations. Clearly, there was a need to look more closely at both the institutionand the individuals. Although the debate over the Twenty-fifth Amendment inthe 1960s had inspired a number of books on the history and operations of thevice-presidency, most of those works were narrowly drawn, serving only to makea case for or against the amendment. The ones that took a biographical approachfocused on just the most ‘‘significant’’ vice presidents.

Yet, obscure as many of those who have held this office may be today, mostwere active in public service at both the state and federal levels, often reachingthe vice-presidency after long and valuable careers in both Congress and the ex-ecutive branch. Studying the lives of even the men of less than presidential stat-ure and the reasons they were selected for the post—as well as the reasons theyfailed to reach the White House—provides useful insights into the history of ournation’s political process. Examining the successive stories of the former vicepresidents in chronological order illuminates the way in which their strengthsand personalities helped to shape the evolution of this office that was so vaguelydefined by the framers. The changes in the vice-presidency, in turn, shed lighton the nation’s political development; for example, the growing importance of theoffice in the decades since World War II mirrors the expansion of the role of thefederal government during that period.

Having conceived the idea for this project, I met in the summer of 1991 withthe director of the Senate Historical Office. We discussed a plan that would focuson the role of all our former vice presidents within the institutional context ofthe United States Senate. We agreed that the resulting book should include foreach vice president: brief biographical background, the circumstances surround-ing his selection, a summary of the major issues confronting the nation duringhis service, the nature of his relations with the president, his broader national andinternational role, and his contributions to the office and the nation. Such a studyhad never before been undertaken. In the course of our work, we conducted amajor search for source materials and consulted all significant book- and article-length biographies of these forty-four men, as well as appropriate Senate records.

AcknowledgementsWhen I proposed this book to Dr. Richard A. Baker, the Senate historian, he

expressed great interest, sharing my view that this topic had received too littleattention. The staff of the Senate Historical Office prepared the forty-four chaptersdiscussing each of the former vice presidents, under the direction of Secretary ofthe Senate Kelly D. Johnston and his predecessors, Walter J. Stewart, MarthaPope, and Sheila Burke. I carefully reviewed and critiqued each of these chaptersin draft and have reviewed them again in proofs. I believe that, collectively, these

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essays make the case that the institution of the vice-presidency and those whohave held the office have made a substantial contribution to our nation.

I would particularly like to thank Dr. Baker for his crucial role in shapingthe concept and content of this book. He and his colleagues, Dr. Donald A. Ritch-ie and Dr. Jo Anne McCormick Quatannens, wrote the bulk of the chapters,drawing upon their deep understanding of the nation’s political history, as wellas the extensive professional expertise that each has in a particular period of theSenate’s history. Others who participated by writing one or more chapters wereMark Clifford, Richard Hill, Jonathan Marcus, and the late William T. Hull. Mr.Hull, a gifted historian whose promising career was tragically cut short by cancerin the fall of 1995, contributed the chapters on Theodore Roosevelt, Charles Fair-banks, and Richard Nixon, as well as offering insights into his particular interest,the Republican party in the period between the New Deal and the Eisenhoweradministration.

Others in the Senate Historical Office who contributed to this project wereWendy Wolff, who prepared the appendix and index and edited the text for pub-lication, and Matthew T. Cook, who researched and assisted me in selecting theillustrations.

As one who has greatly enjoyed and profited from the study of Americanpresidential history, I relish this project and trust that it will add new color tothe rich mosaic of our nation’s political development. Statesmen and murderers;scholars and scoundrels; piano players and composers; military heroes and invad-ing generals—what a fascinating lot!

MARK O. HATFIELD

[ 1 ]

Chapter 1

JOHN ADAMS1789–1797

JOHN ADAMS

[ 3 ]

Chapter 1

JOHN ADAMS1st Vice President: 1789–1797

It is not for me to interrupt your deliberations by any general observations on the state of the nation,or by recommending, or proposing any particular measures.

—JOHN ADAMS

On April 21, 1789, John Adams, the first vicepresident of the United States, began his dutiesas president of the Senate.

Adams’ role in the administration of GeorgeWashington was sharply constrained by the con-stitutional limits on the vice-presidency and hisown reluctance to encroach upon executive pre-rogative. He enjoyed a cordial but distant rela-tionship with President Washington, who soughthis advice on occasion but relied primarily on thecabinet. Adams played a more active role in theSenate, however, particularly during his firstterm.

As president of the Senate, Adams cast twenty-nine tie-breaking votes—a record that no succes-sor has ever threatened.1 His votes protected thepresident’s sole authority over the removal of ap-pointees, influenced the location of the nationalcapital, and prevented war with Great Britain.On at least one occasion he persuaded senatorsto vote against legislation that he opposed, andhe frequently lectured the Senate on proceduraland policy matters. Adams’ political views andhis active role in the Senate made him a naturaltarget for critics of the Washington administra-tion. Toward the end of his first term, he beganto exercise more restraint in the hope of realizingthe goal shared by many of his successors: elec-tion in his own right as president of the UnitedStates.

A Family Tradition of Public Service

John Adams was born in Braintree, Massachu-setts, on October 19, 1735, into a family with anestablished tradition of public service. As a child,he attended town meetings with his father, whowas at various times a militia officer, a deaconand tithe collector of the local congregation, andselectman for the town of Braintree. Determinedthat his namesake attend Harvard College, theelder Adams sent young John to a local ‘‘dame’’school and later to Joseph Cleverly’s Latinschool. Adams was an indifferent student untilthe age of fourteen, when he withdrew from theLatin school to prepare for college with a privatetutor, ‘‘Mr. Marsh.’’ 2 Adams entered HarvardCollege in 1751, and plunged into a rigorouscourse of study. After his graduation in 1755, heaccepted a position as Latin master of theWorcester, Massachusetts, Grammar School. Thefollowing year, finding himself ‘‘irresistibly im-pelled’’ toward a legal career, Adams appren-ticed himself to James Putnam, a local attorney.He continued to teach school while reading lawat night until his admission to the Boston Supe-rior Court bar on November 6, 1758.3

His legal studies completed, Adams returnedto Braintree to establish his legal practice, whichgrew slowly. In the spring of 1761, on the deathof his father, Adams inherited the family farm—a bequest that enabled him, as a ‘‘freeholder’’

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JOHN ADAMS

with a tangible interest in the community, to takean active part in town meetings. He served onseveral local committees and led a crusade to re-quire professional certification of practitionersbefore the local courts. In February 1761, on oneof his regular trips to Boston to attend the Courtof Common Pleas, Adams observed James Otis’arguments against the writs of assistance beforethe Massachusetts Supreme Court. Adams re-called in later years that Otis’ impassioned ora-tory against these general search and seizurewarrants convinced Adams that England and thecolonies had been ‘‘brought to a Collision,’’ andleft him ‘‘ready to take arms’’ against the writs.However, Adams’ political career remained lim-ited to local concerns for several more years until1765, when he played a crucial role in formulat-ing Massachusetts’ response to the Stamp Act.4

A Lawyer and a Legislator

As a member of the town meeting, Adamsdrafted instructions for the Braintree delegate tothe Massachusetts provincial assembly, knownas the General Court, which met in October 1765to formulate the colony’s response to the StampAct. Adams’ rationale, that the colonies could notbe taxed by a parliament in which they were notrepresented, and that the stamp tax was ‘‘incon-sistent with the spirit of the common law and ofthe essential fundamental principles of the Brit-ish constitution,’’ soon appeared in the Massachu-setts Gazette and Boston News Letter. His cousin,Samuel Adams, incorporated John’s argument inthe instructions that he drafted for the Bostondelegates, and other towns adopted the samestance.5

With the repeal of the Stamp Act, Adams fo-cused his energies on building his law practiceand attending to the demands of the growingfamily that followed from his marriage to Abi-gail Smith in 1764. Finding few opportunities fora struggling young attorney in Braintree, theyoung family moved in 1768 to Boston, whereJohn’s practice flourished. Adams soon foundhimself an active participant in the local resist-ance to British authority as a consequence of hisdefense of John Hancock before the vice admi-ralty court for customs duty violations. He ar-gued in Hancock’s defense that the Parliament

could not tax the colonies without their expressconsent and added the charge, soon to becomea part of the revolutionary rhetoric, that the vice-admiralty courts violated the colonists’ rights asEnglishmen to trial by jury. Although the crowneventually withdrew the charges against Han-cock, Adams continued his assault on the vice-admiralty courts in the instructions he wrote forthe Boston general court representatives in 1768and 1769.6

Adams subsequently agreed to defend the Brit-ish soldiers who fired upon the Boston mob dur-ing the spring of 1770. His able and dispassionateargument on behalf of the defendants in the Bos-ton massacre case won his clients’ acquittal, aswell as his election to a brief term in the Massa-chusetts assembly, where he was one of Gov-ernor Thomas Hutchinson’s most vocal oppo-nents. The enmity was mutual; when the generalcourt elected Adams to the Massachusetts coun-cil, or upper house, in 1773, the governor deniedAdams his seat. The general court reelectedAdams the following year, but Hutchinson’s suc-cessor, Thomas Gage, again prevented him fromserving on the council. The general court subse-quently elected Adams to the first and secondContinental congresses. Although initially reluc-tant to press for immediate armed resistance,Adams consistently denied Parliament’s right toregulate the internal affairs of the colonies, a po-sition he elaborated in a series of thirteen news-paper essays published under the name‘‘Novanglus’’ during the winter and spring of1775. Like Adams’ other political writings, theNovanglus essays set forth his tenets in ramblingand disjointed fashion, but their primary focus—the fundamental rights of the colonists—wasclear.7

An Architect of Independence

An avowed supporter of independence in thesecond Continental Congress, Adams was amember of the committee that prepared the Dec-laration of Independence. Although Thomas Jef-ferson of Virginia composed the committee draft,Adams’ contribution was no less important. AsJefferson later acknowledged, Adams was theDeclaration’s ‘‘pillar of support on the floor ofCongress, its ablest advocate and defender.’’

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JOHN ADAMS

New Jersey delegate Richard Stockton and othersstyled Adams ‘‘the ‘Atlas’ of independence.’’ 8

Adams further served the cause of independenceas chairman of the Board of War and Ordnance.Congress assigned to the board the onerous tasksof recruiting, provisioning, and dispatching acontinental army; as chairman, Adams coordi-nated this Herculean effort until the winter of1777, when Congress appointed him to replaceSilas Deane as commissioner to the Court ofParis.9

Adams served as commissioner until thespring of 1779. On his return to Massachusetts,he represented Braintree in the state constitu-tional convention. The convention asked him todraft a model constitution, which it adopted withamendments in 1780. Adams’ model providedfor the three branches of government—execu-tive, legislative, and judicial—that were ulti-mately incorporated into the United States Con-stitution, and it vested strong powers in the exec-utive. ‘‘His Excellency,’’ as the governor was tobe addressed, was given an absolute veto overthe legislature and sole power to appoint officersof the militia.10 Throughout his life, Adams wasan advocate of a strong executive. He believedthat only a stable government could preserve so-cial order and protect the liberties of the people.His studies of classical antiquity convinced himthat republican government was inherently vul-nerable to corruption and inevitably harbored ‘‘anever-failing passion for tyranny’’ unless bal-anced by a stabilizing force.11 In 1780, Adamsconsidered a strong executive sufficient toachieve this end. In later years, he grew so fearfulof the ‘‘corruption’’ he discerned in popular elec-tions that he suggested more drastic alter-natives—a hereditary senate and a hereditary ex-ecutive—which his opponents saw as evidenceof his antidemocratic, ‘‘monarchist’’ intent.

Before the Massachusetts convention began itsdeliberations over Adams’ draft, Congress ap-pointed him minister plenipotentiary to nego-tiate peace and commerce treaties with GreatBritain and subsequently authorized him to ne-gotiate an alliance with the Netherlands, as well.Although Adams’ attempts to negotiate treatieswith the British proved unavailing, in 1782 he fi-nally persuaded the Netherlands to recognize

American independence—‘‘the happiest eventand the greatest action of my life, past or fu-ture.’’ 12 Adams remained abroad as a memberof the peace commission and ambassador to theCourt of St. James until 1788. On his return tothe United States, he found to his surprise thathe was widely mentioned as a possible candidatefor the office of vice president of the UnitedStates.13

1788 Election

Although George Washington was the inevi-table and unanimous choice for president, therewere several contenders for the second office. Atthe time of the first federal elections, politicalsentiment was divided between the ‘‘Federal-ists,’’ who supported a strong central govern-ment and toward that end had worked to securethe ratification of the Constitution, and the‘‘Antifederalist’’ advocates of a more limited na-tional government. Adams was the leading Fed-eralist candidate for vice president. The NewEngland Federalists strongly supported him, andhe also commanded the allegiance of a few keyAntifederalists, including Arthur Lee and Rich-ard Henry Lee of Virginia. Benjamin Rush andWilliam Maclay of Pennsylvania also backedAdams, hinting that he could assure his electionby supporting their efforts to locate the nationalcapital in Philadelphia. Other contenders wereJohn Hancock of Massachusetts, whose supportfor the new Constitution was predicated on hisassumption that he would assume the second of-fice, and George Clinton, a New York Anti-federalist who later served as vice presidentunder Thomas Jefferson and James Madison.14

As much as he coveted the vice-presidency,Adams did not actively campaign for the office,refusing the deal proffered by Rush and Maclay.Maclay later explained that the Pennsylvaniansplayed to Adams’ ‘‘Vanity, and hoped by layinghold of it to render him Useful.’’ They failed totake into account the strong Puritan sense ofmoral rectitude that prevented Adams fromstriking such a bargain, even to achieve an officeto which he clearly felt entitled. Maclay, whoserved in the Senate for the first two years ofAdams’ initial vice-presidential term, never for-gave Adams and petulantly noted in his diary

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JOHN ADAMS

that the vice president’s ‘‘Pride Obstinacy AndFolly’’ were ‘‘equal to his Vanity.’’ 15

The principal threat to Adams came from Fed-eralist leader Alexander Hamilton, who per-ceived in the New Englander’s popularity anduncompromising nature a threat to his own ca-reer aspirations. Acting secretly at Hamilton’sbehest, General Henry Knox tried but failed topersuade Adams that he was too prominent afigure in his own right to serve as Washington’ssubordinate. When Hamilton realized thatAdams commanded the overwhelming supportof the New England Federalists and could not bedissuaded, he grudgingly backed his rival but re-solved that Adams would not enjoy an over-whelming electoral victory.16

Hamilton exploited to his advantage the con-stitutional provision governing the election ofthe president and vice president. Article II, sec-tion 1 of the Constitution authorized each presi-dential elector to cast votes ‘‘for two Persons, ofwhom one at least shall not be an Inhabitant ofthe same State with themselves.’’ The candidatewith the greatest number of electoral voteswould become president and the candidate withthe next-highest number would become vicepresident. The Constitution’s framers created thevice-presidency, in part, to keep presidentialelectors from voting only for state or regional fa-vorites, thus ensuring deadlocks with no can-didate receiving a majority vote. By giving eachpresidential elector two ballots, the framersmade it possible to vote for a favorite-son can-didate as well as for a more nationally acceptableindividual. In the event that no candidate re-ceived a majority, as some expected would be thecase after George Washington passed from thenational stage, the House of Representativeswould decide the election from among the fivelargest vote getters, with each state casting onevote.

The framers, however, had not foreseen the po-tential complications inherent in this ‘‘double-balloting’’ scheme. Hamilton realized that if eachFederalist elector cast one vote for Washingtonand one for Adams, the resulting tied vote wouldthrow the election into the House of Representa-tives. Hamilton persuaded several electors towithhold their votes from Adams, ostensibly to

ensure Washington a unanimous electoral vic-tory. Adams was bitterly disappointed when helearned that he had received only thirty-fourelectoral votes to Washington’s sixty-nine, andcalled his election, ‘‘in the scurvy manner inwhich it was done, a curse rather than ablessing.’’ 17

Hamilton’s duplicity had a more lasting effecton the new vice president’s political fortunes: theelection confirmed his fear that popular electionsin ‘‘a populous, oppulent, and commercial na-tion’’ would eventually lead to ‘‘corruption Sedi-tion and civil war.’’ The remedies he suggested—a hereditary senate and an executive appointedfor life 18—prompted charges by his opponentsthat the vice president was the ‘‘monarchist’’enemy of republican government and popularliberties.

The First Vice President

Adams took office as vice president on April21, 1789.19 Apart from his legislative and ceremo-nial responsibilities, he did not assume an activerole in the Washington administration. Althoughrelations between the two men were cordial, ifsomewhat restrained, a combination of personal-ity, circumstance, and principle limited Adams’influence. Adams attended few cabinet meetings,and the president sought his counsel only infre-quently.20 Hesitant to take any action that mightbe construed as usurping the president’s prerog-ative, he generally forwarded applications for of-fices in the new government to Washington. Aspresident of the Senate, Adams had no reserva-tions about recommending his friend SamuelAllyne Otis for the position of secretary of theSenate, but declined to assist Otis’ brother-in-law, General Joseph Warren, and Abigail’s broth-er-in-law, Richard Cranch, in obtaining much-needed sinecures. Adams was similarly hesitantwhen Washington solicited his advice regardingSupreme Court nominations.21

Although Washington rarely consulted Adamson domestic or foreign policy matters, the twomen, according to Adams’ most recent biog-rapher, John Ferling, ‘‘jointly executed manymore of the executive branch’s ceremonial un-dertakings than would be likely for a contem-porary president and vice-president.’’ 22 Wash-

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JOHN ADAMS

ington invited the vice president to accompanyhim on his fall 1789 tour of New England—aninvitation that Adams declined, although he metthe president in Boston—and to several officialdinners. The Washingtons routinely extendedtheir hospitality to John, and to Abigail when shewas in the capital, and Adams frequently accom-panied the president to the theater.23

For his own part, Adams professed a narrowinterpretation of the vice president’s role in thenew government. Shortly after taking office, hewrote to his friend and supporter Benjamin Lin-coln, ‘‘The Constitution has instituted two greatoffices . . . and the nation at large has createdtwo officers: one who is the first of the two. . . is placed at the Head of the Executive, theother at the Head of the Legislative.’’ The follow-ing year, he informed another correspondentthat the office of vice president ‘‘is totally de-tached from the executive authority and con-fined to the legislative.’’24

But Adams never really considered himself‘‘totally detached’’ from the executive branch, asthe Senate discovered when he began signinglegislative documents as ‘‘John Adams, VicePresident of the United States.’’ Speaking for amajority of the senators, William Maclay ofPennsylvania quickly called Adams to account.‘‘[A]s President of the Senate only can [y]ou signor authenticate any Act of that body,’’ he lec-tured the vice president. Uneasy as some sen-ators were at the prospect of having a memberof the executive branch preside over their delib-erations, they would permit Adams to certifylegislation as president of the Senate, but not as vicepresident. Never one to acquiesce cheerfullywhen he believed that important principles wereat stake, Adams struck an awkward com-promise, signing Senate documents as ‘‘JohnAdams, Vice President of the United States andPresident of the Senate.’’ 25

To the extent that Adams remained aloof fromthe administration, his stance was as much theresult of personality and prudence as of prin-ciple. He held the president in high personal es-teem and generally deferred to the more forcefulWashington as a matter of course.26 Also, as hisbiographer Page Smith has explained, the vicepresident always feared that he would become

a ‘‘scapegoat for all of Washington’s unpopulardecisions.’’ During the furor over Washington’s1793 proclamation of American neutrality, aweary Adams confided to his wife that he had‘‘held the office of Libellee General longenough.’’ 27

In the Senate, Adams brought energy anddedication to the presiding officer’s chair, butfound the task ‘‘not quite adapted to my char-acter.’’ 28 Addressing the Senate for the first timeon April 21, 1789, he offered the caveat that al-though ‘‘not wholly without experience in publicassemblies,’’ he was ‘‘more accustomed to takea share in their debates, than to preside in theirdeliberations.’’ Notwithstanding his lack of ex-perience as a presiding officer, Adams had defi-nite notions regarding the limitations of his of-fice. ‘‘It is not for me,’’ he assured the Senate, ‘‘tointerrupt your deliberations by any general ob-servations on the state of the nation, or by rec-ommending, or proposing any particularmeasures.’’ 29

President of the Senate

Adams’ resolve was short-lived. His first in-cursion into the legislative realm occurred short-ly after he assumed office, during the Senate de-bates over titles for the president and executiveofficers of the new government. Although theHouse of Representatives agreed in short orderthat the president should be addressed simply as‘‘George Washington, President of the UnitedStates,’’ the Senate debated the issue at somelength. Adams repeatedly lectured the Senatethat titles were necessary to ensure proper re-spect for the new government and its officers.Pennsylvania Senator William Maclay com-plained that when the Senate considered thematter on May 8, 1789, the vice president ‘‘re-peatedly helped the speakers for Titles.’’ The fol-lowing day, Adams ‘‘harangued’’ the Senate forforty minutes. ‘‘What will the common people offoreign countries, what will the sailors and sol-diers say,’’ he argued, ‘‘George Washingtonpresident of the United States, they will despisehim to all eternity.’’ The Senate ultimately de-ferred to the House on the question of titles, butnot before Adams incurred the lasting enmity ofthe Antifederalists, who saw in his support for

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JOHN ADAMS

titles and ceremony distressing evidence of his‘‘monarchist’’ leanings.30

Adams was more successful in preventing theSenate from asserting a role in the removal ofpresidential appointees. In the July 14, 1789, de-bates over the organization of executive depart-ments, several senators agreed with WilliamMaclay that removals of cabinet officers by thepresident, as well as appointments, should besubject to the advice and consent of the Senate.Adams and his Federalist allies viewed the pro-posal as an attempt by Antifederalists to enhancethe Senate’s powers at the expense of the execu-tive. After a series of meetings with individualsenators, Adams finally convinced Tristram Dal-ton of Massachusetts to withdraw his support forMaclay’s proposal. Richard Bassett of Delawarefollowed suit. When the Senate decided the ques-tion on July 18 in a 9-to-9 vote, Adams performedhis sole legislative function by casting a tie-breaking vote against Maclay’s proposal.31 Hisaction was purely symbolic in this instance, how-ever, as a tie vote automatically defeats ameasure.

During the protracted debates over the Resi-dence bill to determine the location of the capital,Adams thwarted another initiative dear toMaclay’s heart: a provision to establish the per-manent capital ‘‘along the banks of theSusquehannah’’ in convenient proximity to thePennsylvania senator’s extensive landholdings.The disgruntled speculator attributed his defeatto the vice president’s tie-breaking votes and the‘‘barefaced partiality’’ of Adams’ rulings fromthe chair. Maclay was enraged that Adams al-lowed frequent delays in the September 24, 1789,debates, which permitted Pennsylvania SenatorRobert Morris, whose sympathies lay with Phila-delphia, to lobby other senators against theSusquehannah site. After Morris’ motion tostrike the provision failed, Adams granted hismotion to reconsider over Maclay’s strenuousobjection that ‘‘no business ever could have a de-cision, if minority members, were permitted tomove reconsiderations under every pretense ofnew argument.’’ Adams ultimately cast the de-ciding vote in favor of Morris’ motion.32

The vice president’s frequent and pedantic lec-tures from the chair earned him the resentment

of other senators, as well. Shortly after the sec-ond session of the First Congress convened inJanuary 1790, John Trumbull warned his friendthat he faced growing opposition in the Senate,particularly among the southern senators.Adams’ enemies resented his propensity for join-ing in Senate debates and suspected him of‘‘monarchist’’ sentiments. Trumbull cautionedthat ‘‘he who mingles in debate subjects himselfto frequent retorts from his opposers, places him-self on the same ground with his inferiors inrank, appears too much like the leader of a party,and renders it more difficult for him to supportthe dignity of the chair and preserve order andregularity in the debate.’’ Although Adams de-nied that he had ever exceeded the limits of hisauthority in the Senate, he must have seen thetruth in Trumbull’s observations, for he assuredhis confidant that he had ‘‘no desire ever to openmy mouth again upon any question.’’ Acutelyaware of the controversy over his views and be-havior, Adams became less an active participantand more an impartial moderator of Senatedebates.33

Although stung by Trumbull’s comments andthe censure of less tactful critics, Adams contin-ued to devote a considerable portion of his timeand energy to presiding over the Senate; AbigailAdams observed that her husband’s schedule‘‘five hours constant sitting in a day for sixmonths together (for he cannot leave his Chair)is pretty tight service.’’ 34

In the absence of a manual governing Senatedebates, Adams looked to British parliamentaryprocedures for guidance in deciding questions oforder.35 Despite complaints by some senatorsthat Adams demonstrated inconsistency in hisrulings, Delaware Senator George Read in 1792praised his ‘‘attentive, upright, fair, andunexceptionable’’ performance as presiding offi-cer, and his ‘‘uncommonly exact’’ attendance inthe Senate.36

Still, as a national figure and Washington’sprobable successor, Adams remained controver-sial, particularly as legislative political partiesemerged in the 1790s. Although sectional dif-ferences had in large part shaped the debates ofthe First Congress, two distinct parties began todevelop during the Second Congress in 1791 to

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JOHN ADAMS

1793. The Federalists, adopting the name earlierused by supporters of the Constitution, were theconservative, prosperous advocates of a strongcentral government. They supported TreasurySecretary Alexander Hamilton’s proposals to as-sume and fund the states’ revolutionary debts,encourage manufactures, and establish a Bank ofthe United States. Hamilton’s fiscal program ap-pealed to the mercantile, financial, and artisansegments of the population but sparked thegrowth of an agrarian-based opposition party—initially known as Antifederalists and later as‘‘Republicans’’—led by Secretary of State Thom-as Jefferson.37 Adams supported Hamilton’s fis-cal proposals and, with the Federalists still firmlyin command of the Senate and the controversyover public finance largely confined to the Houseof Representatives, 38 he emerged unscathedfrom the partisan battles over fiscal policy.

The outbreak of the French Revolutionprompted a more divisive debate. Republicansgreeted the overthrow of the French monarchywith enthusiasm while the Federalists heard inthe revolutionaries’ egalitarian rhetoric a threatto the order and stability of Europe and America.France’s 1793 declaration of war on Great Britainfurther polarized the argument, with the Repub-licans celebrating each British defeat, the Fed-eralists dreading the consequences of a Frenchvictory, and both belligerents preying on Amer-ican shipping at will. While Washington at-tempted to hold the United States to a neutralcourse, his vice president—who considered po-litical parties ‘‘the greatest political evil underour Constitution,’’ and whose greatest fear was‘‘a division of the republic into two great parties,each arranged under its leader, and concertingmeasures in opposition to each other’’—became,as he had anticipated, the target of concerted Re-publican opposition.39

Adams articulated his thoughts on the FrenchRevolution and its implications for the UnitedStates in a series of newspaper essays, the Dis-courses on Davila. He predicted that the revolu-tion, having abolished the aristocratic institu-tions necessary to preserve stability and order,was doomed to failure. He warned that the Unit-ed States would share a similar fate if it failedto honor and encourage with titles and appro-

priate ceremony its own ‘‘natural aristocracy’’ oftalented and propertied public men. Adams evenwent so far as to predict that a hereditary Amer-ican aristocracy would be necessary in the eventthat the ‘‘natural’’ variety failed to emerge. TheDavila essays were consistent with Adams’ long-standing belief that a strong stabilizing force—a strong executive, a hereditary senate, or a natu-ral aristocracy—was an essential bulwark ofpopular liberties. They also reflected his recenthumiliation at the hands of Alexander Hamilton.Still smarting from his low electoral count in the1788 presidential election, Adams observed inthe thirty-second essay that ‘‘hereditary succes-sion was attended with fewer evils than frequentelections.’’ As Peter Shaw has noted in his studyof Adams’ character, ‘‘it would be difficult toimagine . . . a more impolitic act.’’ The Discourseson Davila, together with Adams’ earlier supportfor titles and ceremony, convinced his Repub-lican opponents that he was an enemy of repub-lican government. Rumors that Washingtonwould resign his office once the government wasestablished on a secure footing, and his neardeath from influenza in the spring of 1790, addedto the Republicans’ anxiety. In response, theymounted an intense but unsuccessful campaignto unseat Adams in the 1792 presidentialelection.40

Second Term

Persuaded by Hamilton, Jefferson, and Madi-son to run for a second term, George Washingtonwas again the obvious and unanimous choice forpresident. Adams was still the preferred vice-presidential candidate of the New England Fed-eralists, but he faced a serious challenge from Re-publican candidate George Clinton of New York.Although many of his earlier supporters, includ-ing Benjamin Rush, joined the opposition in sup-port of Clinton, Adams won reelection with 77electoral votes to 50 for Clinton.41 On March 4,1793, in the Senate chamber, Washington tookthe oath of office for a second time. Adams, asalways, followed Washington’s example butwaited until the Third Congress convened onDecember 2, 1793, to take his second oath of of-fice. No one, apparently, gave much thought tothe question of whether or not the nation had a

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vice president—and a successor to Washington,should he die in office or become incapacitated—during the nine-month interval between thesetwo inaugurations.42

Early in Adams’ second vice-presidential term,France declared war on Great Britain. Washing-ton’s cabinet supported the president’s policy ofneutrality, but its members disagreed over theimplementation of that policy. Hamilton urgedthe president to issue an immediate proclama-tion of American neutrality; Jefferson warnedthat only Congress could issue such a declarationand counseled that delaying the proclamationwould force concessions from France and Eng-land. Recognizing the United States’ commercialdependence on Great Britain, Hamilton pro-posed that the nation conditionally suspend thetreaties that granted France access to U. S. portsand guaranteed French possession of the WestIndies. Secretary of State Jefferson insisted thatthe United States honor its treaty obligations.The secretaries similarly disagreed over extend-ing recognition to the emissary of the French re-public, ‘‘Citizen’’ Edmond Genet.

Adams considered absolute neutrality the onlyprudent course. As a Federalist, he was no sup-porter of France, but his reluctance to offend aformer ally led him to take a more cautiousstance than Hamilton. Although Washingtonsought his advice, Adams scrupulously avoidedpublic comment; he had ‘‘no constitutional vote’’in the matter and no intention of ‘‘taking anyside in it or having my name or opinion quotedabout it.’’ 43 After the president decided to recog-nize Genet, Adams reluctantly received the con-troversial Frenchman but predicted that ‘‘a littlemore of this indelicacy and indecency may in-volve us in a war with all the world.’’ 44

Although Adams, as vice president, had ‘‘noconstitutional vote’’ in the administration’s for-eign policy, he cast two important tie-breakingforeign policy votes in the Senate, where Repub-lican gains in the 1792 elections had eroded theFederalist majority. In both cases, Adams votedto prevent war with Great Britain and its allies.On March 12, 1794, he voted in favor of an em-bargo on the domestic sale of vessels and goodsseized from friendly nations. The followingmonth, he voted against a bill to suspend Amer-

ican trade with Great Britain.45 Despite thesevotes, Adams made every effort to stay alooffrom the bitter controversy over foreign policy,remaining silent during the Senate’s 1795 de-bates over the controversial Jay Treaty. Privately,Adams considered the Jay Treaty essential toavert war with Great Britain, but the Federalistsstill commanded sufficient votes to ratify thetreaty without the vice president’s assistance.46

1796 Election

The popular outcry against the Jay Treatystrengthened Washington’s resolve to retire atthe end of his second term, and he announcedhis intentions in September 1796. Although themajority of the Federalists considered Adams thelogical choice to succeed Washington, Hamiltonpreferred their more pliant vice-presidential can-didate, former minister to Great Britain ThomasPinckney. The Republican candidates wereThomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr. Once againHamilton proved a greater threat to Adams thanthe opposition candidates. The Federalists lostthe vice-presidency because of Hamilton’sscheming and came dangerously close to losingthe presidency as well. Repeating the tactics hehad used to diminish Adams’ electoral count inthe 1788 election, Hamilton tried to persuadeSouth Carolina’s Federalist electors to withholdenough votes from Adams to ensure ThomasPinckney’s election to the presidency. This time,however, the New England Federalist electorslearned of Hamilton’s plot and withheld suffi-cient votes from Pinckney to compensate for thelost South Carolina votes. These intrigues re-sulted in the election of a president and vicepresident from opposing parties, with president-elect Adams receiving 71 electoral votes to 68 forThomas Jefferson.47

Vice president Adams addressed the Senate forthe last time on February 15, 1797. He thankedcurrent and former members for the ‘‘candor andfavor’’ they had extended to him during his eightyears as presiding officer. Despite the frustra-tions and difficulties he had experienced as vicepresident, Adams left the presiding officer’schair with a genuine regard for the Senate thatwas in large part mutual. He expressed gratitudeto the body for the ‘‘uniform politeness’’ ac-

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JOHN ADAMS

corded him ‘‘from every quarter,’’ and declaredthat he had ‘‘never had the smallest misunder-standing with any member of the Senate.’’ Not-withstanding his earlier pronouncements infavor of a hereditary Senate, Adams assured themembers that the ‘‘eloquence, patriotism, andindependence’’ that he had witnessed had con-vinced him that ‘‘no council more permanentthan this . . . will be necessary, to defend therights, liberties, and properties of the people, andto protect the Constitution of the United States.’’The Senate’s February 22 message expressing‘‘gratitude and affection’’ and praising his ‘‘abili-ties and undeviating impartiality’’ evoked afrank and emotional response from Adams thefollowing day. The Senate’s ‘‘generous approba-tion’’ of his ‘‘undeviating impartiality’’ hadserved to ‘‘soften asperities, and conciliate ani-mosities, wherever such may unhappily exist,’’for which the departing vice president offeredhis ‘‘sincere thanks.’’ 48

President

Adams served as president from 1797 to 1801.He failed to win a second term due to the popu-lar outcry against the repressive Alien and Sedi-tion Acts, which he had reluctantly approved asnecessary wartime measures, as well as the rup-ture in the Federalist party over the end of hos-tilities with France. Hamilton was determined todefeat Adams after the president responded fa-vorably to French overtures for peace in 1799,

and he was further outraged when Adamspurged two of his sympathizers from the cabinetin May 1800. In a letter to Federalist leaders,Hamilton detailed his charges that Adams’ ‘‘un-governable indiscretion’’ and ‘‘distempered jeal-ousy’’ made him unfit for office. With the Fed-eralist party split between the Hamilton andAdams factions, Adams lost the election. Afterthirty-five ballots, the House of Representativesbroke the tied vote between Republican presi-dential candidate Thomas Jefferson and vice-presidential candidate Aaron Burr in Jefferson’sfavor.49

Adams spent the remainder of his life in retire-ment at his farm in Quincy, Massachusetts. In anattempt to vindicate himself from past chargesthat he was an enemy of American liberties,Adams in 1804 began his Autobiography, whichhe never finished. He also wrote voluminous let-ters to friends and former colleagues toward thesame end. In 1811, Adams resumed his friend-ship with Jefferson, and the two old patriotsbegan a lively correspondence that continued forfifteen years. Although largely content to ob-serve political events from the seclusion of Quin-cy and to follow the promising career of his eld-est son, John Quincy, Adams briefly resumed hisown public career in 1820, when he representedthe town of Quincy in the Massachusetts con-stitutional convention. Adams died at Quincy onJuly 4, 1826, the fiftieth anniversary of Americanindependence.50

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NOTES1 Linda Dudik Guerrero, in her study of Adams’ vice

presidency, found that Adams cast ‘‘at least’’ thirty-onevotes, a figure accepted by Adams’ most recent biographer.The Senate Historical Office has been able to verify onlytwenty-nine tie-breaking votes by Adams—still a record, al-though George Dallas claimed that he cast thirty tie-break-ing votes during his vice-presidency (See Chapter 11, page158 and note 35). Linda Dudik Guerrero, John Adams’ VicePresidency, 1789–1797: The Neglected Man in the Forgotten Of-fice (New York, 1982), p. 128; U.S., Congress, Senate, TheSenate 1789–1989, by Robert C. Byrd, S. Doc. 100–20, 100thCong., 1st sess., vol. 4, Historical Statistics, 1789–1992, 1993,p. 640; John Ferling, John Adams: A Life (Knoxville, 1992),p. 311.

2 Peter Shaw, The Character of John Adams (Chapel Hill,1976), pp.1–6; Page Smith, John Adams (Westport, CT, 1969,reprint of 1962–1963 ed.), 1:1–14.

3 Diary and Autobiography of John Adams, ed. L.H.Butterfield, The Adams Papers, Series I (Cambridge, 1962),pp. 263–64; Smith, 1:27–43.

4 Shaw, pp. 43–46; Smith, 1:54–80; Theodore Draper, AStruggle for Power: The American Revolution (New York,1996), pp. 184–89.

5 Smith, 1:80–81.6 Shaw, p. 57; Smith, 1:94–104.7 Shaw, pp. 58–85; Smith, 1:121–26.8 Shaw, pp. 94–98; Ferling, pp. 149–50.9 Shaw, pp. 106–7; Smith, 1:266–67, 285–350.10 Shaw, pp. 128–30; Smith, 1:438–44.11 Shaw, pp. 218–22.12 Ibid., pp. 131–63; Smith, 1:444–535.13 Shaw, pp. 157–225.14 Kenneth R. Bowling and Helen E. Veit, eds., The Diary

of William Maclay and Other Notes On Senate Debates, Docu-mentary History of the First Federal Congress of the UnitedStates of America, vol. 9 (Baltimore, 1988), pp. 85–86; Smith,2:734–37.

15 Diary of William Maclay, pp. 85–86; Shaw, p. 225, Smith,2:737–39.

16 Smith, 2:739–41.17 Ibid., 2:739–42.18 Shaw, pp. 231–32.19 Linda Grant De Pauw, Charlene Bangs Bickford, and

LaVonne Marlene Siegel, eds., Senate Legislative Journal, Doc-umentary History of the First Federal Congress of the UnitedStates of America, vol. 1 (Baltimore, 1972), pp. 21–23.

20 Shaw, p. 226; Guerrero, pp. 169–83.21 John R. Howe, Jr., The Changing Political Thought of John

Adams (Princeton, 1966), pp. 212–13; Shaw, p. 288; Smith,2:761–63; ‘‘Biographical Sketches of the Twenty-Two Sec-retaries of the United States Senate,’’ undated report pre-

pared by the U.S. Senate Historical Office. In 1789, Adamsasked Washington to appoint his improvident son-in-law,Colonel William Smith, federal marshal for New York—arequest that the president obliged. In 1791, Adams soughtSmith’s appointment as minister to Great Britain. Althoughthe president did not send Smith to the Court of St. James,he subsequently named Smith supervisor of revenue forNew York. Adams’ concern for his daughter ‘‘Nabby’’ andher children prompted these rare departures from his cus-tomary practice. Ferling, pp. 323–24; Guerrero, p. 82, fn. 41.

22 Ferling, p. 310.23 Ibid.; Guerrero, pp. 166–69.24 John Adams to Lincoln, May 26, 1789, and John Adams

to Hurd, April 5, 1790, quoted in Guerrero, p. 185.25 David P. Currie, ‘‘The Constitution in Congress: The

First Congress and the Structure of Government, 1789–1791,’’ University of Chicago Law School Roundtable 2 (1995):161.

26 Howe, p. 212; Ferling, p. 310.27 Smith, 2:763, 842–43.28 Ibid., 2:769.29 Senate Legislative Journal, pp. 21–23.30 Senate Legislative Journal, pp. 44–45; Howe, 176–79;

Diary of William Maclay, pp. 27–32; Shaw, pp. 227–30.31 Senate Legislative Journal, pp. 83–87; Smith, 2:774–76;

Diary of William Maclay, pp. 109–19.32 Diary of William Maclay, pp. 132–35, 152–64.33 Smith, 2:788–91.34 Quoted in U.S., Congress, Senate, The United States Sen-

ate, 1787–1801: A Dissertation on the First Fourteen Years ofthe Upper Legislative Body, by Roy Swanstrom, S. Doc. 100–31, 100th Cong., 1st sess., 1988, p. 254.

35 Richard Allan Baker, ‘‘The Senate of the United States:‘Supreme Executive Council of the Nation,’ 1787–1800,’’ inThe Congress of the United States, 1789–1989, vol. 1, ed. JoelSilbey (Brooklyn, NY, 1991), p. 148, originally published inPrologue 21 (Winter 1989): 299–313; Diary of William Maclay,p. 36.

36 George Read to Gunning Bedford, quoted inSwanstrom, p. 254.

37 John C. Miller, The Federalist Era, 1789–1801 (New York,1963; reprint of 1960 ed.), pp. 99–125.

38 Howe, p. 197; Swanstrom, pp. 274–76.39 Howe, 193–97; Miller, pp. 126–54.40 Howe, pp. 133–49; Shaw, pp. 229–37; Smith, 2:794, 826–

33.41 Miller, p. 96; Smith, 2:826–33.42 Stephen W. Stathis and Ronald C. Moe, ‘‘America’s

Other Inauguration,’’ Presidential Studies Quarterly 10 (Fall1980): 552.

43 Miller, pp. 128–30; Smith, 2:838–44.

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JOHN ADAMS

44 Smith, 2:845.45 Miller, p. 154; Smith, 2:853; U.S., Congress, Senate, An-

nals of Congress, 3d Cong., 1st sess., pp. 66, 90.46 Smith, 2:873–75; Swanstrom, pp. 120–23.47 Miller, pp. 198–202; Smith, 2:898–910.

48 U.S., Congress, Senate, Annals of Congress, 4th Cong.,2d sess., pp. 1549–58.

49 Miller, pp. 251–77; Smith, 2:1056–62.50 Smith, 2:1067–1138.

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Chapter 2

THOMAS JEFFERSON1797–1801

THOMAS JEFFERSON

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Chapter 2

THOMAS JEFFERSON2nd Vice President: 1797–1801

. . . a more tranquil & unoffending station could not have been found for me. . . . It will giveme philosophical evenings in the winter, & rural days in the summer.

—THOMAS JEFFERSON TO BENJAMIN RUSH, JANUARY 22, 1797 1

Thomas Jefferson entered an ill-defined vice-presidency on March 4, 1797. For guidance onhow to conduct himself, he had to rely on a briefreference in the U.S. Constitution, the eight-yearexperience of John Adams, and his own commonsense. Of a profoundly different political andpersonal temperament from his predecessor, Jef-ferson knew his performance in that relativelynew office would influence its operations wellinto the future. Unlike Adams, who shared thepolitical beliefs of the president with whom heserved, Jefferson and his president belonged todifferent political parties—a situation that wouldprove to be unique in all the nation’s history. Noone who knew the two men expected that VicePresident Jefferson would be inclined to serve asPresident Adams’ principal assistant. More like-ly, he would confine his duties to presiding overthe Senate and offering leadership to his anti-ad-ministration Republican party in quiet prepara-tion for the election of 1800.2

Scholar and Legislator

Thomas Jefferson was born on April 13, 1743,in what is now Albemarle County, Virginia. Hewas the third child of Peter Jefferson, a surveyor,and Jane Randolph, daughter of a distinguishedVirginia family. Classical languages formed thebase of his early formal education. A thoroughand diligent student, inspired by theEnlightenment’s belief in the power of reason togovern human behavior, Jefferson graduated

from the College of William and Mary after onlytwo years, at the age of nineteen. Dr. WilliamSmall, the chair of mathematics at the college,helped cultivate Jefferson’s intellectual interests,especially in science. In addition to his academicpursuits, young Thomas excelled as a horsemanand violinist. He studied law under GeorgeWythe, Virginia’s most eminent legal scholar ofthat era. Admitted to the Virginia bar in 1767, Jef-ferson maintained a successful practice untilabandoning the legal profession at the start of theAmerican Revolution.3

Jefferson’s political career began in May 1769when he became a member of the Virginia houseof burgesses. He served there until the body wasdissolved in 1775. While not considered an effec-tive public speaker, Jefferson gained a reputationas a gifted writer. Unable to attend the Virginiaconvention of 1774, he sent instructions for theVirginia delegates to the first Continental Con-gress. These proposals, eventually published asA Summary View of the Rights of British America,asserted that the American colonies’ only legiti-mate political connection to Great Britain wasthrough the king, to whom they had submittedvoluntarily, and not to Parliament.

In 1775, the thirty-two-year-old Jeffersongained a seat in the Continental Congress, wherehe was appointed to a committee to draft a dec-laration of independence from the mother coun-try. He became the declaration’s principal authorand later counted it, along with establishment of

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THOMAS JEFFERSON

the University of Virginia and creation of the Vir-ginia statute for Religious Freedom, among histhree proudest lifetime accomplishments. TheDeclaration of Independence and the SummaryView ensured Jefferson’s standing in the mid-1770s as the American Revolution’s most signifi-cant literary theorist.

After spending less than a year in the Con-tinental Congress, Jefferson resigned that postand entered the Virginia house of delegates.While he produced an admirable legislativerecord during his service from October 1776 toJune 1779, his tenure as Virginia’s governor from1779 to mid-1781 was less successful. Althoughthe Virginia assembly had made sizeable con-tributions to the Continental effort, it failed tomake adequate provision for local defenses, andthe state offered only token resistance to the Brit-ish invasion in early 1781. Jefferson narrowly es-caped capture, fleeing on horseback as Lt. Col.Banastre Tarleton’s forces ascended Carter’sMountain toward Monticello, two days after hisgubernatorial term expired but before the Vir-ginia legislature could designate a successor. Jef-ferson had already decided not to seek reelectionto a third term, but his perceived abdication atthis critical juncture earned him considerablescorn. The Virginia house of delegates imme-diately ordered an investigation of his conduct,only to join with the state Senate in exoneratingthe former governor after he appeared beforeboth houses six months later to explain his ac-tions. Deeply mortified by the public scrutinyand increasingly alarmed by his wife’s seriousillness, Jefferson retreated to Monticello.4

In what proved to be a temporary retirementfrom public life, Jefferson turned his attention tofarming and scientific endeavors—pursuits thathe found more enjoyable. During this time, heorganized and published his Notes on the State ofVirginia, which his preeminent biographer,Dumas Malone, believed ‘‘laid the foundationsof Jefferson’s high contemporary reputation as auniversal scholar and of his enduring fame as apioneer American scientist.’’ 5

On the death of his wife Martha in September1782, Jefferson returned to public life. In June ofthe following year he became a delegate to theCongress under the Articles of Confederation

and served on several major committees. Duringhis service, he prepared various influential com-mittee papers, including a report of March 22,1784, calling for prohibition of slavery in thewestern territory after the year 1800. The reportalso declared illegal any western regional seces-sion. Although Congress did not adopt the re-port as presented, Jefferson’s language subse-quently influenced the drafting of the 1787Northwest Ordinance with its highly significantslavery restrictions.

Diplomacy and the Cabinet

Jefferson prepared a report in December 1783on the procedure for negotiating commercialtreaties. His recommendations became generalpractice, and in May 1784 Congress appointedhim to assist Benjamin Franklin in arrangingcommercial agreements with France. Within ayear he succeeded Franklin as minister to thatcountry. While Jefferson would later make lightof his accomplishments during his ministerialtenure, he proved to be a talented diplomat. Fol-lowing his own pro-French leanings, and his be-lief that France could serve to counter Britain’sthreat to American interests, Jefferson workedhard for improved relations.

On returning home in December 1789, Jeffer-son accepted President George Washington’s ap-pointment to be the nation’s first secretary ofstate. Progressively harsher disputes with Treas-ury Secretary Alexander Hamilton troubled histenure in that office. Their differences extendedfrom financial policy to foreign affairs and grewout of fundamentally conflicting interpretationsof the Constitution and the scope of federalpower.

The rise of two rudimentary politicalgroupings during the early 1790s reflected Ham-ilton’s and Jefferson’s differing philosophicalviews. Formed generally along sectional lines,these early parties were known as Federalists(with strong support in the North and East) andRepublicans (with a southern base). In later yearsthe Republicans would come to be called‘‘Democrats,’’ but in the 1790s, that term carrieda negative connotation associated with mobrule.6

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THOMAS JEFFERSON

In May 1790, Pennsylvania Senator WilliamMaclay, with his customarily acerbic pen, re-corded the following physical description of thesecretary of state:

When I came to the Hall Jefferson and the restof the Committee were there. Jefferson is a slen-der Man [and] has rather the Air of Stiffness inhis Manner. His cloaths seem too small for him.He sits in a lounging Manner on One hip, com-monly, and with one of his shoulders elevatedmuch above the other. His face has a scrany as-pect. His Whole figure has a loose shackling Air.He had a rambling Vacant look & nothing of thatfirm collected deportment which I expectedwould dignify the presence of a Secretary or Min-ister. I looked for gravity, but a laxity of Manner,seemed shed about him. He spoke almost with-out ceasing, but even his discourse partook of hispersonal demeanor. It was lax & rambling andYet he scattered information wherever he went,and some even brilliant sentiments sparkled fromhim.7

Worn out from his battles with Hamilton, Jef-ferson resigned as secretary of state at the endof 1793 and handed leadership of the emergingRepublican party to his fellow Virginian JamesMadison. For the next three years, Madisonworked to strengthen the party in Congress,transforming it from a reactive faction to a posi-tive political force with its own distinctive pro-grams and, by April 1796, a congressional partycaucus to establish legislative priorities.8

The 1796 Election

When President Washington announced inSeptember 1796 that he would not run for a thirdterm, a caucus of Federalists in Congress selectedVice President Adams as their presidential can-didate. Congressional Republicans turned to Jef-ferson as the only person capable of defeatingAdams, who enjoyed a strong following in NewEngland and was closely associated with the suc-cess of the American Revolution.9 Jefferson hadtold friends in 1793 that his ‘‘retirement from of-fice had meant from all office, high or low, with-out exception.’’ 10 While he continued to holdthose views in 1796, he reluctantly allowed Re-publican leader Madison to advance his can-didacy—in part to block the ambitions of hisarchrival, Alexander Hamilton. Jefferson con-

fided to Madison that he hoped he would receiveeither the second- or third-largest number ofelectoral votes. A third-place finish would allowhim to remain home the entire year, while a sec-ond-place result—making him the vice presi-dent—would permit him to stay home two-thirds of the year.11 Jefferson made no effort toinfluence the outcome. He believed that Madi-son, as an active party leader, would have beena more suitable candidate. But even though Jef-ferson had left the political stage more than twoyears earlier, he remained the symbol of Repub-lican values—in no small part due to Hamilton’sunremitting attacks.

In devising the constitutional system that obli-gated each presidential elector to cast two bal-lots, the framers intended to produce a winningcandidate for president who enjoyed a broad na-tional consensus and, in second place, a vicepresident with at least strong regional support.They assumed that electors would give one voteto a home state favorite, reserving the second fora person of national reputation, but this viewfailed to anticipate the development of politicalparties. Thus the framers apparently gave littleconsideration to the potential for competingslates of candidates—seen for the first time in the1796 presidential contest.

As part of a strategy to erode Jefferson’s south-ern support, the Federalists selected as Adams’running mate Thomas Pinckney of South Caro-lina, author of the popular 1795 treaty withSpain.12 Hamilton, Adams’ bitter rival within theFederalist party, encouraged Federalist electorsin the North to give both their votes to Adamsand Pinckney. On the safe assumption thatPinckney would draw more votes than Adamsfrom the other regions, and recognizing that Jef-ferson lacked support north and east of the Dela-ware River, Hamilton mistakenly concluded thistactic would assure Pinckney’s election.13

Adams’ supporters countered Hamilton’s planby convincing a number of their party’s electorsto vote for someone other than Pinckney. As aresult, Adams won the presidency with 71 of apossible 138 electoral votes. But Jefferson with 68votes, rather than Pinckney with 59 votes, be-came vice president. Aaron Burr, the Republicanvice-presidential contender, received only 30

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THOMAS JEFFERSON

votes, while 48 other votes were scattered amongnine minor candidates.14 This election producedthe first and only mixed-party presidential teamin the nation’s history.

Not looking forward to reentering the politicalfray and feeling unprepared to assume presi-dential responsibilities for foreign policy at atime when relations with European nations werestrained, Jefferson may have been the only per-son in the history of American politics to cele-brate the fact that he lost a presidential election.He preferred the quietness of the vice-presi-dency. He wrote Benjamin Rush, ‘‘a more tran-quil & unoffending station could not have beenfound for me.’’ And he told James Madison, ‘‘Ithink they [foreign affairs] never wore so gloomyan aspect since the year 83. Let those come to thehelm who think they can steer clear of the dif-ficulties. I have no confidence in myself for theundertaking.’’ 15 In a classic assessment of thepresidency’s thankless nature, Jefferson wroteEdward Rutledge, ‘‘I know well that no man willever bring out of that office the reputation whichcarries him into it. The honey moon would beas short in that case as in any other, & its mo-ments of extasy would be ransomed by years oftorment & hatred.’’ 16

Vice President

On February 8, 1797, Vice President Adams, asone of his final official duties, presided over ajoint session of Congress in the Senate chamberto tally electoral votes for the nation’s two high-est offices. To his obvious satisfaction, he an-nounced his own victory for the first office andthat of Thomas Jefferson for the second.17 Whenthe confirming news of his election reached Jef-ferson in Virginia, he initially hoped to avoid thetrip to Philadelphia by seeking a senator whowould administer the oath of office at hishome.18 But rumors were beginning to spreadthat Jefferson considered the vice-presidency be-neath his dignity. To quash that mistaken notion,the Virginian decided to attend the inauguration;but he requested that local officials downplay hisarrival at the capital. Despite these wishes, an ar-tillery company and a sixteen-gun salute greetedJefferson on March 2 at the completion of his ar-duous ten-day journey by horseback and stage

coach. He stayed the first night with James Madi-son and then moved to a nearby hotel for the re-mainder of his week-and-a-half visit.

The Senate convened at 10 a.m. on Saturday,March 4, in its ornate chamber on the secondfloor of Congress Hall at the corner of Sixth andChestnut Streets. As the first order of business,Senate President Pro Tempore William Binghamadministered the brief oath to the new vice presi-dent. Over six feet tall, with reddish hair andhazel eyes, and attired in a single-breasted longblue frock coat, Jefferson established a com-manding presence as he in turn swore in theeight newly elected members among the twenty-seven senators who were present that day. Hethen read a brief inaugural address.

In that address Jefferson apologized in ad-vance for any shortcomings members might per-ceive in the conduct of his duties. Anticipatingthe role that would most define his vice-presi-dential legacy, Jefferson promised that he wouldapproach his duties as presiding officer with‘‘more confidence because it will depend on mywill and not my capacity.’’ He continued:

The rules which are to govern the proceedingsof this House, so far as they shall depend on mefor their application, shall be applied with themost rigorous and inflexible impartiality, regard-ing neither persons, their views, nor principles,and seeing only the abstract proposition subjectto my decision. If in forming that decision, I con-cur with some and differ from others, as must ofnecessity happen, I shall rely on the liberality andcandor of those from whom I differ, to believethat I do it on pure motives.

Having devoted half of his less than three-minute speech to his role as presiding officer, Jef-ferson briefly referred to the Constitution and itsdefense. But he quickly returned to his own morelimited station, supposing that ‘‘these declara-tions [are] not pertinent to the occasion of enter-ing into an office whose primary business ismerely to preside over the forms of thisHouse.’’ 19 Concluding his remarks, Jefferson ledthe Senate downstairs to the House of Represent-atives’ chamber to attend President-elect Adams’inaugural address and subsequent oath-taking.

Three potential roles awaited the new vicepresident in his as yet only marginally defined

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THOMAS JEFFERSON

office. He could serve as an assistant to the presi-dent; he could concentrate on his constitutionalduties as the Senate’s presiding officer; or hecould become an active leader of the Republicanparty. Jefferson had no interest in being an assist-ant to the chief executive. He told Elbridge Gerrythat he considered his office ‘‘constitutionallyconfined to legislative functions,’’ 20 and hehoped those functions would not keep him awayfrom his cherished Monticello. In any event, thejob provided a comfortable and needed regularsalary—$5,000 paid in quarterly installments.21

Adams and Jefferson started off cordially. TheVirginian, having enjoyed Adams’ friendship inthe second Continental Congress and while in re-tirement at Monticello, set out to forge a goodpublic relationship with him as his vice presi-dent. Although he realized that they wouldprobably disagree on many issues, Jeffersondeeply respected Adams’ prior service to thenation.22

On the eve of their inaugurations, Adams andJefferson met briefly to discuss the possibility ofsending Jefferson to France as part of a three-member delegation to calm the increasingly tur-bulent relations between the two countries.When the two men concluded that this would bean improper role for the vice president, theyagreed on substituting Jefferson’s political ally,James Madison. The bond between presidentand vice president seemed—for the moment—particularly close.

Several days after the inauguration, Jeffersonencountered the president at a dinner party. Hetook the opportunity to report that Madison wasnot interested in the diplomatic mission toFrance. Adams replied that, in any event, hewould not have been able to select Madison be-cause of pressure from within his cabinet to ap-point a Federalist. This confirmed Jefferson’sview that the new president lacked his own po-litical compass and was too easily swayed bypartisan advisers. Thereafter, Adams never con-sulted Jefferson on an issue of national signifi-cance.23 For his part, the vice president turnedexclusively to his political role as leader of theRepublicans and to his governmental duty as theSenate’s presiding officer.

While in Philadelphia to commence his vice-presidential duties, Jefferson acceded to a secondleadership position—the presidency of theAmerican Philosophical Society. Convenientlylocated near Congress Hall, this august scientificand philosophical body counted among its pre-vious leaders Benjamin Franklin and mathemati-cian David Rittenhouse. Jefferson attained thepost on the strength of his Notes on the State ofVirginia (first English edition, 1787), which se-cured his reputation as a preeminent scholar andscientist and is today considered ‘‘the most im-portant scientific work published in America inthe eighteenth century.’’ 24 Within days of his in-augural address to the Senate, Jefferson deliv-ered his presidential address to the society—atask that he found considerably more gratifying.His subject: the recently discovered fossil re-mains of a large animal, found in western Vir-ginia, that he called the ‘‘Megalonyx’’ or ‘‘GreatClaw.’’ 25 Jefferson would preside over the soci-ety until 1815. He considered his contributionsto its proceedings among his proudestendeavors.

A Republican Leader

After his inauguration, Jefferson had written toAaron Burr (the former New York senator andintended vice-presidential candidate on the Re-publican ticket) to complain about the partisandirection of the new Federalist administrationand seek his aid in building Republican supportin the northeast. This move signalled Jefferson’sintention to play an active political role duringhis vice-presidency. With James Madison retiredfrom the House of Representatives and the newHouse leader, Albert Gallatin, preoccupied withthe nation’s financial problems, Jefferson stoodas the country’s preeminent Republican leader.Considering himself separate from the executivebranch, he felt free to criticize the Adams admin-istration. Yet, to avoid public controversy, helimited his criticism to private communicationswith political allies, particularly after the distor-tion of a letter he had written in April 1796 tothe Italian intellectual Philip Mazzei.

In that letter, composed as Federalists and Re-publicans battled over the pro-British Jay Treaty,Jefferson had complained about the Federalists

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THOMAS JEFFERSON

as ‘‘an Anglican monarchical, and aristocraticalparty’’ whose intention was to impose the sub-stance of British government, as well as its forms,on the United States. Federalists in high govern-ment posts were ‘‘timid men who prefer the calmof despotism to the boisterous sea of liberty.’’ 26

A translated version of his strongly worded com-munication appeared in several European news-papers and in a May 1797 edition of the NewYork Minerva. Liberties taken in translationserved only to increase the letter’s tone of par-tisan intemperance. Federalists offered the letteras evidence of the vice president’s demagoguery,and the affair increased animosity between thepolitical parties. Unhappy with the consequencesof the Mazzei letter, Jefferson cautioned all fu-ture correspondents to ‘‘[t]ake care that nothingfrom my letters gets into the newspapers.’’ 27

Although Jefferson greatly respected the insti-tution of the Senate, he had little affection for theFederalist senators over whom he presided. TheFederalists enjoyed a 22-to-10 majority in 1797and Jefferson expected the worst. Fearing thatthe majority might routinely employ the Senate’spower to try impeachments to quiet senatorswho harbored contrary views, Jefferson tookmore than a passing interest in the impeachmentproceedings against his fellow Republican,former Tennessee senator William Blount, whosetrial he presided over in December 1798. Almosta year earlier, as the Senate worked to establishrules and procedures for the first impeachmenttrial, the vice president had secretly reinforcedVirginia Senator Henry Tazewell’s argumentthat Blount had a Sixth Amendment right to ajury trial, providing precedents he extractedfrom the parliamentary writings of WilliamBlackstone and Richard Woddeson. ‘‘The objectin supporting this engraftment into impeach-ments,’’ he wrote Tazewell on January 27, 1798,‘‘is to lessen the dangers of the court of impeach-ment under its present form & to induce disposi-tions in all parties in favor of a better constitutedcourt of impeachment, which I own I consideras an useful thing, if so composed as to be clearof the spirit of faction.’’ Anxious to conceal hisrole in the Republican effort to circumscribe theimpeachment power, he cautioned Tazewell,

‘‘Do not let the enclosed paper be seen in myhandwriting.’’ 28 A month later, after Tazewell’seffort failed, Jefferson confided to Madison thatthe Federalists ‘‘consider themselves as the bul-warks of the government, and will be renderingthat the more secure, in proportion as they canassume greater powers.’’ 29

Alien and Sedition Acts

Deteriorating relations with France pre-occupied the government during Jefferson’svice-presidency and fostered anti-French senti-ment at home. No one event caused the conflict,but a decree of the ruling Directory and a seriesof French proposals fueled the spreading fire.The decree declared that neutral ships with Eng-lish merchandise or commodities could beseized. Congress, in turn, sought to protectAmerican commerce by authorizing the armingof private vessels.

In what proved to be a futile attempt to im-prove relations, President Adams sent three en-voys to France. When they reached Paris in Octo-ber 1797, however, the French government re-fused to receive them until they satisfied require-ments that the Americans considered insulting.Minor French officials—publicly labeled ‘‘X, Y,and Z’’—met with the envoys and presentedproposals that included a request for a $12 mil-lion loan and a $250,000 bribe in exchange forrecognition of the United States and the estab-lishment of formal ties. Despite his sympathiesfor France, Jefferson viewed the proposals as asupreme insult, yet he understood that a warcould undermine the nation’s newly set constitu-tional foundations and strengthen the pro-BritishFederalist leadership.

The publication in April 1798 of what becameknown as the ‘‘XYZ papers’’ produced wide-spread anger and created a frenzied atmospherein which overzealous patriotism flourished. Inan effort to restore their party’s popularity, Fed-eralist legislators—recently the targets of publicscorn for their support of the unpopular Jay trea-ty with England—seized on the anti-French hos-tility that the XYZ affair had generated. Federal-ists in Congress, their numbers expanded in re-sponse to public anger against France, quicklypassed a series of tough measures to set the na-

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THOMAS JEFFERSON

tion on a war footing. Most notorious of thesestatutes were the Sedition Act, the NaturalizationAct, and the Alien Act, all viewed by their Re-publican opponents as distinctly partisan meas-ures to curtail individual rights.30

The Senate approved the Sedition Act on July4, 1798, in the final days of the Fifth Congressafter Jefferson had left for Virginia. The statutecurtailed the rights of Americans to criticize theirgovernment and provided punishment for anyperson writing, uttering, or publishing ‘‘anyfalse, scandalous and malicious writing’’ againstthe president or Congress with the intent of in-flaming public passions against them.31 The Fed-eralists immediately invoked the law’s provi-sions to suppress Republican criticism.

The Naturalization Act was also a decidedlypartisan measure in that it targeted immigrants,who tended to support the Republican party, bylengthening the residency requirements for U.S.citizenship from five to fourteen years.32 Finally,President Adams, on June 25, 1798, signed athird repressive law passed by the FederalistCongress. The Alien Act, which Jefferson called‘‘a most detestable thing,’’ authorized the presi-dent, acting unilaterally, to deport any nonciti-zen whom he viewed as ‘‘dangerous to the peaceand safety of the United States.’’ 33 Adams neverexercised this power, but the Act inflamed thedispute over the scope of presidential power inthe young nation.

Jefferson recognized that these measuresraised fundamental questions regarding the divi-sion of sovereignty between the national andstate governments and the means for settling dis-putes between the two levels of government. Asvice president and head of the party that this leg-islation was designed to restrain, Jefferson foundhimself powerless at the national level to combatthese measures that he believed were ‘‘so pal-pably in the teeth of the Constitution as to shewthey mean to pay no respect to it.’’ 34

Looking to the states to provide an arena forconstructive action, Jefferson drafted a set of res-olutions assailing these acts as unconstitutionalviolations of human rights.35 He sent them toWilson Nicholas, a member of the Virginia as-sembly, with a request that he arrange for theirintroduction in the North Carolina legislature.

By chance, Nicholas encountered John Breckin-ridge, a member of the Kentucky house of rep-resentatives, many of whose members stronglyopposed these repressive laws. Breckinridgeagreed to introduce Jefferson’s resolutions in hislegislature while keeping their author’s identitysecret.

The first sentence of Jefferson’s ‘‘KentuckyResolutions’’ asserted:

That the several states composing the UnitedStates of America are not united on the principleof unlimited submission to their general govern-ment, but that, by a compact under the style andtitle of a Constitution for the United States, andof amendments thereto, they constituted a gen-eral government for special purposes,—dele-gated to that government certain definite powers,reserving, each State to itself, the residuary massof right to their own self-government; and thatwhensoever the general government assumesundelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative,void, and of no force.36

Although the vice president had no desire tosubvert the Union, his suggestion that any statehad the power to nullify a federal law if it deter-mined the legislation to be unconstitutionalharbored grave consequences for the nation’sstability. He also argued that the federal judici-ary should not decide issues of constitutionalitybecause it was a partisan arm of the federal gov-ernment. Jefferson did not specifically call for thenullification of the Alien and Sedition acts, buthe did use the word ‘‘nullify,’’ which was subse-quently dropped from the version of the resolu-tion that the Kentucky legislature adopted in No-vember 1798.

The Virginia legislature passed similar meas-ures prepared in a less strident form by JamesMadison who, like Jefferson, found the Seditionand Alien laws to be constitutionally flawed anddangerous to individual freedom. To Jefferson’schagrin, no other states joined in this action, asmost legislatures thought Jefferson’s ideas tooextreme. The resolutions as passed in Kentuckyand Virginia simply called on states to seek re-peal of the odious statutes through their rep-resentatives at the next session of Congress.37

The Kentucky legislature passed additional reso-lutions in 1799—specifically calling for nullifica-

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THOMAS JEFFERSON

tion of objectionable laws. Although Jeffersonsympathized with their aim, he had no part intheir drafting. Congress did not renew the Alienand Sedition acts in 1801 when they expired.

Thomas Jefferson’s involvement with the Ken-tucky Resolutions reflected his passion for pro-tecting civil liberties from repressive measuresby omnipotent government. He favored a gov-ernmental system that would resist tyranny andcorruption. He found republicanism to be closestto his ideal of a balanced and strong yet non-intrusive form of government. ‘‘The legitimatepowers of government,’’ he wrote, ‘‘extend tosuch acts only as are injurious to others.’’ 38 Yethis philosophy did allow for a distinction be-tween the relative powers of the state and federalgovernments.

Conditioned by his overriding fear of central-ized power, Jefferson argued that the federalgovernment could not infringe on the freedomof the press. He vehemently opposed the Sedi-tion Act, but he believed the states had the rightto restrict the press to some degree. The possibil-ity that states might abuse this power did notconcern Jefferson. On the contrary, he saw thestates as the bulwarks of freedom, as his involve-ment with the Kentucky Resolutions dem-onstrated. Years later, he would write, ‘‘the truebarriers of our liberty in this country are ourState governments; and the wisest conservativepower ever contrived by man, is that of whichour Revolution and present government foundus possessed.’’ 39

Jefferson sought to enhance the authority ofthe states only to further the cause of individualrights. But when a foreign nation posed a threatto the country, Jefferson was quick to underscorethe importance of the Union, which he describedas ‘‘the last anchor of our hope.’’ Though hewould eschew war at all costs, Jefferson believedthe states had an obligation to support theUnion, even if it blundered into war.

Jefferson’s Manual

Thomas Jefferson’s Manual of ParliamentaryPractice is, without question, the distinguishingfeature of his vice-presidency. The single greatestcontribution to the Senate by any person to serveas vice president, it is as relevant to the Senate

of the late twentieth century as it was to the Sen-ate of the late eighteenth century. Reflecting theManual’s continuing value, the Senate in 1993provided for its publication in a special editionto commemorate the 250th anniversary of Jeffer-son’s birth.

Jefferson had conceived the idea of a par-liamentary manual as he prepared to assume theduties of the vice-presidency early in 1797. JohnAdams offered an inadequate model for the roleof presiding officer, for he had earned a reputa-tion for officious behavior in the Senate presi-dent’s chair. To avoid the criticism that attendedAdams’ performance, Jefferson believed the Sen-ate’s presiding officer needed to follow ‘‘someknown system of rules, that he may neither leavehimself free to indulge caprice or passion, noropen to the imputation of them.’’ 40 The lack ofcarefully delineated rules, he feared, wouldmake the Senate prone to the extremes of chaosand tyranny. He was particularly concernedabout the operation of Senate Rule 16, which pro-vided that the presiding officer was to be solelyresponsible for deciding all questions of order,‘‘without debate and without appeal.’’ 41

Before leaving Virginia to take up his new du-ties, Jefferson had contacted his old mentor,George Wythe. Acknowledging that he had notconcerned himself about legislative matters formany years, Jefferson asked Wythe to help re-fresh his memory by loaning him notes on par-liamentary procedure that Wythe had madeyears earlier. To Jefferson’s disappointment, theeminent jurist reported that he had lost track ofhis notes and that his memory no longer servedhim well. Jefferson then consulted his ‘‘Par-liamentary Pocketbook,’’ which included noteson parliamentary procedure he had taken whenhe studied under Wythe and during his serviceas a member of the Virginia house of burgesses.Although he considered these notes his ‘‘pillar,’’he realized they would be of little direct assist-ance in resolving Senate procedural disputes.

The new vice president admired the BritishHouse of Commons’ rules of procedure because,in the words of a former Speaker, they provided‘‘a shelter and protection to the minority, againstthe attempts of power.’’ 42 ‘‘Its rules are probablyas wisely constructed for governing the debates

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THOMAS JEFFERSON

of a deliberative body, and obtaining its truesense, as any which can become known to us.’’ 43

A Senate in which the Federalists had a two-to-one majority over the Republicans accentuatedJefferson’s fears and made him particularly sen-sitive to the preservation of minority rights. Dis-trusting the process in which small committeesunder majority party control made key decisions,the vice president wished to protect minority in-terests by emphasizing those procedures thatpermitted each senator to have a say in impor-tant matters.

Jefferson compiled his Manual of ParliamentaryPractice during the course of his four-year vice-presidency. He designed it to contain guidancefor the Senate drawn from ‘‘the precepts of theConstitution, the regulations of the Senate, andwhere these are silent, the rules of Parliament.’’To broaden his understanding of legislative pro-cedure, Jefferson studied noteworthy works onthe British Parliament such as John Hatsell’sthree-volume Precedents of Proceedings in theHouse of Commons (1785), Anchitell Grey’s ten-volume edition of Debates in the House of Com-mons (1769), and Richard Wooddeson’s three-volume A Systematical View of the Laws of England(1792, 1794). The resulting Manual, loaded withreferences to these British parliamentary authori-ties, contained fifty-three sections devoted tosuch topics as privileges, petitions, motions, res-olutions, bills, treaties, conferences, and im-peachments.

Jefferson’s Manual was first published in 1801,shortly after he became president. A second edi-tion followed in 1812, and in 1837 the House ofRepresentatives established that the rules listedin the Manual would ‘‘govern the House in allcases to which they are applicable and in whichthey are not inconsistent with the standing rulesand orders of the House and the joint rules ofthe Senate.’’ 44 Although the Manual has not beentreated as ‘‘a direct authority on parliamentaryprocedure in the Senate,’’ 45 it is the Senate thattoday more closely captures Jefferson’s ideal ofa genuinely deliberative body. His emphasis onorder and decorum changed the way the Senateof his day operated. In the assessment of DumasMalone, Jefferson ‘‘exercised his limited func-tions [as presiding officer] with greater care than

his predecessor and left every successor hisdebtor.’’ 46

President

On February 17, 1801, after thirty-six ballots,the House of Representatives elected Thomas Jef-ferson president of the United States.47 Follow-ing the precedent that Vice President Adams setin February 1797, Jefferson delivered a brief fare-well address to the Senate on February 28, 1801.He thanked members for their indulgence of hisweaknesses.

In the discharge of my functions here, it hasbeen my conscientious endeavor to observe im-partial justice without regard to persons or sub-jects; and if I have failed of impressing this onthe mind of the Senate, it will be to me a cir-cumstance of the deepest regret. . . . I owe to truthand justice, at the same time, to declare, that thehabits of order and decorum, which so stronglycharacterize the proceedings of the Senate, haverendered the umpirage of their President an of-fice of little difficulty; that, in times and on ques-tions which have severely tried the sensibilitiesof the House, calm and temperate discussion hasrarely been disturbed by departures fromorder.48

After completing these remarks, Jefferson fol-lowed another Adams precedent by steppingaside a few days prior to the end of the session.This action allowed the Senate to appoint a presi-dent pro tempore, a post filled only when thevice president was absent from the capital. Nextto the vice president in the line of presidentialsuccession at that time, the president pro tem-pore would serve until the swearing in of a newvice president at the start of the next session.

On March 4, 1801, Jefferson took the oath ofoffice as president of the United States, therebysuccessfully accomplishing the nation’s firsttransfer of presidential power between the twomajor political parties. He served two terms aspresident, retiring at last from public life in 1809.He renewed his friendship with John Adams,and the two men corresponded regularly untiltheir deaths—both dying on July 4, 1826, the fif-tieth anniversary of Jefferson’s Declaration ofIndependence.

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THOMAS JEFFERSON

Jefferson’s Contributions

Thomas Jefferson infused the vice-presidencywith his genius through the contribution of hisManual of Parliamentary Practice—a magisterialguide to legislative procedure that has retainedits broad utility through two centuries. He alsocontributed to the office his example of skillfulbehind-the-scenes legislative leadership, and heoffered a philosophical compass on the issues ofconstitutionalism and individual rights. Biog-rapher Dumas Malone provides a final analysisof Jefferson’s style as party leader during hisvice-presidential tenure:

His popular success was due in considerablepart to his identification of himself with causesfor which time was fighting—notably the broad-ening of the political base—and to his remarkablesensitivity to fluctuations in public opinion. Asa practical politician, he worked through othermen, whom he energized and who gave him toan extraordinary degree their devoted coopera-tion. His leadership was due not to self-assertive-ness and imperiousness of will but to the fact thatcircumstances had made him a symbolic figureand that to an acute intelligence and unceasingindustry he joined a dauntless and contagiousfaith. 48

[ 27 ]

NOTES1 Paul Leicester Ford, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson

(New York, 1892–1899), vol. 7, p. 114.2 Biographical accounts of Jefferson’s life are plentiful and

rich. The definitive modern study is Dumas Malone, Jeffer-son and His Time, 6 vols. (Boston, 1948–1981). The volumein that series that covers the years of his vice-presidencyis Jefferson and the Ordeal of Liberty (Boston, 1962). A first-rate single-volume biography is Noble E. Cunningham, Jr.,In Pursuit of Reason: The Life of Thomas Jefferson (Baton Rouge,1987). For the period of Jefferson’s vice-presidency, seeNoble E. Cunningham, Jr., The Jeffersonian Republicans: TheFormation of Party Organization, 1789–1801 (Chapel Hill,1957). For a series of twenty-five excellent essays that focuson each of Jefferson’s ‘‘extraordinary collection of talents,’’see Merrill D. Peterson, ed., Thomas Jefferson: A Reference Bi-ography (New York, 1986). This work also contains a com-prehensive bibliography. There are several major collectionsof Jefferson’s writings, including Paul Leicester Ford, TheWritings of Thomas Jefferson, 10 vols. (New York, 1892–1899)and the more comprehensive, but as yet incomplete, JulianP. Boyd, et al., eds., The Papers of Thomas Jefferson(1950–). The latter work has appeared to date only to themid-1790s and thus is of no assistance for the vice-presi-dential period. One volume associated with this massiveproject, however, is of direct value; appearing as part of theproject’s ‘‘Second Series’’ is Wilbur Samuel Howell, ed., Jef-ferson’s Parliamentary Writings: ‘Parliamentary Pocket-Book’and A Manual of Parliamentary Practice (Princeton, 1988).

3 For a thorough study of Jefferson’s early years see MarieKimball, Jefferson: The Road to Glory, 1743 to 1776 (New York,1943) and Dumas Malone, Jefferson the Virginian (Boston,1948).

4 Cunningham, In Pursuit of Reason, pp. 64–75.5 Dumas Malone, ‘‘The Life of Thomas Jefferson,’’ in Pe-

terson, ed., p. 7.6 Noble E. Cunningham, Jr., ‘‘The Jeffersonian Republican

Party,’’ in History of U.S. Political Parties, ed. Arthur M.Schlesinger, Jr. (New York, 1973), 1:240.

7 Kenneth R. Bowling and Helen E. Veit, eds., The Diaryof William Maclay and Other Notes on Senate Debates, Docu-mentary History of the First Federal Congress of the UnitedStates of America, vol. 9 (Baltimore, 1988), p. 275.

8 Cunningham, ‘‘The Jeffersonian Republican Party,’’ pp.246–47.

9 Malone, Jefferson and the Ordeal of Liberty, pp. 274–75.10 Quoted in Cunningham, ‘‘The Jeffersonian Republican

Party,’’ p. 249.11 Malone, Jefferson and the Ordeal of Liberty, p. 291.12 Ibid., p. 274.13 Ibid., p. 278.14 Congressional Quarterly’s Guide to U.S. Elections, 3d ed.

(Washington, 1994), p. 361.

15 Jefferson to Rush, January 22, 1797, in Ford, 7:114; Ma-lone, Jefferson and the Ordeal of Liberty, p. 292.

16 Ford, 7:93–94.17 Only two other vice presidents subsequently shared

Adams’ pleasant task: Martin Van Buren in 1837 andGeorge Bush in 1989.

18 Malone, Jefferson and the Ordeal of Liberty, p. 295.19 U.S., Congress, Annals of Congress, March 4, 1797, pp.

1580–82.20 Jefferson to Gerry, May 13, 1797, in Ford, 7:120.21 Malone, Jefferson and the Ordeal of Liberty, p. 300.22 Ibid., p. 293; Cunningham, In Pursuit of Reason, pp. 206–

7; John Ferling, John Adams: A Life (Knoxville, 1992), pp. 332–34.

23 Malone, Jefferson and the Ordeal of Liberty, p. 299.24 Silvio A. Bedini, ‘‘Man of Science,’’ in Peterson, ed., p.

257.25 Cunningham, In Pursuit of Reason, 206–7; Malone, Jeffer-

son and the Ordeal of Liberty, chapter XXII; Bedini, in Peter-son, ed., pp. 253–76.

26 Ford, 7: 76; Cunningham, The Jeffersonian Republicans,p. 119.

27 Jefferson to Colonel Bell, May 18, 1797, in Andrew A.Lipscomb and Albert Ellery Bergh, ed., The Writings ofThomas Jefferson (Washington, 1903), 9:387; Cunningham,The Jeffersonian Republicans, pp. 118–19.

28 Thomas Jefferson to Henry Tazewell, January 27, 1798,in Ford, 7:194–95.

29 Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, February 22, 1798,in Ford, 7:206–8.

30 Malone, Jefferson and the Ordeal of Liberty, chapter XXIV.31 1 Stat. 596–597.32 1 Stat. 566–569.33 1 Stat. 570–572.34 Jefferson to James Madison, June 7, 1798, in Ford, 7:267.35 This issue is treated in full detail in Malone, Jefferson

and the Ordeal of Liberty, chapter XXV.36 Ford, 8:458–61.37 Cunningham, In Pursuit of Reason, pp. 217–18.38 Quoted in Malone, Jefferson and the Ordeal of Liberty, p.

393.39 Jefferson to Destutt de Tracy, January 16, 1888, in Ford,

9:308–10; Malone, Jefferson and the Ordeal of Liberty, p. 394.40 Thomas Jefferson, A Manual of Parliamentary Practice for

the Use of the Senate of the United States, in The Papers ofThomas Jefferson, Second Series, Jefferson’s ParliamentaryWritings, Wilbur Samuel Howell, ed., p. 355. Howell hasproduced the definitive scholarly edition of Jefferson’s Man-ual (pp. 339–444).

41 U.S., Congress, Senate, History of the Committee on Rulesand Administration, United States Senate, S. Doc. 96–27, 96thCong., 1st sess., p. 6.

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THOMAS JEFFERSON

42 Speaker Arthur Onslow quoted in Section I of Jeffer-son’s Manual of Parliamentary Practice, Howell ed., p. 357.

43 Howell, ed., p. 355.44 The Senate has regularly published that work as a com-

panion to the body’s formal rules. The Manual was includedas a section within the Senate Manual from 1886 to 1975 andwas republished in 1993, on the occasion of the 250th anni-versary of Jefferson’s birth, in the original 1801 edition.Some practices discussed in Jefferson’s Manual set coreprecedents that the Senate has followed ever since, althoughthe work is not considered a direct authority on procedure.The Manual’s influence quickly extended beyond domesticlegislatures, as editors translated the work into other lan-guages. At least 143 editions have been printed. The work

has abetted self-government in countries as far away as thePhilippines, where over one-hundred years later it wasadopted as a supplementary guide in that nation’s senateand house of representatives.

45 U.S., Congress, Senate, Riddick’s Senate Procedure: Prece-dents and Practices, by Floyd M. Riddick and Alan S. Frumin,S. Doc. 101–28, 101st Cong., 1st sess., p. 754.

46 Malone, Jefferson and the Ordeal of Liberty, pp. 452–53.47 A description of this election and the resulting Twelfth

Amendment to the Constitution appears in Chapter 3 of thisvolume, ‘‘Aaron Burr.’’

48 Annals of Congress, 6th Cong., 1st sess., pp. 753–54.48 Malone, ‘‘The Life of Thomas Jefferson,’’ in Peterson,

ed., p. 15.

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Chapter 3

AARON BURR1801–1805

AARON BURR

[ 31 ]

Chapter 3

AARON BURR3rd Vice President: 1801–1805

Was there in Greece or Rome a man of virtue and independence, and supposed to possess great tal-ents, who was not the subject of vindictive and unrelenting persecution?

—AARON BURR TO THEODOSIA BURR ALSTON 1

I never, indeed thought him an honest, frank-dealing man, but considered him as a crooked gun,or other perverted machine, whose aim or stroke you could never be sure of.

—THOMAS JEFFERSON 2

Col. Burr . . . [is] Not by any means a model man . . . but not so bad as it is the fashion topaint him.

—GEORGE W. JOHNSON 3

Congressional Republicans were in a festivemood on January 24, 1804, as they gathered atStelle’s Hotel on Capitol Hill for a banquet cele-brating the transfer of the Louisiana Territory tothe United States. The festivities began at noonwith the discharge of ‘‘three pieces of cannon.’’President Thomas Jefferson and Vice PresidentAaron Burr were among the honored guests;they departed after the banquet, but the revelrycontinued until nightfall. ‘‘A number of theguests drank so many toasts that in the nightthey returned to their houses without their hats,’’one contemporary reported. But when one cele-brant offered a toast to Vice President Burr, theeffect was pronounced and chilling: ‘‘fewcheered him,’’ the chronicler observed, ‘‘& manydeclined drinking it.’’ 4

None of Aaron Burr’s contemporaries knewquite what to make of this complex and fascinat-ing individual. As Senator Robert C. Byrd ob-served in his November 13, 1987, address on thelife and career of this controversial vice presi-dent, ‘‘there is much that we will never knowabout the man.’’ Much of Burr’s early cor-

respondence, entrusted to his daughter for safe-keeping, was lost in 1812, when the ship carryingTheodosia Burr Alston from South Carolina toNew York for a long-awaited reunion with herfather disappeared off the North CarolinaCoast.5

Burr was one of the most maligned and mis-trusted public figures of his era—and, withoutquestion, the most controversial vice president ofthe early republic—but he never attempted tojustify or explain his actions to his friends or tohis enemies. One editor of Burr’s papers has la-mented, ‘‘Almost alone among the men whoheld high office in the early decades of this na-tion, Burr left behind no lengthy recriminationsagainst his enemies . . . no explanations and jus-tifications for his actions.’’ He seems to havecared very little what his contemporariesthought of him, or how historians would judgehim.6 Few figures in American history have beenas vilified, or as romanticized, by modern writ-ers.7 Urbane and charming, generous beyondprudence, proud, shrewd, and ambitious, hestood apart from other public figures of his day.

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An anomaly in an era when public office was aduty to be gravely and solemnly accepted butnever pursued with unseemly enthusiasm, Burrenjoyed the ‘‘game’’ of politics. His zest for poli-tics enabled him to endure the setbacks and de-feats he experienced throughout his checkeredcareer, but, as Mary-Jo Kline, the editor of Burr’spapers suggests, it also gave him the ‘‘spectacu-lar ability to inspire suspicion—even fear—among the more conventional FoundingFathers.’’ 8

Early Years

Aaron Burr was born at Newark, New Jersey,on February 6, 1756. His father, Aaron Burr, Sr.,was a highly respected clerical scholar whoserved as pastor of the Newark First Pres-byterian Church and as president of the Collegeof New Jersey (now Princeton University). Hismother, Esther Edwards Burr, was the daughterof the noted Puritan theologian and scholar, Jon-athan Edwards, who is most often rememberedfor his passionate and fiery sermons. The familymoved to Princeton when the college relocatedthere soon after the future vice president’s birth,but Burr did not remain there long. His fathercontracted a fever and died when young Aaronwas only a year-and-a-half old. His mother andher parents died soon thereafter. An orphan bythe age of two, Burr and his older sister, Sally,moved to Philadelphia, where they lived withfamily friends until 1759, when their uncle, Tim-othy Edwards of Stockbridge, Massachusetts, be-came their legal guardian.

Edwards and his young wards moved to Eliza-beth Town, New Jersey, the following year.Uncle Timothy soon discovered that Esther’s‘‘Little dirty Noisy Boy’’ had inherited much ofthe Edwards family’s renowned intellect but lit-tle of their piety. High-spirited, independent,precocious and self-confident, young Aaron atfirst studied with a private tutor. In 1769 hebegan his studies at the College of New Jersey,graduating in 1772. In 1773, he enrolled in theReverend Joseph Bellamy’s school at Bethlehem,Connecticut, to prepare for the ministry but soonrealized that he could neither wholly accept theCalvinist discipline of his forebears nor forgo thedistractions of the town.9 He had, his authorized

biographer relates, ‘‘come to the conclusion thatthe road to Heaven was open to all alike.’’ 10 InMay 1774, he moved to Litchfield, Connecticut,to study law under his brother-in-law, TappingReeve, but the outbreak of the American Revolu-tion interrupted his studies.

Burr joined the march on Quebec as an uncom-pensated ‘‘gentleman volunteer’’ in the summerof 1775. His bravery under fire during the ill-fated assault on that heavily fortified city on De-cember 31, 1775, won him a coveted appoint-ment as an aide to the American commander inchief, General George Washington, but he wasalmost immediately reassigned to General IsraelPutnam. Burr served as Putnam’s aide until 1777,when he finally received a commission as a lieu-tenant colonel and command of his own regi-ment. Washington seems to have taken an imme-diate dislike to his ambitious young aide, andBurr appears to have reciprocated this sentiment.When Washington ordered the court-martial ofGeneral Charles Lee for dilatory conduct at thebattle of Monmouth Courthouse, New Jersey, inJune 1778, Burr sided with Lee. His own regi-ment had suffered heavy losses during the en-gagement after Washington ordered Burr to holdan exposed position in the blazing ninety-six-de-gree heat. But notwithstanding his dislike forColonel Burr, Washington respected his abilities,assigning him the difficult but crucial task of de-termining the future movements of the Britishforces in New York. Burr later commanded thetroops stationed at Westchester, New York, im-posing a rigid but effective discipline thatbrought order to the frontier outpost where un-ruly soldiers and footloose marauders had for-merly terrorized the nearby settlers. Burr re-signed his commission in early 1779, his healthbroken by the accumulated stresses of several ex-hausting campaigns. He always took pride in hismilitary record, and for the remainder of his longlife, admirers referred to him as ‘‘ColonelBurr.’’ 11 Of his many accomplishments, onlytwo are memorialized on the stone that markshis grave: Colonel in the Army of the Revolution,and Vice President of the United States.12

Aaron Burr lived an unsettled existence afterleaving the army, travelling about the country-side, visiting friends and family, and studying

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law as his health permitted. In 1782, he beganhis legal practice and married Theodosia BartowPrevost, the widow of a British army officer. InNovember 1783, the Burr family—which in-cluded his wife’s two sons by her first husbandand an infant daughter, named Theodosia for hermother—moved to New York after British forcesevacuated the city. Burr lavished special atten-tion on his only child, carefully supervising hereducation and cultivating her intellect. Young‘‘Theo,’’ in turn, idolized her father, and she be-came his closest confidante after her mother diedin 1794.13

Early Political Career

Burr was an able lawyer. A New York law bar-ring non-Whigs from the legal professionworked to his advantage as he rose to promi-nence in that calling. At this stage in his career,he was not, apparently, an adherent of any par-ticular political persuasion. Despite his alacrityin responding to the call for volunteers at theoutbreak of the Revolution, he seems to havebeen curiously detached from the political fer-ment that brought it about. Once Burr began hispolitical career, he served a single term in theNew York assembly during the 1784–1785 ses-sion, 14 not returning to public life until 1788.Then, as the editors of his papers suggest, he‘‘appears to have played a minor and equivocalrole’’ in the New York debate over ratificationof the proposed federal constitution. The radicalSons of Liberty touted Burr as a possible delegateto the ratification convention, but, for reasons henever elaborated, he declined to serve.15 Beforelong, however, he abandoned whatever reserva-tions he may have had with respect to the newConstitution. ‘‘After adoption by ten states,’’ headvised one correspondent, ‘‘I think it becameboth politic and necessary to adopt it.’’ 16

Burr was soon actively involved in New Yorkpolitics. Joining forces with his future rival, Alex-ander Hamilton, he supported Richard Yates—a moderate Antifederalist and a longstandingfriend who had helped him win admission to thebar—in the 1789 gubernatorial election. Yateslost to George Clinton, a more ardent Anti-federalist who had served as governor of NewYork since 1777. Governor Clinton, either willing

to forgive Burr or shrewd enough to realize thatthe brilliant young newcomer would soonemerge as a key player in New York politics, ap-pointed him attorney general in 1789. In 1791,Clinton helped orchestrate Burr’s election to theU. S. Senate, unseating Senator Philip Schuylerand making a lifelong enemy of Schuyler’s son-in-law, Alexander Hamilton.17

Senator Burr had acquired a taste for politics—a profession that, he would later advise an aspir-ing candidate, he found ‘‘a great deal of fun.’’ 18

In 1792, he entered the New York gubernatorialrace but soon withdrew in Clinton’s favor.Northern Republicans mentioned him as a pro-spective vice-presidential candidate in 1792, butBurr deferred to Clinton again after southern Re-publicans refused to support the ambitiousyoung senator. Better to select ‘‘a person of moreadvanced life and longer standing in publicktrust,’’ James Monroe of Virginia cautioned,‘‘particularly one who in consequence of suchservice had given unequivocal proofs of what hisprinciples really were.’’ 19

Burr was a vehement partisan in the Senate,siding with the anti-administration forces whoopposed Hamilton’s financial system and Wash-ington’s foreign policy. He mounted a spirited,though unsuccessful, defense of PennsylvaniaSenator Albert Gallatin, the Swiss-born Repub-lican who was unseated in 1794 after the Federal-ist majority determined that he did not meet theConstitution’s nine-year citizenship requirementfor senators. He voted against Washington’snomination of John Jay as an envoy to Great Brit-ain in 1794, on the grounds that it would be‘‘mischievous and impolitic’’ to appoint Jay, thechief justice of the United States, to ‘‘any otheroffice or employment emanating from, and hold-en at the pleasure of, the executive.’’ Burr wasalso one of the most outspoken opponents of theunpopular ‘‘Jay Treaty,’’ which the Federalist-dominated Senate approved in 1795.20

In 1796, the determined senator again set hissights on the vice-presidency, and—in a strikingdeparture from eighteenth-century electoral eti-quette—began an energetic campaign to securethe support of his fellow Republicans. On June26, 1796, the Republican caucus endorsed him astheir vice-presidential candidate, although, as

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Burr’s biographers have noted, ‘‘For their party’svice-presidential nomination, the Republicanswere less unified than in their determination that[Thomas Jefferson] was the man to head theirparty’s drive to oust the ‘aristocrats.’’’ Repub-licans concentrated on capturing the presidencybut succeeded only in electing Thomas Jeffersonvice president. Over half of the electors whovoted for Jefferson failed to cast their secondvotes for Burr, who finished a disappointingfourth with only thirty electoral votes.21

Burr retired from the Senate in 1797. The fol-lowing year, he returned to the New York assem-bly, making several enemies during his brief andtroubled term. He advocated defensive measuresto protect New York harbor as relations withFrance worsened in the wake of the ‘‘X,Y,Z af-fair’’—a prudent stance, given New York’s stra-tegic importance and vulnerable location, butone that prompted accusations from more doc-trinaire Republicans that Burr had joined theFederalist camp. He became vulnerable tocharges that he had abused the public trust forhis personal benefit when he participated in aprivate land speculation venture in western NewYork and then sought to enact legislation remov-ing restrictions on land ownership by nonciti-zens—a measure that would increase the valueof his western lands. Working in concert withHamilton, Burr helped secure a charter and raisesubscriptions for a private company to improvethe water supply of pestilence-ridden Manhat-tan, but New Yorkers were shocked to learn thatthe surplus capital from the venture had beenused to establish the Bank of Manhattan. Al-though Federalists were heavily involved in theenterprise, the bank was controlled by Repub-licans. New York voters, suspicious as they wereof banks, deserted the party in droves in the 1799state election, and Burr was turned out of of-fice.22 One observer commented in disgust thatthe Republicans ‘‘had such a damn’d ticket thatno decent man could hold up his head to supportit.’’ 23

But although some Republicans were increas-ingly uncomfortable with Burr’s questionable fi-nancial dealings and his willingness to cooperatewith Federalists to achieve his ends, he remaineda valuable asset. He had, one Federalist admit-

ted, ‘‘by his arts & intrigues . . . done a great dealtowards revolutionizing the State,’’ 24 building apolitical base that would help launch his nationalcareer. Burr’s vehement opposition to the Alienand Sedition Acts in the New York assembly hadwon Republicans the support of New York’slarge and rapidly growing immigrant commu-nity. In a feat one admirer attributed to ‘‘theintervention of a Supreme Power and our friendBurr the agent,’’ he ensured that New York Cityelected a Republican delegation to the state legis-lature in 1800, laying the groundwork for a Re-publican victory in the presidential contest laterthat year. New York was one of the states inwhich the legislature selected presidential elec-tors, and its 12 electors comprised over 15 per-cent of the 70 votes necessary to achieve an elec-toral majority. Republican control of the NewYork legislature was crucial, and New YorkCity’s thirteen-member delegation gave theparty a majority.25

The Election of 1800

In 1800, Republican strategists hoped to ce-ment their fledgling coalition by seeking, for geo-graphical balance, a New Yorker as their vice-presidential candidate. One obvious choice wasNew York’s elder statesman, George Clinton, buthis reluctance to enter the race 26 cleared the wayfor Burr’s unanimous nomination by the Repub-lican caucus on May 11, 1800. Although Jeffersonwould later claim—after Burr discredited him-self by his behavior during the election and inoffice—that he had harbored reservations abouthis New York lieutenant from the time of theirfirst meeting in 1791 or 1792, contemporary cor-respondence suggests that their relationship wascordial during the 1790s. If Jefferson had reserva-tions about Burr in 1800, he laid them aside tosecure a Republican victory, using his influenceto ensure that all of Virginia’s twenty-one elec-tors would cast their second votes for his run-ning mate.27

Jefferson waged a behind-the-scenes cam-paign, writing letters to his political lieutenantsand encouraging the preparation and dissemina-tion of pamphlets and press accounts critical ofJohn Adams’ administration, which had sup-ported the Alien and Sedition Acts and increased

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the military establishment. Burr was an activecampaigner, visiting Rhode Island and Connecti-cut in late August to shore up Republican sup-port. ‘‘The Matter of V.P—is of very little com-parative Consequence,’’ he informed one cor-respondent as he speculated that the electionmight result in the election of Jefferson as presi-dent and Adams as vice president, ‘‘and any Sac-rifice on that head ought to be made to obtaina single vote for J————.’’ 28 Surprising as itmight appear to modern observers, Burr’s clearlysuccessful political prowess in the 1800 electiononly raised suspicions among his rivals and al-lies that he was not to be trusted. He did not fitthe mold of the dispassionate statesmen who re-mained aloof from the fray of politics while theirsupporters worked to secure their election. But‘‘the creation of nationwide, popularly based po-litical parties,’’ one Burr scholar explains, ‘‘de-manded men who were willing to . . . bargainregional alliances, men able to climb the ladderof popular support and to convey their own en-joyment of the ‘fun’ of politics.’’ In this respect,she suggests, Burr was ‘‘The Ghost of Politics Yetto Come.’’ 29

Jefferson soon had ample reason to distrustBurr. In 1800, as in the three previous presi-dential elections, each elector cast two voteswithout distinguishing between presidential andvice-presidential candidates. Republican strate-gists expected that all of their electors would castone vote for Jefferson and that most—enough toguarantee that Burr would receive the secondhighest number of votes but not enough to jeop-ardize Jefferson’s margin—would cast their sec-ond votes for Burr. Jefferson and his lieutenantsleft the implementation of this scheme to chance,never asking even a single elector to withhold avote from Burr, although Jefferson’s friend andadviser, James Madison, would later allege thatRepublicans had been lulled by ‘‘false assurancesdispatched at the critical moment to the electorsof one state, that the votes of another would bedifferent from what they proved to be.’’

Increasingly confident of victory as the newsof the election filtered in from the states, Repub-licans were stunned to learn by mid-Decemberthat, although they had clearly defeated Adamsand his running mate, Charles Cotesworth

Pinckney of South Carolina, they had failed toelect a president. Jefferson and Burr, whether byneglect or miscalculation, would each receive 73electoral votes. The election would be decided bythe House of Representatives, as provided in Ar-ticle II, section 1, of the Constitution, which di-rected that ‘‘if there be more that one [candidate]who have such a majority, and have an equalNumber of Votes, then the House of Representa-tives shall immediately chuse by Ballot one ofthem for President,’’ with ‘‘each State having oneVote.’’ 30 The representatives from each statewould poll their delegation to determine howtheir state would cast its single vote, with dead-locked states abstaining.

As soon as the outcome of the election becameapparent, but before Congress met to count theelectoral votes on February 11, 1801, the Federal-ists began a last-ditch effort to defeat Jefferson.Some, while resigned to a Republican victory, be-lieved that the less partisan and more flexibleBurr was by far the lesser of two evils. Otherssupported Burr in the hope that, if a deadlockcould be prolonged indefinitely, the Federalist-dominated Congress could resolve the impassewith legislation authorizing the Senate to elect aFederalist president—a hope that had no con-stitutional basis but demonstrated the uncertaintemper of the times. Alexander Hamilton, aprominent New York Federalist, actively op-posed Burr, repeatedly attempting to convincehis colleagues that Burr was a man whose ‘‘pub-lic principles have no other spring or aim thanhis own aggrandisement.’’ 31

Burr never explained his role in the drama thatsubsequently unfolded in the House of Rep-resentatives, which cast thirty-six ballots beforefinally declaring Jefferson the winner on Feb-ruary 17, 1801. The few comments he venturedat the time were guarded, evasive, and contradic-tory. Professing indignation at rumors that hewas soliciting Federalist support in an attemptto wrest the presidency from Jefferson, Burr ini-tially denied ‘‘that I could submit to be instru-mental in counteracting the wishes & expecta-tions of the U. S.,’’ instructing his friend SamuelSmith ‘‘to declare these sentiments if the occa-sion shall require.’’ One prominent Federalist,Robert Goodloe Harper of South Carolina, ad-

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vised Burr against withdrawing from the presi-dential contest, urging that he ‘‘take no stepwhatsoever, by which the choice of the House ofRepresentatives can be impeded or embarassed,’’and instead ‘‘keep the game perfectly in yourown hand.’’ Burr appears to have followedHarper’s advice to the letter during the tense andconfused days that followed. He never activelysolicited Federalist votes but seemed willingenough to accept them. In late December, he in-formed Samuel Smith that, if the House electedhim president, he would not step aside forJefferson.32

Rumors of Burr’s change of heart soon ap-peared in the press. Tempers flared and reportsof impending armed conflict spread, but Burr re-mained silent. When the House cast the first bal-lot on February 11, eight of the sixteen states—one less than the simple majority required toelect the president—voted for Jefferson. Sixstates voted for Burr, with two states dividedand not voting. This ratio remained constantthrough thirty-four subsequent ballots takenover the course of a week. The deadlock was notresolved until February 17, when Jefferson re-ceived the votes of ten states on the thirty-sixthballot. Representative James A. Bayard (F-DE)and Burr himself finally resolved the impasse. AsDelaware’s only representative, Bayard con-trolled his state’s vote. He voted for Burr on thefirst several ballots, but was under considerablepressure from Hamilton to change his vote andresolve the contest in Jefferson’s favor. (In thusthrowing his support to Jefferson, Hamilton roseabove partisan interests and helped to save thenation.) Concluding that Burr could not musterenough Republican support to win the election(and having received assurances with respect toJefferson’s fiscal and appointments policies),Bayard finally informed his fellow Federaliststhat he could not ‘‘exclude Jefferson at the ex-pense of the Constitution.’’ 33 Correspondencefrom Burr, who was awaiting the outcome of theelection in New York, had arrived on February15; these letters, now lost, revealed that he hadabandoned any hope of winning the presi-dency.34 His supporters finally agreed that,when the state delegations were polled before

the House cast its thirty-sixth ballot on February17, Vermont and Maryland Federalists wouldwithhold their votes, a move that freed their pre-viously deadlocked delegations to vote for Jeffer-son. Bayard and the South Carolina representa-tives would cast blank ballots, further erodingBurr’s margin. Jefferson, with ten votes, wouldbecome president, while Burr, with four, wouldbecome vice president.35

The election, and the confusion that followed,exposed a critical flaw in the constitutional pro-vision governing the election of the presidentand the vice president. The Twelfth Amendment,which passed both houses during the fall of 1803and was ratified by the requisite number of statesin time for the 1804 election, changed the methodof election by requiring electors to designate onevote for a presidential candidate and the otherfor a vice-presidential candidate. Intended toprevent an unscrupulous vice-presidential can-didate (or his supporters) from subverting theelectoral process, the amendment was a Repub-lican initiative, sponsored in the House of Rep-resentatives by John Dawson (R-VA) and in theSenate by Burr’s rival De Witt Clinton (R-NY).36

Vice President Aaron Burr

If Burr was at all chagrined by the outcome ofthe election, or by the taint he had acquired fromnot emphatically renouncing his widely rumoredpresidential aspirations, he gave no sign of it. ‘‘Ijoin my hearty Congratulations on the Auspi-cious events of the 17th:,’’ he wrote to Albert Gal-latin while en route to Washington for the March4 inauguration; ‘‘as to the infamous slanderswhich have been so industriously circulated—they are now of little Consequence & those whobelieved them will doubtless blush at their ownWeakness.’’ 37 Burr arrived in Washington threedays before the inauguration and found accom-modations in nearby Georgetown.

On March 4, 1801, Senate President pro tem-pore James Hillhouse (F-CT) administered theoath of office to Burr in the Senate chamber onthe ground floor of the new Capitol in Washing-ton. The new vice president offered a brief ex-temporaneous address of ‘‘about three sen-tences,’’ which the press ignored in favor of Jef-ferson’s elegant and conciliatory inaugural ad-

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dress. Burr assumed the president’s chair andadministered the oath of office to the newly elect-ed senators who presented their credentials.When Jefferson and the presidential party ar-rived in the Senate chamber, Burr left the Senatepresident’s seat and joined Chief Justice JohnMarshall to listen to Jefferson’s inaugural ad-dress. He later described the day as ‘‘serene &temperate—The Concourse of people im-mense—all passed off handsomely—great joybut no riot.’’ 38

The new vice president soon received a floodof letters from friends, political allies and rel-atives, seeking appointments in the new admin-istration or demanding the removal of Adams’Federalist appointees. Burr, who could neverrefuse a friend and considered patronage ameans of cementing alliances and paying politi-cal debts, passed a number of these requestsalong to Jefferson. The president, however, be-came increasingly uncomfortable with each newrecommendation. Most damning, as historianMary-Jo Kline has explained, were the ‘‘repeatedrequests for consideration of the claims of the‘faithful’ from other states and territories.’’ Jeffer-son was perfectly willing to replace Adams’‘‘midnight appointments’’ with marshals andcourt officers who were loyal Republicans, aswell as to remove Federalists who displayed‘‘malversation or inherent disqualification’’ foroffice, appointing Republicans to the vacantposts. Still, mindful of the charges of nepotismand cronyism he had levelled against the Adamsadministration, he hesitated to dismiss civil serv-ants solely for political reasons. Nor did he thinkit appropriate for the ambitious New Yorker toconcern himself with appointments to federal of-fices in other states. The final insult appears tohave occurred in the fall of 1801 with Burr’s cam-paign to secure an appointment for his ally, Mat-thew L. Davis, to a naval post in New York. Thepresident, already suspicious of the enterprisingvice president who had jeopardized his election,soon began to distance himself from Burr.39

Thereafter, in making federal appointments inNew York, he relied on George Clinton or Clin-ton’s nephew De Witt.

After the Clintons replaced Burr as the admin-istration’s liaison to the New York Republican

party, De Witt spared no effort to discredit thevice president in his home state. Assisted by[New York] American Citizen editor JamesCheetham, he waged a savage war against thevice president in the local press.40 ‘‘The handbillswere numerous, of various descriptions, uniformhowever in Virulent and indecent abuse,’’ Burrreported. ‘‘[T]o Vilify A.B. was deemed of somuch consequence, that packages of them weresent to Various parts of the country.’’ It was be-coming painfully apparent, one of his allies ob-served, that the vice president’s ‘‘influence andweight with the Administration is in my opinionnot such as I could wish.’’ 41 Bereft of the politicalbase that had made him a formidable force inNew York politics and an attractive vice-presi-dential prospect, he was now a liability to the ad-ministration. During Burr’s single term in office,whatever influence or status he enjoyed wouldderive solely from his position as president of theSenate.42

President of the Senate

Burr was one of the most skilled parliamentar-ians to serve as president of the Senate, a strikingcontrast to Adams and a worthy successor to Jef-ferson. ‘‘Mr. Burr, the Vice President, presides inthe Senate with great ease, dignity & propriety,’’Senator William Plumer (F-NH) observed. ‘‘Hepreserves good order, silence—& decorum in de-bate—he confines the speaker to the point. Hehas excluded all spectators from the area of theSenate chamber, except the members from theother House. A measure which contributes muchto good order.’’ 43

But, although Burr was universally respectedfor his parliamentary skills and his impartial rul-ings, Senate Republicans noted with mountingconcern his easy familiarity with his many Fed-eralist friends. Alienated from his own party,pragmatic at the expense of principle, and besetby the chronic financial difficulties that doggedhim throughout his career, Burr was increasinglyregarded by his fellow Republicans as an unprin-cipled opportunist who would stop at nothing torebuild his shattered political and personal for-tunes.44 They found ample evidence of the vicepresident’s apostasy on January 27, 1802, whenBurr cast a tie-breaking vote that undercut the

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Republican effort to repeal the Judiciary Act of1801.

That act, signed into law less than a week be-fore Jefferson’s election, enacted badly neededreforms, providing circuit court judges to relievethe Supreme Court justices from the burdensomeand exhausting chore of riding circuit, and re-ducing the number of justices from six to five,effective with the next vacancy. The act becameeffective in time to allow John Adams to appointFederalist judges to the new circuit courts, a de-velopment that heightened Republican fears ofa Federalist-controlled judiciary. And, with oneless Supreme Court justice, it appeared unlikelythat Jefferson would ever have an opportunityto appoint a Republican nominee to the SupremeCourt. On January 6, 1802, Senator John Breckin-ridge (R-KY) introduced a bill to repeal the Judi-ciary Act. Burr’s vote would prove crucial in theSenate, where the absence of one Republican andthe resignation of another had eroded the admin-istration’s already slim majority. Republicanswere greatly relieved when the Senate dead-locked on a vote to proceed to a third readingof the repeal bill on January 26, and Burr re-solved the tie in favor of the repealers. But hehad secretly informed Federalists that he wouldsupport their attempts to block repeal by addingamendments that would make the Judiciary Actacceptable to moderate Republicans. Thus, thenext day, when his friend Jonathan Dayton (F-NJ) moved to refer the bill to ‘‘a select committee,with instructions to consider and report the alter-ations which may be proper in the Judiciary sys-tem of the United States,’’ Burr resolved the tiein favor of the Federalists.45 Burr explained thathe had voted for referral in hopes of reaching acompromise:

I am for the affirmative, because I never canresist the reference of a measure where the senateis so nicely balanced, when the object is to effectamendment, that may accommodate it to theopinions of a larger majority; and particularlywhen I can believe that gentlemen are sincere inwishing a reference for this purpose. Should it,however, at any time appear that delay only isintended, my conduct will be different.46

Republicans who resented Burr’s treacherywere outraged when he announced the membersof the select committee. During the early 1800s,senators voted to choose members of these tem-porary committees, which normally consisted ofthree members, but on this occasion two senatorstied for first place and three for second place. Thecommittee would therefore, Burr announced, becomprised of five members: two Republicanswho favored repeal; two Federalists who hadvoted against repeal and subsequently voted torefer the bill to committee in hopes of effectinga compromise; and one Republican moderate,John Ewing Colhoun (R-SC), who had sided withthe Federalists.47 An account of the proceedingsin the New York Evening Post reveals that Burranswered Republican challenges to this unex-pected development with his customary easeand composure:

. . . The Democratic [Republican] members ap-peared extremely discontented at the apparentresult; and before the vote was finally declaredby the Vice President, General [James] Jackson[R-GA] rose and proposed, that the Senateshould ballot again for the committee. This dash-ing proposition did not materially interrupt theregularity of the scrutiny.

The Vice President was very deliberate. Hetook the ballots of the respective Senators, exam-ined them attentively, stated the number of them,and holding them up in his hand, mentioned thatgentlemen, if they chose, might come and exam-ine them. Mr. G[ouverneur] Morris [F-NY] hopednever to see, in the Senate a proceeding implyingso much distrust.

After a pause, the Vice President declared hisopinion, that the ballots were truly counted. Ofcourse, the committee was composed as statedabove, to the no small chagrin of some of theDemocratic members of Congress, in bothHouses.48

Although Burr had substantive objections tothe repeal bill, 49 and told one correspondent thathe was troubled at the prospect ‘‘of depriving thetwenty-six judges of office and pay,’’ 50 his grow-ing estrangement from the administration wasalso a factor. He may, as one scholar of the earlyjudiciary suggests, have hoped to ‘‘enhance hisstature not only with moderates of his own party

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but also with Federalists, and perhaps even pavethe way for the eventual formation of a thirdparty under his leadership,’’ 51 but the imme-diate result of Burr’s abortive attempt to reacha compromise was his further isolation from hisparty. He had, as Jefferson’s biographer hasnoted, ‘‘offended one side without satisfying theother.’’ 52 Among the advisers who comprisedJefferson’s inner circle, only Treasury SecretaryAlbert Gallatin continued to support the increas-ingly troublesome vice president.53

Burr soon abandoned any hope of winning re-nomination to a second term. In early 1804, hecalled on Jefferson to inform him that he recog-nized ‘‘it would be for the interest of the repub-lican cause for him to retire; that a disadvanta-geous schism would otherwise take place,’’ buthe was concerned that ‘‘were he to retire, itwould be said that he shrunk from the publicsentence.’’ He would need, Burr suggested,‘‘some mark of favor . . . which would declareto the world that he retired with [Jefferson’s]confidence.’’ Jefferson replied that he had not at-tempted to influence the 1800 election on his ownor Burr’s behalf, nor would he do so in the nextelection—a cool rejoinder that masked his nowconsiderable resentment of the man whom, heclaimed, he had ‘‘habitually cautioned Mr. Madi-son against trusting too much.’’ 54

The Republicans ultimately settled on GeorgeClinton as their new vice-presidential candidate.Burr retired from national politics, without Jef-ferson’s ‘‘mark of favor,’’ entering the 1804 NewYork gubernatorial race in a desperate attemptto restore his rapidly failing career.

The Burr-Hamilton Duel

Burr no longer commanded the respect andsupport from New York Republicans that he hadonce enjoyed. He entered the gubernatorial raceas an independent and actively sought Federalistsupport when it became apparent that the Fed-eralists would not offer a candidate of their own.But Alexander Hamilton was soon ‘‘intriguingfor any candidate who can have a chance of suc-cess against A.B.’’ Burr plunged enthusiasticallyinto the campaign, delivering speeches and dis-tributing campaign literature, but he could notovercome the liabilities he had acquired since

1800. He lost the election by an overwhelming8,000-vote margin.55

Burr’s defeat left him bitter and disillusioned.He blamed Hamilton for his predicament, andwhen he learned that his rival and former allyhad referred to him, at a private dinner party,as a ‘‘dangerous man, and who ought not to betrusted,’’ he demanded an explanation. The con-flict escalated, as Burr and Hamilton exchangeda series of letters, and finally came to a head onJune 27, 1804, when Burr challenged Hamiltonto a duel. The grim engagement took place onJuly 11 at Weehawken, New Jersey, and resultedin Hamilton’s death the following day.56

Burr’s opponents called for his arrest, but theoutcry against him was by no means universal.Duelling was expressly prohibited by law inmost states, and murder was a crime in everystate. But encounters on the ‘‘field of honor’’ stilltook place during the early nineteenth century,particularly in the southern states. Burr had pre-viously challenged Hamilton’s brother-in-law,John Church, to a duel—a bloodless encounterthat enabled them to confront and then forgettheir differences—and Hamilton’s son, Philip,had incurred a mortal wound on the duellingground the previous year. Henry Clay, AndrewJackson, and others of similar stature subscribedto the Code Duello, but few suffered the stigmathat Burr carried after that fatal morning atWeehawken. He left New York a month afterHamilton’s death to allow ‘‘public opinion’’ to‘‘take its proper course,’’ travelling south inhopes of a reunion with his daughter Theodosia,now the wife of Joseph Alston, a South Carolinaplanter with impeccable Republican credentials,and his young grandson, Aaron Burr Alston. Hewas eventually indicted in New York and NewJersey, but never stood trial in eitherjurisdiction.57

Burr returned to the Senate in early November,in time for the second session of the Eighth Con-gress. It was, as Senator Plumer noted, an awk-ward occasion:

Nov. 7, 1804

This day the Senate made a quorum for thefirst time this session [which began two days ear-lier]. Mr. Burr, the Vice President, appeared and

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took his seat in the Senate the very first day ofthe session. It has been unusual for the Vice Presi-dent to take his seat the first day of the session.But this man, though indicted in New York &New Jersey for the murder of the illustriousHamilton, is determined to brave public opinion.What a humiliating circumstance that a man Whofor months has fled from Justice—& who by thelegal authorities is now accused of murder,should preside over the first branch of the Na-tional Legislature!

I have avoided him—his presence to me is odi-ous—I have merely bowed & spoken to him—Federalists appear to despise neglect & abhorhim. The democrats [Republicans], at least manyof them, appear attentive to him—& he is veryfamiliar with them—What line of conduct theywill generally observe to him is yet uncertain.58

Republicans had indeed become ‘‘more atten-tive’’ to Burr; even Jefferson seemed anxious tomend fences with his errant vice president. ‘‘Mr.Jefferson has shewn more attention & invited Mr.Burr oftener to his house within this three weeksthan ever he did in the course of the same timebefore,’’ Plumer marvelled. ‘‘Mr. Gallatin, theSecy of the Treasury, has waited upon him oftenat his (Burr’s) lodging—& on one day was clos-eted with him more than two hours. The Sec-retary of State, Mr. Madison, formerly the inti-mate friend of Genl. Hamilton, had taken hismurderer into his carriage rode with him—ac-companied him on a visit to M. Terreau theFrench Minister.’’ 59 United States Attorney Al-exander Dallas wrote to New Jersey Governor Jo-seph Bloomfield, urging him to grant clemencyto the vice president.60

Republicans in Congress, particularly in theSenate, were equally solicitous of Burr. ‘‘The pro-ceedings in New York in consequence of the duelare deemed by a number of the Senators to beharsh and unprecedented,’’ Senator Samuel L.Mitchill (R-NY) explained to his wife. ‘‘They be-lieve it very unfair and partial to make him thevictim of justice, while several other persons whohave killed their opponents in duels at Hobokenare suffered to go at large without molestation.Under these impressions an address has beendrawn up to Governor Bloomfield for the pur-pose of inducing him to quash or suspend theproceedings against the Vice President.’’ 61 Fed-

eralists were stunned by the Republicans’ new-found respect for Burr, which Plumer attributedto ‘‘their joy for the death of Hamilton.’’ 62 Butthe real reason for Republicans’ apparent changeof heart, as Burr’s biographers Herbert Parmetand Marie Hecht have suggested, was the im-pending impeachment trial of Supreme CourtJustice Samuel Chase.63

The Impeachment Trials of John Pickering andSamuel Chase

Burr had earlier presided over the impeach-ment trial of New Hampshire Judge John Picker-ing, a revered patriot and the author of his state’s1784 constitution, who by 1803 had become in-sane and an alcoholic. The House of Representa-tives impeached Pickering on March 2, 1803, forconduct ‘‘contrary to his trust and duty asjudge,’’ and the trial in the Senate was held ayear later. Even the judge’s Federalist supporterswere embarrassed by his ravings from the bench,but they saw in the charges against him theopening salvo in the Republicans’ assault on thefederal judiciary. They would defend him at allcosts, maintaining throughout his trial that in-sanity did not constitute grounds for removal.Republicans were forced to counter that thejudge was perfectly sane, but guilty of mis-conduct that justified his removal from office, al-though Jefferson and some moderate Repub-licans were uneasy at the thought of subjectinga man so obviously tormented to the ordeal ofan impeachment trial.64

The trial was a highly partisan proceeding, andon March 12, 1804, the final vote that removedPickering from office split along party lines. Thevice president made ‘‘very formal arrange-ments’’ for the trial, Representative ManassehCutler, a Federalist from Massachusetts, in-formed a correspondent, ‘‘and the court wasopened with a dignified solemnity.’’ 65 Burr pre-sided over the preliminary proceedings andmost of the trial with his customary tact and skill,deferring to the Senate to resolve the difficultprocedural issues that arose after Pickering failedto appear and his son’s attorney, Robert GoodloeHarper, informed the court that the judge,‘‘being in a state of absolute and long continuedinsanity,’’ could ‘‘neither appear nor authorize

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another to appear for him.’’ But on March 10,Burr, concerned about his gubernatorial cam-paign in New York, ‘‘abruptly left the Senate,’’departing in the midst of a heated debate overConnecticut Federalist Uriah Tracy’s motion topostpone the trial until the following session.President pro tempore Jesse Franklin, a NorthCarolina Republican, presided for the remainderof the trial, and Burr’s unexpected departuremade no apparent difference in the outcome ofthe proceedings.66 Pickering’s trial, as Jefferson’sbiographer has stressed, was a ‘‘confused andtragic episode.’’ 67 The participants in this sorryspectacle all realized that Pickering was a deeplydisturbed man and were greatly relieved whenthe trial ended with his removal from office.

But the impending trial of Associate SupremeCourt Justice Samuel Chase, impeached for judi-cial misconduct by the House of Representativeson March 12, 1804—the day Pickering’s trialended—was another matter. Appointed to thecourt by President Washington and confirmedby a narrow margin, Chase was an inveterateFederalist, known for his intemperate and par-tisan harangues from the bench and for his fla-grant prejudice against defendants accused ofviolating the Sedition Act. For many Repub-licans, Chase personified all the evils inherent inthe Federalist-controlled judiciary. As his im-peachment trial approached, these Republicanswere painfully aware that they could ill affordto offend the man whose rulings would governthe proceedings, and they thus treated Burr withstudied deference.68

But it was an uneasy truce, at best. Burr wasnoticeably uncomfortable in the Senate chamber.‘‘After the minutes of the preceding day havebeen read—the little business before us dis-patched,’’ Plumer observed, the vice presidentwould ‘‘leave the chair—come to some one Sen-ator, & intimate in strong terms that it was bestto adjourn—& sometimes request a senator tomove an adjournment—& in a few minutes hewas gone.’’ He seemed to have ‘‘lost those easygraceful manners that beguiled the hours awaythe last session—He is now uneasy, dis-contented, & hurried.’’ 69 Plumer also sensed ‘‘anunusual concern & anxiety in the leading demo-cratic members of the senate,’’ who feared ‘‘the

talents of Burr.’’ The vice president appeared‘‘friendly to them,’’ he reflected, but ‘‘[s]ome of-fice must be given him—what office can that be,that he will accept, & not injure them?’’ 70

Burr imposed a rigid discipline on the conductof the Chase impeachment trial, conducting theproceedings, as one reporter observed, ‘‘with thedignity and impartiality of an angel, but with therigor of a devil.’’ 71 Manasseh Cutler reportedthat the trial was ‘‘conducted with a proprietyand solemnity throughout which reflects honorupon the Senate. It must be acknowledged thatBurr has displayed much ability, and since thefirst day I have seen nothing of partiality.’’ 72 Al-though the managers appointed by the House ofRepresentatives and led by Republican Rep-resentative John Randolph of Virginia were re-sponsible for trying the case, Burr would occa-sionally intervene, posing questions of his ownto a witness when the irrational and ineffectiveRandolph (or another interrogator) failed to pur-sue a particular line of questioning, or seekingclarification of an incomplete or ambiguous re-sponse. When either side objected to a questionposed by the other, Burr took careful note of theobjection, ordering that the offending questionbe ‘‘reduced to writing’’ and put to the Senatefor a determination.73

But at times Burr’s rigid insistence on absolutedecorum only increased the tensions that sim-mered in the Senate chamber, elaborately redeco-rated for the occasion under his careful super-vision. Although Senator Plumer would con-clude by the end of the trial that Burr had ‘‘cer-tainly, on the whole, done himself, the Senate &the nation honor by the dignified manner inwhich he has presided over this high & numer-ous Court,’’ he was outraged at Burr’s treatmentof Chase on January 2, 1805, when the judge ap-peared before the Senate to enter his plea. Beforethe court opened, Plumer had overheard the vicepresident’s caustic comment as he ordered Ser-geant at Arms James Mathers to remove the chairset aside for the aged justice: ‘‘Let the Judge takecare to find a seat for himself.’’ Mathers replacedthe chair, after Chase ‘‘moved that a seat be as-signed him,’’ and the vice president ‘‘in a verycold formal insolent manner replied he pre-sumed the Court would not object to taking a

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seat,’’ but Burr would not permit Mathers to pro-vide a table for the judge’s convenience. Burr re-peatedly interrupted the aged and frail judge asChase, at times breaking into tears, requested ad-ditional time to prepare his answer to the im-peachment.74

Burr’s ‘‘peevishness’’ continued as the pro-ceedings unfolded; on one occasion, he notifiedone of Chase’s attorneys, Philip Barton Key,‘‘that he must not appear as counsel in his loosecoat’’ [‘‘greatcoat,’’ or overcoat], a proviso thatsenators criticized and Key ignored. By the firstweek of February, the Senate’s now ‘‘remarkablytesty’’ president was ‘‘in a rage because we donot sit longer.’’ 75 Unruly senators on both sidesof the aisle bristled, Plumer observed, when Burrlectured them on judicial etiquette after the highcourt of impeachment had adjourned for the dayon February 12:

Just as the time for adjourning to tomorrowwas to be put in the Secretary’s office—Mr. Burrsaid he wished to inform the Senate of someirregularities that he had observed in the Court.Some of the senators as he said during the trial& while a witness was under examinationwalked between him & the Managers—Otherseat apples—& some eat cake in their seats.

Mr. [Timothy] Pickering [F-MA] said he [did]eat an apple—but it was at a time when the Presi-dent had retired from the chair. Burr replied hedid not mean him—he did not see him.

Mr. [Robert] Wright [R-MD] said he did eatcake—he had a just right so to do—he was faint—but he disturbed nobody—He never would sub-mit to be schooled & catechised in this manner.

At this instance a motion was made by Mr.[Stephen Row] Bradley [R-VT], who also hadeaten cake, for an adjournment—Burr toldWright he was not in order—sit down—The Sen-ate adjourned—& I left Wright & Burr scolding.76

Although rightfully concerned about maintain-ing an atmosphere of judicial decorum, Burr hadobviously lost much of the ‘‘easy grace’’ and con-summate tact that had made him such an effec-tive presiding officer. The ordeal ended onMarch 1, when Burr announced, after a separatevote on each article of impeachment, ‘‘that thereis not a Constitutional majority of votes findingSamuel Chase, Esq., guilty, on any one article.’’ 77

Burr’s Final Days in the Senate

Burr’s final days in the Senate would havebeen unpleasant even without the strain of pre-siding over a taxing and bitterly contested im-peachment trial. He presided over the February13, 1805 joint session of Congress, counting theelectoral returns. In that capacity, he announcedthat Jefferson had been reelected and that his oldrival, George Clinton, would succeed him as vicepresident. Senator Samuel Mitchill reported thatBurr performed this ‘‘painful duty’’ with ‘‘somuch regularity and composure that you wouldnot have seen the least deviation from his com-mon manner, or heard the smallest departurefrom his usual tone.’’ But, Mitchill observed, thealways impeccably attired vice president ‘‘ap-peared rather more carefully dressed thanusual’’ for the occasion.78

A week later, Republican Senator John Smithof New York introduced a bill ‘‘freeing frompostage all letters and packets to and from AaronBurr,’’ and Burr found himself in the unenviableposition of listening as senators questioned thepropriety of granting him the franking privilege.Although surviving accounts of the debate donot indicate that the issue of Burr’s character wasever raised in his presence, it was certainly anunspoken consideration. The debate was particu-larly intense on February 27. Senator John Quin-cy Adams, a Massachusetts Federalist, proposedan amendment to extend the frank to all formervice presidents (omitting the explicit reference toBurr), and Republican James Jackson of Georgiacautioned in response that ‘‘We might hereafterhave a Vice President to whom it would be im-proper to grant the privilege.’’ After FederalistSenators Timothy Pickering of Massachusettsand James Hillhouse of Connecticut finally ‘‘ad-vocated the indelicacy of the situation of havingMr. Burr in the chair,’’ the vice president volun-teered that ‘‘he was apprehensive that tomorrowhe should be afflicted with pain in the head &should be unable to attend.’’ With Burr absentfrom the chamber, his opponents were free tospeak their minds. The debate was bitter and in-tense; Senator Hillhouse was resolutely opposedto giving Burr such a dangerous privilege. ‘‘TheVice President is an ambitious man,’’ he warned

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his colleagues. ‘‘[H]e aspired to the Presidency—disappointed ambition will be restless. You putarms into his hands to attack your government—He may disseminate seditious pamphlets, newspapers & letters at the expence of the very gov-ernment he is destroying.’’ Senator Pickeringfeared that Burr would ‘‘sell the right of frankingto commercial houses—And in the city of NewYork alone it might give him a fortune.’’ ButBurr’s supporters countered, ‘‘The reason whygentlemen oppose this bill is because Mr. Burrhas fought a duel and killed a man.’’ Althoughthe bill passed by a vote of 18 to 13, with all butthree of the New England senators votingagainst it, the House subsequently postponed themeasure.79

Burr’s Farewell Address

Burr left the Senate the day after the Chase trialconcluded and just two days before George Clin-ton took office as the nation’s fourth vice presi-dent. Federalists and Republicans alike weredeeply moved by his March 2, 1805, farewell ad-dress, still one of the most celebrated speechesin the history of the early Republic. His remarkswere intended for the senators alone, unexpect-edly delivered at the conclusion of a closed-doorexecutive session.

Burr began his twenty-minute address with anacknowledgement that ‘‘he must at times havewounded the feelings of individual members.’’But he had ‘‘avoided entering into explanationsat the time,’’ he explained, ‘‘because a momentof irritation was not a moment for explanation;because his position (being in the chair) renderedit impossible to enter into explanations withoutobvious danger of consequences which must in-jure the dignity of the Senate, or prove disagree-able and injurious in more than one point ofview.’’ Only ‘‘the ignorant and unthinking,’’ hecontinued, ‘‘affected to treat as unnecessary andfastidious a rigid attention to rules and deco-rum.’’ But Burr ‘‘thought nothing trivial whichtouched, however remotely, the dignity’’ of theSenate, and he cautioned senators ‘‘to avoid thesmallest relaxation of the habits which he had en-deavored to inculcate and establish.’’ Likeningthe Senate to ‘‘a sanctuary, a citadel of law, oforder, and of liberty,’’ Burr predicted that ‘‘if the

Constitution be destined ever to perish by thesacrilegious hands of the demagogue or theusurper, which God avert, its expiring agonieswill be witnessed on this floor.’’

Concluding his remarks with the customaryexpressions of respect and good will, Burr leftthe Senate chamber, closing the door behind him,Senator Mitchill noted, ‘‘with some force.’’ ‘‘[A]solemn and silent weeping’’ filled the Senatechamber ‘‘for perhaps five minutes.’’ Mitchill, forone, had ‘‘never experienced any thing of thekind so affecting,’’ and New York RepublicanJohn Smith, ‘‘stout and manly as he is . . . laidhis head upon his table and did not recover fromhis emotion for a quarter of an hour or more.’’ 80

But De Witt Clinton’s ally, [New York] AmericanCitizen editor James Cheetham, and others whosuspected that Burr’s ‘‘melodio, harmonico pa-thos’’ was merely an effort to restore his politicalfortunes, doubted that ‘‘the flowing tear’’ could‘‘wash away the dingy stains’’ of Burr’s ‘‘politicaldegeneracy.’’ 81

The ‘‘Burr Conspiracy’’

The forty-nine-year-old former vice presidentwas heavily in debt at the time of his forced re-tirement from politics. He had been involved ina number of speculative ventures throughout hiscareer, many of which had resulted in substantiallosses. Generous beyond prudence, Burr couldnever refuse a relative or a friend in need, evenif it meant going further into debt. He had as-sumed responsibility for a number of youngwards throughout the years—some of them thechildren of clients, others rumored to have beenhis own offspring—and his generosity to hischarges further strained his always precarious fi-nances. Burr had always lived, dressed and en-tertained well, even when he could ill afford todo so.82 Surveying his limited prospects, the op-timistic and always enterprising former vicepresident now looked to the West.

The full extent of Burr’s business and otherventures in the West will probably never beknown, but his first undertaking appears to havebeen the Indiana Canal Company. Burr and hisfellow investors intended to construct a canal tocircumvent the Ohio River rapids at Louisville,but, as his biographers have explained, the re-

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sourceful vice president had ‘‘more than oneplan for the future but several alternate ones de-pending on change and history.’’ His most ambi-tious scheme was contingent upon the outbreakof war with Spain, which was still in possessionof West Florida and Mexico and increasinglyhostile toward the burgeoning new nation thatpressed along its eastern border. Burr planned anassault on Mexico and anticipated that the west-ern states would leave the Union to join in asoutheastern confederacy under his leadership.One of Burr’s accomplices, Louisiana GovernorJames Wilkinson, betrayed the conspiracy beforeBurr could begin his expedition, and the formervice president was arrested on charges of trea-son. Chief Justice John Marshall presided overBurr’s trial, which opened on August 3, 1807, inRichmond, Virginia. The jury, guided by Mar-shall’s written opinion that two witnesses musttestify to a specific, overt act to establish trea-son—a standard that the prosecution failed tomeet—ultimately found ‘‘that Aaron Burr is notproved to be guilty under this indictment.’’Pressed by debts and fearful of further prosecu-tion, Burr departed for Europe under an as-sumed name in June 1808.83

Burr’s Later Years

Burr spent the next four years in self-imposedexile. He travelled throughout England and thecontinent, sightseeing, reading, entertaining theladies, who found him an attractive companion,and seeking support for another southwesternexpedition. His overtures to the British andFrench courts failed miserably. In the spring of1812, convinced that a war between the UnitedStates and Great Britain was imminent, Burr re-turned home under the alias, ‘‘M. Arnot.’’ Hetook a room near the Boston waterfront—a farcry from the handsome and well-furnished NewYork mansion, Richmond Hill, that he main-tained in better times—while testing the watersto determine whether he could safely return toNew York.84

Burr reappeared in New York in June 1812,ready to resume his legal career. He eagerlylooked forward to a reunion with his beloved

‘‘Theo’’ and his grandson Aaron Burr Alston butsoon learned that young ‘‘Gampy,’’ as Burrcalled his namesake, had died. In late December1812, the grief-stricken Theo set out from herhome in Georgetown, South Carolina, to visit herfather in New York and was never seen again.The schooner that carried Theodosia Burr Alstonand her escort probably sank in a storm off CapeHatteras, North Carolina, but the mysterious cir-cumstances of her disappearance, and the con-troversy and mystery that always dogged Burr’scareer, spawned legends that the unfortunateMrs. Alston had been forced to walk the plankby pirates or mutineers, or was still alive as aprisoner in the West Indies.85

Although devastated by his daughter’s death,Burr continued to practice law and to supervisethe education of his young wards. Snubbed bymany of his former acquaintances and wholly re-moved from the ‘‘game of politics’’ that had oncebeen his joy and delight, Burr followed the inde-pendence movements that were changing theface of Latin America with a lively but cautiousinterest. In 1829, he petitioned the governmentfor a pension based on his military service dur-ing the Revolution, a crusade that continueduntil his plea was finally granted in 1834. He be-came progressively more eccentric and impover-ished as the years passed. In 1831, William Sew-ard found him living in a dirty garret, shabbilydressed but optimistic as ever.

In 1833, Aaron Burr married a second time. Hisnew bride, a wealthy widow with a past almostas controversial as his own, soon became dis-enchanted with her husband when she discov-ered that he had mismanaged her assets, and shedivorced him the following year. Incapacitatedby a series of strokes in 1834, Burr lived on thecharity of friends and relatives until his death atPort Richmond, Staten Island, on September 14,1836. During his final hours, a clergyman in-quired about his prospects for salvation. Evasiveand cryptic to the end, Burr only replied, ‘‘Onthat subject I am coy.’’ Aaron Burr was buriedwith military honors at Princeton, New Jersey,on September 16, 1836.86

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NOTES1 Herbert S. Parmet and Marie B. Hecht, Aaron Burr: Por-

trait of an Ambitious Man (New York, 1967), p. 285.2 Paul L. Ford, ed., The Writings of Thomas Jefferson (New

York, 1905) 10:387, quoted in Parmet and Hecht, p. 287.3 Milton Lomask, Aaron Burr, vol. 2 (New York, 1982), pp.

372–73.4 Everett Somerville Brown, ed., William Plumer’s Memo-

randum of Proceedings in the United States Senate, 1803–1807(New York, 1923), p. 123.

5 Remarks of Senator Robert C. Byrd, ‘‘Profile of ’ThatGreat Enigma’: Aaron Burr,’’ U.S., Congress, Senate, Con-gressional Record, 100th Cong., 1st sess., p. 31910.

6 Mary-Jo Kline, ‘‘Aaron Burr as a Symbol of Corruptionin the New Republic,’’ in Before Watergate: Problems of Cor-ruption in American Society, ed. Abraham S. Eisenstadt, AriHoogenboom and Hans L. Trefousse (Brooklyn, NY, 1978),p. 74. Mary-Jo Kline and Joanne Wood Ryan’s two-volumeletterpress edition of Burr’s public papers, published byPrinceton University Press in 1983, is an invaluable resourcefor scholars.

7 See, for example, Samuel H. Wandell, Aaron Burr in Lit-erature: Books, Pamphlets, Periodicals, and Miscellany Relatingto Aaron Burr and His Leading Political Contemporaries (PortWashington, NY, 1972; reprint of 1936 edition).

8 Kline, ‘‘Aaron Burr as a Symbol of Corruption in theNew Republic,’’ p. 70.

9 Parmet and Hecht, pp. 1–16.10 Matthew L. Davis, Memoirs of Aaron Burr (Freeport, NY,

1970; reprint of 1836 edition), 1:45.11 Parmet and Hecht, pp. 17–51.12 Byrd, p. 31910.13 Parmet and Hecht, pp. 52–58, 64–65. A second daugh-

ter, Sally Reeve Burr, was born in 1785 and died in February1789.

14 Parmet and Hecht, pp. 58–62.15 Kline, Mary-Jo, and Joanne Wood Ryan, eds., Political

Correspondence and Public Papers of Aaron Burr, vol. 1 (Prince-ton, 1983), p. 46.

16 Aaron Burr to Richard Oliver, July 29, 1788, in Klineand Ryan, 1:33.

17 Parmet and Hecht, pp. 65–66.18 Kline, ‘‘Aaron Burr as a Symbol of Corruption in the

New Republic,’’ p. 74.19 Parmet and Hecht, p. 84.20 Ibid., pp. 68–110.21 Ibid., pp. 108–10.22 Ibid., pp. 112–43.23 [New York] Commercial Advertiser, May 4, 1799, quoted

in Kline and Ryan, 1:402.24 Robert Troup to Rufus King, May 6, 1799, quoted in

Kline and Ryan, 1:420.

25 Noble E. Cunningham, Jr., ‘‘Election of 1800,’’ in Historyof American Presidential Elections, 1789–1968, vol. 1, ed. Ar-thur M. Schlesinger, Jr., and Fred L. Israel (New York, 1985),pp. 108–10; Dumas Malone, Jefferson and the Ordeal of Liberty(Boston, 1962), pp. 473–74; Parmet and Hecht, pp. 131–48.

26 See Chapter 4 of this volume, ‘‘George Clinton,’’ p. 53.27 Malone, Jefferson and the Ordeal of Liberty, p. 474; Kline

and Ryan, 1:389–90, 430–34; Kline, ‘‘Aaron Burr as a Symbolof Corruption in the New Republic, p. 70; Cunningham,’’Election of 1800,’’ p. 110.

28 Cunningham, ‘‘Election of 1800,’’ pp. 104, 113–15; Klineand Ryan, 1:443–49; Malone, Jefferson and the Ordeal of Lib-erty, pp. 473–83.

29 Kline, ‘‘Aaron Burr as a Symbol of Corruption in theNew Republic,’’ p. 75.

30 Malone, Jefferson and the Ordeal of Liberty, pp. 489–94;Thomas Jefferson to Aaron Burr, December 15, 1800, inKline and Ryan, 1:469–70.

31 Malone, Jefferson and the Ordeal of Liberty, pp. 489–96;Parmet and Hecht, pp. 158–60; Cunningham, ‘‘Election of1800,’’ pp. 131–32.

32 Kline and Ryan, 1:469–87, see especially Aaron Burr toSamuel Smith, December 16, 1800, p. 471, and Aaron Burrto Samuel Smith, December 29, 1800, pp. 478–79; Malone,Jefferson and the Ordeal of Liberty, pp. 499–505; Parmet andHecht, pp. 144–67.

33 Kline and Ryan, 1:486–87; Malone, Jefferson and the Or-deal of Liberty, pp. 502–5; Cunningham, ‘‘Election of 1800,’’pp. 131–34; Parmet and Hecht, pp. 162–67; Richard E. Ellis,The Jeffersonian Crisis: Courts and Politics in the Young Repub-lic (New York, 1974; reprint of 1971 edition), p. 28; ForrestMcDonald, Alexander Hamilton: A Biography (New York,1979), pp. 352–53.

34 Kline and Ryan, 1:486.35 Ibid., 1:486–87; Malone, Jefferson and the Ordeal of Liberty,

pp. 502–5; Cunningham, ‘‘Election of 1800,’’ pp. 131–34;Parmet and Hecht, pp. 162–67; Ellis, p. 28.

36 U.S., Congress, House, Annals of Congress, 8th Cong.,1st sess., pp. 372–77; U.S., Congress, Senate, Annals of Con-gress, 8th Cong., 1st sess., pp. 21–25, 81–210; Dennis J.Mahoney, ‘‘Twelfth Amendment,’’ Encyclopedia of the Amer-ican Constitution, vol. 4 (New York, 1986), p. 1927; TadahisaKuroda, The Origins of the Twelfth Amendment: The ElectoralCollege in the Early Republic, 1787–1804 (Westport, CT, 1994).

37 Aaron Burr to Albert Gallatin, February 25, 1801, inKline and Ryan, 1:509.

38 Aaron Burr to Caesar A. Rodney, March 3, 1801 (withMarch 4 postscript), in Kline and Ryan, 1:517–19; Annals ofCongress, 6th Cong., 2d sess., pp. 762–63.

39 Kline and Ryan, 1:519–45; Dumas Malone, Jefferson thePresident: First Term, 1801–1805 (Boston, 1970), pp. 69–89;

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Kline, ‘‘Aaron Burr as a Symbol of Corruption in the NewRepublic,’’ pp. 70–71; Noble E. Cunningham, Jr., The Jeffer-sonian Republicans in Power (Chapel Hill, NC, 1963), pp. 38–44.

40 Kline and Ryan, 2:641–46, 724–28.41 Cunningham, Jeffersonian Republicans in Power, pp. 38–

44; Parmet and Hecht, pp. 172–77.42 Noble E. Cunningham, Jr., The Process of Government

Under Jefferson (Princeton, 1978), p. 16.43 Brown, pp. 74–75.44 Kline, ‘‘Aaron Burr as a Symbol of Corruption in the

New Republic,’’ pp. 69–76; Parmet and Hecht, pp. 168–93.45 Parmet and Hecht, p. 184; Ellis, pp. 15–16, 36–52; Kline

and Ryan, 2:653–73; Malone, Jefferson the President, FirstTerm, 121–30.

46 Aaron Burr, ‘‘Comment on a Motion to Repeal the Judi-ciary Act,’’ [New York] American Citizen, February 3, 1802,in Kline and Ryan, 2:656. According to Kline and Ryan, thisversion of Burr’s remarks, which differs slightly from theversion printed in the Annals (Annals of Congress, 7th Cong.,1st sess., p. 150), is ‘‘the version closest to a direct quotationthat survives among contemporary accounts.’’ Ibid., p. 655.

47 Annals of Congress, 7th Cong., 1st sess., p. 150.48 New York Evening Post, February 2, 1801; Kline and

Ryan, 2:655.49 Parmet and Hecht, p. 179.50 Ibid., p. 179.51 Ellis, p. 48.52 Malone, Jefferson the President, First Term, pp. 123–24.53 Ibid., pp. 395–98.54 Thomas Jefferson, Memorandum of a Conversation

with Burr, January 26, 1804, Kline and Ryan, 2:819–22.55 Parmet and Hecht, pp. 194–201; Kline, ‘‘Aaron Burr as

a Symbol of Corruption in the New Republic,’’ pp. 72–73.56 Parmet and Hecht, pp. 194–215.57 Ibid., pp. 210–23; Samuel L. Mitchill to Mrs. Mitchill,

November 20, 1804, ‘‘Dr. Mitchill’s Letters from Washing-ton: 1801–1813,’’ Harper’s New Monthly Magazine 58 (April1879): 748; W.J. Rorabaugh, ‘‘The Political Duel in the EarlyRepublic: Burr v. Hamilton,’’ Journal of the Early Republic 15(Spring 1995): 14.

58 Brown, p. 185.59 Ibid., pp. 203–4.60 Parmet and Hecht, p. 224.61 Samuel L. Mitchill to Mrs. Mitchill, November 30, 1804,

‘‘Dr. Mitchill’s Letters from Washington,’’ p. 748.

62 Brown, p. 203.63 Parmet and Hecht, p. 224.64 Ellis, pp. 69–75; Malone, Jefferson the President, First

Term, pp. 460–64, 469; Annals of Congress, 8th Cong., 1stsess., pp. 315–68.

65 Manasseh Cutler to the Rev. Dr. Dana, March 3, 1804,in Life, Journals and Correspondence of Rev. Manasseh Cutler,LL.D., by William Parker Cutler and Julia Perkins Cutler,vol. 2 (Cincinnati, 1888), pp. 164–66.

66 Brown, pp. 97–177; Ellis, pp., 69–75; Manasseh Cutlerto Dr. Torrey, March 13, 1804, Life, Journals and Correspond-ence of Rev. Manasseh Cutler 2:166–68; Annals of Congress, 8thCong., 1st sess., pp. 315–68; Peter Charles Hoffer and N.E.H.Hull, Impeachment in America, 1635–1805 (New Haven,1984), pp. 206–20.

67 Malone, Jefferson the President, First Term, p. 464.68 Parmet and Hecht, p. 224; Malone, Jefferson the President,

First Term, pp. 464–69; Ellis, pp. 76–79.69 Brown, p. 213.70 Ibid., pp. 218–19.71 Quoted in Byrd, p. 31914.72 Manasseh Cutler to Dr. Torrey, March 1, 1805, Life, Jour-

nals and Correspondence of Manasseh Cutler 2:192–94.73 Report of the Trial of Samuel Chase, Annals of Congress,

8th Cong., 2d sess., pp. 81–676.74 Ibid., pp. 92–98; Brown, pp. 235–39; Ellis, p. 96; Hoffer

and Hull, p. 238.75 Brown, pp. 239–311.76 Ibid., p. 285.77 Annals of Congress, 8th Cong., 2d sess., p. 669.78 Ibid., pp. 55–57; Samuel L. Mitchill to Mrs. Mitchill,

February 14, 1805, ‘‘Dr. Mitchill’s Letters from Washing-ton,’’ p. 749.

79 Brown, pp. 302–7; Annals of Congress, 8th Cong., 2dsess., pp. 63–66; Kline and Ryan, 2:910.

80 Annals of Congress, 8th Cong., 2d sess., pp. 71–72; Dr.Mitchill to Mrs. Mitchill, March 2, 1805, ‘‘Dr. Mitchill’s Let-ters from Washington,’’ p. 750; Kline and Ryan, 2:909–17.

81 Kline and Ryan, 2:911–12.82 Parmet and Hecht, passim; Lomask, vols. 1 and 2,

passim; Kline and Ryan, vols. 1 and 2, passim.83 Parmet and Hecht, pp. 233–310.84 Ibid., pp. 305–26.85 Ibid., pp. 326–31.86 Ibid., pp. 332–41; Kline and Ryan, 2:1169–1229.

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Chapter 4

GEORGE CLINTON1805–1812

GEORGE CLINTON

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Chapter 4

GEORGE CLINTON4th Vice President: 1805–1812

George Clinton the Vice President . . . is an feeble old man . . . What a vast difference betweenhim & Aaron Burr! One would think that the office was made for Clinton, & not he for the office.

—SENATOR WILLIAM PLUMER (F-NH), DECEMBER 16, 1805.1

George Clinton took office as the nation’sfourth vice president on March 4, 1805. He wasthe second vice president to serve under ThomasJefferson, having replaced fellow New YorkerAaron Burr whose intransigence in 1800 hadnearly cost Jefferson the presidency. A Revolu-tionary War hero who had served as governorof New York for two decades, Clinton seemedan ideal choice to supplant Burr while preservingthe New York-Virginia alliance that formed thebackbone of the Republican coalition.

Even though Republican senators may havebeen relieved to be rid of Burr, the contrast be-tween their new presiding officer and his urbane,elegant predecessor must have been painfullyapparent when Chief Justice John Marshall ad-ministered the oath of office to Jefferson andClinton in the Senate chamber. Jefferson offereda lengthy inaugural speech celebrating the ac-complishments of his first term, but Clinton de-clined to address the members of Congress andthe ‘‘large concourse of citizens’’ present.2 Twodays earlier, on March 2, 1805, Burr had regaledthe Senate with a ‘‘correct and elegant’’ farewelloration so laden with emotion that even Clin-ton’s friend, Senator Samuel L. Mitchill (R-NY),pronounced the scene ‘‘one of the most affecting. . . of my life.’’ 3 But when Clinton assumed thepresiding officer’s chair on December 16, 1805,two weeks into the first session of the Ninth Con-gress, he was so ‘‘weak & feeble’’ of voice that,according to Senator William Plumer (F-NH), the

senators could not ‘‘hear the one half of what hesays.’’ 4

Clinton’s age and infirmity had, if anything,enhanced his value to the president, because Jef-ferson intended to pass his party’s mantle to Sec-retary of State James Madison when he retiredafter his second term, yet he needed an honest,‘‘plain’’ Republican vice president in the mean-time. Clinton would be sixty-nine in 1808, tooold, Jefferson anticipated, to challenge Madisonfor the Republican presidential nomination. Clin-ton had already retired once from public life, in1795, pleading ill health.5 But, for all Clinton’sapparent frailty, he was still a force to be reck-oned with. His earlier decision to retire owed asmuch to the political climate in New York, andto his own political misfortunes, as to his chronicrheumatism. He had been an actual or prospec-tive vice-presidential candidate in every electionsince the first one in 1788, and later capped hiselective career with a successful run for the officein 1808.

Clinton was, in the words of a recent biog-rapher, ‘‘an enigma.’’ The British forces thattorched Kingston, New York, during the Revolu-tion, as well as the 1911 conflagration that de-stroyed most of Clinton’s papers at the NewYork Public Library, have deprived modern re-searchers of sources that might have illuminatedhis personality and explained his motives.6Much of the surviving evidence, however, cou-pled with the observations of Clinton’s contem-

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poraries, support historian Alan Taylor’s assess-ment that ‘‘Clinton crafted a masterful, compel-ling public persona . . . [T]hat . . . masked andpermitted an array of contradictions that wouldhave ruined a lesser, more transparent politi-cian.’’ 7 He was, in Taylor’s view, ‘‘The astutestpolitician in Revolutionary New York,’’ a manwho ‘‘understood the power of symbolism andthe new popularity of a plain style especiallywhen practiced by a man with the means andaccomplishments to set himself above the com-mon people.’’ 8

War and Politics

George Clinton’s parents were Presbyterianimmigrants who left Longford County, Ireland,in 1729 to escape an intolerant Anglican regimethat imposed severe disabilities on religious dis-senters. Charles and Elizabeth Denniston Clintonsettled in Ulster County, New York, where thefuture vice president was born on July 26, 1739.Charles Clinton was a farmer, surveyor, and landspeculator, whose survey of the New York fron-tier so impressed the governor that he was of-fered a position as sheriff of New York City andthe surrounding county in 1748. After the elderClinton declined the honor, the governor des-ignated young George as successor to the clerkof the Ulster County Court of Common Pleas, aposition he would assume in 1759 and hold forthe rest of his life.

George Clinton studied under a Scottish cler-gyman to prepare for his future responsibilities,interrupting his education at the age of eighteenin 1757 to serve in the French and Indian War.After the war, he read law in New York Cityunder the renowned attorney William Smith. Hebegan his legal practice in 1764 and became dis-trict attorney the following year. Clinton’s apti-tude for surveying and his penchant for landspeculation eventually made him one of thewealthier residents of Ulster County, 9 but, de-spite his considerable fortune, he was a man offrugal habits and congenial, unassuming man-ners. Even in later life, when chronic ill healthmade it difficult for him to perform his publicduties, observers remarked on his ‘‘pleasingcheerfulness’’ and ‘‘flow of good humor.’’ 10

Large-boned and coarse-featured, 11 he was, one

scholar relates, ‘‘a man of powerful physique,whose mere presence commanded respect.’’ 12

In 1768, the twenty-nine-year-old Clinton waselected to the New York assembly, where he sup-ported the ‘‘Livingston’’ faction, an alliance thathe cemented two years later with his marriageto Cornelia Tappan, a Livingston relative. TheLivingstons and their allies, who represented thewealthy, predominantly Presbyterian land-owners of the Hudson Valley, assumed a vehe-mently anti-British posture as relations betweenEngland and her North American colonies dete-riorated during the early 1770s. Clinton emergedas their leader in 1770, when he defended amember of the Sons of Liberty imprisoned for‘‘seditious libel’’ by the royalist majority that stillcontrolled the New York assembly. He was a del-egate to the second Continental Congress in1775, where a fellow delegate observed that‘‘Clinton has Abilities but is silent in general, andwants (when he does speak) that Influence towhich he is intitled.’’ Clinton disliked legislativeservice, because, as he explained, ‘‘the duty oflooking out for danger makes men cowards,’’and he soon resigned his seat to accept an ap-pointment as a brigadier general in the NewYork militia. He was assigned to protect the NewYork frontier, where his efforts to prevent theBritish from gaining control of the Hudson Riverand splitting New England from the rest of thestruggling confederacy earned him a brigadiergeneral’s commission in the Continental armyand made him a hero among the farmers of thewestern counties.13

The social and political changes that the Revo-lution precipitated worked to Clinton’s advan-tage, and he made the most of his opportunities.As Edward Countryman so forcefully dem-onstrated in his study of revolutionary NewYork, ‘‘the independence crisis . . . shattered oldNew York, both politically and socially.’’ 14 Thestate’s new constitution greatly expanded thesuffrage and increased the size of the state legis-lature. The ‘‘yeoman’’ farmers of small and mid-dling means, who had previously deferred to theLivingstons and their royalist rivals, theDeLanceys, emerged as a powerful political en-tity in their own right, and George Clinton be-came their champion and spokesman. Their sup-

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port proved crucial in the 1777 gubernatorialelection, when Clinton defeated Edward Living-ston in a stunning upset that ‘‘signalled the dis-memberment of the old Livingston party.’’ 15 Theelection also signalled Clinton’s emergence as adominant figure in New York politics; he servedas governor from 1777 until 1795 and again from1801 until 1804, exercising considerable influenceover the state legislature.16

Before leaving the battlefield to assume hisnew responsibilities, Clinton promised his com-mander in chief, General George Washington,that he would resume his military duties ‘‘sh’dthe Business of my new appointm’t admit of it.’’True to his word, he soon returned to the fieldto help defend the New York frontier. There,American troops under his command preventedSir Henry Clinton (said to have been a ‘‘distantcousin’’) from relieving the main British forceunder General John Burgoyne, precipitatingBurgoyne’s surrender at Saratoga on October 17,1777.17 The Saratoga victory, which helped con-vince the French that the struggling colonieswere worthy of the aid that proved so crucial tothe revolutionary effort, marked a turning pointin the war.

Governor Clinton’s civilian labors were equal-ly impressive. Like other wartime governors, hewas responsible for coordinating his state’s wareffort. New York’s strategic importance andlarge Loyalist population, coupled with Ver-mont’s secession in 1777, posed special problemsfor the beleaguered governor, but he proved anable administrator. He was increasingly frus-trated, however, as war expenses mounted, andas the Continental Congress, which lacked thepower to raise revenues and relied on state con-tributions, looked to New York to make up theshortfall that resulted when other states failed tomeet their quotas. He supported AlexanderHamilton’s call for a stronger Congress withindependent revenue-raising powers, warningContinental Congress President John Hanson in1781 that ‘‘we shall not be able without a Changein our Circumstances, long to maintain our civilGovernment.’’ 18

Clinton’s perspective changed in 1783, afterCongress asked the states to approve a nationaltariff that would deprive New York of its most

lucrative source of income. He had long believedthat Congress should facilitate and protect theforeign commerce that was so important to NewYork. Toward that end, he had supported Hamil-ton’s efforts to strengthen the Articles of Confed-eration during the war. But the specter of a na-tional tariff helped convince him that a nationalgovernment with vastly enlarged powers mightoverwhelm the states and subvert individual lib-erties. ‘‘[W]hen stronger powers for Congresswould benefit New York,’’ his biographer ex-plains, ‘‘Clinton would endorse such measures.In purely domestic matters, the governor wouldput New York concerns above all others.’’ 19 Thegovernor’s primary concern, according to an-other scholar, ‘‘was to avoid any measure whichmight burden his agrarian constituents withtaxes.’’ The tariff had supplied nearly a third ofNew York’s revenue during the 1780s, and Clin-ton feared that if this critical source of incomewas diverted to national coffers, the state legisla-ture would be forced to raise real estate and per-sonal property taxes.20

A Perennial Candidate for Vice President

Clinton emerged as one of the most prominentopponents of the new Constitution. He was adelegate to the New York ratification convention,where an Antifederalist majority elected himpresiding officer. But with the establishment ofthe federal union almost a foregone conclusionby the time the convention assembled at Pough-keepsie on June 17, 1788 (eight states had alreadyratified, with the enabling ninth expected to fol-low) Clinton’s options were sharply limited. Hehad initially hoped to secure a conditional ratifi-cation, contingent upon the adoption of ‘‘amend-ments calculated to abridge and limit’’ federalpower, but after the Antifederalists failed toagree on a common strategy and popular senti-ment shifted in favor of unconditional ratifica-tion, there was little he could do to accomplisheven this limited objective. Bowing to the inevi-table, he finally signalled his allies that, if theirconstituents had come to favor unconditionalratification, they should vote accordingly. He didso, as biographer John Kaminski suggests, be-cause he ‘‘sensed that he might make the perfectvice presidential candidate. . . . Once elected,

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Vice President Clinton could advise Washington,support constitutional amendments as he pre-sided over the first United States Senate, and per-haps be heir apparent when Washington decidedto retire.’’ 21

Friends of the new Constitution were muchalarmed when New York and Virginia Anti-federalists proposed Clinton as a vice-presi-dential candidate in 1788.22 James Madison washorrified that ‘‘the enemies to the Government. . . are laying a train for the election of GovernorClinton,’’ 23 and Alexander Hamilton worked tounite Federalists behind John Adams.24 Well-placed rumors tainted Clinton’s candidacy by in-dicating that Antifederalist electors intended tocast one of their two electoral votes for RichardHenry Lee or Patrick Henry for president and theother vote for the New York governor. Prior tothe ratification of the Twelfth Amendment in1804, electors cast two votes in presidential elec-tions without distinguishing between presi-dential and vice-presidential candidates, and therunner-up in the presidential race simply becamevice president. Each elector, however, voted withthe clear intent of electing one individual aspresident and the other as vice president. In thecharged and expectant atmosphere surroundingthe first election under the new Constitution,Federalists who learned of the rumored conspir-acy to elect Lee or Henry president feared thata vote for Clinton would be tantamount to a voteagainst George Washington. Popular enthusiasmfor the new government and Clinton’s well-known opposition to the Constitution alsoworked against him. John Adams won the vice-presidency with 34 electoral votes; Clinton re-ceived 3 of the 35 remaining electoral votes thatwere distributed among a field of ten ‘‘favoriteson’’ candidates.25

Clinton fared better in the 1792 election. By theend of Washington’s first term, the cabinet wasseriously divided over Treasury Secretary Alex-ander Hamilton’s financial system, and all par-ties agreed that Washington’s reelection was es-sential to the survival of the infant republic. Inspite of their earlier reservations about Clinton,Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson and his Vir-ginia allies, Madison and James Monroe, weredetermined to replace the ‘‘monarchist’’ and ab-

rasive Vice President Adams. They consideredthe ‘‘yeoman politician’’ from New York the can-didate most likely to unseat him.26

Clinton’s candidacy faced several obstacles. Hewas still widely suspect as an opponent of theConstitution, and the circumstances of his reelec-tion as governor earlier in the year had arousedthe consternation of even his most steadfast sup-porters. John Jay, the Federalist candidate, hadreceived a majority of the votes in the guber-natorial race, but the destruction of ballots fromFederalist-dominated Otsego County on highlysuspicious technical grounds by Antifederalistcanvassers had tipped the balance in Clinton’sfavor. Jefferson worried that the New York elec-tion would jeopardize ‘‘the cause of republican-ism,’’ and Madison went so far as to suggest thatClinton should resign the governorship if he be-lieved that he had been fraudulently elected.27

Even though Adams was reelected vice presi-dent with 77 electoral votes, Clinton managed togarner a respectable 50 votes, carrying Virginia,Georgia, New York, and North Carolina.28 Theelection provided a limited measure of comfortto Jefferson and Madison, who saw in the returnsa portent of future success for the emerging Re-publican coalition.29

Despite his strong showing in the nationalelection, Governor Clinton found it increasinglydifficult to maintain his power base in NewYork. Pleading exhaustion and poor health, heannounced his retirement in 1795. Although hisrheumatism was by that time so severe that hecould no longer travel to Albany to convene thestate legislature, other factors influenced his de-cision. The circumstances of his 1792 reelectionremained a serious liability, and his effectivenesshad been greatly diminished when the Federal-ists gained control of the state legislature in 1793.Clinton was further compromised when hisdaughter Cornelia married the flamboyant andhighly suspect French emissary, ‘‘Citizen’’ Ed-mond Genet, in 1794.30

Clinton remained an attractive vice-presi-dential prospect for Republican leaders hopingto preserve the Virginia-New York nexus so cru-cial to their strategy, although he was never en-tirely comfortable with the southern wing of theparty. Party strategists tried to enlist Clinton as

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their vice-presidential candidate to balance theticket headed by Thomas Jefferson in 1796, buthe refused to run. He soon found himself at oddswith Jefferson, who became vice president in1797 after receiving the second highest numberof electoral votes. In his March 4, 1797, inauguraladdress to the Senate, Jefferson praised his pred-ecessor, President John Adams, as a man of ‘‘tal-ents and integrity.’’ Clinton was quick to voicehis outrage at this apparent ‘‘public contradic-tion of the Objections offered by his Friendsagainst Mr. Adams’s Election.’’ In 1800, how-ever, when approached by an emissary fromRepresentative Albert Gallatin (R-PA), Clintondid agree to become Jefferson’s running mate, al-though he seemed noticeably relieved when Re-publicans finally chose his fellow New Yorker,Aaron Burr, to balance the ticket.31

Governor Once More

Clinton ended his retirement in 1800, when hewas elected to a seat in the New York legislature.He had entered the contest at Burr’s urging, toensure the selection of Republican presidentialelectors, and probably intended to retire whenhis term expired. But when New York Repub-licans, anticipating Jefferson’s victory in the na-tional election and hoping to consolidate theirgains on the local level, asked him to enter the1801 gubernatorial election, he agreed. He wasat first reluctant to seek the nomination—his ac-ceptance was subject to the caveat that he wouldresign the governorship if the office proved toomuch for him—but Burr soon provided him witha compelling reason to remain in the contest.32

Eleven years earlier, Governor Clinton had ap-pointed Aaron Burr attorney general of NewYork. In 1789, with Federalists in control of thestate legislature, he had been anxious to add Burrand his allies to the Clinton coalition. But henever completely trusted Burr, and his sus-picions were confirmed when Burr refused todefer to Thomas Jefferson after the two can-didates received an equal number of electoralvotes in the 1800 presidential contest. After thefuror subsided, and after the House of Rep-resentatives finally declared Jefferson the winneron the thirty-sixth ballot, Clinton’s nephew andpolitical heir, De Witt Clinton, predicted that

Burr would resign the vice-presidency and try torecoup his shattered fortunes by running forgovernor of New York. De Witt apparently per-suaded his uncle that he was the only prospec-tive candidate who could prevent Burr from tak-ing control of the state Republican party. GeorgeClinton was elected governor by an overwhelm-ing margin, carrying traditionally FederalistNew York City and all but six counties.33

During his last term as governor, Clinton wasovershadowed by his increasingly powerful andambitious nephew. Still, although De Witt wasnow ‘‘the real power in New York politics,’’George Clinton was much revered by New Yorkvoters. Anxious to preserve the Virginia-NewYork coalition, but determined to limit Burr’srole in his administration, Jefferson turned toClinton for advice in making federal appoint-ments in New York. ‘‘[T]here is no one,’’ he as-sured Clinton, ‘‘whose opinion would commandme with greater respect than yours, if you wouldbe so good as to advise me.’’ 34 Jefferson was, inpractical effect, repudiating Burr, although henever publicly disavowed or openly criticizedhis errant vice president.35 One Federalist ob-server soon noted that ‘‘Burr is completely an in-sulated man in Washington.’’ 36 As the 1804 elec-tion approached, De Witt wrote to members ofthe Republican caucus suggesting his uncleGeorge as a replacement for Burr.37

Vice President at Last

Widely respected for his heroism during thewar and for his devotion to Republican prin-ciples, George Clinton was a candidate whocould replace Burr without alienating New Yorkvoters. His age and precarious health were im-portant considerations for Jefferson, who cal-culated that in 1808 the sixty-five-year-old herowould be too old to challenge his intended suc-cessor, Secretary of State James Madison, for theRepublican presidential nomination.38 But Clin-ton had no intention of deferring to Madison in1808. As Madison’s biographer, Ralph Ketcham,has explained, New York Republicans weredeeply jealous of the Virginians who had domi-nated their party’s councils since 1792. ‘‘GeorgeClinton’s replacement of Burr as Vice Presidentin 1804 was not so much a reconciliation with the

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Virginians,’’ he suggests, ‘‘as a play for better le-verage to oust [the Virginians] in 1808.’’ 39

After the election, Clinton was all but shuntedaside by a president who had no wish to enhancehis vice president’s stature in the administrationor encourage his presidential ambitions. Jeffer-son no longer asked Clinton’s advice in makingpolitical appointments in New York or else-where, or on any other matter of substance, 40 re-lying instead on the counsel of Madison andTreasury Secretary Albert Gallatin. When he feltit necessary to consult Republican legislators, hedid so in person 41 or through Gallatin, whoseCapitol Hill residence served as the meetingplace for the Republican caucus.42 (Now knownas the Sewell-Belmont House, this building stillstands, adjacent to the Hart Senate OfficeBuilding.)

Clinton also took little part in the social life ofthe administration.43 Washington society had adistinctly southern flavor, and, as the vice presi-dent confided to Senator Plumer, he found the‘‘habits, manners, costoms, laws & country’’ ofNew England ‘‘much preferable to the southernStates.’’ 44 A widower for four years at the timeof his election, Clinton and his daughter Marialived frugally with House of RepresentativesClerk John Beckley and seldom entertained.45

Even in an administration that consciouslyavoided ceremony and ostentatious display infavor of the simple, republican style that shockedforeign visitors and scandalized Federalists,Clinton’s parsimony was legend. ‘‘Mr. Clinton,always comes to the city in his own carriage,’’Plumer noted. ‘‘He is immensely rich—but livesout at board like a common member—keeps notable—or invites anybody to dine. A style of liv-ing unworthy of the 2d officer in our govern-ment.’’ 46 Another senator observed that ‘‘Mr.Clinton . . . lives snug at his lodgings, and keepsaloof from . . . exhibitions.’’ 47 Clinton’s sole func-tion was to preside over the Senate.

An Ineffectual Presiding Officer

Nor was he an effective presiding officer. Sen-ator Plumer observed, when Clinton assumedthe presiding officer’s chair on December 16,1805, that he seemed ‘‘altogether unacquainted’’with the Senate’s rules, had a ‘‘clumsey awk-

ward way of putting a question,’’ and ‘‘Preserveslittle or no order.’’ 48 Senator John QuincyAdams (F-MA) shared Plumer’s concern. TheSenate’s new president was ‘‘totally ignorant ofall the most common forms of proceeding in theSenate,’’ he wrote in his diary. ‘‘His judgementis neither quick nor strong: so there is no moredependence upon the correctness of his deter-mination from his understanding than from hisexperience . . . a worse choice than Mr. Clintoncould scarcely have been made.’’ 49 Clinton’sparliamentary skills failed to improve with expe-rience, as Plumer observed a year later:

The Vice President preserves very little orderin the Senate. If he ever had, he certainly has notnow, the requisite qualifications of a presiding of-ficer. Age has impaired his mental powers. Theconversation & noise to day in our lobby wasgreater than I ever suffered when moderator ofa town meeting. It prevented us from hearing thearguments of the Speaker. He frequently, at leasthe has more than once, declared bills at the thirdreading when they had been read but once—Putsquestions without any motion being made—Sometimes declares it a vote before any vote hasbeen taken. And sometimes before one bill is de-cided proceeds to another. From want of author-ity, & attention to order he has prostrated the dig-nity of the Senate. His disposition appearsgood,—but he wants mind & nerve.50

Although Plumer and others attributed thevice president’s ineptitude to his advanced ageand feeble health, Clinton’s longstanding ‘‘aver-sion to councils’’ 51 probably compounded hisdifficulties. He had little patience with long-winded senators, as a chagrined John QuincyAdams discovered after an extended discoursethat was, by his own admission, ‘‘a very tediousone to all my hearers.’’ ‘‘The Vice-President,’’ heconcluded, ‘‘does not love long speeches.’’ Clin-ton could do little to alleviate his discomfort,given the fact that the Senate’s rules permittedextended debate, but on at least one occasion heasked a special favor: ‘‘that when we were aboutto make such we should give him notice; that hemight take the opportunity to warm himself atthe fire.’’ 52

Clinton was frequently absent from the Senate,but he apparently summoned the strength to at-

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tend when he found a compelling reason to doso. A case in point was his tie-breaking vote toapprove the nomination of John Armstrong, Jr.,a childhood friend and political ally, as a com-missioner to Spain. Federalist senators, andmany of their Republican colleagues, vehe-mently opposed Armstrong’s nomination, alleg-ing that he had mishandled claims relating to theship New Jersey while serving as minister toFrance. At issue was Armstrong’s finding thatthe 1800 convention with France indemnifiedonly the original owners of captured vessels, aposition he abandoned after Jefferson insistedthat insurers should also receive compensation.Senator Samuel Smith (R-MD), a member of Jef-ferson’s own party and the brother of Navy Sec-retary Robert Smith, so effectively mustered theopposition forces that, by Adams’ account, nosenator spoke on Armstrong’s behalf when theSenate debated his nomination on March 17,1806. After Senator John Adair (R-KY) ‘‘left hisseat to avoid voting,’’ the vice president, whohad earlier informed Plumer ‘‘that he had in-tended not to take his seat in the Senate this ses-sion,’’ resolved the resulting 15-to-15 tied vote inArmstrong’s favor. ‘‘I apprehended,’’ Plumersurmised, that ‘‘they found it necessary & pre-vailed on him to attend.’’ Clinton was absent forthe remainder of the session.53

Clinton’s only known attempt to influence leg-islation as vice president occurred in early 1807,when he asked John Quincy Adams to sponsora bill to compensate settlers who had purchasedwestern Georgia lands from the Yazoo land com-panies. In 1795, the Georgia legislature had soldthirty-five million acres of land to four land spec-ulation companies, which resold the propertiesto other land jobbers and to individual investorsbefore the legislature canceled the sale and cededthe lands to the United States. A commission ap-pointed to effect the transfer to the United Statesproposed that five million acres be earmarked toindemnify innocent parties, but RepresentativeJohn Randolph (R-VA) charged that congres-sional approval of the arrangement would‘‘countenance the fraud a little further’’ andblocked a final settlement. In March 1806, theSenate passed a bill to compensate the Yazoo set-

tlers, but the House rejected the measure.54 Withsentiment against compensation steadily mount-ing, the Senate on February 11, 1807, enacted abill ‘‘to prevent settlements on lands ceded to theUnited States unless authorized by law.’’ The fol-lowing day, Adams recorded in his diary that‘‘The Vice-President this morning took [Adams]apart and advised [him] to ask leave to bring ina bill on behalf of the Yazoo claimants, like thatwhich passed the Senate at the last session, to re-move the effect of the bill passed yesterday.’’Clinton apparently abandoned the effort afterAdams responded that he did ‘‘not think itwould answer any such purpose.’’ 55

Clinton’s always tenuous relationship with Jef-ferson became increasingly strained as the presi-dent responded to English and French assaultson American shipping with a strategy of diplo-matic maneuvering and economic coercion. Clin-ton viewed the escalating conflict between Eng-land and France with alarm. He believed thatwar with one or both nations was inevitable andbecame increasingly frustrated with Jefferson’sseeming reluctance to arm the nation for battle.The vice president’s own state was particularlyvulnerable, because New York shippers andmerchants suffered heavily from British raids,yet Jefferson’s proposed solution of an embargoon foreign trade would have a devastating im-pact on the state’s economy. New York’s limitedcoastal defenses, Clinton feared, would provepainfully inadequate in the event that the presi-dent’s strategy failed to prevent war.56

The Election of 1808

Congress approved the Embargo Act, closingUnited States ports to foreign trade, in December1807. When the Republican congressional caucusmet the following month to select the party’s1808 presidential candidate, the vice president’ssupporters were conspicuously absent. Clintonknew that the caucus would choose Madison, thearchitect of Jefferson’s foreign policy, as theirpresidential candidate but apparently believedthat he could win the presidency without thesupport of the caucus. ‘‘[O]ur venerable friendthe Vice-President,’’ Senator Mitchill observed,‘‘considers himself as fully entitled to the firstplace in the nation.’’ Clinton was so ‘‘self-com-

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placent,’’ Mitchill marvelled, that he failed to‘‘discern what was as plain as daylight to anybody else,’’ that there was not ‘‘the remotestprobability of his success as President.’’ But Clin-ton still commanded a substantial followingamong disaffected Republicans from the MiddleAtlantic states. Because New Yorkers, in particu-lar, resented Virginia’s near-monopoly of thepresidency since 1789, Madison’s campaignmanagers considered Clinton enough of a threatto suggest him as a possible running mate.57

Much to Clinton’s chagrin, the caucus renomi-nated him to a second term as vice president. Hisonly public response was a letter to De Witt—subsequently edited for maximum effect and re-leased to the press by the calculating nephew—denying that he had ‘‘been directly or indirectlyconsulted on the subject’’ or ‘‘apprised of themeeting held for the purpose, otherwise, than byhaving accidentally seen a notice.’’ 58 GeorgeClinton neither accepted nor expressly refusedthe vice-presidential nomination, a posture thatcaused considerable consternation among Re-publican strategists. When caucus representa-tives called on him to discuss the matter, his‘‘tart, severe, and puzzling reply’’ left them ‘‘asmuch in a quandary as ever what to do with theirnomination of him.’’ He was, Senator Mitchilltheorized, ‘‘as much a candidate for the Presi-dency . . . as for the Vice Presidency.’’ 59

As far as Clinton was concerned, he remaineda presidential candidate. While he affected thedisinterested posture that early nineteenth-cen-tury electoral etiquette demanded of candidatesfor elective office, his supporters mounted a vig-orous attack on Jefferson’s foreign policy, warn-ing that Madison, the president’s ‘‘mere organ ormouth piece,’’ would continue along the sameperilous course. But Clinton, one pamphleteerpromised voters, would ‘‘protect you from for-eign and domestic foes.’’ 60 Writing under thepseudonym, ‘‘A Citizen of New-York,’’ the vicepresident’s son-in-law, Edmond Genet, prom-ised that Clinton would substitute ‘‘a dignifiedplan of neutrality’’ for the hated embargo.61

Turning their candidate’s most obvious liabilityto their advantage, Clintonians portrayed thevice president as a seasoned elder statesman, ‘‘arepository of experimental knowledge.’’ 62

The tension between Jefferson and his refrac-tory vice president flared into open hostility afterClinton read confidential diplomatic dispatchesfrom London and Paris before an open sessionof the Senate on February 26, 1808. The presidenthad transmitted the reports to the Senate witha letter expressly warning that ‘‘the publicationof papers of this description would restrain inju-riously the freedom of our foreign correspond-ence.’’ But, as John Quincy Adams recorded,‘‘The Vice-President, not remarking that the firstmessage was marked on the cover, confidential,suffered all the papers to be read without closingthe doors.’’ Clinton claimed that the disclosurewas inadvertent, but the dispatches had seemedto affirm his own conviction that ‘‘war withGreat Britain appears inevitable.’’ 63 Much to hisembarrassment, the blunder was widely re-ported in the press. Entering the Senate chamber‘‘rather late than usual’’ one morning, Adamswitnessed an unusual display of temper:

The Vice President had been formally com-plaining of the President for a mistake which wasreally his own. The message of the twenty-sixthof February was read in public because the Vice-President on receiving it had not noticed theword ‘‘confidential’’ written on the outside cover.This had been told in the newspapers, and com-mented on as evidence of Mr. Clinton’s decliningyears. He thinks it was designedly done by thePresident to ensnare him and expose him to deri-sion. This morning he asked [Secretary of theSenate Samuel] Otis for a certificate that the mes-sage was received in Senate without the word‘‘confidential;’’ which Otis declining to do, hewas much incensed with him, and spoke to theSenate in anger, concluding by saying that hethought the Executive would have had more mag-nanimity than to have treated him thus.64

Support for Clinton’s presidential bid steadilyeroded as the election approached and even themost ardent Clintonians realized that their can-didate had no chance of winning. Some bowedto the will of the caucus as a matter of course, 65

while the prospect of a Federalist victory eventu-ally drove others into the Madison camp.66 NewEngland Federalists, energized by their opposi-tion to the embargo, briefly considered endors-ing Clinton as their presidential candidate but ul-

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timately nominated Charles Cotesworth Pinck-ney of South Carolina after intelligence reportsfrom New York indicated that Republicans there‘‘were disposed to unite in the abandonment ofClinton.’’ 67 Madison won an easy victory with122 electoral votes; Clinton finished a distantthird with only six electoral votes—a face-savinggesture by sympathetic New York Republicans,who cast the state’s thirteen remaining votes forMadison.68

The vice-presidential contest posed a uniqueproblem for Republican electors.69 Clinton wasstill the Republican vice-presidential candidate,notwithstanding the fact that, as Senator WilsonCary Nicholas (R-VA) observed, his conduct had‘‘alienated [him] from the republicans.’’ Al-though painfully aware that ‘‘among the warmfriends of Mr. Clinton are to be found thebitterest enemies of the administration,’’ they ul-timately elected him vice president because theyfeared that repudiating the caucus nominationwould set a dangerous precedent. ‘‘[I]f he is notelected,’’ Nicholas argued, ‘‘there will not in fu-ture be any reliance upon such nominations, allconfidence will be lost and there can not be thenecessary concert.’’ 70 As Virginia RepublicanGeneral Committee Chairman Philip NorborneNicholas stressed, it would be impossible to re-ject Clinton ‘‘without injury to the Republicancause.’’ 71

The Final Term

Clinton left for New York before Congress as-sembled in the House of Representatives cham-ber to count the electoral votes on February 8,1809, thus avoiding the unpleasant task of pro-claiming Madison’s election as president and hisown reelection as vice president. He did not re-turn in time to witness Madison’s inaugurationon March 4 (and surviving records do not indi-cate where or when he took his own oath).72 Inthe meantime, his supporters had already joinedforces with disaffected Republican Senators Sam-uel Smith of Maryland, William B. Giles of Vir-ginia, and Michael Leib of Pennsylvania in a suc-cessful attempt to prevent Madison from nomi-nating Albert Gallatin as secretary of state.73

Clinton opposed Madison’s foreign and do-mestic policies throughout his second vice-presi-

dential term, but he lacked the support and thevitality to muster an effective opposition. Still, hedealt the administration a severe blow when hecast the deciding vote in favor of a measure toprevent the recharter of the Bank of the UnitedStates. Madison had once opposed Hamilton’sproposal to establish a national bank, but by1811, ‘‘twenty years of usefulness and public ap-proval’’ had mooted his objections. Treasury Sec-retary Gallatin considered the bank an essentialcomponent of the nation’s financial and creditsystem, but Clinton and other ‘‘Old Repub-licans’’ still considered the institution an uncon-stitutional aggrandizement of federal power. TheSenate debated Republican Senator William H.Crawford of Georgia’s recharter bill at greatlength before voting on a motion to kill it on Feb-ruary 20, 1811. Clinton voted in favor of the mo-tion after the Senate deadlocked by a vote of 17to 17. His vote did not in itself defeat the bank,since the recharter bill had already failed in theHouse of Representatives, 74 but this last act ofdefiance dealt a humiliating blow to the adminis-tration and particularly to Gallatin, who ob-served many years later that ‘‘nothing can bemore injurious to an Administration than to havein that office a man in hostility with that Admin-istration, as he will always become the most for-midable rallying point for the opposition.’’ 75

In a brief and dignified address to the Senate,Clinton explained his vote, declaring his long-standing conviction that ‘‘Government is not tobe strengthened by an assumption of doubtfulpowers.’’ Could Congress, he asked, ‘‘create abody politic and corporate, not constituting apart of the Government, nor otherwise respon-sible to it by forfeiture of charter, and bestow onits members privileges, immunities, and exemp-tions not recognised by the laws of the States, norenjoyed by the citizens generally? . . . The powerto create corporations is not expressly granted[by the Constitution],’’ he reasoned, but ‘‘[i]f . .. the powers vested in the Government shall befound incompetent to the attainment of the ob-jects for which it was instituted, the Constitutionhappily furnishes the means for remedying theevil by amendment.’’ 76 Then-Senator HenryClay, a Kentucky Republican, later claimed that

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GEORGE CLINTON

he was the author of the vice president’s re-marks. Long after Clinton’s death, but beforeClay reversed his own position to become oneof the bank’s leading advocates during the 1830s,the ever-boastful Clay asserted that the speech‘‘was perhaps the thing that had gained the oldman more credit than anything else that he everdid.’’ Clay, however, admitted that ‘‘he had writ-ten it . . . under Mr. Clinton’s dictation, and henever should think of claiming it as hiscomposition.’’ 77

Clinton’s February 20, 1811, speech was hisfirst and last formal address to the Senate. Twodays later, he notified the senators that he wouldbe absent for the remainder of the session.78 Hereturned for the opening session of the TwelfthCongress on November 4, 1811, and faithfullypresided over the Senate throughout the winter,but by the end of March 1812 he was too ill tocontinue. President pro tempore WilliamCrawford presided for the remainder of the ses-sion, while Clinton’s would-be successors en-gaged in ‘‘[e]lectioneering . . . beyond descrip-tion’’ for the 1812 vice-presidential nomination.On April 20, 1812, Crawford informed the Senate

of ‘‘the death of our venerable fellow-citizen,GEORGE CLINTON, Vice President of the Unit-ed States.’’ 79

The following afternoon, a joint delegationfrom the Senate and the House of Representa-tives accompanied Clinton’s body to the Senatechamber. He was the first person to lie in statein the Capitol, for a brief two-hour period, beforethe funeral procession escorted his remains tonearby Congressional Cemetery. PresidentMadison was among the official mourners, al-though he and the first lady held their customaryreception at the Executive Mansion the followingday. In the Senate chamber, black crepe adornedthe presiding officer’s chair for the remainder ofthe session, and each senator wore a black armband for thirty days ‘‘from an unfeigned respect’’for their departed president.80 Clinton’s formerrival, Gouverneur Morris, later offered a mov-ing—if brutally frank—tribute to the fallen ‘‘sol-dier of the Revolution.’’ Clinton had rendered alifetime of service to New York and the nation,Morris reminded his audience, but ‘‘to share inthe measures of the administration was not hispart. To influence them was not in his power.’’ 81

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NOTES1 Everett Somerville Brown, ed., William Plumer’s Memo-

randum of Proceedings in the United States Senate, 1803–1807(New York, 1923), pp. 352–53.

2 U.S., Congress, Senate, Annals of Congress, 8th Cong., 2dsess., pp. 77–80; Stephen W. Stathis and Ronald C. Moe,‘‘America’s Other Inauguration,’’ Presidential Studies Quar-terly 10 (Fall 1980): 561.

3 Brown, pp. 312–13; Samuel L. Mitchill to Mrs. Mitchill,March 2, 1805, ‘‘Dr. Mitchill’s Letters from Washington:1801–1818,’’ Harper’s New Monthly Magazine 58 (April 1879):749.

4 Brown, pp. 353–53.5 John Kaminski, George Clinton: Yeoman Politician of the

New Republic (Madison, WI, 1993), pp. 247, 255–56, 274.6 Kaminski, p. 1.7 Alan Taylor, review of Kaminski, George Clinton, in

Journal of the Early Republic 13 (Fall 1993): 414–15.8 Alan Taylor, William Cooper’s Town: Power and Persuasion

on the Frontier of the Early American Republic (New York,1995), p. 156.

9 Kaminski, pp. 11–14; U.S., Congress, Senate, BiographicalDirectory of the United States Congress, 1774–1989, S. Doc.100–34, 100th Cong., 2d sess., 1989, p. 795.

10 Brown, pp. 450, 635.11 Several portraits of Clinton, at various stages of his ca-

reer, are reproduced in Kaminski, pp. 22, 58, 112, 190, 228.12 Manning Dauer, ‘‘Election of 1804,’’ in History of Amer-

ican Presidential Elections, 1789–1968, ed. Arthur M. Schles-inger, Jr., and Fred L. Israel, vol. 1 (New York, 1971), p. 161.

13 Kaminski, pp. 14–25, 251, 293.14 Edward Countryman, A People in Revolution: The Amer-

ican Revolution and Political Society in New York, 1760–1790(New York, 1989; reprint of 1981 edition), p. 162.

15 Kaminski, pp. 19–25; Countryman, pp. 161–202.16 As Countryman has noted, during the Confederation

period alone, ‘‘some 170 laws were passed and 40 other ac-tions taken . . . in response to the governor’s suggestions.’’Countryman, p. 210.

17 Kaminski, pp. 26–36; Robert Middlekauff, The GloriousCause: The American Revolution, 1763–1789 (New York, 1982),pp. 382–84; Countryman, p. 211.

18 Kaminski, pp. 23–57.19 Ibid., pp. 60–63, 85–96, 115–21.20 Alfred F. Young, The Democratic Republicans of New

York: The Origins, 1763–1791 (Chapel Hill, NC, 1967), pp. 56–57.

21 Kaminski, pp. 113–69.22 Marcus Cunliffe, ‘‘The Elections of 1789 and 1792,’’ in

Schlesinger and Israel, ed., 1:15.23 Kaminski, p. 171.

24 As noted in Chapter 1 of this volume, ‘‘John Adams,’’p. 6, Hamilton perceived Adams as a threat to his own am-bitions and schemed—successfully—to erode his electoralcount in 1788. Yet, even though, as Kaminski acknowledges,‘‘Hamilton did not particularly care for Adams,’’ Adams’support for the Constitution made him infinitely preferable,in Hamilton’s estimation, to Clinton. Kaminski, pp. 173–74.

25 Cunliffe, p. 18; Annals of Congress, 1st Cong., 1st sess.,p. 17.

26 Kaminski, p. 231.27 Ibid., pp. 211–27; Stanley Elkins and Eric McKitrick, The

Age of Federalism (New York, 1993), p. 288.28 Clinton also received one of Pennsylvania’s 15 electoral

votes.29 Ralph Ketcham, James Madison: A Biography (Charlottes-

ville, VA, 1992; reprint of 1971 edition), p. 336.30 Young, p. 430; Kaminski, p. 237–49.31 Kaminski, pp. 249–55; Annals of Congress, 5th Cong.,

special sess., March 4, 1797, pp. 1581–82.32 Kaminski, pp. 249–56; Annals of Congress, 5th Cong.,

special sess., March 4, 1797, pp. 1581–82.33 Kaminski, pp. 192, 256–60.34 Noble E. Cunningham, Jr., The Jeffersonian Republicans

in Power: Party Operations, 1801–1809 (Chapel Hill, NC,1963), p. 39; Dumas Malone, Jefferson the President: FirstTerm, 1801–1805 (Boston, 1970), p. 88; Noble E.Cunningham, Jr., The Process of Government under Jefferson(Princeton, NJ, 1978), p. 16; Kaminski, p. 261.

35 Cunningham, Jeffersonian Republicans in Power, pp. 42–43, 205–13; Noble E. Cunningham, Jr., In Pursuit of Reason:The Life of Thomas Jefferson (Baton Rouge, LA, 1987), p. 271;Malone, Jefferson the President: First Term, pp. 123–24, 141,432; Kaminski, pp. 261–64.

36 Cunningham, Jeffersonian Republicans in Power, p. 205.37 Kaminski, pp. 262–73.38 Dauer, pp. 159–69; Kaminski, p. 274.39 Ketcham, p. 466.40 Kaminski, p. 279; Cunningham, The Process of Govern-

ment Under Jefferson, p. 16; Cunningham, Jeffersonian Repub-licans in Power, passim; and Dumas Malone, Jefferson thePresident: Second Term, 1805–1809 (Boston, 1974), passim.

41 Cunningham, The Process of Government Under Jefferson,pp. 188–93; Alexander B. Lacy, Jr., ‘‘Jefferson and Congress:Congressional Method and Politics, 1801–1809,’’ Ph.D. dis-sertation (University of Virginia, 1964), pp. 97–101.

42 Lacy, p. 102; Leonard D. White, The Jeffersonians: AStudy in Administrative History, 1801–1809 (New York, 1951),p. 50.

43 Kaminski, pp. 274–75.

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44 Brown, pp. 348–49.45 Kaminski, p. 275.46 Brown, pp. 634–35.47 Samuel L. Mitchill to Mrs. Mitchill, November 23, 1807,

‘‘Dr. Mitchill’s Letters from Washington,’’ p. 748.48 Brown, pp. 352–53.49 Adams’ criticism followed his account of a debate in

which Clinton ruled his motion to amend a resolution outof order. Charles F. Adams, ed., Memoirs of John QuincyAdams (12 vols., Philadelphia, 1874–1877), 1:382–85.

50 Brown, p. 593.51 Kaminski, p. 292.52 Adams, 1:400.53 Ibid., 1:421; Brown, pp. 452, 455–57; Malone, Jefferson

the President: Second Term, pp. 88–89.54 Cunningham, In Pursuit of Reason, pp. 281–82; Annals

of Congress, 9th Cong., 1st sess., p. 208; U.S., Congress,House, Annals of Congress, 9th Cong., 1st sess., pp. 906–21.

55 Adams, 1:452–53. The controversy was eventually set-tled by the Supreme Court’s 1810 ruling in Fletcher v. Peck.

56 Kaminski, pp. 278–79; Malone, Jefferson the President:Second Term, pp. 469–506.

57 Samuel L. Mitchill to Mrs. Mitchill, January 25, 1808,‘‘Dr. Mitchill’s Letters to Washington,’’ p. 752; Irving Brant,‘‘Election of 1808,’’ in Schlesinger and Israel, 1:185–221;Ketcham, pp. 466–67.

58 ‘‘Letter from Vice-President George Clinton to De WittClinton, March 5, 1808,’’ in Schlesinger and Israel, 1:228;Brant, 1:202; Kaminski, pp. 280–81, 332n.

59 Samuel L. Mitchell to Mrs. Mitchell, April 1, 1808, ‘‘Dr.Mitchell’s Letters from Washington,’’ p. 753.

60 Kaminski, pp. 285–86.61 ‘‘A Citizen of New-York,’’ quoted in Kaminski, pp.

286–87.62 Kaminski, p. 284.63 Adams, 1:516; Annals of Congress, 10th Cong., 1st sess.,

p. 150.64 Adams, 1:529.65 Cunningham, Jeffersonian Republicans in Power, pp. 118–

21.66 Brant, 1:218.67 Kaminski, p. 283.

68 Ibid., p. 288; Brant, 1:202; Ketcham, pp. 466–69. Pinck-ney carried the New England states with 76 electoral votes.

69 The Twelfth Amendment, which provides that electors‘‘shall name in their ballots the person voted for as Presi-dent, and in distinct ballots the person voted for as Vice-President,’’ was ratified on June 15, 1804. This procedure—designed to prevent a recurrence of the situation that oc-curred in 1800, when the Republican presidential and vice-presidential candidates received an equal number of elec-toral votes—was first employed during the 1804 election.

70 Cunningham, Jeffersonian Republicans in Power, pp. 122–23.

71 Ibid., p. 123.72 Annals of Congress, 10th Cong., 2d sess., pp. 337, 344–

45; U.S., Congress, Senate, Journal, 10th Cong., special ses-sion, March 4–March 7, 1809, pp. 365–68; and Journal, 11thCong., 1st sess., pp. 373–74; Stathis and Moe, pp. 561, 566n.Neither the Annals nor the Senate Journal indicates where,or on what date, Clinton took his oath of office. He wasnot present for the special session of March 4–March 7, 1809.The Senate Journal notes that ‘‘[t]he Honorable George Clin-ton, Vice President of the United States and President ofthe Senate,’’ was present when the Eleventh Congress con-vened on May 22, 1809, but does not indicate that he tookthe oath of office at that time.

73 Ketcham, pp. 481–82. Gallatin continued to serve as sec-retary of the treasury until 1814.

74 Ketcham, pp. 506; Annals of Congress, 11th Cong., 3dsess., pp. 121–347; Kaminski, pp. 289–90; Chase C. Mooney,William H. Crawford, 1772–1834 (Lexington, KY, 1974), pp.17–26; Robert V. Remini, Henry Clay: Statesman for the Union(New York, 1991), pp. 68–71.

75 Kaminski, p. 289.76 Annals of Congress, 11th Cong., 3d sess., pp. 346–47.77 Adams, 7:64; Remini, pp. 68–71, 379, and passim.78 Annals of Congress, 11th Cong., 3d sess., pp. 350–70.79 Ibid., pp. 9, 177, 205–6. The ‘‘electioneering’’ for Clin-

ton’s office was mentioned in correspondence from FirstLady Dolley Madison to Anna Cutts, quoted in Ketcham,p. 521.

80 Kaminski, p. 291; Annals of Congress, 12th Cong., 1stsess., p. 206; Ketcham, p. 520.

81 Kaminski, pp. 292–93.

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Chapter 5

ELBRIDGE GERRY1813–1814

ELBRIDGE GERRY

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Chapter 5

ELBRIDGE GERRY5th Vice President: 1813–1814

It is the duty of every man, though he may have but one day to live, to devote that day to thegood of his country.

—ELBRIDGE GERRY 1

The vice-presidency had been vacant for near-ly a year by the time Elbridge Gerry took officeas the nation’s fifth vice president on March 4,1813. His predecessor, George Clinton, an un-compromising ‘‘Old Republican’’ with frustratedpresidential ambitions, had died in office onApril 20, 1812. Clinton’s constant carping aboutPresident James Madison’s foreign policy hadput him at odds with the administration. Gerry,who replaced Clinton as the Republican vice-presidential nominee in the 1812 election, was avice president more to Madison’s liking. An en-thusiastic supporter of Jefferson’s embargo andMadison’s foreign policy, he offered a welcomecontrast to the independent-minded and cantan-kerous New Yorker who had proved so trouble-some during the president’s first term. But, likeClinton, Gerry would die in office before the endof his term, leaving Madison—and the nation—once again without a vice president.

Early Career

Elbridge Gerry was born in Marblehead, Mas-sachusetts, on July 17, 1744, one of Thomas andElizabeth Greenleaf Gerry’s eleven children. Aformer ship’s captain who emigrated from Eng-land in 1730, Thomas Gerry was a pillar of theMarblehead community, serving as a justice ofthe peace and selectman and as moderator of thetown meeting. The family was prosperous,thanks to a thriving mercantile and shippingbusiness and an inheritance from Elizabeth

Gerry’s side of the family. The Gerrys were alsopious, faithfully attending the First Congrega-tional Church and avoiding ostentatious display.Young Elbridge was probably educated by a pri-vate tutor before his admission to Harvard Col-lege in 1758. Like many of his fellow scholars,he paid careful attention to the imperial crisisthat would eventually precipitate the AmericanRevolution, arguing in his master’s thesis thatthe colonists were justified in their resistance to‘‘the new Prohibitory Duties, which make it use-less for the People to engage in Commerce.’’ 2

Gerry returned home after graduation to jointhe family business. A thriving port and com-mercial center, Marblehead was a hotbed of anti-British activity during the 1760s and 1770s. Thefuture vice president played a limited role in theresistance movement until the spring of 1770,when he served on a local committee to enforcethe ban on the sale and consumption of tea. Hewas elected to the Massachusetts legislature in1772, and later to its successor body, the Provin-cial Congress, serving as chairman of the com-mittee on supplies during the fall and winter of1774–1775.3 The historian Mercy Otis Warren—a contemporary—later recalled that Gerry co-ordinated the procurement and distribution ofarms and provisions with ‘‘punctuality and inde-fatigable industry,’’ 4 an effort he would continuewhile serving in the Continental Congress. Fol-lowing a practice that was neither unusual norillegal at the time, Gerry awarded several supply

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contracts to his family’s business. But, unlikemany of his fellow merchants, he refused to takeexcessive profits from wartime commerce, ex-plaining that he would ‘‘prefer any Loss to theleast Misunderstanding with the public relativeof Interest.’’ 5

Gerry was elected to the second ContinentalCongress in December 1775, serving until 1780and again from 1783 to 1785. If he was, as hisbiographer George Athan Billias admits, a ‘‘sec-ond rank figure’’ in a body that included suchluminaries as Thomas Jefferson and John andSamuel Adams, he was also a diligent legislator.His efforts to persuade wavering middle colonydelegates to support independence during thesummer of 1776 evoked paeans of praise fromJohn Adams. ‘‘If every Man here was a Gerry,’’Adams claimed, ‘‘the Liberties of America wouldbe safe against the Gates of Earth and Hell.’’ 6

But, like Adams, Gerry could also be tryingand impractical—even Adams despaired of hisfriend’s ‘‘obstinacy that will risk great things tosecure small ones.’’ 7 He was ‘‘of so peculiar acast of mind,’’ Continental Congress SecretaryCharles Thomson marvelled, ‘‘that his pleasureseems proportioned to the absurdity of hisschemes.’’ 8 Modern scholars agree that ‘‘hiswork in Congress was remembered most for itscapriciousness and contrariness,’’ citing the‘‘phobias against sword, purse, and centralizedpower’’ that ‘‘drove him to oppose any kind ofpeacetime army and any taxing scheme to raiserevenue for the central government.’’ 9 ButGerry’s biographer discerns a fundamental logicin his seemingly erratic career. The Revolutionwas Gerry’s defining moment, Billias empha-sizes, and the future vice president considered‘‘the signing of the Declaration of Independence. . . the greatest single act of his entire life.’’ 10

All of his subsequent actions, inconsistent andidiosyncratic as they may have appeared to oth-ers, were driven by his single-minded goal ofpreserving the hard-won gains of the Revolution.

For all his commitment to Revolutionary prin-ciples, however, Gerry was no egalitarian. He be-lieved that a ‘‘natural elite’’ of able and talentedindividuals should govern the new nation. As amember of that favored class, he considered pub-lic service a responsibility, not an opportunity for

personal or financial gain. Like many of his con-temporaries, he believed that the ideal form ofgovernment was a ‘‘mixed’’ constitution, incor-porating in a delicately balanced equilibrium thebest features of a monarchy, an aristocracy, anda democracy. A constitution that inclined toomuch toward any of the three would, Gerryfeared, threaten the stability of the governmentor jeopardize the liberties of the people. Thisstance accounts for his seemingly inconsistentbehavior during the Constitutional Conventionand the ensuing ratification debate.11

Constitutional Convention

One of four delegates chosen by the Massachu-setts legislature to attend the 1787 ConstitutionalConvention, Gerry was, in his biographer’swords, ‘‘one of the most active participants in theentire Convention.’’ 12 A member of the mod-erate bloc—he was neither an extreme nationalistnor a committed states’ rights advocate—heacted as a conciliator during the first phases ofthe convention. As chair of the committee thatresolved the impasse between the large andsmall states over representation in the nationallegislature, Gerry made several impassionedspeeches in support of the ‘‘Great Compromise,’’which provided for equal representation of thestates in the Senate and proportional representa-tion in the House of Representatives.13

Soon after the convention adopted the com-promise, Gerry began to worry that the constitu-tion that was slowly emerging during those hotand tense days in Philadelphia would create apowerful national legislature capable of jeopard-izing the people’s liberties and overshadowingthe states. Although the convention adopted sev-eral of his proposals to limit congressionalpower, including the prohibition against bills ofattainder and ex post facto laws, these provisionsfailed to satisfy his apprehensions. Struggling tosave a document that he now considered seri-ously flawed, Gerry offered a motion to includea bill of rights and several specific proposals tosafeguard popular liberties. The convention’smajority disagreed with this approach and de-feated each of these initiatives. On September 15,1787, a dispirited Gerry stated ‘‘the objectionswhich determined him to withhold his name

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from the Constitution,’’ concluding that ‘‘the bestthat could be done . . . was to provide for a sec-ond general Convention.’’ Two days later, as hismore optimistic colleagues prepared to sign thenew Constitution, Gerry explained his change ofheart. James Madison, whose notes of the con-vention provide the only authoritative account ofits proceedings, recorded the awkward scene:

Mr. Gerry described the painful feelings of hissituation, and the embarrassment under whichhe rose to offer any further observations on thesubject which had finally been decided. Whilstthe plan was depending, he had treated it withall the freedom he thought it deserved. He nowfelt himself bound as he was disposed to treat itwith the respect due to the Act of the Convention.He hoped he should not violate that respect indeclaring on this occasion his fears that a Civilwar may result from the present crisis of theU.S.14

Gerry objected to several provisions in the newConstitution, including the language in Article I,section 3, specifying that ‘‘The Vice President ofthe United States shall be President of the Sen-ate.’’ During the September 7 debate over the‘‘mode of constituting the Executive,’’ he hadvoiced his reservations about assigning legisla-tive responsibilities to the vice president. ‘‘Wemight as well put the President himself at thehead of the Legislature,’’ he had argued. ‘‘Theclose intimacy that must subsist between thePresident & vice-president makes it absolutelyimproper.’’ But, he now admitted, he could haveaccepted this provision and others that he foundtroubling had the Constitution not granted Con-gress such sweeping powers.15

Fearful as he was about the new Constitution,Gerry was equally worried that ‘‘anarchy mayensue’’ if the states failed to ratify it. He did not,therefore, reject it outright during the ratificationstruggle. Abandoning his earlier call for a secondconvention, he worked to build support foramendments ‘‘adapted to the ‘exigencies of Gov-ernment’ & the preservation of Liberty.’’ Reviledas a traitor to his class by elites who strongly fa-vored ratification, Gerry suffered an overwhelm-ing defeat in the 1788 Massachusetts guber-natorial election. Still, he noted with some satis-faction that his state and four others ratified the

Constitution with recommendations foramendments.16

The New Nation

Gerry served in the United States House ofRepresentatives during the First and Second con-gresses (1789–1793). A conciliatory and moderatelegislator, he supported Treasury Secretary Alex-ander Hamilton’s proposals to fund the Revolu-tionary War debt and to establish a nationalbank. Disillusioned by the increasingly partisannature of the debate that Hamilton’s proposalsgenerated, Gerry retired at the end of his secondterm, returning to Elmwood, his Cambridge,Massachusetts, estate, to attend to his businessaffairs and to care for his large and growing fam-ily. He had remained a bachelor until the age offorty-one, marrying Ann Thompson, the Euro-pean-educated daughter of a wealthy New Yorkmerchant, in 1786. Ann Gerry’s frequent preg-nancies—ten children arrived between 1787 and1801—placed a severe strain on her health, andElbridge was needed at home.17

Gerry’s brief retirement ended in 1796, whenhe served as a presidential elector, supportinghis friend and former colleague, John Adams. In1797, with relations between the United Statesand France steadily worsening after the adoptionof the Jay Treaty, President Adams appointedGerry an envoy to France. The mission failedafter representatives of the French governmentdemanded a bribe before they would begin nego-tiations. Gerry’s fellow commissioners left Paris,but Gerry, who had been meeting privately withthe French in an effort to facilitate negotiations,remained behind, believing that accommodationwas possible. Eventually, he left France empty-handed but convinced that his efforts had avert-ed war. Attacks on American shipping contin-ued, however, and Gerry was widely criticizedfor the failure of the mission.18

Maligned by Federalists who believed himpartial to France, and courted by Republicans forthe same reason, Gerry tried to remain alooffrom the partisan warfare of the late 1790s. Then,in 1800, energized by President John Adams’warning that Hamilton would use the army togain control of the government, he aligned him-self with the moderate wing of the Jeffersonian

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coalition, eventually emerging as the leader ofthe Massachusetts Republicans. After a brief sec-ond retirement from politics between 1804 and1809, Gerry was elected governor of Massachu-setts in 1810. The success of his efforts to rec-oncile Federalists and Republicans, who werebitterly divided over foreign policy issues, led tohis reelection the following year. During his sec-ond term, however, Governor Gerry adopted amore ‘‘hard-line’’ approach, as MassachusettsFederalists became increasingly outspoken intheir opposition to Madison’s foreign policy. Heprosecuted Federalist editors for libel, appointedfamily members to state office, and approved acontroversial redistricting plan crafted to giveRepublicans an advantage in the state senatorialelections. The Federalist press responded to thisplan with cartoon figures of a salamander-shaped election district—the ‘‘Gerrymander’’—adding to the American political lexicon a termthat is still used to connote an irregularly shapeddistrict created by legislative fiat to benefit a par-ticular party, politician, or other group. Gov-ernor Gerry’s highly partisan agenda led to hisdefeat in the April 1812 gubernatorial election.Heavily in debt after cosigning a note for a broth-er who defaulted on his obligation, and saddledwith the expenses of a large family, Gerry askedPresident James Madison to appoint him collec-tor of customs at Boston.19

Vice-Presidential Career

Madison had other plans for Gerry. With the1812 presidential election fast approaching andthe vice-presidency vacant since George Clin-ton’s death in April, Madison was more anxiousto find a suitable running mate than to fill a cus-toms post. He preferred a candidate who wouldattract votes in the New England states yetwould not threaten the succession of the ‘‘Vir-ginia dynasty’’ in the 1816 election. Former Sen-ator John Langdon of New Hampshire, the par-ty’s first choice, was too old and too ill to acceptthe nomination. After he declined, the Repub-lican caucus turned to the sixty-seven-year-oldGerry, a choice that Madison approved despiteAlbert Gallatin’s prediction that the Massachu-setts patriot ‘‘would give us as much trouble asour late Vice-President.’’ 20 Gerry had supported

Jefferson’s embargo and Madison’s foreign pol-icy, remaining steadfast after the United Statesdeclared war against Great Britain in June 1812.Like Madison, he believed that the war was nec-essary to protect the liberties that both men hadlabored so hard to secure during theRevolution.21

Although Gerry was certainly no liability, heturned out not to be as valuable an asset as theRepublicans had hoped. Of Massachusetts’ 22electors, only 2 voted for Gerry and none votedfor Madison. In an election that was, as onescholar has observed, ‘‘a virtual referendum’’ onthe War of 1812, editors and electioneers paidrelatively little attention to the vice-presidentialcandidates. By a margin of 39 electoral votes,Madison defeated opposition candidate De WittClinton, and Gerry triumphed over Jared Inger-soll of Pennsylvania.22

Gerry remained at home in Massachusetts oninauguration day, March 4, 1813, taking his oathof office there from U.S. District Judge JohnDavis.23 When the Senate convened at the begin-ning of the Thirteenth Congress on May 24, 1813,he appeared in the chamber with a certificate at-testing to the fact that he had taken the oath ofoffice. Gerry’s inaugural address, an extendedoration condemning the British and praisingMadison, was unusual in content and length. Heexplained that ‘‘to have concealed’’ his ‘‘politicalprinciples and opinions’’ during ‘‘a crisis likethis might have savored too much of a deficiencyof candor.’’ 24 He was now on record as a sup-porter of the war effort and a loyal ally of thepresident.

Gerry’s early hopes that ‘‘unanimity shouldprevail’’ in the Senate 25 soon faded, as the wardeepened the divisions between the parties andthreatened to split the Republican coalition. Re-publicans far outnumbered Federalists in theSenate, but mounting opposition to the war ef-fort among disaffected Republicans steadilyeroded the administration’s 28-to-8 majority. Thepresident was such an inept commander in chiefthat even his loyal ally, House Speaker HenryClay of Kentucky, considered him ‘‘wholly unfitfor the storms of War.’’ 26 As anti-administrationsentiment reached a fever pitch after Americanforces suffered humiliating defeats in Canada

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and at sea, 27 several members of the president’sparty balked at the nomination of Treasury Sec-retary Albert Gallatin as envoy to Great Britainand Russia. Instead, they supported a resolutionordering Madison to inform the Senate whetherGallatin would retain his cabinet post (and, if so,who would serve in his absence). Ultimately,these Republicans joined with Federalists to de-feat the nomination by a vote of 18 to 17.28

Elbridge Gerry found it increasingly difficultto remain impartial in such a highly charged at-mosphere, especially after Madison became seri-ously ill in mid-June 1813. Gerry, himself, wasin poor health. He had recently suffered a‘‘stroke,’’ and old age had so withered his slightphysique that one observer likened his appear-ance to that of a ‘‘scant-patterned old skeletonof a French Barber.’’ The March 1, 1792, actwhich at that time governed the presidential suc-cession provided that if the president and thevice president died in office—a developmentthat many considered possible, if not imminent,during the summer of 1813—the president protempore of the Senate would serve as president.And if Gerry left the Senate before Congress ad-journed, as all of his predecessors had done toallow election of a president pro tempore, anti-administration forces might combine to elect anindividual hostile to Madison’s agenda. OneFederalist editor had already suggested NewYork Federalist Senator Rufus King as a possiblesuccessor, while Secretary of State James Monroewarned that disaffected Senate Republicans had‘‘begun to make calculations, and plans, foundedon the presumed death of the President andVice-President, and it has been suggested to methat [Virginia Senator William Branch] Giles isthought of to take the place of the President ofthe Senate.’’ 29

But if Gerry remained in the chair, and if hesurvived until the end of the session, the personnext in the line of succession would be Speakerof the House Henry Clay, an outspoken‘‘warhawk.’’ Breaking with the precedent estab-lished by John Adams, Gerry therefore refusedto vacate the chair, presiding over the Senateuntil the first session of the Thirteenth Congressadjourned on August 2, 1813. ‘‘[S]everal gentle-men of the Senate had intimated a wish that he

would retire from the Chair two or three weeksbefore the time of adjournment, and would thusgive to the Senate an opportunity for choosinga President pro tempore,’’ he later explained, but‘‘other gentlemen expressed a contrary desire,and thought that the President should remain inthe Chair, and adjourn the Senate.’’ Gerry ulti-mately decided that, as ‘‘a war existed and hadproduced a special session of Congress,’’ he was‘‘differently circumstanced from any of his pred-ecessors, and was under an obligation to remainin the Chair until the important business of thesession was finished.’’ 30 (Decades later, in March1890, the Senate established the current practiceof having presidents pro tempore hold officecontinuously until the election of another presi-dent pro tempore, rather than serving only dur-ing the absence of a vice president.)

With the presidential succession safe andMadison’s physical condition much improved bythe time the Senate adjourned, Gerry was free toreturn home. He was absent when the secondsession of the Thirteenth Congress convened inDecember and did not return to Washingtonuntil early February 1814.31 Partisan sentimentsremained strong in the Senate, he soon discov-ered. By one observer’s count, the administra-tion’s opponents outnumbered its supporters bya margin of 20 to 16. The vice president sus-pected that a Senate stenographer was the sourceof recent anti-administration articles in the localpress, but with opposition forces now in the ma-jority he was reluctant to ‘‘meddle with ser-pents,’’ and he let the matter drop.32

Unpleasant as his Senate duties had become,Gerry still enjoyed the endless round of dinners,receptions, and entertainments that crowded hiscalendar. With his elegant manners and personalcharm, the vice president was a favorite guest ofWashington’s Republican hostesses, includingfirst lady Dolley Madison. He maintained an ac-tive social schedule that belied his advancedyears and failing health, visiting friends from hisearlier days, who were now serving as membersof Congress or administration appointees, andpaying special attention to Betsy Patterson Bona-parte, the American-born sister-in-law of Napo-leon, whose revealing attire caused a stir wher-ever she went.33

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Gerry remained in Washington until the sec-ond session of the Thirteenth Congress ad-journed on April 18, 1814, leaving the Senatechamber only a few moments before adjourn-ment to permit the election of South Carolina Re-publican John Gaillard as president pro tempore.Mindful that the war had ‘‘increased his respon-sibility,’’ and apprehensive of ‘‘the tendency ofcontrary conduct to prostrate the laws and Gov-ernment,’’ however, he had refused to relinquishthe chair ‘‘whilst any important bill or measurewas pending, and was to be finished at thatsession.’’ 34

Gerry spent the summer of 1814 in Massachu-setts, awaiting news of the war effort from Madi-son.35 He found the capital much changed whenhe returned in the fall; British troops had burnedmost of the city’s public buildings, including theCapitol, and the Senate would meet in temporaryquarters for the remainder of his term. He wasoutraged to learn that Massachusetts Federalistshad called for a convention of the New Englandstates to consider defensive measures and to pro-pose constitutional amendments. In the fall of1814, the Hartford Convention, which would notissue its recommendations until after Gerry’sdeath, was widely rumored to be a secessionistinitiative. The vice president therefore urgedMadison to counter with a ‘‘spirited manifesto’’against the proceedings.36

Gerry was still an energetic defender of the ad-ministration and of the war, but, by that autumn,his public responsibilities, coupled with his re-lentless socializing, had sapped his strength. Hebecame seriously ill in late November 1814, retir-ing early on the evening of November 22 andcomplaining of chest pains the next morning. De-

termined to perform his public responsibilities,he arrived at the temporary capitol in the PatentOffice Building later that morning. Then, realiz-ing that he was in no condition to preside overthe Senate, he returned to his boardinghouse.Members of the Senate, assembling in the cham-ber at their customary hour and hearing reportsof Gerry’s death, sent Massachusetts Senators Jo-seph Varnum and Christopher Gore to the vicepresident’s lodgings ‘‘to ascertain the fact.’’When they returned with confirmation that thereports were true, the Senate appointed five sen-ators to a joint committee ‘‘to consider and reportmeasures most proper to manifest the public re-spect for the memory of the deceased.’’ The bodythen adjourned as a mark of respect to its de-parted president. On the following day, the Sen-ate ordered that the president’s chair ‘‘beshrouded with black during the present session;and as a further testimony of respect for the de-ceased, the members of the Senate will go intomourning, and wear black crape round the leftarm for thirty days.’’ 37 Although the Senatepassed legislation providing for payment ofGerry’s vice-presidential salary to his financiallystrapped widow for the remainder of his term,the House rejected the plan.

Not long after Gerry’s interment at Congres-sional Cemetery, the United States claimed vic-tory over Great Britain. The young nation re-ceived few tangible concessions from the Britishunder the Treaty of Ghent, 38 but a new genera-tion of leaders viewed America’s ‘‘victory’’ in theWar of 1812 as a reaffirmation of the ideals thathad animated and sustained Elbridge Gerrysince the summer of 1776.

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NOTES1 Inscription on the Elbridge Gerry monument, Congres-

sional Cemetery, Washington, D.C., reproduced in James T.Austin, The Life of Elbridge Gerry, vol. 2 (New York, 1970;reprint of 1829 edition), p. 403.

2 George Athan Billias, Elbridge Gerry, Founding Father andRepublican Statesman (New York, 1976), pp. 1–7.

3 Ibid., pp. 7–54.4 Quoted in ibid., p. 53.5 Ibid., pp. 73–75.6 Quoted in ibid., p. 70.7 Quoted in Samuel Eliot Morison, ‘‘Elbridge Gerry, Gen-

tleman-Democrat,’’ New England Quarterly 2 (1929), re-printed in By Land and By Sea: Essays and Addresses (NewYork, 1953), p. 190.

8 Quoted in Stanley Elkins and Eric McKitrick, The Ageof Federalism: The Early American Republic, 1788–1800 (NewYork, 1993), p. 557.

9 Elkins and McKitrick, p. 557.10 Billias, p. 70.11 Ibid., pp. xiii-xvii and passim; Jackson Turner Main, The

Antifederalists: Critics of the Constitution, 1781–1788 (ChapelHill, NC, 1961). p. 171.

12 Billias, p. 158; Ralph Ketcham, James Madison: A Biog-raphy (Charlottesville, VA, 1992; reprint of 1971 edition), p.194.

13 Billias, pp. 153–84.14 Ibid., pp. 185–205; Notes of Debates in the Federal Conven-

tion of 1787 Reported By James Madison (New York, 1987; re-print of 1966 edition), pp. 652–58.

15 Notes of Debates in the Federal Convention, pp. 594–97,652.

16 Billias, pp. 206–17.17 Ibid., pp. 147, 218–35.18 Ibid., pp. 245–86.19 Ibid., pp. 287–325.20 Ketcham, p. 523; Norman K. Risjord, ‘‘Election of 1812,’’

in History of American Presidential Elections, 1789–1968,edited by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. and Fred L. Israel, vol.1 (New York, 1971). p. 252.

21 According to Madison scholar Robert Allen Rutland,the president believed that ‘‘war with Britain would reaf-firm the commitment of 1776.’’ Robert Allen Rutland, ThePresidency of James Madison (Lawrence, KS, 1990), p. 97.Gerry elaborated his sentiments in his May 24, 1813, inau-

gural address. U.S., Congress, Senate, Annals of Congress,13th Cong., 2d sess., pp. 10–13.

22 Risjord, ‘‘Election of 1812,’’ pp. 249–72; Norman K.Risjord, ‘‘1812,’’ in Running for President: The Candidates andTheir Images, ed. Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., vol. 1, 1789–1896(New York, 1994), pp. 67–72.

23 Stephen W. Stathis and Ronald C. Moe, ‘‘America’sOther Inauguration,’’ Presidential Studies Quarterly 10 (Fall1980), p. 561. Gerry’s legislative duties would not com-mence until the Thirteenth Congress convened two monthslater, which may account for his decision to remain in Cam-bridge until that time. Samuel Eliot Morison speculates thatAnn Gerry’s illness may have prevented her from accom-panying her husband to Washington in 1813; her conditionmight also have delayed her husband’s departure. Morison,‘‘Elbridge Gerry,’’ pp. 197–98.

24 Annals of Congress, 13th Cong., 1st sess., pp. 9–13.25 Ibid., p. 10.26 Robert V. Remini, Henry Clay: Statesman for the Union

(New York, 1991), p. 97.27 Ibid., pp. 94–97.28 Ketcham, p. 560; Robert Ernst, Rufus King: American

Federalist (Chapel Hill, NC, 1968), pp. 324–25; Annals of Con-gress, 13th Cong., 1st sess., pp. 84–90.

29 The vice president’s social life is chronicled in the diaryof his son, Elbridge Gerry, Jr., who visited his father inWashington during the summer of 1813. Elbridge, Jr.’s diarymakes no mention of his father’s health, but the vice presi-dent’s most recent biographer notes that the elder Gerrysuffered a ‘‘stroke’’ while Madison was ill. Claude Bowers,ed., The Diary of Elbridge Gerry, Jr. (New York, 1927), passim;Ketcham, pp. 560–62; Billias, pp. 326–29.

30 Annals of Congress, 13th Cong., 2d sess., pp. 776–78.31 Ketcham, p. 562; Annals of Congress, 13th Cong., 2d

sess., pp. 537–622.32 Billias, p. 327.33 Ibid., pp. 327–28.34 Annals of Congress, 13th Cong., 2d sess., pp. 622–778.35 Rutland, p. 151.36 Billias, p. 326; Marshall Smelser, The Democratic Repub-

lic, 1801–1815 (New York, 1968), pp. 296–99.37 Billias, pp. 328–29; Annals of Congress, 13th Cong., 3d

sess., pp. 109–110.38 Smelser, pp. 308–11.

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Chapter 6

DANIEL D. TOMPKINS1817–1825

DANIEL D. TOMPKINS

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Chapter 6

DANIEL D. TOMPKINS6th Vice President: 1817–1825

The name of Daniel Tompkins deserves to be more kindly remembered than it has been.—New York Herald-Tribune EDITORIAL, JUNE 21, 1932 1

Daniel D. Tompkins was by all accounts an ex-ceptionally handsome individual. He had a ‘‘faceof singular masculine beauty,’’ one essayistnoted, and a ‘‘gentle, polished and unpre-tentious’’ demeanor. Tompkins’ biographer dis-covered that ‘‘almost every noted American art-ist’’ of the time painted the handsome New YorkRepublican, 2 and the images reproduced in Ray-mond Irwin’s study of Tompkins’ career depictan attractive and obviously self-confident youngpolitician. John Trumbull’s 1809 portrait, for ex-ample, shows Tompkins as he appeared duringhis first term as governor of New York: a care-fully dressed, poised, and seemingly contentedpublic man, his dark hair framing an even-fea-tured and not-yet-careworn face.3

But had Trumbull painted Tompkins in 1825,the year he retired from public life after twoterms as vice president during James Monroe’sadministration, he would have captured a vastlydifferent likeness. A decade of financial privationand heavy drinking, coupled with accusationsthat he had mishandled state and federal fundswhile serving as governor of New York duringthe War of 1812, had prematurely aged Tomp-kins. He was, at the age of fifty, an embitteredand tortured old man, his once-promising careerbrought to an untimely end. ‘‘There was a timewhen no man in the state dared compete withhim for any office in the gift of the people,’’ acontemporary reflected after Tompkins’ death onJune 11, 1825, ‘‘and his habits of intemperance

alone prevented him from becoming President ofthe United States.’’ 4

Tompkins’ Early Years

Daniel D. Tompkins was born in WestchesterCounty, New York, on June 21, 1774, one of elev-en children of Jonathan Griffin Tompkins andSarah Ann Hyatt Tompkins. His parents weretenant farmers, who acquired middle-class statusonly shortly before his birth when they pur-chased a farm near Scarsdale. Jonathan GriffinTompkins joined several local resistance commit-tees during the Revolution, serving as an adju-tant in the county militia. After the war, heserved several years as a town supervisor andas a delegate to the state legislature. A self-edu-cated man, the elder Tompkins was determinedto provide young Daniel with a classicaleducation.

The future vice president began his educationat a New York City grammar school, later trans-ferring to the Academy of North Salem and en-tering Columbia University in 1792. An excep-tional scholar and a gifted essayist, Tompkinsgraduated first in his class in 1795, intent on pur-suing a political career. In 1797, he was admittedto the New York bar and married HannahMinthorne, the daughter of a well-connected Re-publican merchant. Tompkins’ father-in-law wasa prominent member of the Tammany Society,a militant, unabashedly democratic political or-ganization that would one day challenge theClinton dynasty for control of the New York Re-

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publican party. Also known as ‘‘Bucktails,’’ afterthe distinctive plumes worn at official and cere-monial gatherings, the Tammanyites were a di-verse lot. As Tompkins’ biographer has noted,the society was comprised of ‘‘laborers . . . Revo-lutionary War veterans . . . who admired repub-lican France and hated monarchical England;more than a sprinkling of immigrants . . . be-friended by the Society . . . and, of course, hope-ful politicians.’’ 5

Tompkins began his political career in 1800,canvassing his father-in-law’s precinct on behalfof candidates for the state legislature who would,if elected, choose Republican electors in theforthcoming presidential contest. He was askilled and personable campaigner, never forget-ting a name or a face; by the time the electionwas over, he knew nearly every voter in the Sev-enth Ward. Resourceful and energetic, he man-aged to circumvent New York’s highly restrictivevoter-qualification laws by pooling resourceswith other young men of modest means to pur-chase enough property to qualify for the fran-chise. The engaging and tactful Tompkins neverallowed politics to interfere with personal friend-ships—an enormous asset for a New York politi-cian, given the proliferation of factions in theEmpire State during the early 1800s. Tompkinsserved as a New York City delegate to the 1801state constitutional convention and was electedto the New York assembly in 1803. In 1804 hewon a seat in the United States House of Rep-resentatives, but he resigned before Congressconvened to accept an appointment as an associ-ate justice of the New York Supreme Court.6

War Governor

Tompkins was a popular and fair-minded ju-rist, well respected by members of the severalfactions that were struggling for control of thestate Republican party during the early 1800s. Hewas also a close associate of De Witt Clinton,who supported him in the 1807 gubernatorialrace in an effort to unseat Morgan Lewis. Lewiswas a ‘‘Livingston’’ Republican, supported bythe landed aristocracy who sided with the Liv-ingston clan, wealthy landlords whose extensiveholdings had assured them of a prominent rolein New York politics. In contrast, the Clintonians

stressed their candidate’s humble origins—Tompkins was the ‘‘the Farmer’s Boy,’’ with nota drop of ‘‘aristocratical or oligarchical blood’’ inhis veins—and won a solid victory. During hisfirst months in office, the new governor appar-ently took his marching orders from Clinton,sending him advance copies of his official ad-dresses for review and comment. But he soon as-serted his independence by supporting PresidentThomas Jefferson’s foreign policy and backingClinton’s rival, James Madison, in the 1808 presi-dential election.7

Reelected governor in 1810, Tompkins was aloyal supporter of the Madison administration.He advised Treasury Secretary Albert Gallatinabout patronage appointments in New York and,after the United States declared war on GreatBritain in the summer of 1812, did his best tocomply with War Department directives andrequisitions. With Federalists in control of thestate legislature and the Clintonians resolutelyopposed to the war, Tompkins was hard pressedto comply with the constant stream of requestsfor men and materiel. He used his own funds topay and arm the militia and personally endorseda series of loans from local banks in a desperateeffort to buttress the state’s defenses. It was a riskTompkins could ill afford to take; he had alreadymade substantial contributions to the war effortand had borrowed heavily to finance severallarge purchases of land on Staten Island. WhenPresident Madison offered him a cabinet ap-pointment in the fall of 1814, Tompkins protestedthat he would be more useful to the administra-tion as governor of New York. But, he later con-fessed, ‘‘One of the reasons was the inadequacyof my circumstances to remove to Washington& support so large and expensive family as mineis, on the salary of that office.’’ 8

The Election of 1816

Tompkins’ able and energetic leadership dur-ing the war made him one of the best-loved menin his state. One of his aides, novelist Washing-ton Irving, pronounced him ‘‘absolutely one ofthe worthiest men I ever knew . . . honest, can-did, prompt, indefatigable,’’ 9 a sentiment thatmany shared. The editor of the Albany Argus sug-gested in January 1816 that ‘‘if private worth—

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if public service—if fervent patriotism and prac-tical talents are to be regarded in selecting aPresident then Governor Tompkins stands forthto the nation with unrivalled pretensions.’’ 10 Re-publicans in the state legislature endorsed himas their presidential candidate on February 14,1816, and a week later he was renominated asthe party’s gubernatorial candidate. Tompkinsdefeated Federalist Rufus King by a comfortablemargin in the gubernatorial race after an in-tensely partisan campaign focusing on the can-didates’ wartime records. But the victory wasmarred by Federalist accusations that GovernorTompkins had misused public monies during thewar, charges that would haunt him for the re-mainder of his life.11

Encouraged by Tompkins’ victory, his sup-porters redoubled their efforts to secure his pres-idential nomination. Outside of New York, how-ever, few Americans had ever heard of Tomp-kins, and few Republicans believed him capableof winning the presidency. Not even all NewYork Republicans backed Tompkins; some, likeAlbany Postmaster Samuel Southwick, a Madi-son appointee and the editor of the Albany Reg-ister, declared for Republican ‘‘heir apparent’’James Monroe, who received the Republicanpresidential nomination on March 16, 1816. In aconcession to New York Republicans, who werecrucial to the party’s national strategy, DanielTompkins did receive the vice-presidential nom-ination. Tompkins, like many New Yorkers, be-lieved that Virginians had monopolized the pres-idency long enough, but, he assured one sup-porter, he had ‘‘no objection to being vice Presi-dent under Mr. Munro.’’ He declared, however,that he could not accept a cabinet post in theMonroe administration because ‘‘the emolu-ments . . . would not save his private fortunefrom encroachment . . . the vice Presidency inthat respect would be more eligible to him—ashe could discharge the Duties of that office andsuffer his family to remain at home & probablysave something for the support of his family.’’

The end of the war, by then popularly ac-claimed as an American triumph, brought a re-surgence in popularity for the Republicans andmarked the beginning of the end for the Federal-ists, who had become suspect because of their

opposition to the war. In this euphoric atmos-phere, Monroe and Tompkins won an easy vic-tory over Federalist presidential candidate RufusKing and an array of vice-presidential can-didates.12

Absentee Vice President

Tompkins’ first term began auspiciously. Hereturned to his Staten Island home soon after tak-ing the oath of office on March 4, 1817. There hewelcomed President Monroe, who began theterm with a tour of the northern states in thesummer of 1817. A gesture reminiscent of Presi-dent Washington’s 1789 New England tour, thetrip was intended to quell the partisanresentments that had so bitterly divided thecountry during the Jefferson and Madison ad-ministrations. After the president’s brief visit toStaten Island, Tompkins accompanied him toManhattan, where they attended a military re-view and a reception at City Hall and touredNew York’s military installations. When Monroewas made an honorary member of the Society forEncouragement of American Manufactures onJune 13, 1817, Tompkins, the society’s president,chaired the proceedings.13

But Tompkins paid only sporadic attention tohis vice-presidential duties after Monroe leftNew York to continue his tour. The vice presi-dent was in poor health, the result of a fall fromhis horse during an inspection tour of FortGreene in 1814. By the fall of 1817, Tompkins wascomplaining that his injuries had ‘‘increasedupon me for several years until finally, for thelast six weeks, they have confined me to myhouse and . . . sometimes to my bed. . . . Mypresent prospect is that kind of affliction andconfinement for the residue of my life.’’ Theproblem was so severe that he expected to ‘‘re-sign the office of Vice President at the next ses-sion, if not sooner, as there is very little hope ofmy ever being able to perform its dutieshereafter.’’ 14

Tompkins’ health eventually improvedenough to permit his return to public life, but hisfinancial affairs were in such a chaotic state by1817 that he found little time to attend the Sen-ate. In his haste to raise and spend the huge sumsrequired for New York’s wartime defense, he

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had failed to document his transactions, com-mingling his own monies with state and federalfunds. An 1816 audit by the New York comptrol-ler had revealed a $120,000 shortfall in the statetreasury, the rough equivalent of $1.2 million1991 dollars.15 A state commission appointed toinvestigate the matter indicated that Tompkinshad apparently used the funds to make interestpayments on an 1814 loan incurred ‘‘on thepledge of the United States stock and Treasurynotes, and on his personal responsibility, for de-fraying the expenses of carrying on the war.’’ In1819 the New York legislature awarded him apremium of $120,000, but currency values hadplummeted since 1814. Tompkins maintainedthat the state now owed him $130,000, setting thestage for a long and bitter battle that continuedthrough his first term as vice president.16

Tompkins’ efforts to settle accounts with thefederal treasury proved equally frustrating. Per-plexed by the intricacies of the government’s ru-dimentary accounting system and lacking ade-quate documentation of his claims, he receivedno acknowledgement of the government’s in-debtedness to him until late 1822 and no actualcompensation until 1824. In the meantime,Tompkins could neither make mortgage pay-ments on his properties nor satisfy the judg-ments that several creditors, including his father-in-law and a former law tutor, obtained againsthim. Tompkins slid deeper into debt and beganto drink heavily.17

The vice president’s financial troubles, and hiscontinuing involvement in New York politics,kept him away from Washington for extendedperiods. He spent much of his first term in NewYork, trying to develop his Staten Island prop-erties and negotiating with Comptroller Archi-bald McIntyre to settle his wartime accounts—a nearly impossible task, given the political cli-mate in the state. De Witt Clinton had succeededTompkins as governor, and Comptroller McIn-tyre was Clinton’s staunch ally. Governor Clin-ton’s resentment of the ‘‘Virginia dynasty’’ knewno bounds, and with Tompkins now on recordas a supporter of the Monroe administration, thelong-simmering rivalry between the vice presi-dent and his former mentor finally came to ahead. ‘‘[B]oth parties thought they could make

political capital’’ out of Tompkins’ financial em-barrassments, one contemporary observed, ‘‘andeach party thought it could make more than theother.’’ 18 In the spring of 1820, the New YorkSenate voted to award Tompkins $11,870.50 tosettle his accounts, but Clinton’s allies in the stateassembly blocked a final settlement and affirmedthe comptroller’s contention that Tompkins wasstill in arrears.19

Tompkins grew increasingly bitter with eachnew assault on his integrity, but many NewYorkers, having themselves suffered severe fi-nancial reverses during the panic of 1819, sym-pathized with his plight, and continued to holdhim in high regard. In 1820, the Bucktails nomi-nated Tompkins as their candidate to opposeClinton in the gubernatorial race—a move thatheightened public scrutiny of the charges againsthim while foreclosing any possibility of reachinga settlement before the election. Some questionedthe wisdom of nominating Tompkins. Repub-lican strategist Martin Van Buren tried, withoutsuccess, to replace him with a less controversialcandidate. But Tompkins, fearful that his with-drawal would only lend credence to the chargesagainst him, refused to step aside. AlthoughClinton ultimately won reelection by a narrowmargin, Tompkins achieved a personal victorywhen the state legislature finally approved acompromise settlement of his accounts in No-vember 1820.20

When Tompkins did find time to attend theSenate, he was an inept presiding officer. Hisshortcomings were painfully apparent duringthe debates over the admission of Missouri intothe Union, a critically important contest that be-came, in the words of historian Glover Moore,‘‘a struggle for political power between theNorth and South.’’ 21 New York RepresentativeJames Tallmadge, Jr. had sparked the debatewhen he offered an amendment to the Missouristatehood bill prohibiting ‘‘the further introduc-tion of slavery or involuntary servitude’’ in theprospective state and requiring the emanci-pation, at the age of twenty-five, of all slave chil-dren born after Missouri’s admission into theUnion. The Senate took up the Missouri questionin February 1819, with Senator Rufus King ofNew York leading the restrictionist charge and

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southern Republicans opposing the effort to re-strict the spread of slavery. The debates contin-ued through the spring of 1820, when Congressfinally approved the Missouri Compromise.22

In this contentious atmosphere, Tompkinsfound it difficult to maintain order. Mrs. WilliamA. Seaton, who followed the debate with avid in-terest from the Senate gallery, recounted one par-ticularly chaotic session that took place in Janu-ary 1820:

. . . There have been not less than a hundredladies on the floor of the Senate every day onwhich it was anticipated that Mr. Pinckney 23

would speak . . . Governor Tompkins, a very gal-lant man, had invited a party of ladies who hemet at Senator Brown’s, 24 to take seats on thefloor of the Senate, having, as President of theSenate, unlimited power, and thinking proper touse it, contrary to all former precedent. I was oneof the select, and gladly availed myself of the in-vitation, with my good friend Mrs. Lowndes, ofSouth Carolina, and half a dozen others. Thecompany in the gallery seeing a few ladies verycomfortably seated on the sofas, with warm foot-stools and other luxuries, did as they had a rightto do,—deserted the gallery; and every one, oldand young, flocked into the Senate. ’Twas thenthat our Vice-President began to look alarmed,and did not attend strictly to the member ad-dressing the chair. The Senators (some of them)frowned indignantly, and were heard to mutteraudibly, ’Too many women here for business tobe transacted properly!’ Governor Tompkinsfound it necessary the next morning to affix anote to the door, excluding all ladies not intro-duced by one of the Senators.25

Tompkins left for New York shortly after thisembarrassing incident, turning his attention tothe gubernatorial race while the Missouri debatedragged on. His abrupt departure angered anti-slavery senators, who were thus deprived of thevice president’s tie-breaking vote in the event ofa deadlock between the free states and the slavestates. There is little evidence to suggest thatTompkins’ absence had any effect on the ulti-mate outcome of the Missouri debate, since hisvote was never needed to resolve an impasse, butrestrictionists reviled him as a ‘‘miserable Syco-phant who betrayed us to the lords of the South. . . that smallest of small men Daniel D. Tomp-

kins.’’ In one his last official acts as governor,Tompkins had petitioned the New York legisla-ture to set a date certain for emancipation, andnorthern senators apparently expected sometype of support from his quarter during the Mis-souri debate. They were bitterly disappointed.Rufus King, for one, lamented that Tompkinshad ‘‘fled the field on the day of battle.’’ 26

The vice president was, admittedly, distractedby the New York election and obsessed withclearing his name, but in ‘‘fleeing the field,’’ hehad also avoided taking a public stand thatwould certainly have alienated the president, animportant consideration since Tompkins hadevery intention of remaining on the ticket asMonroe’s running mate in 1820. Monroe nevercommented publicly on the Missouri con-troversy, although he privately informed someadvisers that he would veto any statehood billincorporating a restrictionist proviso. Becausehis overriding concern had been to resolve thecrisis before the 1820 election, he had workedquietly behind the scenes to help fashion a com-promise acceptable to northern and southern Re-publicans. Monroe’s biographer has suggestedthat, given the controversy over his unsettled ac-counts, Tompkins knew that he had little chanceof winning the New York gubernatorial electionand ‘‘intended to protect his career by remainingon the national ticket as Vice-President.’’ 27

Whatever his motives, the vice president wasby 1820 a bitter and desperate man, his judgmentand once-considerable abilities severely im-paired both by the strain of his ordeal and byhis heavy drinking. Still, even though some Re-publicans attempted to block his renomination,most remained faithful to ‘‘the Farmer’s Boy.’’The 1820 presidential contest generated surpris-ingly little interest, given the problems then fac-ing the nation. The country was suffering froma severe depression, and the American occupa-tion of Spanish Florida had unleashed a torrentof anti-administration criticism from HouseSpeaker Henry Clay of Kentucky. Although theMissouri controversy had been resolved for themoment, the truce between North and South wasstill perilously fragile. Historian Lynn W. Turnerhas suggested that the reelection of Monroe andTompkins in 1820 can perhaps be attributed to

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‘‘the nineteenth-century time-lapse between theperception of political pain and the physical reac-tion to it.’’ Monroe ran virtually unopposed,winning all but one of the electoral votes cast—a ‘‘unanimity of indifference, not of approba-tion,’’ according to John Randolph of Roanoke.28

Some of the electors who were willing to grantMonroe another term balked at casting their sec-ond votes for Tompkins. Among these was Fed-eralist elector Daniel Webster of Massachusetts,who predicted that ‘‘[t]here will be a number ofus . . . in this state, who will not vote for Mr.Tompkins, and we must therefore look up some-body to vote for.’’ Federalist elector and formerSenator William Plumer of New Hampshire felt‘‘compelled to withhold my vote from . . . Tomp-kins . . . because he grossly neglected hisduty.’’ 29 The vice president’s only official func-tion, Plumer maintained, was to preside over theSenate, ‘‘for which he receives annually a salaryof five thousand dollars.’’ But ‘‘during the lastthree years he was absent from the Senate nearlythree fourths of the time, & thereby occasionedan extra expense to the nation of nearly twentyfive hundred dollars. He has not that weight ofcharacter which his office requires—the fact is heis grossly intemperate.’’ 30 But Tompkins, likeMonroe, ran virtually unopposed. He was easilyreelected with 218 electoral votes.

Vindication

Tompkins’ second term was, in his biog-rapher’s words, a time of ‘‘intensifying personaltrial, and even of crushing misfortune.’’ 31 In1821, he attended the New York constitutionalconvention and was deeply honored when hisfellow delegates chose him to chair the proceed-ings. But his detractors complained that ‘‘Mr.Tompkins’’—now ‘‘a degraded sot’’—owed hiselection only to ‘‘the madness of party.’’ 32

Tompkins missed the opening session of theSeventeenth Congress on December 3, 1821, buthe was back in the Senate by December 28. Heattended regularly until January 25, 1822, whenthe Senate was forced to adjourn until the follow-ing day, ‘‘the Vice President being absent, fromindisposition.’’ Less than a week later, SenatorKing arrived with a letter from Tompkins in-forming the Senate that, his health having ‘‘suf-

fered so much on my journey’’ and since his ar-rival in town, he intended, ‘‘as soon as theweather and the state of the roads permit, to re-turn to my family.’’ 33

Tompkins was clearly losing control. Duringhis brief stay in Washington, he had managed toalienate Monroe, having severely criticized thepresident during a meeting with PostmasterGeneral Return J. Meigs and others.34 Not longafter his departure, one observer ventured thatTompkins had never been ‘‘perfectly sober dur-ing his stay here. He was several times so drunkin the chair,’’ Dr. James Bronaugh informed An-drew Jackson, ‘‘that he could with difficulty putthe question.’’ 35 Tompkins would spend the nextseveral months trying to settle his accounts withthe federal treasury. Before leaving Washington,he assigned what property he still owned, in-cluding his Staten Island home, to a group oftrustees, and on his return to New York hemoved into a run-down boardinghouse inManhattan.36

Tompkins’ absence spared him the humiliationof presiding over the Senate as it considered aprovision in the 1822 General Appropriation billto withhold the salaries of government officialswho owned money to, or had failed to settle theiraccounts with, the Treasury. The provision, partof a continuing effort to reform the government’sauditing process and to insure greater account-ability in public administration, prompted exten-sive debate.37 The April 19 session would havebeen particularly difficult for Tompkins, withNew York Senator Martin Van Buren askingwhether ‘‘gallant and heroic men, who had sus-tained the honor of their country in the hour ofdanger, should be kept out of their just dues’’—an oblique reference, perhaps, to the vice presi-dent’s plight—and South Carolina Senator Wil-liam Smith exhibiting ‘‘voluminous lists of thosewho had been reported public debtors of morethan three years’ standing,’’ lists that includedthe name of Daniel Tompkins.38

The General Appropriation Act became law onApril 30, 1822, depriving Tompkins of his last re-maining source of funds.39 In a desperate at-tempt to settle his accounts, Tompkins petitionedthe United States District Court for the Districtof New York to bring suit against him for the

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‘‘supposed balance for which I have been re-ported among the defaulters.’’ His trial began onJune 3, 1822, with the U.S. district attorney seek-ing a judgment of over $11,000 and the defend-ant coordinating his own defense. For three days,the jurors heard accounts of Tompkins’ wartimesacrifices: bankers who had lent him funds topay and arm the militia testified in his behalf,and Senator Rufus King recounted that he hadurged his friend to take out personal loans forthe common defense. Another witness gave a de-tailed accounting of Tompkins’ transactions. Butthe high point of the trial was Tompkins’ highlyemotional summation to the jury, a detailedchronicle of ‘‘long ten years’ . . . accumulated andprotracted wrongs.’’ After deliberating for sev-eral hours, the jury finally decided in favor ofTompkins. Although the court could by law de-liver only a general verdict, the jurors pro-claimed that ‘‘there is moreover due from theUnited States of America to the Defendant Dan-iel D. Tompkins the sum of One hundred andthirty six thousand seven hundred and ninetynine dollars and ninety seven cents.’’ 40

Tompkins returned to Washington by Decem-ber 3, 1822, to resume his duties in the Senate.Finally exonerated after a decade-long struggle,Tompkins seemed a changed man. ‘‘[T]he ver-dict . . . had an evident effect on his spirits,’’Niles’ Weekly Register reported. ‘‘His mind ap-peared to resume all its former strength, and,during the last session, in his attention to the du-ties of his office as president of the senate, it isthe opinion of many of the older members, thatno one ever conducted himself more satisfac-torily, or with greater dignity filled the chair.’’He remained until February 18, 1823; two dayslater, the Senate approved a bill to ‘‘adjust andsettle the accounts and claims of Daniel D.Tompkins’’ and to restore his salary.41

Tompkins received no actual remunerationuntil much later, however. Government account-ants ultimately recommended a settlement of

just over $35,000, a finding that Monroe, con-vinced that ‘‘a larger sum ought to be allowedhim,’’ delayed transmitting to Congress. ButTompkins and his family were in dire straits, al-though rumors of his confinement to a New Yorkdebtors’ prison ultimately proved false. On De-cember 7, 1823, Monroe asked Congress for a$35,000 interim appropriation to provide the vicepresident with ‘‘an essential accommodation.’’Congress approved the request in lateDecember.42

On January 21, 1824, Tompkins returned to theSenate. He was ‘‘determined to take no part inthe approaching election,’’ he informed JohnQuincy Adams, ‘‘and wished for nothing there-after but quiet and retirement.’’ He still sufferedfrom bouts of insomnia but was finally ‘‘relievedof all his embarrassments.’’ He remained inWashington until the end of the session, takinghis final leave from the Senate on May 20 with‘‘a few brief remarks’’ expressing ‘‘his sense ofthe kind and courteous treatment he had experi-enced from the members, collectively and indi-vidually.’’ On May 26, the Senate approvedMonroe’s request for an additional appropriationof just over $60,000 ‘‘for the payment of theclaims of Daniel D. Tompkins.’’ 43

The 1823 and 1824 appropriations came toolate to be of much use to the impoverished vicepresident. He continued to drink heavily, andafter years of indebtedness his business affairswere convoluted beyond resolution. DanielTompkins died intestate on June 11, 1825, andwas interred in St. Mark’s Church in New YorkCity. After his death, his creditors squabbledover his once-magnificent Staten Island estate,until it was finally disposed of in a series of sher-iff’s sales. In 1847, Congress approved a paymentof close to $50,000 to Tompkins’s heirs.44 Buteven this amount, one scholar noted long afterthe fact, ‘‘was only part of what was due him asgenerally admitted.’’ 45

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NOTES1 Quoted in Ray W. Irwin, Daniel D. Tompkins: Governor

of New York and Vice President of the United States (New York,1968), p. 309, n. 55.

2 Irwin, pp. 59, 227.3 Reproduced in ibid., facing p. 66.4 Philip Hone, quoted in ibid., p. 309.5 Ibid., pp. 1–36.6 Ibid., pp. 25–50.7 Ibid., pp. 51–75.8 Ibid., pp. 83–84, 145–213; Harry Ammon, James Monroe:

The Quest for National Identity (Charlottesville, Va., 1990; re-print of 1971 edition), pp. 314–37.

9 Washington Irving to William Irving, October 14, 1814,quoted in Pierre M. Irving, ed., The Life and Letters of Wash-ington Irving, vol. 1 (Detroit, 1967; reprint of 1863 edition),pp. 320–21.

10 Quoted in Irwin, pp. 197–98.11 Ibid., pp. 197–205.12 Donald B. Cole, Martin Van Buren and the American Po-

litical System (Princeton, NJ, 1984), pp. 46–47; Irwin, pp. 206–11; Lynn W. Turner, ‘‘Elections of 1816 and 1820,’’ in Historyof American Presidential Elections, 1789–1968, ed., Arthur M.Schlesinger, Jr., and Fred L. Israel, vol. 1 (New York, 1985),pp. 299–321.

13 Irwin, pp. 221–23; Ammon, pp. 371–79.14 Irwin, pp. 185, 223.15 Based on 1860 Composite Consumer Price Index, in

John J. McCusker, How Much Is That in Real Money? A Histor-ical Price Index for Use as a Deflator of Money Values in theEconomy of the United States (Worcester, MA, 1992; reprintof 1991 edition), pp. 326–32.

16 Irwin, pp. 231–32, and passim.17 Ibid., pp. 279–305, and passim.18 Jabez Hammond, quoted in ibid., p. 234.19 Ibid., pp. 220–63.20 Ibid., pp. 243–63; Cole, Martin Van Buren and the Amer-

ican Political System, pp. 61–62.

21 Glover Moore, The Missouri Controversy, 1819–1821(Gloucester, MA, 1967; reprint of 1953 edition), p. 126.

22 Moore, passim; Robert Ernst, Rufus King: American Fed-eralist (Chapel Hill, NC, 1968), pp. 369–74; Ammon, pp. 449–57.

23 Maryland Senator William Pinkney.24 Louisiana Senator James Brown.25 Josephine Seaton, William Winston Seaton of The ‘‘Na-

tional Intelligencer’’ (New York, 1970; reprint of 1871 edi-tion), pp. 146–47.

26 Irwin, pp. 211–12, 249–50; Moore, p. 182 and passim.27 Ammon, pp. 450–58.28 Turner, pp. 312–21.29 Ibid., pp. 312–18.30 Irwin, p. 262.31 Ibid., p. 279.32 Ibid., pp. 264–80.33 U.S., Congress, Senate, Annals of Congress, 17th Cong.,

1st sess., pp. 9–43, 157, 174.34 Irwin, p. 282.35 Dr. James Bronaugh to Andrew Jackson, February 8,

1822, quoted in Irwin, p. 283, n. 9.36 Irwin, pp. 280–84.37 Leonard D. White, The Jeffersonians: A Study in Adminis-

trative History, 1801–1829 (New York, 1961), pp. 162–79.38 Annals of Congress, 17th Cong., 1st sess., pp. 391–408.39 Irwin, p. 284; White, p. 179.40 Irwin, pp. 286–94.41 Niles’ Weekly Register, quoted in Irwin, p. 295; Annals

of Congress, 17th Cong., 2d sess., pp. 10–260.42 Annals of Congress, 18th Cong., 1st sess., p. 26; Irwin,

pp. 297–99.43 Annals of Congress, 18th Cong., 1st sess., pp. 127, 766,

788; Irwin, pp. 273, 300.44 Irwin, pp. 300–311.45 Henry A. Holmes, quoted in ibid., p. 301, n.43.

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Chapter 7

JOHN C. CALHOUN1825–1832

JOHN C. CALHOUN

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Chapter 7

JOHN C. CALHOUN7th Vice President: 1825–1832

. . . There are no two events in my life, in which I take greater pride, than those to which youhave so kindly alluded. My first public act was to contribute . . . to the maintenance of our nationalrights against foreign aggressions, and my last had been to preserve in their integrity, as far as it de-pended on men, those principles of presiding in the Senate, which are essentially the most vital of politicalrights, the freedom of debate . . . it will ever to me be a proud reflection, that I have been thought worthyof suffering in a great cause, . . . the freedom of debate, a cause more sacred than even the liberty ofthe press.

—JOHN C. CALHOUN, SEPTEMBER 7, 1826 1

John C. Calhoun assumed office as the nation’sseventh vice president on March 4, 1825, duringa period of extraordinary political ferment. Thedemise of the Federalist party after the War of1812 had not, as former President James Monroehad hoped, ushered in an ‘‘Era of Good Feel-ings,’’ free from party divisions. Contrary toMonroe’s expectations, the partisan strife of ear-lier years had not abated during his two termsas president but had, instead, infected the Re-publican party, which had declined into a broad-based but rapidly disintegrating coalition of dis-parate elements. Five individuals, all of them Re-publicans, had entered the 1824 presidential con-test, one of the most controversial and bitterlycontested races in the nation’s history. The ‘‘Na-tional Republicans,’’ a group that included Cal-houn, House Speaker Henry Clay, and Secretaryof State John Quincy Adams, supported an ex-pansive, nationalist agenda; the ‘‘Radicals,’’ al-lies of Treasury Secretary William Crawford,were strict constructionists and advocates of lim-ited government. Other Republicans had ralliedto the standard of Andrew Jackson, a formerTennessee senator and the military hero whosestunning victory at the Battle of New Orleanshad salvaged the nation’s pride during the Warof 1812.

In this momentous contest, John QuincyAdams had emerged the winner, but his victorycame at great cost to his administration and tothe nation. The election was decided in theHouse of Representatives, where Clay had usedhis influence as leader of the western bloc andas Speaker to secure Adams’ election. Adams, inturn, had appointed Clay secretary of state, anomination that stunned Jackson supporters,strict constructionists, and particularly VicePresident Calhoun. The ‘‘corrupt bargain’’ deep-ly offended Calhoun’s strict sense of honor andpropriety, pushing him toward the oppositioncamp, a fragmented assortment of Radicals,southern agriculturalists, and men of consciencewho shared the vice president’s conviction thatAdams and Clay had subverted the popular will.These diverse elements, which were frequentlyat odds with one another, would eventually coa-lesce to form the Democratic party. But the na-tion would first pass through a chaotic and tur-bulent period of political realignment, whichCalhoun described for his friend and mentor,Monroe, in the summer of 1826:

. . . Never in any country . . . was there in soshort a period, so complete an anarchy of politi-cal relations. Every prominent publick man feels,

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that he has been thrown into a new attitude, andhas to reexamine his position, and reapply prin-ciples to the situation, into which he was so unex-pectedly and suddenly thrown, as if by somemight[y] political revolution . . . Was he of theold Republican party? He finds his prominentpolitical companions, who claim and take thelead, to be the very men, against who, he hadbeen violently arrayed till the close of the latewar; and sees in the opposite rank, as enemies,those with whom he was proud to rank . . .

Taking it altogether, a new and dangerousstate of things has suddenly occurred, of whichno one can see the result. It is, in my opinion,more critical and perilous, than any I have everseen.2

Congress was changing, as well. The Senate,as Senator Robert C. Byrd has noted in his au-thoritative history, was ‘‘beginning to challengethe House as the principal legislative forum ofthe nation.’’ Before the 1820s, the press and pub-lic had paid relatively little attention to the Sen-ate’s deliberations, being drawn instead to thelivelier and more entertaining theater in theHouse of Representatives. By 1825, the Househad become too large to permit the lengthyspeeches and extended debates that had drawnobservers to its galleries, while in the Senate,growth had brought increased influence. ‘‘At theformation of the Government,’’ Calhoun ob-served in his inaugural remarks, ‘‘the membersof the Senate were, probably, too small to attractthe full confidence of the people, and therebygive to it that weight in the system which theConstitution intended. This defect has, however,been happily removed by an extraordinarygrowth’’—eleven new states, and twenty-twosenators, in a thirty-six-year period. The 1819–1820 debate over the extension of slavery into theMissouri territory signalled that an era of in-creasingly virulent sectional discord had arrived.The Senate, with its equality of representationamong states and rules permitting extended de-bate, would become the forum where sectionalconcerns were aired, debated, and reconciledduring the next quarter century, a momentousera known to scholars as ‘‘The Golden Age of theSenate.’’ 3

Calhoun, who presided over the Senate at thedawning of its Golden Age, had reached theheight of his career. Given his meteoritic rise tonational prominence as a talented young con-gressman during the War of 1812 and his solidrecord of accomplishment as secretary of warduring Monroe’s administration, he had everyreason to assume that he would one day becomepresident.

Calhoun’s Early Life and Career

John Caldwell Calhoun was born on March 18,1782, near Long Canes Creek, an area laterknown as the Abbeville District, located inpresent-day McCormick County, South Carolina.His parents, Patrick and Martha Caldwell Cal-houn, were of Scotch-Irish ancestry. The Cal-houns had immigrated to Pennsylvania duringthe 1730s and moved steadily southward until1756, when Patrick reached the South Carolinabackcountry.4 One of the most prosperous plant-ers (and one of the largest slaveowners) in hisdistrict, Patrick Calhoun was a leader in localpolitics; he served in the South Carolina legisla-ture from 1768 to 1774. During the late 1760s, hewas a Regulator, one of the self-appointed vigi-lantes whose well-intentioned but rough effortsto impose justice on a crime-racked frontierwholly lacking in judicial institutions finallyprompted the South Carolina legislature to es-tablish circuit courts in the backcountry. Duringthe Revolution, he sided with the patriot cause.5

Young John received only a sporadic educationduring his early years, attending a ‘‘field school’’for a few months each year. In 1795, he entereda private academy in Appling, Georgia, but theschool closed after a few months. The boyplunged into an exhausting course of self-study,but his father’s death soon forced him to returnto Abbeville to manage the family farm. The dis-appointed young scholar remained at home until1800, when his mother and brothers, having rec-ognized his formidable intellectual abilities, re-turned him to the academy, which had since re-opened. He was a diligent student, qualifying foradmission to Yale College in 1802.

Calhoun completed his studies at Yale in 1804.After graduation, he spent a month at the New-port, Rhode Island, summer retreat of Floride

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Bonneau Colhoun.6 Mrs. Colhoun was thewidow of the future vice president’s cousin, Sen-ator John Ewing Colhoun; her daughter, alsonamed Floride, was attractive, well-connected inSouth Carolina lowcountry circles, and sociallyaccomplished. John C. Calhoun married hisyoung cousin in 1811. The union conferredwealth and social prestige on the earnest youngupcountry lawyer, but Calhoun was also at-tracted to Floride’s ‘‘beauty of mind . . . soft andsweet disposition,’’ and ‘‘amiable and lovablecharacter.’’ 7 Not until later would he experienceher stubborn will and unwavering sense ofmoral rectitude, so like his own.

Calhoun began his legal education in 1804soon after leaving Newport, studying first inCharleston and later at the Litchfield, Connecti-cut, school of Tapping Reeve, a distinguishedscholar who counted among his former studentssuch notables as James Madison and Aaron Burr.He returned to South Carolina in 1806 andserved brief apprenticeships at Charleston andAbbeville. Admitted to the bar in Abbeville in1807, Calhoun soon found another calling. In thesummer of 1807, he helped organize a townmeeting to protest the British attack on theAmerican vessel Chesapeake off the Virginia coast.His speech recommending an embargo and anenhanced defense posture electrified the mili-tantly nationalistic crowd assembled at theAbbeville courthouse, winning him immediateacclaim. He was elected to the South Carolinalegislature, where he served two terms, and in1810 he won a seat in the United States Houseof Representatives.8

Congressman Calhoun

Calhoun arrived in Washington shortly afterthe Twelfth Congress convened on November 4,1811, taking quarters in a boardinghouse soon tobe known as the ‘‘War Mess.’’ The nation’s cap-ital boasted few amenities during the early nine-teenth century, and members of Congress rarelybrought their families to town. They lodged in-stead with colleagues from their own states orregions and, as one student of early Washingtondiscovered, ‘‘the members who lived together,took their meals together, and spent most of theirleisure hours together also voted together with

a very high degree of regularity.’’ 9 Calhoun’smess mates included two members of the SouthCarolina delegation, Langdon Cheves and Wil-liam Lowndes; Felix Grundy of Tennessee; andthe newly elected Speaker of the House of Rep-resentatives, Henry Clay of Kentucky.10 They,and other like-minded young congressmenknown as the ‘‘warhawks,’’ believed that noth-ing short of war would stop British raids onAmerican shipping and restore the young na-tion’s honor.

Calhoun, who had been appointed to the For-eign Affairs Committee 11 at the beginning of hisfirst term and became its chairman in the springof 1812, played a leading role in the effort, sup-porting legislation to strengthen the nation’s de-fenses. Working in concert with Secretary ofState James Monroe, he introduced the war billthat Congress approved in June 1812.12 AlthoughCalhoun soon realized that Madison was ‘‘whol-ly unfit for the storms of war,’’ he labored so dili-gently to defend the administration and to assistin the war effort that he became known as ‘‘theyoung Hercules who carried the war on hisshoulders.’’ He was, as a historian of the periodhas noted, ‘‘an administration leader second onlyto Clay.’’ 13

Calhoun served in the House until 1817. So-bered by the nation’s near-defeat during the Warof 1812, he continued his interest in military af-fairs, opposing troop reductions and advocatingthe establishment of two additional service acad-emies. As his modern biographer has observed,Calhoun ‘‘equated defense with national self-suf-ficiency.’’ Toward that end, he accepted protec-tive tariffs and helped draft legislation to estab-lish the Second Bank of the United States in 1816.Concerned that the nation’s interior settlementslacked the roads and other improvements that hebelieved essential to economic development andnational security, he proposed legislation to ear-mark for internal improvements the $1.5 millioncharter fee the bank paid to the federal govern-ment, as well as the yields of government-ownedbank stocks.14

Secretary of War

Calhoun resigned from the House in Novem-ber 1817 to accept an appointment as secretary

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of war in President James Monroe’s cabinet, apost he would hold for more than seven years.Calhoun was not the president’s first choice;Monroe had approached several others, but allhad declined. With the nation’s military estab-lishment in complete disarray after the war, re-forming a badly managed department with over$45 million in outstanding accounts (at a timewhen the government’s annual budget amount-ed to less than $26 million) seemed to most anear-impossible task. But Calhoun believed thata strong defense establishment was essential tomaintaining the nation’s honor and security, andhe welcomed the chance to reform the troubleddepartment. The thirty-two-year-old cabinet offi-cer was also ambitious and well aware that, asanother biographer has noted, ‘‘no man had yetheld the presidency . . . who had not proved hisworth in some executive capacity.’’ 15

President Monroe relied heavily on his cabinetand submitted all matters of consequence to hisdepartment heads before deciding upon a courseof action, a practice that assured the gifted youngwar secretary a prominent role in the new ad-ministration.16 Monroe seems to have felt a spe-cial fondness for Calhoun—and for Floride, whomoved to Washington and soon became one ofthe capital’s most popular hostesses. Official pro-tocol during the early nineteenth century dic-tated that the president refrain from ‘‘goingabroad into any private companies,’’ but whenthe Calhouns’ infant daughter contracted a fatalillness in the spring of 1820, Monroe visited theirresidence every day to check on her condition.17

Calhoun began his first term as secretary ofwar with an exhaustive review and audit of thedepartment’s operations and accounts.18 Actingon his recommendations, Congress reorganizedthe army’s command and general staff structure,revamped the accounting and procurement sys-tems, and voted annual appropriations to con-struct fortifications and pay down the war debt.By the end of Calhoun’s second term as sec-retary, outstanding accounts had been reducedfrom $45 to $3 million.19 Congress, however, re-fused to approve Calhoun’s proposals for a net-work of coastal and frontier fortifications andmilitary roads, imposing steep cuts in the de-fense budget after Treasury Secretary William

Crawford’s 1819 annual report projected a budg-et deficit for 1820 of $7 million (later adjusted to$5 million). Postwar economic expansion hadgiven way to a depression of unprecedented se-verity, and the panic of 1819 had left hundredsof speculators impoverished and in debt. Theseconditions, and Crawford’s dire forecast,prompted calls for sharp reductions in govern-ment expenditures. The war department cameunder immediate attack, which intensified whenthe press reported that one of Calhoun’s petprojects, an expedition to plant a military outposton the Yellowstone River, had run significantlyover budget.20

Some scholars have suggested that Crawfordtimed the release of his report both to embarrassMonroe and Calhoun and to enhance his ownpresidential prospects. Shortly afterwards, thepresident received an anonymous letter allegingthat Calhoun’s chief secretary had realized sub-stantial profits from an interest in a materialscontract. The transaction was not illegal, for wardepartment officials enjoyed considerable lati-tude in awarding government contracts, and theprimary contractor had submitted the lowest bid,but the appearance of impropriety gaveCrawford additional ammunition. Congressbegan an exhaustive review of the war depart-ment, with the ‘‘Radicals’’ taking the lead. Al-though the investigation found no evidence ofmalfeasance on Calhoun’s part, Republicanswere inherently suspicious of standing armies,and even the National Republicans were reluc-tant to fund a peacetime army on the scale envi-sioned by Calhoun. Congress ultimately reducedthe war department budget by close to 50percent.21

The 1824 Presidential Election

Calhoun declared himself a candidate for thepresidency in December 1821, much to the sur-prise of Secretary of State John Quincy Adams,widely considered to be Monroe’s heir apparentby virtue of his office. Calhoun and Adams werefriends; both avid nationalists, they had alsobeen political allies until the Missouri crisis in1820 exposed their profound disagreement overslavery. Calhoun, however, became convincedthat Adams was too weak a candidate to defeat

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Crawford, who enjoyed a significant followingwithin the congressional nominating caucus. TheSouth Carolinian, determined to preventCrawford’s election at any cost, therefore de-cided to become a candidate himself.

In addition to Calhoun, Adams, and Crawford,the crowded field of prospective candidates for1824 soon included House Speaker Henry Clayand the revered hero of New Orleans, AndrewJackson—all Republicans. Calhoun believed thathe was the only candidate who could commanda national following; he had been warmly re-ceived during a visit to the northern and middlestates in 1820, and his efforts to strengthen thenation’s defenses had won him a following in theWest, as well. His quest, however, lost momen-tum after the South Carolina legislature voted toendorse another favorite son, William Lowndes.Not only did Calhoun face formidable opposi-tion from Crawford’s supporters, now ably ledby New York Senator Martin Van Buren, but, tothe amazement of many, Jackson soon emergedas a leading contender. Calhoun’s Pennsylvaniasupporters eventually declared for Jackson, en-dorsing Calhoun as their vice-presidential can-didate. As other states followed suit, the ambi-tious young secretary of war was, in one schol-ar’s words, ‘‘everybody’s ’second choice.’’’ Thus,in the general election, Calhoun was overwhelm-ingly elected vice president, with support fromboth the Jackson and Adams camps.

None of the presidential candidates, however,achieved an electoral majority—although Jack-son received a plurality. The election was there-fore thrown into the House of Representatives,where each state delegation had a single vote.Having come in fourth in the general election,Clay was not a contender in the House balloting,but he played a pivotal part in determining theoutcome by persuading the delegations of thethree states he had carried (Ohio, Kentucky andMissouri) to vote for Adams. These three west-ern states, as well as New York, after heavy lob-bying by Clay and Massachusetts RepresentativeDaniel Webster, gave Adams the margin heneeded to defeat Jackson.

Clay’s maneuvering and his subsequent ap-pointment as Adams’ secretary of state deeplyoffended Calhoun, nudging him toward the

Jackson camp.22 He ‘‘would probably have coa-lesced with the Jacksonians in any event,’’ onescholar of the period has surmised, since SouthCarolina and Pennsylvania, the two states crucialto Calhoun’s abortive presidential strategy, hadgone for Jackson.23 But politics alone could notfully account for Calhoun’s shift. He knew thatthe Kentucky legislature had expressly in-structed its delegation to vote for Jackson, whohad run second to Clay in the general election.Yet, at Clay’s urging, the Kentuckians had casttheir state’s vote for Adams, who had receivedfew, if any, popular votes in the state. ‘‘Mr. Clayhas made the Prest [President] against the voiceof his constituents,’’ Calhoun confided to afriend, ‘‘and has been rewarded by the man ele-vated by him by the first office in his gift, themost dangerous stab, which the liberty of thiscountry has ever received.’’ 24

The Senate Examines the Role of the PresidingOfficer

Wholly lacking in experience as a presiding of-ficer, Calhoun prepared himself for his new re-sponsibilities by studying Jefferson’s Manual ofParliamentary Practice and other parliamentaryauthorities.25 But even this rigorous course ofstudy could not adequately prepare him for thechallenges he would face. The Senate, experienc-ing ‘‘growing pains’’ as it completed its trans-formation from the ‘‘chamber of revision’’ envi-sioned by the Constitution’s framers to a full-fledged legislative body in its own right, was be-ginning to reconsider rules and procedures thatseemed outdated or impractical. As the Senate’sdebates became increasingly contentious, thebody began rethinking the role of its presidingofficer, as well.

Calhoun’s difficulties began shortly after theNineteenth Congress convened in December1825, when he announced appointments to theSenate’s standing committees. Prior to 1823, theSenate had elected committee members by ballot,an awkward and time-consuming process. Therule was revised during the Eighteenth Congressto provide that ‘‘all committees shall be ap-pointed by the presiding officer of this House,unless specially ordered otherwise by the Sen-ate.’’ Before Calhoun became vice president, the

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new procedure had been used only once, on De-cember 9, 1823, the day the Senate adopted therevised rule. On that occasion, Vice PresidentDaniel Tompkins was absent, a frequent occur-rence during his troubled tenure, and Presidentpro tempore John Gaillard of South Carolina hadappointed the chairmen and members of the Sen-ate’s standing committees.

As one scholar of the period has noted, Cal-houn made ‘‘an honest effort to divide controlof the committees between friends and enemiesof the administration.’’ 26 An analysis of his ap-pointments suggests that he took into account asenator’s experience. He reappointed nine of thefifteen standing committee chairmen whomGaillard had chosen two years earlier. The twochairmen who had left the Senate he replacedwith individuals who had previously served ontheir respective committees. Of the four remain-ing committees, three were chaired by senatorsfriendly to the administration. After Military Af-fairs Committee Chairman Andrew Jackson re-signed his seat in October 1825, Calhoun choseas his replacement the only member of the Senatewhose military record could match Jackson’s—Senator William Henry Harrison, the hero of theBattle of Tippecanoe.27

As a result of Calhoun’s appointments, sen-ators hostile to the administration retained orgained control of several important committees:Maryland Senator Samuel Smith, a Crawford Re-publican who would eventually join the Jacksoncamp, remained in charge of the influential Fi-nance Committee, while New York Senator Mar-tin Van Buren, who would soon unite the opposi-tion forces behind Andrew Jackson, continued tochair the Judiciary Committee. Administrationsupporters were outraged to learn that the For-eign Relations Committee included only oneAdams-Clay man and that its new chairman wasNathaniel Macon of North Carolina, who hadvoted against confirming Clay as secretary ofstate.28 Bitter divisions between administrationsupporters and the opposition forces were begin-ning to infect the Senate, and Calhoun, in his at-tempt to please everyone, had satisfied no one.The pro-administration Philadelphia DemocraticPress and several other papers vehemently criti-cized Calhoun, publishing unfounded allega-

tions that he had made the offending appoint-ments after Adams ignored Calhoun’s demandto dissociate himself from Henry Clay.29

In the meantime, Senator Van Buren had en-listed Calhoun’s support for a concerted chal-lenge to the expansive agenda that PresidentAdams outlined in his December 6, 1825, annualmessage to Congress. Adams had proposed a na-tional university, a national observatory, and anetwork of internal improvements unprece-dented in the nation’s history, as well as foreignpolicy initiatives. In particular, Calhoun, not yetthe strict constructionist he would later become,was concerned that Adams’ plan to send observ-ers to a conference of South and Central Amer-ican ministers scheduled to meet in Panama thefollowing year would reinvigorate the sectionaltensions that had emerged during the Missouricrisis. Calhoun saw United States participation inthe Panama Congress as a perilous first step to-ward extending diplomatic recognition to Haiti,a nation of former slaves. He had cautionedAdams, through an intermediary, that the initia-tive would ‘‘in the present tone of feelings in thesouth lead to great mischief.’’ But Clay, an earlyand enthusiastic supporter of the Latin Americanindependence movements, had prevailed.30

The president sent the names of prospectivedelegates to Panama to the Senate for approvalin late December 1825, touching off a protractedand contentious debate that continued throughMarch 14, 1826, when the Senate approved themission by a narrow margin. Missouri SenatorThomas Hart Benton later reflected that ‘‘noquestion, in its day, excited more heat and intem-perate discussion, or more feeling between aPresident and Senate, than this proposed mis-sion.’’ Although the vice president had ‘‘no vote,the constitutional contingency to authorize it nothaving occurred,’’ Benton recalled, Calhoun hadbeen ‘‘full and free in the expression of his opin-ion against the mission.’’ 31 It was a costly victoryfor the administration. The United States delega-tion arrived too late to have any impact on thedeliberations, and all but one of the Latin Amer-ican republics failed to ratify the accords ap-proved at the convention. The president hadwasted a great deal of political capital in a con-frontation that hardened the party divisions in

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the Senate, and Calhoun and Van Buren hadtaken the first tentative steps toward an alliancethat would drive Adams from office in the nextelection.

Calhoun also endorsed the opposition’s effortsto curtail the powers of the executive, throughconstitutional amendments to abolish the elec-toral college and to limit the president to twoterms. Although the Senate had considered simi-lar amendments in previous sessions, the moveacquired a new urgency after the 1824 election.Thomas Hart Benton renewed the initiative onDecember 15, 1825, with a resolution to appointa select committee ‘‘to inquire into the expedi-ency’’ of choosing the president and vice presi-dent ‘‘by a direct vote of the People, in districts.’’Other senators suggested amendments to pro-vide for the election of the president and vicepresident ‘‘without the intervention of the Senateor House of Representatives’’ and to ‘‘prohibitthe appointment of any Member of Congress toany office of honor or trust under the UnitedStates during the term for which such Senator orRepresentative should have been elected.’’ Thelatter proposal represented an obvious slap atSecretary of State Henry Clay, who had resignedfrom the House to take the executive post.

Calhoun appointed Benton chairman of the se-lect committee, which the Senate directed to de-termine ‘‘the best, most preferable, and safestmode in regard to such elections.’’ Benton waspleased that the other members of the nine-manselect committee ‘‘were . . . carefully selected,both geographically as coming from differentsections of the Union, and personally and politi-cally as being friendly to the object.’’ Only one,Senator John Holmes of Maine, was an Adamsman. Calhoun had appointed the administra-tion’s most vocal critics to the committee, whichreported to the Senate on January 19, 1826, a con-stitutional amendment calling for the direct elec-tion of the president and vice president. Calhounconfided to a correspondent that he expected theadministration to resist ‘‘all attempts that canlimit or counteract the effects of patronage. Theywill in particular resist any amendment of theConstitution,’’ he predicted, ‘‘which will placethe Presl [Presidential] election in the hands ofthe voters, where patronage can have little, or no

effect.’’ As for Calhoun, he promised that ‘‘noone who knows me, can doubt where I will befound.’’ 32

The constitutional debate over the select com-mittee’s report took an unexpected turn onMarch 30, 1826, when Virginia Senator John Ran-dolph rose to address the Senate after NorthCarolina Senator John Branch offered a resolu-tion protesting the president’s appointment ofministers to the Panama Congress ‘‘without theadvice and consent of the Senate.’’ Randolph wasa diehard ‘‘Old Republican,’’ a strict construc-tionist and a resolute opponent of change in anyform. Stubbornly clinging to the customs, attire,and rhetoric of a bygone era, he regarded anydeparture from the dicta of the Founding Fathersas tantamount to heresy. Calhoun thought him‘‘highly talented, eloquent, severe and eccen-tric,’’ while others, alternately amused and of-fended by his rambling and caustic speeches, hiseighteenth-century dress and manners, and hisbizarre behavior, dismissed him as thoroughlyinsane. His March 30 address was vintage Ran-dolph: a disjointed litany of personal grievancesinterspersed with his objections to the adminis-tration, the Panama Congress, and the ‘‘practice. . . that the Secretary of State shall succeed thePresident.’’ Calhoun remained silent as the agi-tated Virginian took Adams to task for elevatingpatronage above patriotism—‘‘buying us upwith our own money’’—and suggested that Clayhad ‘‘manufactured’’ the invitation to the Pan-ama Congress. Even Randolph’s likening ofAdams and Clay to ‘‘Bliful and Black George,’’two unsavory characters from the popular novel,Tom Jones, brought no rebuke from the chair.33

After Randolph ended his harangue, the Sen-ate turned to the select committee report. Ran-dolph, trumpeting his opposition ‘‘to all amend-ments to the Constitution,’’ moved to table thereport. New Jersey Senator Mahlon Dickerson,who had spoken at great length the previous dayin support of his own proposal to limit the presi-dent to two terms in office, prepared to speakin opposition to Randolph’s motion. He had juststarted to explain his position when Calhoun cuthim short, ruling him out of order on thegrounds that ‘‘the motion now pending . . . didnot admit of debate.’’ Randolph added that ‘‘it

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is unreasonable, after having spoken an hour andthirty-five minutes [the previous day], to speakagain to-day’’ and explained that he would op-pose any effort to amend the Constitution. WhenDickerson attempted to respond to Randolph’sremarks, Calhoun ruled him out of order a sec-ond time. Randolph finally agreed to Dickerson’srequest to postpone the discussion until the nextday, bringing the awkward exchange to an end.On April 3, 1826, the Senate approved the selectcommittee’s amendment providing for the directelection of the president and vice president.34

Fallout from the explosive session of March 30,1826, would haunt Calhoun for the remainder ofhis term. Deeply offended at Randolph’scharges, Clay demanded a duel with the Vir-ginian. The resulting nerve-wracking but blood-less encounter ended with a handshake after twoexchanges of fire. Those who had expressedamusement at Randolph’s March 30 perform-ance, or agreed with him in principle, were sud-denly sobered at the thought that the vice presi-dent’s failure to restrain an intemperate senatorhad resulted in a near-tragedy.35 Calhoun’s en-emies criticized him for twice calling the sedateand congenial Dickerson to order while permit-ting Randolph to vent his spleen at will. In thefollowing weeks the Senate, for the first time inits history, attempted to define the vice presi-dent’s legislative duties and responsibilities.

In the decade prior to 1826, the Senate had paidincreasing attention to organizational matters, aclear indication of its increased workload, en-larged membership, and heightened importanceas a national forum. It had established standingcommittees in 1816, revised its rules in 1820, andrequired the publication of regular financial re-ports by the secretary of the Senate after 1823.The body also enhanced the powers of the chair.Not only had it authorized the presiding officerin 1823 to appoint members of standing and se-lect committees, but in 1824 it also directed thepresiding officer to ‘‘examine and correct theJournals, before they are read,’’ and to ‘‘have theregulation of such parts of the Capitol . . . as are. . . set apart for the use of the Senate and its offi-cers.’’ 36 These changes reflect an institution intransition, conscious of its changing role in a rap-idly altering political environment. After the

March 30, 1826, spectacle, however, any discus-sion of Senate rules inevitably invited commenton the vice president’s legislative duties and onCalhoun’s conduct as president of the Senate.

On April 13, 1826, John Randolph offered amotion to rescind ‘‘so much of the new rules ofthis House, which give to the presiding officerof this body the appointment of its committees,and the control over the Journal of its proceed-ings.’’ The debate continued on April 15, as sev-eral Calhoun supporters, including Van Buren,reviewed ‘‘the considerations that had led theSenate’’ to change its rules in 1823 and 1824. Thefragmentary published accounts in the Register ofDebates suggest that, when the Senate vested inthe presiding officer the power to appoint com-mittees, it had done so assuming that the presi-dent pro tempore would actually make the selec-tions—a reasonable assumption when the debili-tated Daniel D. Tompkins served as vice presi-dent. Randolph’s cryptic remarks on April 12,when he notified the Senate that he would pro-pose the rules changes on the following day, alsohint that the Senate had given the presiding offi-cer the responsibility of supervising the Journalbecause the secretary of the Senate had been neg-ligent in performing this important task.

The reporter who followed the April 15 debatewas careful to note that ‘‘the gentlemen who fa-vored the present motion, as well as the one whooffered it, disclaimed the remotest intention toimpute to the Vice President an improper exer-cise of the duties devolved on him by the rules.’’But the debate took a personal turn after Ran-dolph, sensitive to mounting and widespreadcriticism of Calhoun for failing to stifle his recentoutburst, asserted that ‘‘it is not the duty, nor theright, of the President of the Senate to call amember to order.’’ That right, Randolph argued,was reserved to members of the Senate. At theconclusion of the debate, the Senate voted, byoverwhelming margins, to resume its formerpractice of selecting committee members by bal-lot, and ‘‘to take from the President of the Senate,the control over the Journal of theProceedings.’’ 37

Some contemporary observers, as well as mod-ern day scholars, have interpreted the April 15vote as a pointed rebuke of a vice president who

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had exceeded his authority and offended theSenate. On the other hand, the caveats of VanBuren and opposition senators suggest that, al-though some senators may well have intendedto curtail Calhoun’s authority, others were ani-mated by concern for maintaining the Senate’sinstitutional prerogatives. Calhoun, edging to-ward the strict constructionist stance he wouldchampion in later years, seems to have approvedof the changes, or at least to have accepted themwith his customary grace. ‘‘[N]o power ought tobe delegated which can be fairly exercised by theconstituent body,’’ he agreed shortly after thevote, ‘‘and . . . none ought ever to be delegated,but to responsible agents . . . and I should be in-consistent with myself, if I did not give my entireassent to the principles on which the rules inquestion have been rescinded.’’ Calhoun didbristle, however, at the suggestion that he hadbeen negligent in not calling Randolph to order.He had diligently studied the Senate’s rules, heinformed the senators, and had concluded that,although the chair could issue rulings on proce-dural matters, ‘‘the right to call to order, on ques-tions touching the latitude or freedom of debate,belongs exclusively to the members of this body,and not to the Chair. The power of the presidingofficer . . . is an appellate power only; and . . .the duties of the Chair commence when a Sen-ator is called to order by a Senator.’’ He had beenelected vice president by ‘‘the People,’’ he re-minded the Senate, and ‘‘he had laid it down asan invariable rule, to assume no power in theleast degree doubtful.’’ 38

The debate over the vice president’s role in theSenate continued a month later on May 18. A se-lect committee chaired by Randolph that hadbeen appointed ‘‘to take into consideration thepresent arrangement of the Senate chamber,’’ re-ported a resolution that would make access tothe Senate floor by anyone other than past andcurrent members of Congress and certain mem-bers of the executive and judicial branches con-tingent upon written authorization by the vicepresident. The resolution also specified that theofficers of the Senate would be responsible to thevice president and that all, except for the sec-retary of the Senate, would be subject to imme-

diate removal ‘‘for any neglect of duty.’’ The Sen-ate chamber would ‘‘be arranged under the di-rection of the Vice President, . . . so as to keeporder more effectually in the lobby and the gal-lery,’’ a change intended to regulate the crowdswho were flocking to the Senate galleries in in-creasing numbers.

As this first session of the Nineteenth Congressneared its end, Senator John Holmes submitteda resolution, for consideration in the next ses-sion, to appoint a committee that would considerrules to clarify and enhance the powers of thechair. Randolph moved to take up the Holmesresolution immediately, but Calhoun ruled himout of order on the grounds that ‘‘when a mem-ber offered a resolution, if he did not desire itsconsideration, it would lie one day on the table.’’Undaunted, Randolph moved to instruct thecommittee that it would be ‘‘inconsistent withthe rights and privileges of the States’’ to author-ize the chair to call a member. He then proceededto castigate a Massachusetts editor for his allegedmisconduct in the chamber. The debate degen-erated into a shouting match after MassachusettsSenator James Lloyd rose to defend his constitu-ent, but Calhoun remained impassive until Ala-bama Senator William R. King intervened witha call to order. Rigidly adhering to the Senate’srule governing the conduct of debate, Calhouninstructed King ‘‘to reduce the exceptionablewords to writing.’’ King responded that ‘‘it wasnot necessary to reduce the words to writing,’’since he had merely intended to ‘‘check the gen-tlemen when they were giving way to effer-vescence of feeling.’’ Calhoun explained that hehad ‘‘no power beyond the rules of the Senate;’’if King would not comply, Randolph was free tocontinue. After Randolph finished his diatribe,Calhoun again reminded the Senate that ‘‘TheChair . . . would never assume any power notvested in it.’’ 39

A weary Calhoun left the chair on May 20,1826, two days before the Nineteenth Congressadjourned, in order to allow for the election ofa president pro tempore, but the controversyover his conduct in the Senate continuedthroughout the spring and summer and into fall.On April 24, the National Intelligencer had pub-lished a letter from Senator Dickerson, who

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maintained that Calhoun had treated him withappropriate courtesy and respect during theMarch 30 debate, 40 as well as a submission froman anonymous ‘‘Western Senator’’ defending thevice president. On May 1, the pro-administrationNational Journal published the first in a series offive articles by ‘‘Patrick Henry,’’ an anonymouswriter friendly to the administration, chargingthat Calhoun had abused his office. These essays,which continued through August 8, cited an im-pressive array of parliamentary scholarship tosupport the author’s contention that Calhounhad been negligent in permitting the ‘‘irrelativerhapsodies of a once powerful mind’’ to disturbthe Senate ‘‘without one effort of authority, orone hint of disapprobation from its president.’’The vice president had also allowed ‘‘selfish con-siderations’’ to influence his committee appoint-ments, ‘‘Henry’’ charged. ‘‘From the commence-ment of the Government until the last session ofCongress,’’ the essayist scolded Calhoun in hisAugust 4 installment:

order had been preserved in the Senate underevery Vice-President, and decorum, almost risingto solemnity, had been a distinctive feature of itsproceedings. But no sooner were you sent to pre-side over it, than its hall became, as if by somemagic agency, transformed into an arena wherepolitical disappointment rioted in its madness.

Modern scholars have never conclusively es-tablished the identity of ‘‘Patrick Henry,’’ al-though Calhoun and many others believed himto be President Adams. The vice president re-sponded in his own series of essays, publishedin the National Intelligencer between May 20 andOctober 12, 1826, under the pseudonym‘‘Onslow,’’ in honor of a distinguished eight-eenth-century Speaker of the British House ofCommons. Echoing Calhoun’s pronouncementsin the Senate, the writer’s opening salvo offereda forceful defense of the vice president’s refusalto restrain ‘‘the latitude or freedom of debate.’’The decision to rule Dickerson out of order hadinvolved a procedural matter, well within thescope of the vice president’s authority; silencingRandolph’s outburst would have required ‘‘adespotic Power, worse than the sedition law.’’ Asfor the vice president’s committee appointments,

‘‘Onslow’’ maintained in his October 12 epistle,‘‘The only correct rule is, to appoint the able, ex-perienced, and independent, without regard totheir feelings towards the Executive.’’ To appointonly pro-administration partisans, he argued,would have drastically expanded the power ofan executive who already had ‘‘the whole pa-tronage of the Government’’ at his disposal.41

These arguments, the modern-era editors of Cal-houn’s papers have stressed, reveal ‘‘the groundprinciples of all Calhoun’s later thinking,’’ andmark ‘‘the ‘turning point’ in Calhoun’s careerfrom nationalist and latitudinarian to sectionalistand strict constructionist.’’ 42

Not until 1828 did the Senate finally revise therule governing debate to authorize the presidingofficer, or any senator, to call a member to order.After this revision was adopted, Calhoun stub-bornly remarked that ‘‘it was not for him’’ tocomment on the change, assuring the Senate‘‘that he should always endeavor to exercise itwith strict impartiality.’’ He did heartily approveof another change adopted in 1828, a revisionthat made rulings of the chair subject to appeal.‘‘It was not only according to strict principle,’’he informed the Senate, ‘‘but would relieve theChair from a most delicate duty.’’ 43

The Calhoun-Jackson Alliance

On June 4, 1826, Calhoun notified AndrewJackson that he would support his 1828 presi-dential bid. Calhoun, with his disciplined intel-lect and rigid sense of propriety, presented astriking contrast to the popular and dashing mili-tary hero. The two were never close, and Cal-houn never completely trusted Jackson. In fact,several years earlier, while serving in Monroe’scabinet, the South Carolinian had urged thepresident to discipline Jackson for his unauthor-ized invasion of Spanish Florida during the Sem-inole War.44 But Calhoun needed time to recouphis political fortunes, and Jackson had vowed toserve but a single term if elected president. Theold hero welcomed Calhoun’s support, assuringhim that they would ‘‘march hand in hand intheir [the people’s] cause,’’ cementing one of themost ill-starred partnerships in the history of thevice-presidency.45

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When Calhoun returned to the Senate for thesecond session of the Nineteenth Congress inearly December, he was relieved to find that hewas not ‘‘the object of the malignant attack ofthose in power.’’ He did observe, however, thatin the Senate ‘‘the line of separation is betterdrawn, and the feelings on both sides higherthan in the last session.’’ 46 Calhoun’s respitecame to an abrupt halt on December 28, whenthe Alexandria, Virginia, Phoenix Gazette, an ad-ministration mouthpiece, resurrected the oldcharges that Calhoun’s chief secretary at the WarDepartment had improperly profited from his in-terest in a materials contract.47 On the followingday, Calhoun notified Secretary of the SenateWalter Lowrie that he had asked the House ofRepresentatives to investigate the charges andwould not preside over the Senate until the mat-ter was resolved. ‘‘[A] sense of propriety forbidsme from resuming my station till the House hasdisposed of this subject,’’ he explained.48

On January 2, 1827, the Senate chose NathanielMacon of North Carolina to preside over its de-liberations while a House select committee pur-sued the allegations. Henry Clay, who still com-manded enormous influence in the House ofRepresentatives, played a silent role in the ap-pointment of the House select committee, whichwas heavily weighted against Calhoun. Eventhough the committee cleared Calhoun after sixweeks of hearings, press accounts of the inves-tigation, combined with the muddled languagethat Clay had persuaded his allies to insert in theselect committee’s February 13, 1827, report, con-tributed to the widespread perception that thevice president had done something wrong whileserving as secretary of war.49 Some Jacksonianswould have gladly withdrawn their support forCalhoun’s vice-presidential bid at that point. ButJackson’s chief strategist, Martin Van Buren, in-sisted that Calhoun was essential to his strategyof forging a coalition of ‘‘planters of the Southand the plain Republicans of the North’’ to driveAdams from the White House.50

The vice president, for his part, was increas-ingly disturbed at the concessions that VanBuren seemed willing to make to secure Jack-son’s election, particularly with respect to thetariff. Van Buren and New York Senator Silas

Wright had finessed a protective tariff throughthe Senate in the spring of 1828. This so-called‘‘Tariff of Abominations’’ included no conces-sions to southern agricultural interests, as hadprevious tariffs, and imposed severe hardshipson the region. Still, Calhoun convinced the SouthCarolina delegation to hold its fire, fearing thatthe backlash might cost Jackson the election andhoping that Jackson would, if elected, reform thetariff schedules.51 ‘‘[T]he Tariff of the last sessionexcites much feelings in this and the other South-ern atlantick states,’’ he wrote to Jackson fromSouth Carolina in July, continuing,

The belief that those now in power will be dis-placed shortly, and that under an administrationformed under your auspices, a better order willcommence, in which an equal distribution of theburden and benefit of government . . . and finallythe removal of oppressive duties will be the pri-mary objects of policy is what mainly consolesthis quarter of the Union under existing embar-rassment.52

Jackson and Calhoun won 56 percent of thepopular vote in 1828—a sweeping victory widelyacclaimed as a triumph for ‘‘the common man.’’The ‘‘Jacksonians’’ boasted an organization vast-ly more efficient than that of Adams’ NationalRepublicans, a factor that had helped them gaincontrol of both houses in the 1827 congressionalelections. The presidential campaign was one ofthe most bitterly contested in the nation’s his-tory. Adams’ supporters charged Jackson and hiswife with immoral conduct (the two had marriedbefore Rachel’s divorce from her first husband)and Jacksonians countered by reminding theelectorate of the ‘‘corrupt bargain.’’ Calhoun andthe National Republican vice-presidential can-didate Richard Rush were barely noticed in thefray.53

Candidate Calhoun had spent most of the elec-tion year at ‘‘Fort Hill,’’ his Pendleton, SouthCarolina estate, supervising farm operationsand, at the request of the South Carolina legisla-ture, preparing a critique of the tariff. His pointof departure for the resulting South Carolina‘‘Exposition’’ was an argument that Jeffersonhad marshalled three decades earlier in his cru-sade against the Alien and Sedition Acts: that the

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Union was a compact between states, which re-tained certain rights under the Constitution. ButCalhoun carried the argument several steps far-ther, asserting that a state could veto, or ‘‘nul-lify,’’ any act by the federal government that en-croached on its sovereignty or otherwise violatedthe Constitution. The ‘‘Exposition’’ and an ac-companying set of ‘‘Protest’’ resolutions werewidely circulated by the South Carolina legisla-ture. Calhoun, wary of jeopardizing his nationalstanding, was careful not to claim authorship,but Jackson and Van Buren soon suspected thatthe vice president had written the controversialtract.54

The Senate Debates Nullification

Calhoun’s second vice-presidential term waseven more of an ordeal than his first. His sus-picions that Jackson might pose as great a threatto popular liberties as his predecessor were soonconfirmed. The president failed to repudiate thetariff—clear evidence that he had fallen underVan Buren’s spell—and his appointment of the‘‘Little Magician’’ as secretary of state boded illfor Calhoun. The vice president was soon iso-lated within an administration where Van Burenand his protectionist allies appeared to be gain-ing the upper hand.55

Calhoun’s novel theory came under attack inthe Senate early in his second term, during a de-bate over the disposition of western lands, alengthy exchange that one historian has termed‘‘the greatest debate in the history of the Sen-ate.’’ 56 The debate began on December 29, whenConnecticut Senator Samuel Foot offered a reso-lution to curtail the sale of public lands in theWest. South Carolina Senator Robert Y. Haynechanged the tone of the debate on January 19,1830, when he argued that the federal govern-ment should leave land policy to the states andthat individual states could nullify federal legis-lation. The remainder of the debate, which lastedthrough January 27, consisted of a spirited ex-change between Hayne and Massachusetts Sen-ator Daniel Webster, who summoned all of hisformidable oratorical talents in a passionate de-fense of the Union.

But the Webster-Hayne debate was, in fact, aconfrontation between Webster and Calhoun.

Hayne received a steady stream of handwrittennotes from the chair as he articulated Calhoun’sdoctrines for several hours on January 21, andWebster clearly directed at the vice president hissecond reply to Hayne of January 26–27. Hischarge that ‘‘leading and distinguished gentle-men from South Carolina’’ had reversed theirstand on internal improvements brought an im-mediate and pointed inquiry from the vice presi-dent: ‘‘Does the chair understand the gentlemanfrom Massachusetts to say that the person nowoccupying the chair of the Senate had changedhis opinions on the subject of internal improve-ments?’’ Webster responded: ‘‘If such change hastaken place, I regret it. I speak generally of theState of South Carolina.’’ 57

The president, although not directly involvedin the debate, was clearly interested in the out-come. Jackson sympathized with advocates ofstates’ rights, but, as a passionate defender of theUnion, he regarded nullification as tantamountto treason. When his friend and adviser, WilliamB. Lewis, having witnessed the sparring betweenHayne and Webster from the Senate gallery, re-ported that Webster was ‘‘demolishing ourfriend Hayne,’’ the president responded with asuccinct ‘‘I expected it.’’ 58 An open confrontationbetween Jackson and Calhoun soon followed, atthe April 13, 1830, banquet commemorating Jef-ferson’s birthday. The event was a longstandingtradition among congressional Republicans, butthe recent use of Jefferson’s writings to justifynullification imbued the 1830 celebration withparticular significance. Warned in advance byVan Buren that several ‘‘nullifiers’’ were ex-pected to attend, the president and his adviserscarefully scripted his remarks. After the meal,and an interminable series of toasts, Jackson roseto offer his own: ‘‘Our Union. It must be pre-served.’’ Calhoun was well prepared with an ex-plosive rejoinder: ‘‘The Union. Next to our lib-erty, the most dear.’’ Jackson had the last worda few days later, when he asked a South Carolinacongressman about to depart for home to ‘‘givemy compliments to my friends in your State, andsay to them, that if a single drop of blood shallbe shed there in opposition to the laws of theUnited States, I will hang the first man I can lay

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my hand on engaged in such treasonable con-duct, upon the first tree I can reach.’’ 59

Jackson Repudiates Calhoun

Even without Calhoun’s intransigence on thetariff and nullification, Jackson had ample reasonto dislike his vice president. In May 1830, thepresident finally received incontrovertible proofthat Calhoun, as he had long suspected, hadurged Monroe’s cabinet to censure him for hisinvasion of Spanish Florida during the SeminoleWar. Demanding an explanation from Calhoun,Jackson was stunned when the vice president re-sponded that he could not ‘‘recognize the righton your part to call in question my conduct.’’Calhoun went on to explain that neither he, assecretary of war, nor President Monroe had au-thorized the occupation of the Spanish posts inFlorida, and that ‘‘when orders were tran-scended, investigation, as a matter of course,ought to follow.’’ His opponents had resurrecteda long-forgotten incident to discredit him in Jack-son’s eyes, the vice president warned. ‘‘I shouldbe blind not to see, that this whole affair is a po-litical manoeuvre.’’ Thus began a lengthy andstrident correspondence, which concluded onlyafter Jackson wrote from his Tennessee home inmid-July that ‘‘I feel no interest in this altercation. . . and now close this correspondence forever,’’and Calhoun concurred that the correspondence‘‘is far from being agreeable at this critical junc-ture of our affairs.’’ Anxious to contradict inac-curate press accounts of his quarrel with thepresident, Calhoun published the correspond-ence in the United States’ Telegraph of February17 and 25, 1831, prefaced with a lengthy expla-nation addressed ‘‘To the People of the UnitedStates.’’ His break with Jackson, so long in themaking, was now complete.60

Calhoun soon found himself completelyeclipsed by Van Buren. After a longstanding dis-pute over official protocol had culminated in theresignation of the entire cabinet in April 1831, allof Jackson’s new secretaries were Van Burenmen. Calhoun had his wife Floride to thank forthis unfortunate development. Mrs. Calhoun, theunofficial arbiter of Washington society, hadthrown the capital into turmoil with her delib-erate snub of Secretary of War John Eaton and

his wife, Peggy. Peggy Eaton was a lively andattractive woman of dubious reputation and aspecial favorite of the president. The daughter ofan innkeeper, she was clearly not the social equalof the haughty and highly critical Floride. Shehad married Eaton, a boarder at her father’shotel, soon after her first husband had died atsea—Washington scandalmongers hinted that hehad taken his life in despair after learning of Peg-gy’s affair with Eaton. Floride’s reputation as anaccomplished hostess, her husband’s position,and the fact that both the president and VanBuren were widowers gave her enormous influ-ence in Washington society. When she refusedto return Peggy Eaton’s calls, several of the cabi-net wives followed suit.

Floride’s actions put her husband in an awk-ward position, but he acquiesced in her decisionbecause he regarded social protocol as her right-ful sphere of authority and because he knew thatnothing he did or said would shake her resolve.The president, who considered Eaton ‘‘more likea son to me than anything else’’—and later pro-nounced Peggy ‘‘chaste as a virgin’’—was sorelyoffended. His outrage was compounded bymemories of his late wife, Rachel, who had suf-fered a fatal heart attack after hearing the viciousattacks on her character that the Adams camphad circulated during the presidential campaign.

The ‘‘Petticoat War’’ split the cabinet for wellover a year, with Van Buren emerging the win-ner. The shrewd and gallant widower had con-spicuously entertained the Eatons and orches-trated the cabinet’s resignation to resolve the im-passe. Jackson was profoundly grateful to VanBuren for the opportunity to purge his cabinetof Calhoun’s supporters, and rewarded him withan appointment as ambassador to GreatBritain.61

Nullification Leader

Calhoun initially believed that his break withJackson would only enhance his chances of win-ning the presidency in 1832. He still enjoyed con-siderable support in the South and believed hemight be able to reconcile southernagriculturalists and northern manufacturers withselective modifications in the tariff schedules.But events in South Carolina soon forced him to

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make public his position on the tariff and nul-lification, a move that effectively killed hischances of ever becoming president. In the sum-mer of 1831, Calhoun protege George McDuffieelectrified a Charleston, South Carolina, audi-ence with a fiery declamation advocating nul-lification and secession. Calhoun was horrified atthis development, as well as by accounts thatSouth Carolina merchants were refusing to payduties that they considered unconstitutional.Calhoun had advanced the doctrine of nullifica-tion to provide southern states with a peacefulmechanism for obtaining redress of their griev-ances, never contemplating the possibility of dis-union. He had not endorsed secession in his 1828‘‘Exposition,’’ arguing that a state could veto andrefuse to enforce any law it considered unconsti-tutional, but, if three fourths of the states subse-quently affirmed the law, the nullifying statemust defer to the collective will.

Until this point, Calhoun had never publiclyclaimed authorship of his controversial doctrine,but now he felt compelled to assume control ofthe nullification movement to minimize its de-structive potential. He published in the July 26,1831, issue of the Pendleton, South Carolina,Messenger his first public statement on nullifica-tion, the ‘‘Rock Hill Address,’’ a forceful restate-ment of the principles first articulated in theSouth Carolina ‘‘Exposition.’’ Calhoun was wellaware of the risk he had assumed. ‘‘I can scarcelydare hope,’’ he conceded shortly after the ‘‘RockHill Address’’ appeared in print, ‘‘that myfriends to the North will sustain me in the posi-tions I have taken, tho’ I have the most thoroughconviction that the doctrines I advanced, mustultimately become those of the Union; or that itwill be impossible to preserve the Union.’’ Oncethe most ardent of nationalists, Calhoun wouldhenceforth be known as the South’s advocateand, by Jackson supporters, as a traitor.62

Calhoun ‘‘Elects’’ a Vice President

Calhoun returned to Washington after alengthy absence in time for the opening of theTwenty-second Congress in December 1831. Hehad devoted the time since the Twenty-first Con-gress had adjourned on March 3 to nullificationand to his anticipated presidential campaign.

One of the first items on the Senate’s agenda wasthe confirmation of Jackson’s reconstituted cabi-net. The Senate approved these nominationswithout incident, but Jackson’s appointment offormer Secretary of State Martin Van Buren asambassador to Great Britain aroused a firestormof controversy. Henry Clay, leading the anti-Jackson forces in the Senate, blamed Van Burenfor the ‘‘pernicious system of party politicsadopted by the present administration,’’ 63 a sen-timent shared by many disaffected Jacksoniansand Calhoun supporters, as well.

Tempers flared as the Senate debated the con-troversial nomination on January 24 and 25,1832, with several senators venting their angerat the administration. Massachusetts SenatorDaniel Webster took Van Buren to task for histrade policies, while his southern colleagues,Senators Stephen Miller of South Carolina andGeorge Poindexter of Mississippi, took aim atVan Buren’s personal life. When Missouri’s Alex-ander Buckner rose to Van Buren’s defense, as-serting that only a ‘‘liar’’ would accuse VanBuren of malfeasance or misconduct, Vice Presi-dent Calhoun ruled him out of order. GeorgiaSenator John Forsyth, a staunch Jackson man,pointedly reminded the vice president, ‘‘[I]f youremember your own decisions you must knowthat you are grossly out of order for this inter-ference.’’ Forsyth clearly intended to taunt Cal-houn, not to raise a substantive objection, sincethe Senate had, four years earlier, revised itsrules to authorize the presiding officer to call amember to order.

The debate over Van Buren’s appointmentended in a tied vote—orchestrated, one scholarsuggests, to give the vice president the ‘‘distinc-tion and honor of defeating Van Buren’s nomina-tion.’’ Calhoun, as expected, cast his vote againstthe nomination, a decision that, Missouri SenatorThomas Hart Benton predicted, ‘‘elected a VicePresident.’’ 64 But Benton was only partially cor-rect. Rigid in defense of his principles, but whol-ly lacking the abundant political skills of the‘‘Little Magician,’’ Calhoun had played into VanBuren’s hands throughout his second term asvice president. His decision to assume control ofthe South Carolina nullification movement hadalready killed his presidential prospects. Van

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Buren would become the Democratic vice-presi-dential candidate in 1832 and would succeedJackson as president four years later.

Calhoun spent the remainder of the year in theSenate disheartened by the enactment of the 1832tariff. That measure was intended to reconcilenorthern manufacturers and all but the most die-hard free traders, but, in one scholar’s assess-ment, it ‘‘satisfied neither protectionists nor freetraders.’’ 65 ‘‘It is, in truth,’’ Calhoun wrote to akinsman as the Senate labored over the tariff inearly March 1832, ‘‘hard to find a midle [sic] po-sition, where the principle of protection is as-serted to be essential on one side, and fatal onthe other. It involves not the question of conces-sion, but surrender.’’ 66 In early July, a despairingCalhoun offered a gloomy precis of the Senate’saction on the tariff:

We have spent a long & fruitless season. TheTariff Bill was late last evening ordered to the 3d.reading in the senate with many amendments allgoing to increase the burden on us. Every south-ern member voted against it including the SouthWest, with the exception of the Senators fromLouisiana. The question is no longer one of freetrade, but liberty and despotism. The hope of thecountry now rests on our gallant little State. Letevery Carolinian do his duty. Those who do notjoin us now intend unqualified submission.67

Senator Calhoun

In South Carolina, where antitariff sentimentshad reached a fever pitch, Calhoun found it in-creasingly difficult to contain the deadly forcesthat he had unwittingly unleashed. Nullifiersgained control of the state legislature in the fall1832 election. The new legislature promptlycalled for a nullification convention, whichpassed an ordinance declaring the 1828 and 1832tariffs void as of February 1, 1833. The Ordinanceof Nullification also warned that, if the adminis-tration resorted to coercion to collect the offen-sive duties, South Carolina would ‘‘proceed toorganize a separate government.’’ An irate Jack-son ordered reinforcements to the federal instal-lations surrounding Charleston Harbor but soonannounced his support for a revised tariff. OnDecember 10, he proclaimed nullification ‘‘in-compatible with the existence of the Union.’’

Calhoun would help defuse this explosive situ-ation, but not as vice president. Elected to theSenate to replace Robert Hayne, he resigned thevice-presidency on December 28, 1832, morethan two months before his term was up. Exceptfor a brief stint as secretary of state during JohnTyler’s administration, he spent the rest of hislife in the Senate, valiantly defending his stateand attempting to reconcile its interests withthose of the nation at large. Undaunted by ru-mors that Jackson intended to try him for treasonif the impasse over nullification resulted in anarmed confrontation, Calhoun joined forces withHenry Clay to help guide through the Senate arevised tariff, acceptable to the southern states.The nullifiers, encouraged by the prospect of amore equitable tariff, and counseled by cool-headed emissaries from Virginia to show re-straint, postponed the effective date of the ordi-nance until March 4. Jackson’s supporters had,in the meantime, introduced a measure to forceSouth Carolina’s compliance with the old tariff,which passed the Senate by overwhelming mar-gins. Calhoun and eight of his fellow senatorsstalked out of the chamber in protest when theSenate adopted the ‘‘Force bill,’’ but Jacksonnever had occasion to employ its provisionsagainst the nullifiers. The crisis passed after Con-gress approved both the revised tariff and theForce bill shortly before adjourning on March 3,1833. Calhoun returned to South Carolina firmlyconvinced that nullification had ‘‘dealt the fatalblow’’ to the tariff.68

For the next several years, Calhoun remainedaloof from the Jacksonian coalition, which hadbecome known as the Democratic party. But dur-ing Van Buren’s administration, from 1837 to1841, he set aside his longstanding aversion to‘‘the Little Magician’’ and risked the wrath of hisfellow South Carolinians to support the inde-pendent treasury plan, Van Buren’s solution tothe credit and currency problems that he andCalhoun believed responsible for the 1837 de-pression. Alarmed at the prospect that Whigpresidential candidate William Henry Harrisonwould back tariff concessions for special inter-ests, Calhoun rejoined the Democrats in 1840 and

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began making plans to enter the 1844 presi-dential race.69

Hoping to present himself as an independentcandidate with no institutional affiliation, Cal-houn resigned from the Senate on March 3, 1843.His campaign faltered, however, when severalprominent Virginia Democrats backed VanBuren and the New York City convention fol-lowed suit. Calhoun consoled himself by focus-ing his attention on his farm, badly in debt afterseveral years of depressed cotton prices, and hisfamily, torn by a protracted financial disputesbetween Calhoun’s son, Andrew Pickens Cal-houn, and his son-in-law, Thomas GreenClemson. In mid-March 1844, he accepted Presi-dent John Tyler’s offer of an appointment to suc-ceed Secretary of State Abel Upshur, who hadbeen killed by an exploding cannon during anouting on the ship Princeton. Calhoun remainedat the State Department until Tyler’s term endedon March 3, 1845, participating in the final stagesof the negotiations for the Texas AnnexationTreaty.70

Calhoun returned to the Senate in November1845 and remained there for the rest of his life.Increasingly defensive about the institution ofslavery as the abolition movement gained mo-mentum, and agitated at the growing discord be-tween the slaveholding and free states, he spoke,as he informed the Senate in 1847, as ‘‘a Southernman and a slaveholder.’’ As secretary of stateCalhoun had strongly supported the annexationof Texas. After Pennsylvania RepresentativeDavid Wilmot offered his famous proviso as anamendment to an administration war bill, how-ever, the South Carolina senator realized that theacquisition of additional territory would inevi-tably heighten the sectional conflict over slavery.The Wilmot Proviso, which would have barredslavery from all lands acquired from Mexico,pushed Calhoun into the anti-administrationcamp. He vehemently opposed the war policy ofPresident James K. Polk, warning that the acqui-sition of Mexican territory, with its populationof ‘‘pure Indians and by far the larger portionof the residue mixed blood,’’ would corrupt thenation’s culture and institutions.71

By 1850, the precarious balance between theslaveholding and free states was again at risk.

California’s petition to enter the Union as a freestate threatened to upset the delicate equi-librium. Other unresolved issues, too, includingslavery in the District of Columbia and the en-forcement of fugitive slave laws, loomed large onthe horizon during the final weeks of Calhoun’slife. To resolve the impasse, Calhoun’s old friendand rival, Henry Clay, on January 29, 1850, of-fered a series of proposals, collectively known asthe Compromise of 1850. Clay proposed thatCalifornia enter the Union as a free state and thatCongress agree to impose no restrictions on slav-ery in the New Mexico and Utah territories. Thecompromise also provided that Congress wouldnot prohibit or regulate slavery in the District ofColumbia, would abolish the slave trade in theDistrict, and would require northern states tocomply with fugitive slave laws. MassachusettsSenator Daniel Webster sought Calhoun’s sup-port for the compromise, but the South Caro-linian, vehemently opposed to abolishing theslave trade in the nation’s capital and admittingCalifornia as a free state, refused to endorse theplan.

On March 4, a dispirited and emaciated Cal-houn, his body so ravaged by tuberculosis thathe could no longer walk unassisted and his oncepenetrating voice so weak that he could nolonger speak, presented his final address to theSenate. Virginia Senator James Mason spoke forCalhoun, who sat nearby, his pitiful framehuddled in his chair. Only an immediate halt toantislavery agitation and a constitutional amend-ment to preserve the balance between North andSouth would save the Union, Calhoun warned.Even senators who had long considered Calhouna disunionist were shocked when Mason pro-nounced his ultimatum: if the northern stateswere unwilling to reconcile their differences withthe South ‘‘on the broad principle of justice andduty, say so; and let the States we both representagree to separate and part in peace.’’ Three dayslater, Senator Webster delivered his famous‘‘Seventh of March’’ speech, a ringing plea forcompromise and Union that Calhoun inter-rupted with a resolute, ‘‘No sir! the Union canbe broken’’—one of his last utterances in theSenate.72

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The Senate ultimately approved Clay’s com-promise, not as a package, but as separate items.Calhoun died on March 31, 1850, convinced thathis beloved South would one day withdraw fromthe Union he had labored so long and hard tostrengthen and preserve. Even in death, he wasa controversial figure. Senator Thomas Hart Ben-ton refused to speak at the April 5 memorialservice in the Senate chamber; Calhoun was ‘‘notdead,’’ he maintained. ‘‘There may be no vitality

in his body, but there is in his doctrines.’’ SenatorDaniel Webster, one of the official mourners cho-sen by the Senate to accompany Calhoun’s bodyto South Carolina, could not bring himself to per-form this awkward and painful task. He took hisleave from Calhoun at the Virginia landing as thefuneral party departed for the South. Calhounwas buried in Charleston, in a crypt in St. Phil-ip’s churchyard.73

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NOTES1 Clyde N. Wilson and W. Edwin Hemphill, eds., The Pa-

pers of John C. Calhoun, vol. 10 (Columbia, SC, 1977), pp. 199–203.

2 John C. Calhoun to James Monroe, June 23, 1826, Cal-houn Papers, 10:132–35.

3 U.S., Congress, Senate, The Senate, 1789–1989: Addresseson the History of the United States Senate, by Robert C. Byrd,S. Doc. 100–20, 100th Cong., 1st sess., vol. 1, 1988, p. 88; U.S.,Congress, Senate, Journal, 18th Cong., special session ofMarch 4, 1825, pp. 271–74.

4 John Niven, John C. Calhoun and the Price of Union (BatonRouge, LA, 1988), p. 10.

5 Niven, pp. 1–12; for an account of the Regulator move-ment, see Richard Maxwell Brown, The South Carolina Regu-lators (Cambridge, 1963).

6 By the eighteenth century, the family had changed thespelling of their name, originally ‘‘Colquhoun’’ (after theScottish clan of that name), with one branch of the familyadopting the most commonly known spelling, ‘‘Calhoun,’’and the other spelling the name ‘‘Colhoun.’’ Charles M.Wiltse, John C. Calhoun, vol. 1, Nationalist, 1782–1828 (NewYork, 1968; reprint of 1944 ed.), p. 12; Niven, p. 20.

7 Wiltse, John C. Calhoun: Nationalist, p. 50.8 Niven, pp. 21–34; Merrill D. Peterson, The Great Trium-

virate: Webster, Clay, and Calhoun (New York, 1987), pp. 23–27.

9 James Sterling Young, The Washington Community, 1800–1828 (New York, 1966), pp. 97–102.

10 Niven, pp. 34–35; Peterson, p. 23.11 The Committee on Foreign Affairs did not become a

standing committee of the House of Representatives until1822. U.S., Congress, House of Representatives, Guide to theRecords of the United States House of Representatives at the Na-tional Archives, 1789–1989, 100th Cong., 2d sess. (Washing-ton, 1989), p. 135.

12 Peterson, p. 18; Niven, pp. 41–52; Harry Ammon, JamesMonroe: The Quest for National Identity (Charlottesville, VA,1990; reprint of 1971 edition), p. 309; James F. Hopkins,‘‘Election of 1824,’’ in History of American PresidentialElections, 1789–1968, ed. Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., andFred L. Israel, vol. 1 (New York, 1971), p. 354.

13 Peterson, pp. 18, 39.14 Charles Sellers, The Market Revolution: Jacksonian

America, 1815–1846 (New York, 1991), pp. 76–79; Peterson,p. 49; Niven, pp. 51–57. President James Madison vetoedthe ‘‘Bonus Bill’’ on Constitutional grounds.

15 Niven, pp. 58–60; Ammon, pp. 357–60, 470; Richard W.Barsness, ‘‘John C. Calhoun and the Military Establishment,1817–1825,’’ Wisconsin Magazine of History 50 (Autumn1966), pp. 43–53; Wiltse, John C. Calhoun: Nationalist, p. 140.

16 Young, pp. 230–31.

17 Allan Nevins, ed., The Diary of John Quincy Adams,1794–1845 (New York, 1951), p. 354; Wiltse, John C. Calhoun:Nationalist, pp. 208–209.

18 Peterson, pp. 87–88.19 Barsness, pp. 43–53; Ammon, p. 470.20 Ammon, pp. 470–72; Peterson, pp. 88–89, 93; Niven, pp.

78–79. See also Chapter 9 of this volume, ‘‘Richard MentorJohnson,’’ pp. 123–24.

21 Barsness, pp. 43–53; Niven, pp. 86–93.22 Peterson, pp. 116–31; Hopkins, pp. 349–81; Niven, pp.

93–109.23 Peterson, p. 130.24 John C. Calhoun to J.G. Swift, in Calhoun Papers, 10:9–

10.25 Niven, p. 116; for Calhoun’s caveat that he was ‘‘with-

out experience, which only can give the requisite skill inpresiding,’’ see his March 4, 1825, inaugural address, U.S.,Congress, Senate, Journal, 18th Cong., special sess. of March4, 1825, pp. 272–73.

26 Peterson, p. 136.27 For a list of committee chairmen during the 18th Con-

gress, see U.S., Congress, Senate, Annals of Congress, 18thCong., 1st sess., p. 27; a comprehensive list of committeechairs from 1789 through 1992 appears in Byrd, The Senate,1789–1989, vol. 4, Historical Statistics, 1789–1992 (Washing-ton, 1993), pp. 522–81.

28 Peterson, p. 136; Niven, p. 114. Macon had served asa member of the Foreign Relations Committee in the 18thCongress; Virginia Senator James Barbour, a Crawford Re-publican who served as the committee’s chairman duringthat Congress, had resigned in March 1825, to accept an ap-pointment as secretary of war. Annals of Congress, 18thCong., 1st sess., p. 27; U.S., Congress, Senate, BiographicalDirectory of the United States Congress, 1771–1989, S. Doc.100–34, 100th Cong., 2d sess., 1989, pp. 574–75.

29 Peterson, p. 136.30 Niven, pp. 113–15; Peterson, pp. 136–40; Robert V.

Remini, Martin Van Buren and the Making of the DemocraticParty (New York, 1959), pp. 105–13.

31 Thomas Hart Benton, Thirty Years View; or, A Historyof the Working of the American Government for Thirty Years,from 1820 to 1850 (New York, 1871; reprint of 1854 edition),vol. 1, pp. 65–69; Remini, Martin Van Buren and the Makingof the Democratic Party, pp. 105–13. The Senate confirmedthe appointments of John Sergeant and Richard ClarkAdams as delegates to the Panama Congress by a vote of24 to 20.

32 U.S., Congress, Register of Debates in Congress, 19thCong., 1st sess., pp. 384–406; Benton, 1:78; John C. Calhounto Micah Sterling, February 4, 1826, in Calhoun Papers, 10:72–73.

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33 Robert V. Remini, Henry Clay: Statesman for the Union(New York, 1991), pp. 292–93; Niven, pp. 114–16; Peterson,pp. 140–41; Register of Debates in Congress, 19th Cong., 1stsess., pp. 384–406.

34 Register of Debates in Congress, 19th Cong., 1st sess., pp.384–407. The amendment was sent to the House of Rep-resentatives, where it died in committee.

35 Remini, Henry Clay, pp. 293–95; Peterson, pp. 140–42.36 Annals of Congress, 18th Cong., 1st sess., pp. 114–17;

U.S., Congress, Senate, Journal, 18th Cong., 1st sess., pp. 106,114, 125.

37 Register of Debates in Congress, 19th Cong., 1st sess., pp.525–26, 571–73.

38 Senator John Holmes of Maine noted, in his April 15,1826 remarks, that proposed rules changes ‘‘had proceededfrom an intimate personal friend of the Vice President,which will itself contradict the presumption that any con-duct’’ of Calhoun’s ‘‘had induced the proposition.’’ His re-marks brought an immediate disclaimer from the ever-er-ratic Randolph that he had ‘‘offered the resolution in nosuch character . . . of the personal friend or enemy of anygentleman on this floor with one exception.’’ Register of De-bates in Congress, 19th Cong., 1st sess., pp. 571–74.

39 Register of Debates in Congress, pp. 754–59.40 Editorial note and summary, Calhoun Papers, 10:91.41 The essays of ‘‘Patrick Henry’’ appear in Calhoun Pa-

pers, 10:91–96; 113–27; 165–75; 175–87; 188–97; for the‘‘Onslow’’ essays, see pp. 99–104; 135–47; 147–155; 208–215;215–21; 223–33. See also the editors’ introduction, xix-xxx.

42 Calhoun Papers, 10:xxi.43 Register of Debates in Congress, 20th Cong., 1st sess., pp.

278–341 (‘‘Powers of the Vice President’’).44 John C. Calhoun to Andrew Jackson, June 4, 1826, Cal-

houn Papers, 10:110–11; Peterson, pp. 151–52; Niven, pp. 68–71, 119–21.

45 Harry L. Watson, Liberty and Power: The Politics of Jack-sonian America (New York, 1990), pp. 73–74.

46 John C. Calhoun to Lt. James Edward Colhoun, Decem-ber 24, 1826, Calhoun Papers, 10:238–40.

47 Alexandria Phoenix Gazette, December 28, 1826, CalhounPapers, 10:241–42.

48 John C. Calhoun to the secretary of the Senate, Decem-ber 29, 1826, Calhoun Papers, 10:243.

49 Niven, pp. 124–26; editorial note, Calhoun Papers,10:246.

50 John C. Calhoun to the Rev. Moses Waddel, February24, 1827, Calhoun Papers, 10: 266–67; Niven, pp. 125–26.

51 Niven, pp. 131–37; Peterson, pp. 159–61.

52 John C. Calhoun to Andrew Jackson, July 10, 1828, Cal-houn Papers, 10:395–97.

53 Robert V. Remini, ‘‘Election of 1828,’’ in Schlesingerand Israel, eds., pp. 413–33.

54 Niven, pp. 154–78; Peterson, pp. 169–70.55 Niven, pp. 165–69.56 Peterson, p. 170.57 Byrd, The Senate, 1789–1989, vol. 3, Classic Speeches,

1830–1993 (Washington, 1994), pp. 1–77; Robert V. Remini,Andrew Jackson and the Course of American Freedom, 1822–1832 (New York, 1981), pp. 232–33; Peterson, pp. 170–83;Niven, pp. 169–72.

58 Remini, Jackson and the Course of American Freedom, p.233.

59 Ibid., pp. 185–86; Peterson, pp. 233–37.60 Remini, Jackson and the Course of American Freedom, pp.

240–47; Peterson, pp. 187–89; Niven, pp. 174–75. For the Cal-houn-Jackson correspondence regarding the Seminole Warinvestigation, and an account of Calhoun’s subsequent pub-lication of the exchange, see Clyde N. Wilson, ed., The Papersof John C. Calhoun, vol. 11 (Columbia, SC, 1978), pp. 94–96,159–225, 285, 334–38.

61 Remini, Jackson and the Course of American Freedom, pp.161–63, 320–21; Peterson, pp. 183–85; Niven, pp. 167–69,174. For further discussion of this incident, see Chapter 8of this volume, ‘‘Martin Van Buren,’’ p. 108.

62 Niven, pp. 180–84; Charles M. Wiltse, John C. Calhoun,vol. 2, Nullifier, 1829–1839 (New York, 1968; reprint of 1949ed.), pp. 110–20; John C. Calhoun to Samuel D. Ingham, July31, 1831, Calhoun Papers, 11:441–45.

63 Remini, Jackson and the Course of American Democracy,p. 347.

64 Ibid., pp. 347–49; Niven, pp. 185–87; Peterson, p. 203;Register of Debates in Congress, 20th Cong., 1st sess., pp. 278–341.

65 Peterson, pp. 203–9.66 John C. Calhoun to Francis W. Pickens, March 2, 1832,

Calhoun Papers, 11:558–59.67 John C. Calhoun to Samuel D. Ingham, July 8, 1832, Cal-

houn Papers, 11:602–3.68 Niven, pp. 189–99; Richard E. Ellis, The Union at Risk:

Jacksonian Democracy, States’ Rights, and the Nullification Cri-sis (New York, 1987), pp. 74–91, and passim.

69 Niven, pp. 200–58.70 Ibid., pp. 259–82.71 Ibid., pp. 295–313.72 Ibid., pp. 339–45; Peterson, pp. 449–66.73 Peterson, pp. 467–68; Niven, pp. 343–45.

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Chapter 8

MARTIN VAN BUREN1833–1837

MARTIN VAN BUREN

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Chapter 8

MARTIN VAN BUREN8th Vice President: 1833–1837

a true man with no guile—ANDREW JACKSON ON MARTIN VAN BUREN 1

you were a great intriguer—the author of sundry plots—WILLIAM L. MARCY TO MARTIN VAN BUREN 2

Few people ever really knew Martin VanBuren. The impeccable attire, ready wit, and un-failing tact that set him apart from his contem-poraries masked a nagging sense of insecuritythat dogged him throughout his political career.His father, a tavern keeper of modest means, hadbeen able to provide him with only a rudi-mentary education. One of Van Buren’s better-educated associates observed that his ‘‘knowl-edge of books outside of his profession was morelimited than that of any other public man’’ hehad ever known and that Van Buren never pre-pared a state paper without asking a friend to‘‘revise and correct that document.’’

Van Buren received his real education in theturbulent and factious world of New York poli-tics, and he was an apt pupil. He learned to holdhis counsel as others debated the hotly contestedissues of the day, carefully observing the courseof a debate and weighing all of the issues beforestaking out a position of his own. ‘‘Even after de-ciding on a course of action,’’ one scholar has ob-served, ‘‘Van Buren might move with an air ofevasiveness.’’ Circumspect to a fault, he ‘‘en-joyed a name for noncommittalism that survivedwhen most other things about him wereforgotten.’’ 3

Reviled as a ‘‘schemer’’ and a master ‘‘manipu-lator’’ by contemporaries who lacked (and prob-

ably envied) his uncanny political acumen, hewas known throughout his career by an unparal-leled assortment of nicknames, none of them en-tirely favorable. But ‘‘the Little Magician’’ (alsoknown as ‘‘the American Talleyrand,’’ ‘‘the RedFox of Kinderhook,’’ the ‘‘Mistletoe Politician,’’and by a variety of other sobriquets) 4 left a solidrecord of accomplishment that few of his better-known fellows could rival. More than any otherindividual of his time, Van Buren realized theimportance of party organization, discipline, andpolitical patronage. He engineered Andrew Jack-son’s victory in the 1828 presidential election andlater became a trusted confidant and adviser to‘‘Old Hickory,’’ a relationship that continuedafter Van Buren became vice president in 1833.No previous vice president enjoyed a greatermeasure of influence than Van Buren, and novice president, in over three decades, had as-sumed that office as the ‘‘heir apparent.’’

Van Buren’s Early Years

Martin Van Buren was born on December 5,1782, in the predominantly Dutch community ofKinderhook, New York. His father, Abraham,was a tavern keeper and farmer of modestmeans; his mother, Maria Goes 5 Van Alen, wasa widow with two sons from her first marriage.Both were of undiluted Dutch ancestry, a factthat Van Buren took care to note in his Autobiog-

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raphy. One of the six children born to Abrahamand Maria, Martin grew up in a crowded house-hold, lodged above his father’s tavern. From hisfather, a resolute opponent of Federalism, he in-herited his genial manners and political creedbut very little else. Dilatory about collecting hisdebts and generous beyond his means, Abrahambarely supported his large family. Young Martininherited his ambition from his mother, who in-sisted that her sons receive the best educationpossible, given their limited resources. He at-tended a local school until the age of fifteen, thenserved as an apprentice to Francis Sylvester, alocal lawyer. During his apprenticeship, VanBuren became involved in local politics, attend-ing his district’s 1800 Republican convention andhelping to elect John Peter Van Ness to the Unit-ed States House of Representatives in 1801.These activities strained his relationship withSylvester, a prominent Federalist, and Van Burenterminated their arrangement after the election.Van Ness, grateful for Van Buren’s efforts on hisbehalf, paid his young supporter’s travel and ex-penses while he finished his legal studies in NewYork City, clerking for the congressman’s broth-er, William.

New York City politics fascinated Van Buren,but he returned to Kinderhook shortly after hisadmission to the bar in 1803 to establish a legalpractice with his half brother, James Van Alen.In leaving the city he also sought to distance him-self from the intraparty warfare that infected theNew York Republican coalition after the 1800presidential election. In Kinderhook, much ofVan Buren’s time was spent defending tenantsand small landholders in suits against the power-ful Livingston clan. The Livingstons, landed gen-try whose control of the New York legislaturehad helped them expand their extensive hold-ings by questionable means, had retained thebest legal minds in the state. Rigorous and care-ful preparation on Van Buren’s part helped himprevail against these notable attorneys and wonhim the respect of De Witt Clinton, GovernorGeorge Clinton’s nephew and political heir. VanBuren backed Clinton’s candidate, future VicePresident Daniel D. Tompkins, in the 1807 guber-natorial race and received for his efforts an ap-

pointment as Columbia County surrogate onMarch 20, 1808.6

In 1808, Van Buren married Hannah Hoes, adistant relative, and settled in Hudson, the Co-lumbia County seat. The marriage was a happyone, notwithstanding the frequent absences im-posed by the demands of Martin’s career, but bythe time their fifth son was born in 1817, Hannahhad contracted a fatal case of tuberculosis. VanBuren was profoundly affected by her death in1819; although much in demand as an escort anddinner companion, particularly during the yearsthat he lived in Washington, he neverremarried.7

Van Buren served as Columbia County surro-gate from 1808 until 1812, when he was electedto the New York senate. During the War of 1812,he was an avid supporter of the administration’swar effort, offering legislation to facilitate mobi-lization of the state’s defenses. He opposed theFederalists’ antiwar stance and broke with hismentor, De Witt Clinton, after learning that Clin-ton had solicited Federalist support for his 1812presidential bid. In 1815, Van Buren became stateattorney general and moved his family to Al-bany. He held that office until 1819 and contin-ued to serve in the state senate until 1820, dele-gating his growing legal practice to his juniorpartner, Benjamin F. Butler.8

Van Buren soon emerged as the guiding forceof the ‘‘Bucktail’’ faction, one of several groupsjockeying for control of the New York Repub-lican party. The Bucktails, opponents of De WittClinton who took their name from the distinctiveplumes they affixed to their hats, rapidly gainedin influence under Van Buren’s tutelage. ABucktail-controlled convention made major revi-sions in New York’s constitution in 1821–1822,expanding the suffrage and curbing aristocraticinfluence, reforms that helped break De WittClinton’s hold on the state Republican party. In1821, Van Buren won election to the UnitedStates Senate, leaving behind a formidable politi-cal organization, popularly known as the ‘‘Al-bany Regency,’’ that would manage the NewYork Republican party—and through it, thestate—while he was away. The Regency main-tained rigid discipline, rewarding loyalty withpatronage appointments and disciplining errant

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members. Although centered in Albany, the or-ganization’s control also extended to local politi-cal organizations and clubs. Powerful as VanBuren’s apparatus became, ‘‘It was not,’’ onescholar of the period emphasizes, ‘‘so much therewarding of partisans and the mass lopping offof rebellious heads that explained the Regencysuccess as it was the skilful, highly judiciousmanner in which the power was exercised.’’ Re-gency leaders took ‘‘the prejudices and feelingsof local communities’’ into account in makingtheir appointments and exercised equal care inmaking removals.9

Senator Van Buren: The ‘‘Little Magician’’

Once in Washington, Van Buren set about or-ganizing the New York congressional delegation,a difficult undertaking in light of the fact thatJohn Taylor, the unofficial dean of the delegationand Speaker of the House of Representatives,was firmly in the Clinton camp. In an effort tocurb Taylor’s influence, Van Buren helped or-chestrate the election of Virginia RepresentativePhilip Barbour as House Speaker during the Sev-enteenth Congress, a narrow victory that in-creased his own influence while cementing histies to Virginia Republicans. He tried but failedto block the appointment of a Federalist as post-master of Albany, but his effort to derail thenomination, chronicled at length by the press,enhanced his reputation.10

In the 1824 presidential election, Van Burenbacked the Republican caucus nominee, Treas-ury Secretary William H. Crawford. The two hada great deal in common: Crawford was a states’rights advocate, a strict constructionist, and—aconsideration of overriding importance to VanBuren—a dedicated party man. But the Repub-lican coalition was rapidly splintering, and manyRepublicans, calling for reform of the nominat-ing process, refused to heed the will of the cau-cus. Four other candidates ultimately entered therace, all claiming membership in the party of Jef-ferson: Secretary of State John Quincy Adams,Secretary of War John C. Calhoun, Henry Clay,and Tennessee Senator Andrew Jackson.Consumed by his single-minded effort to secureCrawford’s election, even after his candidate be-came so seriously ill that he could neither see,

hear, nor walk, Van Buren was bitterly dis-appointed when the House of Representativeselected Adams president.11

After the election, Van Buren, as the new ac-knowledged leader of the ‘‘Crawford’’ Repub-licans, also known as ‘‘Radicals,’’ kept his peacewhile others denounced the ‘‘corrupt bargain’’with Henry Clay that many suspected had ele-vated Adams to the White House. He voted toconfirm Clay as secretary of state, but he brokehis silence after Adams outlined an ambitiousdomestic and foreign policy agenda in his firstannual address. Van Buren particularly objectedto the president’s plan to send representatives toa conference of South and Central American del-egates in Panama and enlisted the aid of VicePresident John C. Calhoun and his allies in aneffort to prevent the confirmation of delegates tothe conference. The Senate ultimately confirmedthe nominees, but the debate over the Panamamission had helped forge a tentative coalition of‘‘Radicals’’ and Calhoun supporters under VanBuren’s leadership.12

In December 1826, the Little Magician formal-ized his alliance with Calhoun, who had alreadypledged his support for Andrew Jackson in theforthcoming presidential race. Each man had hisown agenda: Calhoun intended to succeed Jack-son, after serving a second term as vice presi-dent; Van Buren, alarmed by Adams’ grandioseagenda and convinced that Republicans hadstrayed from the Jeffersonian creed, intended torestore the party to its ‘‘first principles.’’ Jackson,he was convinced, should carry the reinvigo-rated party’s standard in 1828. ‘‘If Gen Jackson. . . will put his election on old party grounds,preserve the old systems, avoid if not condemnthe practices of the last campaign,’’ he predicted,‘‘we can by adding his personal popularity to theyet remaining force of old party feeling, not onlysucceed in electing him but our success whenachieved will be worth something.’’ 13

By December 1827, Van Buren had assumedcontrol of the Jackson campaign. The candidateremained in the background while the Little Ma-gician orchestrated a battle plan of unprece-dented energy and vigor. His campaigning was,in the words of one scholar, ‘‘little short of bril-liant.’’ Van Buren plunged wholeheartedly into

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the contest, serving as fund raiser, strategist,publicist, and counselor. Several states had, priorto the election, revised their election laws to ex-pand the franchise. With parades, rallies, speech-es, and calls for ‘‘reform,’’ Van Buren and hislieutenants mesmerized these first-time voters,as well as others who had become disenchantedwith the administration. ‘‘[T]he American peo-ple,’’ a Jackson scholar concluded, ‘‘loved theperformance put on for them.’’ 14

Keeping his fragile coalition together rep-resented Van Buren’s most difficult challenge,apart from persuading the candidate to suffer indignified silence as the Adams camp levelled in-creasingly virulent attacks on his character. Thegrowing protectionist sentiment in the West andin the Northeast posed particular problems forVan Buren, who could not afford to alienatesouthern free-trade advocates. Courting bothcamps, he studiously avoided making a defini-tive pronouncement on the tariff, even as he deft-ly guided a protectionist bill through the Senate.The 1828 tariff, known in the South as the ‘‘Tariffof Abominations,’’ reassured westerners, whomight otherwise have remained in the ‘‘Adams-Clay’’ fold, that a Jackson administration wouldtake their interests into account. Van Buren real-ized that protectionism was anathema to south-ern agriculturalists, but he also realized thatmost southerners regarded Jackson as the lesserof two evils. As one scholar has conceded, duringthe tariff debate Van Buren ‘‘said some veryequivocal things to Southerners,’’ helping themconvince themselves that, once elected, OldHickory would support tariff reform.15

Secretary of State Van Buren

Jackson won an impressive victory in 1828,widely heralded as a triumph of the ‘‘commonman.’’ Writing his Autobiography many yearsafter the fact, Van Buren attributed the outcomeof this historic election to the ‘‘zealous union be-tween that portion of the republican party who. . . had shown themselves willing to sacrificepersonal preferences to its harmony, the numer-ous supporters of Gen. Jackson . . . and thefriends of Mr. Calhoun . . . strengthened by themismanagement of the administration.’’ VanBuren achieved a personal victory as well, win-

ning election as governor of New York. But heserved less than two months in this position, re-signing to accept an appointment as secretary ofstate in the new administration.16

Van Buren was easily the most capable indi-vidual in Jackson’s cabinet, an assortment of sec-ond-rank appointees chosen to achieve sectionaland ideological balance.17 During his two yearsas secretary of state from 1829 to 1831, he becameone of the president’s most trusted advisers. Hearrived in the capital shortly after Jackson’s inau-guration to find the cabinet—and Washingtonsociety—at odds over Mrs. John C. Calhoun’s ad-amant refusal to socialize with the wife of Sec-retary of War John Eaton, a woman with a spir-ited disposition and a notorious reputation. Sev-eral cabinet wives had followed suit, avoidingofficial functions for fear of encountering thetainted couple. The ‘‘Petticoat War’’ was, as VanBuren realized, much more than a dispute overprotocol or public morals; it was a symptom ofthe deep divisions in an administration that in-cluded both free-trade advocates and protection-ists. The tension became even more pronouncedafter Jackson delivered his first annual message.His speech, prepared with Van Buren’s assist-ance, convinced Vice President Calhoun and hisallies that they would obtain no relief from theTariff of Abominations. As for Van Buren, hesuspected—correctly, as it turned out—that Cal-houn was somehow behind the talk of ‘‘nullifica-tion’’ emanating from South Carolina.

Van Buren at first tried to cure what he called‘‘the Eaton malaria,’’ the malaise that threatenedto paralyze the administration, by entertainingthe Eatons. As a widower with no wife to objectif he showed courtesy to a woman of question-able repute, he had nothing to lose by entertain-ing Mrs. Eaton and everything to gain, given thehigh regard that Jackson felt for Peggy and herhusband. He was no match for the formidableFloride Calhoun, however, and he soon becamepersona non grata among the Calhoun set, but hisgallantry endeared him to the president.18 Ac-companying Jackson on horseback for their cus-tomary rides throughout the countryside sur-rounding Washington, Van Buren became thepresident’s sounding board and friend, offeringwell-timed and perceptive counsel to the care-

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burdened and lonely old hero. He helped craftthe president’s memorable toast: ‘‘The Union: Itmust be preserved’’ that electrified the April 13,1830, banquet commemorating Jefferson’s birth-day, and he helped persuade Jackson to run fora second term.

Calhoun simmered with resentment as theman he considered a ‘‘weasel’’ gained the upperhand in a rivalry that was becoming increasinglybitter. Van Buren, although every bit as ambi-tious as Calhoun, became increasinglydiscomfited at the widespread speculation thathe, and not Calhoun, would succeed Jackson aspresident. Recoiling at the thought that his oppo-nents might interpret his labors on Jackson’s be-half as a crude form of electioneering, he in-formed the president in late March of 1831 that‘‘there is but one thing’’ that would bring peaceto Jackson’s troubled administration: ‘‘my res-ignation.’’ Old Hickory was at first reluctant toaccept Van Buren’s resignation, but eventuallyrealized that the gesture offered him the oppor-tunity to purge his cabinet of Calhoun partisans.Van Buren’s departure precipitated the mass res-ignation of the entire cabinet, except for Post-master General William Barry. The new cabinetwas distinctly more sympathetic to Jackson—and to Van Buren. As a reward for his ‘‘highlypatriotic’’ sacrifice, the Little Magician receivedan appointment as minister to England.19

Van Buren sailed for England before the Senateconfirmed his nomination. His easy, elegantmanners made him an instant hit in London. Al-most immediately, he received the British foreignminister’s pledge to respect the rulings of thepanel arbitrating the longstanding boundary dis-pute between Maine and New Brunswick. Jack-son had predicted that Van Buren’s enemieswould not dare oppose this appointment, for fearthat ‘‘the people in mass would take you up andelect you vice Pres.,’’ but, in late February 1832,Van Buren learned that the Senate had in fact re-jected his nomination, with Vice President Cal-houn casting the deciding vote. Jackson was furi-ous when he heard the news but, after sober re-flection, realized that he now had ample justifica-tion for removing Calhoun from the ticket in thecoming election. He had already settled on VanBuren as his next vice president, but Calhoun’s

effrontery strengthened his resolve. ‘‘The peoplewill properly resent the insult offered to the Ex-ecutive, and the injury intended to our foreignrelations, in your rejection,’’ he consoled VanBuren in mid-February, ‘‘by placing you in thechair of the very man whose casting vote rejectedyou.’’ 20 Calhoun, his presidential prospects rap-idly dimming as a consequence of his role in thenullification controversy, resigned before the endof his term—the first vice president to do so—to take a seat in the Senate. Once Van Buren’smost formidable rival for the soul of the organi-zation soon to be known as the Democratic party,he had become a sectional leader and would re-main a sectional leader for the rest of his life.

The Election of 1832

Van Buren found every reason imaginable toremain abroad after learning of his rejection bythe Senate. He could not break his lease orabruptly discharge his servants, he protested,nor could he pack up his household on suchshort notice. But his biographer suggests that hedelayed his departure because he believed thatthe ‘‘opposition would splinter . . . if left alone;it stood a good chance of coalescing if he re-turned with undue haste for vindication.’’ 21

Touring the Continent with his son John, VanBuren was still abroad when Democratic dele-gates assembled at Baltimore on May 21, 1832,to choose a vice-presidential candidate. Al-though antitariff southern Democrats had seri-ous reservations about Van Buren, Jackson’s sen-timents prevailed. By an overwhelming margin,the convention chose Van Buren on the firstballot.22

Finally returning home in July 1832, the LittleMagician was immediately summoned to Wash-ington. Jackson needed his help in drafting amessage to Congress explaining his impendingveto of a bill to recharter the Second Bank of theUnited States. Van Buren approved of the vetomessage, a ringing denunciation of the bank asan instrument of privilege. At Jackson’s request,he attended the Senate and the House of Rep-resentatives on July 10, in order to lobby againstthe inevitable attempt to override the veto. Alsoat Jackson’s request, he lobbied for a compromisetariff designed to keep would-be nullifiers in the

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Jacksonian camp. Successful in both efforts, hedeparted for New York after Congress ad-journed. He remained in New York until shortlybefore the inauguration, attempting to reconciledie-hard New York protectionists to the com-promise tariff.23

The 1832 election was, as one scholar of the pe-riod has observed, a referendum on the SecondBank of the United States, the first presidentialelection in which the candidates submitted a sin-gle, specific question to the electorate. Jacksonwas a ‘‘hard-money’’ man, deeply suspicious ofbanks, credit, and paper money after sufferingnear ruin in an early land speculation venture.Regarding the Second Bank of the United States,a government-chartered but privately owned in-stitution, as an instrument of aristocratic, moniedinterests, he would have announced his intentionto destroy the bank in his first annual messagehad his advisers not counseled restraint. Fullyconfident that the voters would signal their as-sent by electing him to a second term, Jacksonhad vetoed the bank recharter bill before theelection. National Republican candidate HenryClay, who considered the bank essential to thenation’s fiscal stability, was quick to make anissue of the veto. Clay’s partisans took aim at theLittle Magician, as well, charging that his featsof legerdemain had secured the throne for apresident who had abused his office. Politicalcartoons showed Jackson, Van Buren, and theircronies assaulting the bank with a battering ram,Van Buren crowning Jackson, and ‘‘King An-drew the First’’ brandishing the ‘‘veto.’’ Theseand similar images helped make the contest oneof the liveliest, if not the best illustrated, in thenation’s history.

But the National Republicans were no matchfor the well-organized party that Van Buren hadhelped create. One scholar has suggested that themajority of American voters still regarded Jack-son as their champion, even though they maywell have approved of the bank, which providedthe nation with the stable currency so essentialto its prosperity. The Democrats, now a full-fledged political party, won a solid victory, al-though by a somewhat smaller margin than in1828. Jackson was easily reelected, and Van

Buren won a substantial victory over Clay’s run-ning mate, John Sergeant.24

Vice President Van Buren

Jackson had every reason to rejoice at the out-come of the election. The voters had, he believed,given him a mandate to destroy the bank, andhe was rid of Calhoun. In Van Buren, Jacksonhad a vice president more to his liking. Old Hick-ory respected his second vice president andseems to have felt sincere affection for him, aswell. Some longtime Jackson cronies were deeplyjealous of the New Yorker, who, as one critic putit, stuck ‘‘close to the President as a blisteringplaster.’’ 25 But Van Buren was not, as critics ofboth men so frequently alleged, the ‘‘power-behind-the-throne.’’ Jackson was a formidabletactician in his own right and a man of resoluteconvictions, fully capable of determining hisown course of action. Van Buren was not his onlyconfidant; throughout his two terms as presi-dent, Jackson also relied on his ‘‘Kitchen Cabi-net,’’ an informal group of trusted friends, sup-porters, kinsmen, and hangers-on, for advice andmoral support.

In orchestrating the transfer of government de-posits from the Bank of the United States to statedepositories, for example, Jackson rejected thecautious course that Van Buren proposed infavor of the more precipitate approach advo-cated by Amos Kendall, the fourth auditor of thetreasury. After Jackson informed his advisersearly in his first term that he intended to removethe deposits, Kendall urged immediate action.Van Buren, sensitive to the political and financialrepercussions of a hasty withdrawal but reluc-tant to challenge the president, advised Jacksonto wait at least until the Twenty-third Congressconvened in December 1833. Apprehensive—with good reason, as it turned out—that hewould be regarded both as the author of this con-troversial move and as the pawn of Wall Streetbankers who expected to benefit from the Phila-delphia-based bank’s demise, Van Buren wasconspicuously absent from Washington that fall.The opposition would inevitably ‘‘relieve thequestion . . . from the influence of your well de-served popularity with the people,’’ he wroteJackson from New York in September, ‘‘by attrib-

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uting the removal of the deposits to thesolicitat[i]ons of myself and the monied junto inN. York, and as it is not your habit to play intothe enemies hands you will not I know requestme to come down unless there is some adequateinducement for my so doing.’’ 26

Van Buren did, however, enjoy a greater meas-ure of influence in the administration than anyprevious vice president. He helped Treasury Sec-retary Roger B. Taney coax the president into aless belligerent posture when Jackson, outragedat France’s failure to comply with the 1832 treatyfor the payment of U.S. claims against France,threatened to seek congressional authorization toissue letters of marque, a move that Taney fearedmight lead to war. Upset that Jackson failed tofollow his advice about France, Secretary of StateLouis McLane resigned in protest. Van Burenthen helped Jackson draft a reply to McLane’sletter of resignation and suggested his longtimeally Senator John Forsyth of Georgia to fill theposition. Van Buren shouldered a workload that,in the words of a biographer, ‘‘would havecrushed lesser men.’’ In addition to his labors inthe Senate, he spent a considerable amount oftime ‘‘advising members of the cabinet, ghostingsignificant parts of Jackson’s messages, acting asthe president’s chief advisor on patronage andforeign affairs, feeling his way around the Kitch-en Cabinet, while always keeping his eye onNew York.’’ 27

Senate Committee Elections

Presiding over the Senate was easily VanBuren’s most challenging and frustrating task,one that demanded all of his legendary tact andgood humor. Jackson faced sustained oppositionduring his second term from an opposition coali-tion of National Republicans, nullifiers, states’rights advocates, and eventually from dis-affected Democrats who came to regard him asan overreaching despot. By 1834, these disparateelements would unite to form a new party, call-ing themselves ‘‘Whigs’’ to signal their opposi-tion to a chief executive they called King An-drew. The rhetoric was particularly heated in theSenate, where the opposition commanded a slimmajority after the 1832 election. The coalition’sranks included such luminaries as Henry Clay,

the bank’s most avid defender; MassachusettsSenator Daniel Webster, like Jackson a staunchunionist but also a defender of the bank; and Cal-houn, the author of nullification.28

Van Buren began his duties in the Senate onDecember 16, 1833, two weeks after the Twenty-third Congress convened. Having served therefrom 1821 to 1828, he was familiar with thebody’s customs and procedures. He knew thatthe vice president was not expected to attend theSenate for several days at the beginning of eachCongress, a practice that allowed the Senate toattend to organizational matters and appointcommittees without interference from the execu-tive branch. But in 1833 a unique combination ofevents prevented the Senate from attending tothis important task before Van Buren arrived.

Under normal circumstances, President protempore Hugh Lawson White would have ap-pointed the committee members and chairmen atthe start of the Twenty-third Congress. The ruleadopted in December 1828 governing the ap-pointment of committees directed that ‘‘[t]hePresident pro tempore . . . shall appoint the com-mittees of the Senate; but if there be no Presidentpro tempore, the Senate . . . will proceed, by bal-lot,’’ with a majority required to elect a commit-tee chairman and a plurality required to elect theremaining members.29 But White found himselfin a ‘‘delicate’’ position. Although he was a long-standing friend and supporter of the president,he was becoming disillusioned with the adminis-tration, and he particularly resented Jackson’sdesignation of Van Buren as his political heir. Afirm defender of the Senate’s prerogatives, hehad refused to let Jackson dictate the composi-tion of a select committee appointed to considerClay’s compromise tariff during the previousCongress, a stand that had deeply offended thepresident. White would eventually become aWhig, but at the start of the Twenty-third Con-gress, Clay and the rest of the opposition still re-garded him as a Jackson man.30

On December 9, White stated that ‘‘he shouldhave announced the standing committees thismorning . . . had it not been that a resolution wasoffered by a Senator [Peleg Sprague] from Maine. . . which proposed to take away from the pre-siding officer the power of appointing any com-

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mittees whatsoever.’’ The Senate adopted theresolution the following day, returning to its ear-lier practice of choosing committees by ballot,with nearly all of the Jacksonians opposing thechange.31

Van Buren finally arrived in Washington onthe evening of December 14 and met with thepresident and Tennessee Senator Felix Grundythe following morning. He learned that Grundy,painfully aware that his party could no longercount on a majority in the Senate and reluctantto proceed with the selection of committees untilVan Buren could provide advice, had offered amotion to postpone the elections until December16. Webster had voted in favor of that motion,along with five other New England senators—a gesture that Grundy, rightly or wrongly, inter-preted as an overture toward the administration.Webster’s biographer discounts this possibilitybut admits that the Massachusetts senator’s sup-port for the administration during the nullifica-tion battle, and his differences with Clay over thetariff issue, had led to widespread speculationthat he intended to form an alliance with theJacksonians.

During his December 15 meeting with VanBuren, therefore, Grundy raised the possibility ofan alliance with Webster, at least for the pur-poses of electing the Senate’s committees. Thevice president, however, refused to consider col-laboration with Webster, the one individual hegenuinely disliked and took pains to avoid. Suchan arrangement would blur the very real dif-ferences between the administration and theNew England opposition, he lectured, andwould leave Jackson open to charges that he hadplaced politics above principle. Persuaded by theforce of Van Buren’s argument, Grundy deferredto the vice president. The Senate began the bal-loting to elect chairmen and members of itsstanding committees on December 16, VanBuren’s first day in the chair. With only a slightmajority, the Anti-Jackson forces did not wincomplete control of the committees. Jackson’sally, Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri, was re-elected chairman of the Military Affairs Commit-tee, and William Wilkins of Pennsylvania waselected chairman of the Foreign Relations Com-mittee. But other coveted chairmanships went to

opposition senators: the Finance Committee toWebster, the Judiciary Committee to John Clay-ton of Delaware, and the Committee on PublicLands to one of Jackson’s most outspoken critics,George Poindexter of Mississippi.32

The Senate Censures Jackson: Van Buren VersusClay

During the four years that Van Buren servedas vice president, the president’s war on theBank of the United States was one of the mostimportant and controversial subjects on the Sen-ate’s agenda. Anticipating Jackson’s order towithdraw the government deposits, bank presi-dent Nicholas Biddle had persuaded the bank’sdirectors to order sharp reductions in credit. Thedirectors subsequently decreed that the bankwould accept only hard currency from statebanks with loans outstanding, a move thatforced state banks to adopt similar measures andwreaked havoc in the credit-dependent West andin the nation’s financial markets.33

When Van Buren assumed the chair on Decem-ber 16, 1833, he found the Senate in a state ofturmoil. The Senate’s December 11 request thatJackson provide a copy of his withdrawal direc-tive had been met with a curt response that infu-riated opposition senators. ‘‘I have yet to learn,’’Jackson had notified the Senate on December 12,‘‘under what constitutional authority that branchof the Legislature has a right to require of mean account of any communication.’’ On Decem-ber 27, Clay retaliated with two resolutions tocensure Jackson, which the Senate adopted afterthree months of intense and heated debate. VanBuren’s legendary poise served him well as Clayand his lieutenants began their attack, droppingnot-so-thinly-veiled hints that the vice presidentwas also to blame for the wave of bank and busi-ness failures sweeping the nation. Smiling andgenial, he took care to maintain order in thechamber, ordering the galleries cleared whennecessary. To all outward appearances, heseemed oddly unperturbed at the opprobriumthat Clay and his allies heaped on theadministration.34

Early in the debate, however, Van Buren hadorchestrated a spirited rejoinder to Clay’s at-tacks. Unable to join in the debate himself, he

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had persuaded Silas Wright, the New York sen-ator widely regarded as his spokesman in theSenate, to deliver the administration’s response.Unmoved by Wright’s plea that ‘‘[t]he adminis-tration had several friends in the Senate morecompetent for the task than myself,’’ Van Burenoffered to ‘‘reduce all we want to have said towriting.’’ On January 30, Wright presented animpassioned defense of Jackson’s conduct and aringing condemnation of the bank. His lengthyaddress—the product of Van Buren’s pen—em-phasized that the question before the public was‘‘Bank or no Bank, . . . not the disposition of theGovernment deposits.’’ The president, he ar-gued, had been ‘‘instrumental in restoring theconstitution of the country to what it was in-tended to be by those who formed it . . . relievingthat sacred instrument from those constructiveand implied additions under which Congresshave claimed the right to place beyond the reachof the people, and without responsibility, amoneyed power.’’ Wright concluded his remarkswith an argument that Jackson partisans woulduse to good advantage in the months that fol-lowed. ‘‘The country . . . has approved the courseof the Executive, in his attempts to relieve usfrom the corrupt and corrupting power and in-fluence of a national bank,’’ the New York sen-ator stressed, ‘‘and it will sustain him in the ex-periment now making to substitute State institu-tions for such a fiscal agent.’’

Notwithstanding Wright’s disclaimer that ‘‘hehad given his opinion as an individual,’’ every-one present realized the truth of Daniel Web-ster’s observation that, knowing the senator’s‘‘political connexions, his station, and his rela-tions,’’ it was obvious that he had not ‘‘spokenone word which has not been deliberatelyweighed and considered by others.’’ Van Buren’swords, ably articulated by a senator generally re-garded as the ‘‘clearest logician’’ of his day, pro-vided a forceful rebuttal to Clay’s charges. Onesenator pronounced the speech ‘‘a hit,’’ whileWebster fretted about the ‘‘effect which the re-cent debate in the Senate . . . may produce at thenorth.’’ 35

But even this triumph of sorts could not allevi-ate Van Buren’s mounting discomfort as thelengthy debate dragged on. During one particu-

larly heated March session, Clay addressed himdirectly, pleading with him to tell Jackson ‘‘in thelanguage of truth and sincerity, the actual condi-tion of his bleeding country.’’ Van Buren listenedpolitely as Clay, obviously playing to the gal-leries, reminded him of his ‘‘well-known influ-ence’’ in the administration. At the conclusion ofClay’s remarks, Van Buren handed the gavel toHugh Lawson White and stepped down from thedais. Clay rose to his feet as the vice presidentdeliberately approached his desk, and thecrowds in the galleries fell silent. Then, with adeep bow, and a voice dripping with sarcasm,Van Buren returned fire: ‘‘Mr. Senator, allow meto be indebted to you for another pinch of youraromatic Maccoboy.’’ The galleries erupted in awave of laughter as Clay, speechless and humili-ated, gestured helplessly at the snuff on his desk.Van Buren helped himself and returned to thechair, all the while maintaining his studiedcomposure.36

When the Senate finally voted to censure thepresident on March 28, 1834, Van Buren was notunduly alarmed, convinced that the Americanpeople would not take kindly to this dramatic as-sault on their hero and champion. But he wasdeeply disturbed by the response that Jacksonsent to the Senate in mid-April. The president’scritics, and even some of his allies, were shockedto learn that Jackson, as he explained in his infa-mous ‘‘Protest,’’ considered himself the directrepresentative of the American people—respon-sible, along with his appointees, for ‘‘every spe-cies of property belonging to the United States.’’Worried about the constitutional ramifications ofthis novel interpretation of presidential powerand about the effect that the controversial pro-nouncement might have on his own prospects inthe coming election, Van Buren persuaded Jack-son to soften his rhetoric. He was greatly relievedwhen the 1834 midterm elections affirmed thatthe American people approved of the war thatJackson waged against the bank on their behalf.Jackson ultimately killed the bank, as he had pre-dicted he would, but the struggle took its toll onVan Buren, who eventually came to regard hisduties as president of the opposition-controlledSenate as ‘‘so distasteful and so wearing’’ that,

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according to a modern biographer, he suffered‘‘more than his share of colds and debilitatingupsets.’’ 37

The ‘‘Weasel’’

Other issues before the Senate were equallytroublesome for Van Buren, who was well awarethat opposition senators, as well as someJacksonians resentful of his influence, would ex-ploit any apparent failing on his part in the com-ing election. The abolition movement, which sentscores of antislavery petitions to Congress dur-ing the 1830s, posed particular difficulties for anorthern politician who had supported emanci-pation in his own state but was anxious to re-main on good terms with southern voters and re-garded slavery as a matter best left to the states.Like many northern voters at the time, VanBuren had little use for the abolitionists, dismiss-ing their 1835–1836 crusade for emancipation inthe District of Columbia as an attempt to ‘‘dis-tract Congress and the country . . . in the midstof a Presidential canvas.’’

Van Buren’s disclaimers failed to satisfy manysoutherners who considered him an abolitionistat heart, but some were heartened by his June2, 1836, tie-breaking vote to proceed to the thirdand final reading of Calhoun’s bill authorizinglocal postal officials to confiscate mailings pro-hibited by state law. The bill was similar to onethat Jackson had proposed after a mass mailingof abolitionist literature to Charleston, SouthCarolina, caused a near-riot there the previoussummer. But the administration proposal wouldhave authorized the federal government to deter-mine which materials should be embargoed,while Calhoun’s would have delegated this func-tion to the states. Calhoun engineered a tied voteon the motion to proceed to the third reading ofhis bill. If he did so to embarrass Van Buren, asone scholar of the period has suggested, he mis-calculated. ‘‘The Vice President promptly votedyea, thus preventing Southerners from blaminghim when the bill was finally defeated.’’ 38 Infact, when the measure came up for the final voteless that a week later, 39 the Senate rejected it, adevelopment that Van Buren, a shrewd judge ofmen and events, may well have anticipated. The‘‘weasel,’’ as Calhoun now disparagingly re-

ferred to Van Buren, 40 had once again out-maneuvered his rival.

A ‘‘Third-Rate Man’’

On May 20, 1835, the Democratic nominatingconvention chose Van Buren as the party’s 1836presidential candidate. The unanimous vote ofthe delegates present belied serious divisions ina party that was, in the words of a contemporaryjournalist, comprised of ‘‘the Jackson party,proper; the Jackson-Van Buren party; the Jack-son-anti-Van Buren party.’’ More than a few dis-affected Democrats, alarmed at the growth ofpresidential power during Jackson’s two termsand reluctant to countenance more of the sameunder Van Buren, had grave reservations aboutthe Little Magician. But Jackson had made hispreference known. The president was equallyadamant that Richard Mentor Johnson, a Ken-tucky Democrat and military hero who hadserved in both houses of Congress, should beVan Buren’s running mate, a legacy that cost theticket support among southern voters who re-garded Johnson as an ‘‘amalgamator’’ because ofhis relationship with his slave mistress.

Van Buren was opposed by a field of regionalopposition candidates endorsed by state andlocal Whig organizations. The Whigs, still morea coalition than a party, with no candidate capa-ble of defeating Van Buren outright, hoped thateach regional candidate would so weaken theDemocratic ticket in his own section that the elec-tion would be thrown into the House of Rep-resentatives. During the campaign, oppositionstrategists reviled Van Buren as an abolitionist,a manipulator, and a trimmer—a ‘‘third-rateman,’’ in the words of one detractor. DavidCrockett, formerly a member of the anti-Jacksoncoalition in the House and one of ‘‘AuntMatty’s’’ sharpest critics, ridiculed the vice presi-dent’s appearance as he presided over the Sen-ate, ‘‘laced up in corsets, such as women in atown wear, and, if possible, tighter than the bestof them.’’ Cartoonists portrayed Van Burenclutching the president’s coattails, or donningJackson’s too-large greatcoat. More serious de-tractors warned that Van Buren would continuethe aggrandizement of executive power thatJackson had begun. Democrats countered with

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pointed allusions to the Federalists, who hadsupported the First Bank of the United States,they reminded voters, as well as such equally re-pugnant measures as the Alien and SeditionActs. They coupled these attacks with paeans ofpraise for the president who had slain the ‘‘mon-ster bank.’’

Van Buren won the election, a triumph thatowed more to the fragmented and poorly coordi-nated campaigns mounted by the opposition andto Jackson’s continued popularity than to hisown prestige. He assumed office under a cloud,overshadowed at his presidential inaugurationby the crowds that flocked to catch a finalglimpse of Old Hickory. He would never be asbeloved or as respected as his predecessor. Rich-ard Mentor Johnson had failed to receive an elec-toral majority after Virginia’s electors withheldtheir votes in protest, forcing the vice-presi-dential election into the Senate for the first andonly time in the nation’s history. With his con-troversial personal history and complete disdainfor prevailing norms of social discourse and per-sonal hygiene, Johnson would remain a sourceof continuing embarrassment for Van Buren.41

‘‘Martin Van Ruin’’

The nation’s worsening relations with Mexicoposed a serious problem for the new president.American settlers in Texas had declared theirindependence in 1836, precipitating a war withMexico, and a request for annexation by theUnited States was pending at the time of VanBuren’s inauguration. Reluctant to involve thenation in a war that northern antislavery inter-ests would inevitably characterize as a war to ex-tend slavery, but equally reluctant to offendsouthern expansionists, he pursued a dilatoryand evasive course until Texas ultimately with-drew its petition.42

Van Buren could not, however, afford to re-main equally indecisive with respect to the eco-nomic maladies besetting the nation. On the daythat he assumed office, one of the nation’s mostprominent trading houses suspended payments,the first in a wave of brokerage house failuresthat swept the nation during the panic of 1837.Jackson’s ‘‘hard money’’ fiscal policies were onlypartly to blame for the panic. A trade imbalance

and a sharp decline in the price of American cot-ton had also contributed to the crisis, which wasinternational in scope. But Whigs were quick toblame the nation’s economic woes on Jacksonand, by extension, on Van Buren, sometimesdubbed ‘‘Martin Van Ruin’’ during this period.He had inherited a situation that one scholar hascharacterized as a ‘‘potentially devastating emer-gency, probably the worst facing any new Presi-dent on taking office until James Buchanan hadto cope with slavery and the Dred Scott decisionin 1837.’’ Van Buren’s solution was to ‘‘divorce’’the government from the banking sector by es-tablishing a treasury independent of the statebank-based system that, contrary to Jackson’s ex-pectations, had fuelled the speculative frenzy ofthe mid 1830s. Whigs succeeded in blocking thisinitiative until 1840, when Congress finallypassed an independent treasury bill. In themeantime, the panic gave way to a depressionof unprecedented severity. Up to one third of thefactory workers in some northeastern townswere thrown out of work; in the South, vast ex-panses of once productive farmland wentuntilled. Prices of food and other necessities sky-rocketed, with soup kitchens the only source ofsustenance for many destitute residents of Wash-ington, D.C., and other cities.43

Van Buren lost his 1840 bid for reelection toWilliam Henry Harrison, a military hero toutedas a ‘‘common man’’ by the Whig strategists whoran an extraordinarily effective campaign on hisbehalf. After one Democrat made the mistake ofdismissing ‘‘Old Tippecanoe’’ as a cider-swillingrustic content to live in a log cabin, Whigs appro-priated these symbols to their advantage. The logcabin and the cider barrel were powerful imagesduring the depression, images that contrastedsharply with the picture that Whigs painted ofVan Buren as a nattily attired, high-living schem-er, a ‘‘used-up man’’ hopelessly out of touchwith the American electorate. Out-maneuveredand out-campaigned, Van Buren’s party lost notonly the White House, but control of both housesof Congress, as well.44

A ‘‘Used-Up Man’’

Van Buren was staggered by his humiliatingdefeat. He had received a mere 60 electoral votes,

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a dismal showing compared with Harrison’s 234electoral votes, and a defeat made even moregalling by his failure to carry New York. He gavelittle outward sign of his disappointment and ex-tended more than the customary courtesies toHarrison when ‘‘Old Tip’’ arrived in Washingtonshortly before the inauguration. Van Buren wasanxious to return to private life, he cheerfully in-formed friends, and seemed to enjoy the rousingwelcome that awaited him in New York City.(He had, of course, conveniently informedfriends that he would arrive in the city on March23, allowing them plenty of time to prepare a‘‘surprise’’ in his honor.) But he was deeplyshaken at the outcome of the election, and wouldhave announced his retirement from politics hadSilas Wright not intervened with a timely lectureabout his responsibilities to the Democraticparty.45

Van Buren retired to Lindenwald, hisKinderhook estate, cautiously pondering hisprospects for 1844 while maintaining that ‘‘hisambition had been fully satisfied.’’ But he madean extensive tour of the southern and westernstates in the spring and summer of 1842, drawinglarge crowds wherever he went. The voters whohad turned him out of office were amazed to dis-cover that the man demonized by Whigs as aninsensitive dandy and a shrewd, cunning schem-er was merely a plain-spoken, unassuming, andquite ordinary man. ‘‘Instead of a dwarf Dutch-man, a little dandy who you might lift in a band-box,’’ Jackson observed, ‘‘the people found hima plain man of middle size, plain and affable.’’Cautiously and discreetly, Van Buren began lay-ing the groundwork for another attempt at thepresidency. The leading contender after the firstballot at the 1844 Democratic convention, he ulti-mately lost the nomination to James K. Polk, adarkhorse candidate who supported the imme-diate annexation of Texas. Resolved never again

to seek elective office, he focused his energies onsecuring New York for Polk.46

After Polk’s inauguration, Van Buren watchedwith mounting alarm as disagreement over theextension of slavery into the territory acquiredfrom Mexico began to split his increasingly frag-ile party. He was deeply troubled by southernDemocrats’ claims that Congress could not barslavery from the new territories; he had alwaysbelieved that the institution, where it already ex-isted, was a matter best left to the individualstates. But when events in Texas offered south-ern slaveholders the opportunity to extend theirreach toward the Southwest, Van Buren decidedthat he could not support the expansion of apractice that he regarded as evil. In 1848, the FreeSoil party—a coalition of antislavery Democrats,antislavery Whigs and disaffected Whigs—nom-inated Van Buren as their presidential candidate.In this last attempt at elective office, he lost toWhig candidate Zachary Taylor, having receiveda mere 10 percent of the popular vote and noelectoral votes.47

Van Buren died at Lindenwald on July 24,1862. He had lived long enough to see the south-ern states secede from the Union, a bitter dis-appointment for the man who had forged a once-formidable coalition that had transcended sec-tional lines. His last public statement, made theyear before his death, was a declaration of his‘‘earnest and vigorous support to the LincolnAdministration for . . . the maintenance of theUnion and the Constitution’’ in response toPresident Lincoln’s call for troops to suppress therebellion. Lincoln reciprocated with a stiltedposthumous tribute: ‘‘The grief of his patrioticfriends, will measurably be assuaged by the con-sciousness that while . . . seeing his end ap-proaching, his prayers were for the restorationof the authority of the government of which hehad been head, and for peace and good willamong his fellow citizens.’’ 48

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NOTES1 Donald B. Cole, Martin Van Buren and the American Politi-

cal System (Princeton, NJ, 1984), p. 188.2 John Niven, Martin Van Buren: The Romantic Age of Amer-

ican Politics (New York, 1983), p. 298.3 James A. Hamilton, Reminiscences of James A. Hamilton;

or, Men and Events, at Home and Abroad, During Three Quar-ters of a Century (New York, 1869), pp. 42, 97; Arthur M.Schlesinger, Jr., The Age of Jackson (Boston, 1945), pp. 47–50; Robert V. Remini, Martin Van Buren and the Making ofthe Democratic Party (New York, 1959; reprint of 1951 edi-tion), pp. 2–3; Niven, pp. 7–8.

4 Schlesinger, p. 49; Carl Sifakis, The Dictionary of HistoricNicknames (New York, 1984), p. 508.

5 Also spelled Hoes.6 Niven, pp. 1–22; John C. Fitzpatrick, ed., The Autobiog-

raphy of Martin Van Buren (New York, 1973; reprint of 1920edition), 1:9–10.

7 Niven, pp. 23–25, 60, 72, 162–63. Four of the five sonsborn to Martin and Hannah Van Buren survived infancy.

8 Ibid., pp. 26–52.9 Remini, Martin Van Buren, pp. 5–11; Niven, p. 88.10 Niven, pp. 102–17.11 Remini, Martin Van Buren, pp. 36–92. For more on the

1824 election, see also Chapter 7, ‘‘John C. Calhoun,’’ pp.86–87.

12 Remini, Martin Van Buren, pp. 91–113. For more aboutthe Panama mission, see Chapter 7 of this volume, ‘‘JohnC. Calhoun,’’ pp. 88–89.

13 Ibid., pp. 120–32; Robert V. Remini, Andrew Jackson andthe Course of American Freedom, 1822–1832 (New York, 1981),pp. 113–15.

14 Remini, Martin Van Buren, pp. 192–93; Remini, Jacksonand the Course of American Freedom, pp. 116–42.

15 Remini, Martin Van Buren, pp. 170–85. See also Chapter7, ‘‘John C. Calhoun,’’ p. 93.

16 Fitzpatrick, ed., 1:220–24.17 Remini, Jackson and the Course of American Freedom, pp.

159–66.18 This incident is also discussed in Chapter 7, ‘‘John C.

Calhoun,’’ p. 95.19 Niven, pp. 232–71; Remini, Jackson and the Course of

American Freedom, pp. 291–320.20 Niven, pp. 272–95; Remini, Jackson and the Course of

American Freedom, pp. 345–55.21 Niven, pp. 295–98.

22 Remini, Jackson and the Course of American Freedom, pp.355–58; Niven, pp. 298–301.

23 Niven, pp. 301–29. For a more detailed account of thenullification crisis, see Chapter 7 of this volume, ‘‘John C.Calhoun,’’ pp. 94–96.

24 Robert V. Remini, Andrew Jackson and the Course ofAmerican Democracy, 1833–1845 (New York, 1984), pp. 374–92; Robert V. Remini, Andrew Jackson and the Bank War: AStudy in the Growth of Presidential Power (New York, 1967),pp. 1–108.

25 Remini, Jackson and the Course of American Democracy,p. 46.

26 Remini, Jackson and the Bank War, passim; Niven, pp. 304,330–47.

27 Niven, pp. 368–72, 402; Remini, Jackson and the Courseof American Democracy, pp. 201–18.

28 At the beginning of the Twenty-second Congress, 20 ofthe Senate’s 48 members belonged to the Jackson coalition;of the remainder, 26 belonged to the Anti-Jackson party and2 were Nullifiers. U.S., Congress, Senate, The Senate, 1789–1989, by Robert C. Byrd, S. Doc., 100–20, 100th Cong., 1stsess., vol. 4, Historical Statistics, 1789–1992, 1993, p. 416.

29 U.S., Congress, Senate, Journal, 20th Cong., 2d sess., p.51.

30 Nancy N. Scott, ed., A Memoir of Hugh Lawson White,Judge of the Supreme Court of Tennessee, Member of the Senateof the United States . . . With Selections from His Speeches andCorrespondence (Philadelphia, 1856), pp. 265–300; Remini,Jackson and the Course of American Democracy, p. 39; Niven,p. 356.

31 U.S., Congress, Senate, Register of Debates in Congress,23d Cong., 1st sess., pp. 19–29; Senate Journal, 23d Cong.,1st sess., p. 39.

32 Niven, pp. 356–58; Remini, Jackson and the Course ofAmerican Democracy, pp. 116–18; Register of Debates in Con-gress, 23d Cong., 1st sess., pp. 39–44; Senate Journal, 23dCong., 1st sess., pp. 39–43; Maurice G. Baxter, One and In-separable: Daniel Webster and the Union (Cambridge, 1984),pp. 224–28.

33 Niven, pp. 333–54; Remini, Jackson and the Bank War, pp.109–53.

34 U.S., Congress, Senate, The Senate, 1789–1989: Addresseson the History of the United States Senate, by Robert C. Byrd,S. Doc. 100–20, 100th Cong., 1st sess., vol. 1, 1989, pp. 127–32; Niven, p. 354.

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35 John A. Garraty, Silas Wright (New York, 1970; reprintof 1949 edition), pp. 114–18; Register of Debates in Congress,23d Cong., 1st sess., pp. 397–405.

36 Robert V. Remini, Henry Clay: Statesman for the Union(New York, 1991), pp. 452–53; Niven, pp. 354–55.

37 Byrd, The Senate, 1:127–41, 145–47; Niven, pp. 365–66;Remini, Jackson and the Course of American Democracy, pp.150–60; Remini, Jackson and the Bank War, pp. 152–53.

38 Niven, pp. 384–85, 390; Glyndon G. Van Deusen, TheJacksonian Era (New York, 1959), p. 107–9; Cole, pp. 269–72; Senate Journal, 24th Cong., 1st sess., pp. 396–400.

39 Senate Journal, 24th Cong., 1st sess., pp. 414–16.

40 Cole, p. 264.41 Ibid., pp. 256–90; Niven, pp. 386–402. For a more de-

tailed account of the 1836 election, see Chapter 9 of this vol-ume, ‘‘Richard Mentor Johnson,’’ pp. 126–27.

42 Cole, pp. 317–21.43 Ibid., pp. 285–360; Sifakis, p. 508; Niven, pp. 412–61.44 Cole, pp. 368–73.45 Ibid., pp. 372–75; Niven, pp. 471–83.46 Niven, pp. 484–548.47 Ibid., pp. 542–90; Cole, pp. 407–18.48 Niven, pp. 611–12.

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Chapter 9

RICHARD MENTOR JOHNSON1837–1841

RICHARD MENTOR JOHNSON

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Chapter 9

RICHARD MENTOR JOHNSON9th Vice President: 1837–1841

. . . I pray you to assure our friends that the humblest of us do not believe that a lucky randomshot, even if it did hit Tecumseh, qualifies a man for the Vice Presidency.

—TENNESSEE SUPREME COURT CHIEF JUSTICE JOHN CATRON TO ANDREW JACKSON,MARCH 21, 1835.1

The United States Senate elected Richard Men-tor Johnson of Kentucky the nation’s ninth vicepresident on February 8, 1837. His selectionmarked the first and only time the Senate has ex-ercised its prerogative under the U.S. Constitu-tion’s Twelfth Amendment, which provides, ‘‘ifno person have a majority, then from the twohighest numbers on the list, the Senate shallchoose the Vice-President.’’ Johnson becameMartin Van Buren’s running mate after threedecades in the House and Senate, a congressionalcareer spanning the administrations of five presi-dents from Thomas Jefferson through AndrewJackson. Detractors alleged, however, that heowed his nomination solely to the dubious claimthat he killed the Shawnee chieftain Tecumsehin 1813 at the Battle of the Thames.

Johnson wielded substantial power in theHouse of Representatives during Jackson’s twoadministrations, and his successful decade-longcampaign to end imprisonment for debt wonhim a national following. For most of his career,the voters of his district held him in great esteem.They forgave him when he sponsored the 1816Compensation Act, one of the most unpopularlaws ever enacted by Congress, as well as onmore than one occasion when he lined his ownpockets with government funds.

During the 1836 presidential campaign andJohnson’s single term as vice president, however,his popularity dissipated. The plain manners and

habits that had once endeared him to his con-stituents and supporters, combined with his con-troversial personal life and unfortunate penchantfor lending his influence in support of question-able undertakings, proved serious liabilities. Acampaign to remove him from the Democraticticket in 1840 failed only because Van Buren,while no Johnson enthusiast, was unwilling to al-ienate the eastern labor vote and because partyleaders were reluctant to force a potentially divi-sive confrontation. The 1840 election, resulting ina decisive victory for the Whig ticket headed byJohnson’s former comrade-in-arms, WilliamHenry Harrison, signalled the end of the Ken-tuckian’s long and often controversial career.

A Frontier Youth

Little is known of Richard Mentor Johnson’searly years. Nineteenth-century campaign biog-raphies and a modern study based on these ear-lier accounts are heavily colored by the heroicrhetoric that Johnson and his supporters em-ployed throughout his career.2 Although he was,as he later claimed, ‘‘born in a cane-brake andcradled in a sap trough,’’ 3 the Johnsons were apowerful family of substantial means. The futurevice president was born on October 17, 1780, atBeargrass, a Virginia frontier outpost near thesite of present-day Louisville, Kentucky.4 His fa-ther, Robert Johnson, had migrated from OrangeCounty, Virginia, with his wife, Jemima Suggett

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Johnson, in 1779. By 1812 Robert Johnson wasone of the largest landholders in Kentucky. Heserved in the Virginia house of burgesses, at-tended both the 1785 convention that petitionedthe Virginia legislature for Kentucky statehoodand the 1792 Kentucky constitutional conven-tion, and represented his district in the state leg-islature for several years after Kentucky’s admis-sion to the Union. After three of Richard MentorJohnson’s brothers achieved national office—James and John Telemachus served in the Houseof Representatives and Benjamin was a federaldistrict judge—critics charged that the familysought ‘‘power in every hole and corner of thestate.’’ The Johnsons proved remarkably effec-tive in obtaining government contracts and otherfavors for family members and allies, and theirfinancial interests in local newspapers such asAmos Kendall’s Georgetown Minerva and theGeorgetown Patriot added to their considerableinfluence.5

Richard Mentor Johnson received enough of anearly education to qualify him for apprentice-ships reading law under Kentucky jurists GeorgeNicholas and James Brown, 6 both former stu-dents of Thomas Jefferson’s legendary teacherGeorge Wythe.7 The allusions that flavor his let-ters and speeches suggest at least a passing fa-miliarity with the classics.8 After his admissionto the bar in 1802, he returned to the family’shome near Great Crossings, Kentucky, to prac-tice law.9 He later operated a retail store at GreatCrossings and engaged in other business andspeculative ventures with brothers James, Ben-jamin, and Joel. These efforts, together with asizeable bequest of land and slaves from his fa-ther, eventually made Johnson a wealthy man,although he never identified with the privilegedclasses. He routinely waived legal fees for the in-digent land claimants he represented in suitsagainst wealthy speculators, 10 and his home wasa mecca for disabled veterans, widows, and or-phans seeking his assistance. No one was refusedhospitality at Blue Spring Farm, his estate nearGreat Crossings. An acquaintance ‘‘heard mensay they were treated so well by Col. Johnsonwhen they went out there, they loved to go.’’ 11

Early accounts describe the future vice presi-dent as a gentle and personable man, with a

pleasant, if nondescript, appearance. Washing-ton socialite Margaret Bayard Smith found him‘‘[t]he most tender hearted, mild, affectionateand benevolent of men . . . whose countenancebeams with good will to all, whose soul seemsto feed on the milk of human kindness.’’ He‘‘might have been a fashionable man,’’ she spec-ulated, if not for his retiring nature and ‘‘plain. . . dress and manners.’’ 12 He possessed, in thewords of John C. Calhoun’s biographer CharlesM. Wiltse, ‘‘the rare quality of being personallyliked by everyone.’’ 13

Soldier and Legislator

From 1804 to 1806, Johnson served as a dele-gate from Scott County in the Kentucky houseof representatives, where he supported legisla-tion to protect settlers from land speculators.14

Elected to the United States House of Represent-atives from the district encompassing Shelby,Scott, and Franklin counties in 1806, he servedsix consecutive terms, retiring from the House in1819 to seek election to the Senate.15 Throughouthis career, Johnson professed allegiance to theprinciples of ‘‘Thomas Jefferson, the patriarch ofrepublicanism,’’ and correspondence from hisearly years in Congress suggests that he enjoyeda cordial acquaintance with Jefferson.16 In a ram-bling letter of February 1808, Johnson rec-ommended a candidate for federal office and as-sured the president that ‘‘I feel in you a con-fidence, & attachment which is indescribable &can never be excelled.’’ ‘‘Having procured theBooks mentioned in the memorandum fromyou,’’ the young congressman suggested, ‘‘acourse of Historical reading would be gratefullyreceived.’’ 17 The acquaintance continued afterJefferson’s retirement. In 1813, Johnson wrotethat he ‘‘constantly recollected how much man-kind are indebted to you,’’ adding somewhatself-consciously that ‘‘I make no apologies for in-dulging feelings which I really feel.’’ 18 Duringthe War of 1812, he apprised the retired presi-dent of military developments and solicited hiscounsel ‘‘as to the manner of reading, & theBooks to read, particularly as it respects Militaryhistory.’’ 19

As the representative of a frontier, predomi-nantly agrarian district, Johnson shared his con-

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stituents’ concern for the security of the interiorsettlements, as well as their inherent distrust ofbankers, speculators, and other monied interests.An ‘‘administration man’’ with respect to de-fense and foreign policy matters, he votedagainst Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gal-latin’s proposal to recharter the Bank of the Unit-ed States during the Madison administration.20

‘‘Great monied monopolies,’’ he explained muchlater, ‘‘controlled by persons, irresponsible to thepeople, are liable to exercise a dangerous influ-ence, and corporate bodies generally, especiallywhen they have the power to effect the circulat-ing medium of the country, do not well comportwith genius of a republic.’’ 21 He was a hard-working representative, popular among the vot-ers of his district but otherwise undistinguished,until his heroism in the War of 1812 brought himnational acclaim.22

Johnson was one of the vociferous young con-gressmen, led by his fellow Kentuckian HouseSpeaker Henry Clay, known collectively as the‘‘warhawks.’’ During the Twelfth Congress, thisgroup urged military redress for British viola-tions of American frontiers and shippingrights, 23 and in June 1812 they voted to declarewar against Great Britain.24 Not wishing ‘‘to beidle during the recess of Congress,’’ 25 Johnsonraised and led two mounted regiments thatjoined the northwestern army under the com-mand of his future rival, General William HenryHarrison, in the fall of 1813. Johnson’s Kentuckyvolunteers crossed the Canadian border in pur-suit of a combined British and Shawnee force ledby General Henry Proctor and overran theenemy position at the Thames River on October5, 1813. A heroic cavalry charge led by Johnsonand his brother James ensured a decisive Amer-ican victory, in which Tecumseh, the Shawneeleader who had preyed upon American settle-ments in the Northwest since 1806, was amongthe presumed casualties. Although his remainswere never identified, some witnesses claimedafter the fact that Johnson had killed Tecumseh.26

Johnson returned to Congress a hero on March7, 1814, still suffering from the extensive woundsthat plagued him for the rest of his life. Heturned his attention to war-related matters: therelief of veterans, widows and orphans; the com-

pensation of veterans for service-related prop-erty losses; and the improvement of the youngnation’s military establishment.27 Johnson’s new-found popularity and his characteristic willing-ness to accede to his constituents’ demands en-sured his political survival through the furorover the 1816 Compensation Act, which for thefirst time granted members of Congress an an-nual salary, rather than paying them only for thedays Congress was in session. The measure be-came controversial when a newspaper estimatedthat the new system would cost the governmentan additional $400,000 annually, and Congressrepealed the law the next year. Although John-son sponsored the bill, he quickly repudiated themeasure after the public outcry cost many of hiscolleagues their seats.28

His nationalist perspective heightened by thewar, Johnson joined with Henry Clay in advocat-ing protection for frontier products and federalfunding for internal improvements to give west-ern producers readier access to eastern mar-kets.29 In 1817, he voted to override Madison’sveto of the bonus bill, a proposal to fund internalimprovements from the bonus and dividendsfrom the Bank of the United States.30 Widely re-garded as an expert in military affairs as a con-sequence of his valor under fire, Johnson wasone of several westerners whom President JamesMonroe considered to head the War Departmentafter Henry Clay declined the post in 1817.31 Thenomination ultimately went to John C. Calhounof South Carolina, but Johnson enjoyed consider-able leverage over the department as chairmanfrom 1817 to 1819 of the House Committee onExpenditures in the Department of War.32 In1818, Calhoun authorized an expedition to planta military outpost at the mouth of the Yellow-stone River, near the current site of Bismarck,North Dakota, and awarded the transportationand supply contract to the chairman’s brotherand partner, James Johnson.

The Yellowstone expedition departed from St.Louis just as the panic of 1819 brought postwareconomic expansion to a halt and shortly beforeTreasury Secretary William H. Crawford issueda December 1819 report projecting a $5 millionbudget deficit. The venture grossly exceeded an-ticipated costs (in large part because of James

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Johnson’s malfeasance and Richard MentorJohnson’s repeated pleas for further advances).As a result, the expedition provided Calhoun’senemies in Congress with potent ammunition foran attack that ultimately led to drastic reductionsin the War Department budget.33 After Johnsonrequested yet another contract for James in thesummer of 1820, Calhoun finally advised thepresident that, ‘‘to avoid all censure, the con-tracts ought to be made on public proposals.’’ 34

Johnson retired from the House long before theYellowstone expedition stalled at Council Bluffs,Iowa, but the eventual outcry over the venturefailed to diminish his stature in Kentucky.35 AsMonroe had earlier acknowledged, ‘‘the peopleof the whole western country’’ considered the ex-pedition ‘‘a measure . . . to preserve the peaceof the frontier.’’ 36 The local press celebrated ‘‘theHerculean undertakings of the Johnsons,’’ whileaccusing their critics of ‘‘political animosity.’’ 37

On December 10, 1819, the Kentucky legislatureelected Johnson to fill the unexpired portion ofJohn J. Crittenden’s Senate term.38

Relief for Debtors

Johnson began his Senate career heavily indebt. He mortgaged several properties to theBank of the United States to settle accounts out-standing from the Yellowstone expedition andother speculative ventures. In 1822 Bank counselHenry Clay won a substantial judgment againstthe Johnson brothers.39 Still, Johnson weatheredthe depression better than many of his constitu-ents and others who were left destitute after thepanic of 1819 severely depressed credit and agri-cultural prices. Thousands of overextendedfarmers and laborers found themselves pressedby increasingly frantic creditors during the de-pression that followed the panic. Imprisonmentfor debt was a common punishment in state andlocal courts during the early nineteenth century,although few debtors were incarcerated for out-standing federal obligations.40

Both Johnson’s own experience and the suffer-ing in his district and elsewhere convinced himthat ‘‘the principle is deemed too dangerous tobe tolerated in a free government, to permit aman for any pecuniary consideration, to disposeof the liberty of his equal.’’ 41 The movement to

end debt imprisonment began long before John-son, on December 10, 1822, introduced a Senatebill to abolish use of the punishment by federalcourts. He did, however, become one of the ac-knowledged leaders of the effort, first throughhis success in persuading the Kentucky legisla-ture to abolish the practice in 1821 and then withhis decade-long campaign in Congress that in1832 achieved enactment of a federal statute.42

Senator Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri laterexplained that the impact of the 1832 law ex-tended far beyond the federal courts ‘‘in the forceof example and influence.’’ The statute ‘‘led tothe cessation of the practice of imprisoning debt-ors, in all, or nearly all, of the States and Terri-tories of the Union.’’ 43

A second legislative accomplishment thatbrought Johnson national distinction was a re-port that he prepared during his final Senateterm, as chairman of the Committee on Post Of-fices and Post Roads, in response to a flood ofpetitions from religious congregations in the Eastdemanding the suspension of Sunday mail deliv-eries. The January 19, 1829, report, widely re-printed in the press, argued that, as ‘‘a civil, andnot a religious institution,’’ the governmentcould take no action sanctioning the religiousconvictions or practices of any denomination.After leaving the Senate, Johnson continued hiscrusade as a member of the House of Representa-tives. In 1830, as chairman of the House Commit-tee on Post Offices and Post Roads, he submitteda second report. This, like the earlier Senate re-port, brought him widespread acclaim in thelabor press as a champion of religious liberty.Some contemporaries doubted Johnson’s author-ship of the second report, however; and his biog-rapher has conceded that Johnson’s friends in thePost Office Department, including his landlordO.B. Brown, may have influenced his stance.44

During his ten years in the Senate from 1819to 1829, Johnson gravitated toward the coalition,then emerging under the skilled leadership ofMartin Van Buren, that eventually became theDemocratic party, as well as toward the party’sfuture standard bearer, Andrew Jackson.45 Theacquaintance dated at least from 1814, whenJohnson wrote to Jackson at New Orleans to rec-ommend a supply contractor.46 He was Jackson’s

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impassioned, if ineffective, defender in 1819when Clay urged the House of Representativesto censure the general for his execution of twoBritish subjects during the Seminole War.47 Sen-ator Johnson declared for Jackson after the 1824presidential election was thrown into the Houseof Representatives 48—and, by some accounts,after the candidate hinted that, if elected, he in-tended to name Johnson secretary of war.49

When the House elected John Quincy Adamspresident, Johnson broke the news to Jacksonthat the new president had named as secretaryof state Henry Clay, who had voted for Adamsin spite of the Kentucky voters’ clear preferencefor Jackson.50 Johnson was absent when the Sen-ate approved Clay’s nomination on March 7,1825.51 A Washington journalist later reportedthat, after the election, Johnson ‘‘determined toenter the ranks of the opposition.’’ 52 He had be-come, and would remain for the rest of his life,a steadfast ‘‘Jacksonian.’’

Johnson was reelected to a full Senate term in1822 but in 1828 lost his reelection bid becauseKentucky Democrats feared that controversyover his domestic life would jeopardize Jackson’schances in the national election. Johnson nevermarried. Family tradition recounts that he endedan early romance, vowing revenge for his moth-er’s interference, after Jemima Johnson pro-nounced his intended bride unworthy of thefamily.53 He later lived openly with Julia Chinn,a mulatto slave raised by his mother and inher-ited from his father, until her death from cholerain 1833. Johnson freely acknowledged the rela-tionship, as well as the two daughters born tothe union, and entrusted Julia with full authorityover his business affairs during his absencesfrom Blue Spring Farm.54

The relationship provoked little comment inJohnson’s congressional district, but as a memberof the Senate, with an expanded constituency, hewas vulnerable to criticism by large slaveholdersand others who disapproved of open miscegena-tion. Threatened press exposure of the senator’spersonal life during the 1828 campaign unnervedJackson supporters in the Kentucky legislature.They therefore attempted to dissociate the na-tional candidate from the now-controversialJohnson, joining forces with the Adams faction

to oppose Johnson’s reelection and ultimatelyforcing state legislator John Telemachus Johnsonto withdraw his brother’s name from the con-test.55 The defeat ended Johnson’s Senate career.In his three later attempts to return to the Senate,he lost to Henry Clay in 1831 and 1848 and toJohn J. Crittenden in 1842.56

In the House Again

In 1829 the voters in Johnson’s old district re-turned him to the House of Representatives, 57

where he remained during Jackson’s two admin-istrations. After chairing the Committee on PostOffices and Post Roads from 1829 to 1833, heserved as chairman of the Committee on MilitaryAffairs from 1833 to 1837.58 An acknowledgedpower in the House, Johnson offered his servicesand advice to the administration on several occa-sions, albeit with noticeably less success than themore politically astute Martin Van Buren.59

Johnson was, by nature, a conciliator, whosevehement rhetoric belied a tendency to avoid po-litically risky confrontations. In 1830 he urgedJackson to sign a bill to fund an extension of thenational road from Lexington to Maysville, Ken-tucky, warning in emphatic terms that ‘‘you willcrush your friends in Kentucky if you veto thatBill.’’ When the president proved intransigent,he conceded that a tax to fund the MaysvilleRoad ‘‘would be worse than a veto.’’ He failedto vote when the House sustained the veto onMay 18, 1830.60

An early aspirant for the 1832 Democratic pres-idential nomination, Johnson refocused hissights on the vice-presidency after Jackson an-nounced that he would seek a second term.61

New York labor leader Ely Moore and membersof the Workingmen’s party supported Johnsonfor vice president, 62 but Democratic strategistsquestioned the wisdom of adding him to the tick-et. A correspondent of Navy Secretary JohnMcLean noted that ‘‘Gen. Jackson . . . is in feeblehealth; and may not live to the end of his secondterm’’ and questioned whether ‘‘Colo. Johnson’scalibre will answer for so high a station.’’ 63 De-spite clear indications that Van Buren would re-place Calhoun as the vice-presidential candidate,however, Johnson abandoned his campaign onlyafter Jackson’s adviser William B. Lewis con-

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vinced him to do so.64 When, on May 22, 1832,the Democratic convention tapped Van Buren asJackson’s running mate on the first ballot, John-son received only 26 votes from the Kentucky,Indiana, and Illinois delegations—a poor show-ing compared to Van Buren’s 208 votes and the49 votes of former House Speaker and Calhounally Philip P. Barbour. Jackson and Van Burenthen went on to win an easy victory in the gen-eral election.65

As early as April 1833, shortly after Jackson’snew term began, Duff Green’s Political Registerreported that ‘‘the western States are floodedwith handbills nominating Col. Richard M. John-son, of Kentucky, as a candidate for the Presi-dency in 1836.’’ Johnson’s friend WilliamEmmons published The Authentic Biography ofColonel Richard M. Johnson in 1833, and RichardEmmons’ play, Tecumseh, of the Battle of theThames, soon followed. A poem by RichardEmmons supplied the slogan that Johnson en-thusiasts trumpeted in the 1836 and 1840 cam-paigns: ‘‘Rumpsey, Dumpsey, Colonel Johnsonkilled Tecumseh!’’

The candidate delighted in these overblowncelebrations of his military prowess, boastingafter a well-attended and well-received perform-ance of Tecumseh that he had ‘‘more friends thanever.’’ 66 But Johnson’s following was basedupon more than his military accomplishments,exaggerated though they were by his eager pro-moters. His efforts to abolish imprisonment fordebt and to continue Sunday mail deliveries en-sured him the support of the workingmen’smovement in the urban centers, and his ‘‘hard-money,’’ antibank fiscal policy appealed to theparty’s ‘‘radical’’ faction. He also enjoyed astrong following in the West, where Jackson’s‘‘Kitchen Cabinet’’ advisers Amos Kendall andFrancis P. Blair considered him the only can-didate who could neutralize Clay’s overwhelm-ing appeal.67 Party regulars understood, how-ever, that in selecting Van Buren as his runningmate in 1832, Jackson had named the diminutiveNew Yorker his successor. Johnson eventuallyacceded to the president’s wishes with his usualequanimity, refusing to run as an opposition can-didate when approached in 1834 by a coalitionof disaffected Tennesseans led by David Crockett

and John Bell.68 Blair and Kendall quietlychanged their tactics in hopes of securing thevice-presidential nomination for ‘‘Old Dick.’’ 69

Perhaps they hoped that Johnson would thus be-come the ‘‘heir apparent’’ to succeed Van Buren,or perhaps they merely recognized the futility ofopposing Old Hickory’s will. Van Buren servedas Jackson’s ‘‘right hand’’ during his term as vicepresident, but this arrangement resulted morefrom his longstanding relationship with thepresident than from any commonly held as-sumptions regarding the role of the vicepresident.

1836 Election

When the Democratic convention met at Balti-more on May 22, 1835, to ratify Van Buren’snomination and select his running mate, John-son’s only serious opponent for the vice-presi-dential nomination was former senator WilliamCabell Rives of Virginia, who had served as min-ister to France during Jackson’s first administra-tion. Southern Democrats, and Van Buren him-self, strongly preferred Rives. Although hecounted ‘‘the gallant Colonel . . . among the brav-est of the brave,’’ Van Buren also feared thatJohnson could not ‘‘be relied upon to check thecupidity of his friends.’’ Jackson, however, con-cerned about the threat that opposition can-didate Hugh Lawson White posed among west-ern voters, strongly preferred his Kentucky lieu-tenant. His anger over Rives’ diplomatic failuresand his gratitude for Johnson’s longstanding loy-alty and support also weighed heavily in his de-cision. In spite of the president’s considerable in-fluence, however, Johnson received the requiredtwo-thirds vote only after New York SenatorSilas Wright prevailed upon nondelegate Ed-ward Rucker to cast the fifteen votes of the ab-sent Tennessee delegation in his favor.70

The choice provoked bitter dissention inDemocratic ranks. Virginia delegate Dr. R.C.Mason questioned Johnson’s fidelity to the par-ty’s ‘‘great republican principles’’ and an-nounced that his delegation would not supportthe nomination.71 Johnson’s letter of acceptance,explaining that ‘‘I consider the views of presi-dent Jackson, on the tariff and internal improve-ments, as founded in true wisdom,’’ failed to

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mollify the Virginians.72 Van Buren’s ally AlbertBalch had previously warned Jackson that ‘‘I donot think from what I hear daily that the nomina-tion of Johnson for the Vice Presidency will bepopular in any of the slave holding states exceptKy. on account of his former domestic rela-tions,’’ 73 and a Van Buren correspondent laterpredicted that ‘‘Col. Johnson’s . . . weight wouldabsolutely sink the whole party in Virginia.’’ 74

Tennessee Supreme Court Chief Justice JohnCatron warned Jackson that Johnson was ‘‘notonly positively unpopular in Tennessee . . . butaffirmatively odious’’ and begged the president‘‘to assure our friends that the humblest of us donot believe that a lucky random shot, even if itdid hit Tecumseh, qualifies a man for the VicePresidency.’’ He predicted that ‘‘the very mo-ment Col. J. is announced, the newspapers willopen upon him with facts, that he had endeav-ored often to force his daughters into society,that the mother in her life time, and they now,rode in carriages, and claimed equality.’’ 75

The Whigs still formed a loose coalition boundby mutual opposition to Jackson’s antibank poli-cies but lacked the party unity or organizationalstrength to field a single ticket or define a coher-ent platform. Instead of a single nominee, theyoffered a series of sectional candidates nomi-nated by local caucuses in hopes of defeatingVan Buren in each region and throwing the elec-tion into the House of Representatives. The Whigpresidential candidates were Daniel Webster,Tennessee Senator and former Jacksonian HughLawson White, and Johnson’s former com-mander, General William Henry Harrison. Forvice president, opposition caucuses nominatedNew York Anti-Mason Francis Granger andformer Democrat John Tyler of Virginia.76

In the bitter campaign that followed, Whigs at-tempted to attract disaffected Democrats by fo-cusing on personalities rather than issues. In theSouth, opposition strategists raised the specter ofabolition against Van Buren, 77 while attackingJohnson as a ‘‘great amalgamator,’’ who had‘‘habitually and practically illustrated’’ abolition-ist principles in his own home.78 Johnson notonly cost his party southern votes, but he alsofailed to attract western votes as anticipated. Hisown state went for Harrison and Granger. In

spite of these disappointments, however, VanBuren still managed a narrow victory with justover fifty percent of the popular vote.79

On February 8, 1837, President pro tempore ofthe Senate William R. King of Alabama pro-claimed to the members of Congress assembledin the House chamber to tally the electoral re-turns that Martin Van Buren, with 170 electoralvotes, was the ‘‘duly elected President of theUnited States.’’ Johnson, however, received only147 electoral votes, 70 more than his closest con-tender, Francis Granger, but one less than thenumber required to elect. The Virginia electorshad remained loyal to Van Buren, who carriedthe state by a close margin, but cast their votesin the vice-presidential contest for William Smithof Alabama. After King announced that ‘‘it de-volved on the Senate of the United States . . . tochoose . . . a Vice President of the United States,’’the Senate retired to its own chamber.80

After reassembling to elect the vice president,the Senate approved Tennessee Senator FelixGrundy’s resolution to establish the voting pro-cedure:

[T]he Secretary of the Senate shall call the namesof Senators in alphabetical order; and each Sen-ator will, when his name is called, name the per-son for whom he votes; and if a majority of thewhole number of Senators shall vote for eitherthe said Richard M. Johnson or Francis Granger,he shall be declared by the presiding officer ofthe Senate constitutionally elected Vice Presidentof the United States.

Secretary of the Senate Asbury Dickins called theroll, with 49 of the 52 senators present votingalong strict party lines: 33 for Johnson, 16 forGranger. President pro tempore King then an-nounced that Johnson had been ‘‘constitutionallyelected Vice President of the United States forfour years, commencing on the fourth day ofMarch, 1837.’’ 81

Vice President

Notified of his election, 82 Johnson respondedthat his ‘‘gratification was heightened from theconviction that the Senate, in the exercise of theirconstitutional prerogative, concurred with andconfirmed the wishes of both the States and thepeople.’’ He explained that he had never paid

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‘‘special regard to the minuteness of rules andorders, so necessary to the progress of business,and so important to the observance of the presid-ing officer’’ during his three decades in Con-gress. He was nonetheless confident—in wordsreminiscent of Jefferson’s forty years earlier—that ‘‘the intelligence of the Senate will guard thecountry from any injury that might result fromthe imperfections of the presiding officer.’’ Whilehe hoped ‘‘that there may be always sufficientunanimity’’ to prevent equal divisions in theSenate, he would perform his duty ‘‘without em-barrassment’’ in the event that he was calledupon to cast a tie-breaking vote.83

President pro tempore King administered theoath of office to Johnson in the Senate chamberat 10:00 a.m. on March 4, 1837. In a brief addressto the Senate, the new vice president observedthat ‘‘there is not, perhaps, a deliberative assem-bly existing, where the presiding officer has lessdifficulty in preserving order.’’ He attributed thischaracteristic to ‘‘the intelligence and patriotismof the members who compose the body, and thatpersonal respect and courtesy which have al-ways been extended from one member to an-other in its deliberations.’’ At the conclusion ofhis remarks, the ceremony of newly elected sen-ators presenting their credentials to the Senateand taking the oath of office was temporarily in-terrupted by the arrival of President-elect VanBuren and his party. The senators thereforejoined the procession to the east portico of theCapitol for the presidential inauguration.84

Contemporary witnesses and scholarly ac-counts of the day’s festivities mention RichardMentor Johnson only in passing, if at all. The out-going president, worn and emaciated from twoterms in office and a recent debilitating illnessbut still towering over his immaculately attiredsuccessor, was clearly the focus of attention.Thomas Hart Benton, a dedicated Jackson sup-porter, later recounted the ‘‘acclamations andcheers bursting from the heart and filling the air’’that erupted from the crowd as Jackson took hisleave of the ceremony. From Benton’s perspec-tive, ‘‘the rising was eclipsed by the settingsun.’’ 85

Johnson’s friendship with Jackson and his stat-ure in the House had assured him access to the

president and some measure of influence duringJackson’s administrations. The controversy sur-rounding his nomination, however, togetherwith his disappointing showing in the 1836 elec-tion, his longstanding rivalry with Van Buren,and the constitutional limitations of his new of-fice severely curtailed his role in the Van Burenadministration. Histories of Van Buren’s presi-dency do not indicate that he ever sought his vicepresident’s counsel.86 Johnson’s duties were con-fined to the Senate chamber, where he watchedfrom the presiding officer’s chair as Senate Fi-nance Committee Chairman Silas Wright of NewYork introduced Van Buren’s economicprogram.87

Johnson was, however, willing to use on behalfof his friends and cronies the limited influencehe still commanded. When Lewis Tappan askedthe vice president to present an abolition petitionto the Senate, Johnson, who owned severalslaves, averred that ‘‘considerations of a moraland political, as well as of a constitutional na-ture’’ prevented him from presenting ‘‘petitionsof a character evidently hostile to the union, anddestructive of the principles on which it is found-ed.’’ 88 ‘‘Constitutional considerations’’ did not,however, prevent him from lobbying Congresson behalf of Indian subagent Samuel Milroywhen Milroy, an Indiana Democrat who per-formed ‘‘special favors’’ for the vice president,sought the more lucrative position of Indianagent.89

Johnson was a competent presiding officer, 90

although not an accomplished parliamentarian.In keeping with Senate practice during the 1830s,he appointed senators to standing and selectcommittees, a duty that President pro temporeWilliam R. King performed when he wasabsent.91

Although he had hoped for ‘‘equanimity’’ inthe Senate, Johnson was called upon to cast histie-breaking vote fourteen times during his sin-gle term in office, more frequently than any pre-vious vice president except John Adams andJohn C. Calhoun.92 Three of his predecessors—Adams, George Clinton, and Daniel D. Tomp-kins—had addressed the Senate on occasion toexplain their tie-breaking votes, but Johnson de-clined to do so.93 In at least one instance, how-

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ever, he did explain a vote to readers of the Ken-tucky Gazette. Justifying his support for a billgranting relief to the daughter of a veteran, John-son reminded his former constituents that he hadalways ‘‘used my humble abilities in favor ofthose laws which have extended compensationto the officers and soldiers who have bravelyfought, and freely bled, in their country’s cause,and to widows and orphans of those who per-ished.’’ 94 In other instances, however, Johnsonvoted with Democratic senators in support of ad-ministration policy.95

Notwithstanding his steady, if lackluster, serv-ice in the Senate, Johnson from the outset rep-resented a liability to Van Buren. Still heavily indebt when he assumed office, he hoped to re-coup his fortunes through the Choctaw Acad-emy, a school he established at Blue Spring Farmduring the 1820s that became the focus of theJackson administration’s efforts to ‘‘socialize’’and ‘‘civilize’’ the Native American population.He received federal funds for each student fromtribal annuities and the ‘‘Civilization Fund’’ es-tablished by Congress during the Monroe ad-ministration, 96 but revenues from the schoolfailed to satisfy his mounting obligations. By thespring of 1839, Amos Kendall reported to VanBuren on the vice president’s latest venture: ahotel and tavern at White Sulphur Spring, Ken-tucky. He enclosed a letter from a friend whohad visited ‘‘Col. Johnson’s Watering establish-ment’’ and found the vice president ‘‘happy inthe inglorious pursuit of tavern keeping—evengiving his personal superintendence to the chick-en and egg purchasing and water-melon sellingdepartment.’’ 97 Kendall wrote with consterna-tion that Johnson’s companion, ‘‘a young Delilahof about the complexion of Shakespears swarthyOthello,’’ was ‘‘said to be his third wife; his sec-ond, which he sold for her infidelity, having beenthe sister of the present lady.’’ 98 Although oneof the most fashionable in Kentucky, 99 Johnson’sresort also formed a source of considerable em-barrassment for the administration.

As debts, disappointments, and the chronicpain he had suffered since 1813 took their toll,Johnson’s once-pleasing appearance became di-shevelled, and the plain republican manners thathad in earlier days so charmed Margaret Bayard

Smith now struck observers as vulgar andcrude, 100 especially compared to the impeccablyclad and consummately tactful Van Buren.Henry Stanton observed Johnson presiding overthe Senate in 1838 and pronounced him ‘‘shab-bily dressed, and to the last degree clumsy,’’ astriking contrast with his ‘‘urbane, elegant pred-ecessor.’’ 101 English author Harriett Martineausat opposite the vice president at a dinner party,and predicted that ‘‘if he should become Presi-dent, he will be as strange-looking a potentateas ever ruled. His countenance is wild, thoughwith much cleverness in it; his hair wanders allabroad, and he wears no cravat. But there is notelling how he might look if he dressed like otherpeople.’’ 102 The trademark scarlet vest that John-son affected while vice president (after he andstagecoach line operator James Reeside agreed todon vests to match Reeside’s red coaches) 103

only accentuated his unkempt appearance andeccentric habits.

Van Buren and Johnson took office just asweakened demand for American productsabroad and credit restrictions imposed by Britishbanks and trading houses combined to producea massive contraction in the economy. Critics fo-cused their wrath on Jackson’s fiscal policies,which were in part responsible for the panic of1837, but Van Buren would not abandon hispredecessor’s ‘‘hard money’’ stance. He refusedmounting demands to rescind the 1836 SpecieCircular, Jackson’s directive to end speculationand inflation by requiring purchasers of publicland to pay in specie. During the September 1837special session of Congress that Van Buren calledto address the crisis, Senate Finance CommitteeChairman Silas Wright of New York introducedthe new administration’s remedy, a proposal toend government reliance on the banking system.Congress finally approved Van Buren’s inde-pendent treasury plan in the summer of 1840, butnot before bitter debate and the worsening econ-omy galvanized the Whig opposition.104 Addingto Van Buren’s considerable difficulties, and con-tributing to Democratic losses in the 1837 and1838 local elections, were a border dispute withCanada, armed resistance to removal by theSeminole tribe in Florida, heightened sectional

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antagonism over slavery in Congress, and fla-grant misconduct on the part of several adminis-tration appointees.105

1840 Campaign

Although Van Buren’s renomination wasnever in doubt, Democratic strategists began toquestion the wisdom of keeping Johnson on theticket in 1840. They feared, as Harriett Martineauhad predicted, that ‘‘the slavery question . . . mayagain be to the disadvantage of the Colonel.’’ 106

Even Jackson finally conceded that Johnson wasa liability and insisted on former House SpeakerJames K. Polk of Tennessee as Van Buren’s newrunning mate.107 ‘‘I like Col. Johnson but I likemy country more,’’ he wrote Francis P. Blairshortly before the Democratic convention, ‘‘andI allway go for my Country first, and then formy friend.’’ 108

In spite of the entreaties of several southernDemocrats, anonymous hints in the Democraticpress that Johnson would not stand for reelec-tion, and his own half-hearted offer to withdrawfrom the contest if asked to do so, he remaineda candidate.109 With William Henry Harrison,Johnson’s former commander and comrade-in-arms and the ‘‘Hero of Tippecanoe,’’ emergingas a likely Whig presidential contender, VanBuren was reluctant to drop the Democrats’ ownhero from the ticket. He was also well aware of‘‘Old Dick’s’’ following among ‘‘hard-money’’Democrats in the Northeast.110 Party leaders, un-willing to risk an open confrontation, approvedVan Buren’s compromise proposal that the 1840convention would leave the selection of the vice-presidential candidate to the state party organi-zations, but they ultimately backed Johnson aftertwo crucial states—New York and Pennsylva-nia—rallied behind him and other prospectivecandidates declined to run.111

Eastern Whigs’ fear that Clay could not winthe presidency, as well as Harrison’s surprisingshowing in the 1836 contest, assured Harrisonthe 1840 Whig nomination. To balance hisstrength in the North and West, Whigs choseformer Virginia Senator John Tyler as their vice-presidential candidate. Whigs portrayed Har-rison as a champion of the people and a welcomecorrective to the New York dandy whose eco-

nomic policies had failed to relieve widespreadsuffering among ordinary folk.112

Van Buren remained aloof from the popularhoopla that distinguished the 1840 campaignfrom earlier contests, despite Johnson’s warningthat the campaign ‘‘would be hard run, and thathe ought to go out among the voters as I in-tended doing.’’ 113 The vice president plungedheadlong into the fray, opening his shirt to dis-play battle scars before an Ohio audience, revisit-ing the Battle of the Thames in progressivelymore lurid detail with each retelling, and deliv-ering ‘‘rambling’’ diatribes on several occasions.He always also took care to remind western au-diences that Van Buren had ‘‘raised himself froma poor Dutch orphan boy to the highest stationin the world.’’ During an Ohio campaign tourwith Governor Wilson Shannon and Senator Wil-liam Allen, the trio’s inflammatory chargesagainst Harrison touched off a riot in Cleve-land.114 Still, as Robert Gray Gunderson con-cluded in his study of the ‘‘log-cabin campaign,’’‘‘Old Rumpsey Dumpsey conducted a more ef-fective campaign than any other Democrat in1840.’’ 115

Unprecedented public interest aroused by thecampaign, coupled with broadened suffrage re-quirements in several states, ensured a recordvoter turnout. Harrison defeated Van Buren with52.9 percent of the popular vote and 234 electoralvotes to Van Buren’s 60, and Whigs won majori-ties for the first time in both the House and theSenate.116 Johnson’s showing was particularlyembarrassing: Kentucky voters again backed theopposing ticket, but this time the Whigs carriedthe vice president’s own district as well.117 Oneof the 23 Virginia electors, and all of South Caro-lina’s 11 electors, voted for Van Buren but de-fected to James K. Polk and Littleton W. Tazewellof Virginia, respectively, in the vice-presidentialcontest.118

Johnson had the painful duty of presiding overthe joint session of Congress that met in theHouse chamber on February 10, 1841, to countthe electoral votes. After proclaiming Harrison’selection, he announced that John Tyler ‘‘wasduly elected Vice President of the United Statesfor four years, commencing with the 4th day ofMarch, 1841.’’ He then appointed Whig Senator

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William C. Preston of South Carolina to a jointcommittee to notify Tyler of his election, 119 andnine days later, he reported Tyler’s acknowl-edgement of the message.120

Farewell

Johnson took his leave of the Senate on March2, 1841, the day before the Twenty-sixth Con-gress adjourned, to allow the Senate ‘‘an oppor-tunity of selecting a presiding officer, for the con-venience of organization’’ when the next Con-gress convened two days later. Recalling his as-sociation with ‘‘a very great majority of the mem-bers of the Senate . . . for many years, in the coun-cils of our common country,’’ he reflected thathis ‘‘personal relations’’ with them had ‘‘everbeen kind and tender,’’ notwithstanding ‘‘diver-sity of opinion . . . on minor points, or . . . pointsof greater magnitude.’’ The ‘‘generous, the mag-nanimous course’’ of individual senators, andparticularly ‘‘their indulgence’’ of a presiding of-ficer ‘‘who never studied the rules of order tech-nically,’’ had rendered his service in the Senate‘‘pleasant and agreeable’’ despite ‘‘momentaryagitation and excitement in debate.’’ As the Sen-ate’s presiding officer, he had tried to ‘‘act withperfect impartiality’’ and to treat ‘‘each Senatoras the representative of a sovereign and inde-pendent State, and as entitled to equal consider-ation of me.’’

Johnson claimed that he retired ‘‘without theleast dissatisfaction,’’ obedient to ‘‘the great radi-cal and fundamental principle of submission tothe voice of the people, when constitutionally ex-pressed.’’ But his parting comments betrayed asense of regret:

[A]nd when I am far distant from you—as timemust separate us all even here, not to speak ofhereafter—as long as I shall have my recollectionto remember the associations which I have hadwith this body, I shall always be animated by thesentiment of kindness and friendship with whichI take my final leave of the Senate.121

Later Years

Johnson’s 1840 defeat effectively ended his po-litical career. He was a candidate for the Senatein 1842 but lost to John J. Crittenden. Early effortsby Kentucky Democrats to secure the 1844Democratic presidential nomination for ‘‘Colonel

Dick,’’ and his own tours of the northern statesand the Mississippi Valley toward that end, metwith polite but condescending resistance fromDemocrats who shared William L. Marcy’s viewthat ‘‘he is not now even what he formally was.It may be there was never so much of him asmany of us were led to suppose.’’ 122 Jackson wascharacteristically blunt. Johnson, he warned VanBuren, would be ‘‘dead weight’’ in the forthcom-ing election.123 An observer noted the old hero’smounting frustration: ‘‘Colonel Dick Johnson. . . seems to understand very well Mr. V Burenis stacking the cards . . . Dick . . . will be bam-boozled as sure as a gun. . . . You never saw amore restless dissatisfied man in your life, thanDick is.’’ 124 By 1843, Johnson partisans concededthat he had no chance of winning the presi-dential nomination, and a Kentucky Democratassured Van Buren that ‘‘the friends of Col. John-son do not ask anything more than a vote on thefirst ballot in his favor.’’ 125 Several Democratsspeculated that Johnson’s real objective was thevice-presidential nomination, although he neverformally declared himself a candidate.126 But byearly 1844 he realized that ‘‘his party doesn’teven intend to place him upon the Vice Presi-dents ticket.’’ 127

Johnson made a final attempt to return to theSenate in 1848, but the Kentucky legislature senthis old colleague and adversary, Henry Clay, toWashington. Scott County voters elected John-son to the state legislature two years later, buthe was gravely ill when he took his seat on No-vember 8, 1850. Shortly after the Louisville DailyJournal reported that ‘‘it is painful to see him onthe floor attempting to discharge the duties of amember,’’ Johnson suffered a stroke. He died onNovember 19, 1850, and, by resolution of theKentucky legislature, was buried at the Frankfortcemetery. State Senator Beriah Magoffin eulo-gized the frontier hero as Johnson would havewished to be remembered: ‘‘He was the poorman’s friend. . . . Void of ostentation, simple inhis taste, his manners, and his dress—brave,magnanimous, patriotic and generous to a fault,in his earliest years he was the beau ideal of thesoul and the chivalry of Kentucky.’’ 128

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NOTES1 John Spencer Bassett, ed., Correspondence of Andrew Jack-

son (Washington, DC, 1931), 5:331.2 The first full-length account of Richard Mentor John-

son’s career was William Emmons’ highly laudatory cam-paign biography, Authentic Biography of Colonel Richard M.Johnson (New York, 1833). Ignatius Loyola Robertson’sSketches of Public Characters—Drawn from the Living andthe Dead (New York, 1830), includes a brief and highlycomplimentary sketch of Johnson’s career. Leland WinfieldMeyer, Life and Times of Colonel Richard M. Johnson (NewYork, 1967, reprint of 1932 edition), pp. 176, 298, 342, 401,405, 489. Meyer’s biography, the only modern account ofJohnson’s life and career, accepts at face value many of theassumptions and assessments that color the earlier works.

3 Louisville Journal, October 14, 1840, quoted in Meyer, p.290.

4 U.S., Congress, Biographical Directory of the United StatesCongress, 1774–1989, S. Doc. 100–34, 100th Cong., 2d sess.,1989, p. 1270.

5 Meyer, pp. 13–48, 325–27.6 Ibid., pp. 290–91.7 Robert V. Remini, Henry Clay: Statesman for the Union

(New York, 1991), p. 18.8 See, for example, Johnson’s December 4, 1816, speech on

the Compensation Law, U.S., Congress, House, Annals ofCongress, 14th Cong., 2d sess., pp. 235–43.

9 Meyer, p. 292.10 Ibid., pp. 290–342 and passim.11 Ibid., pp. 312–14 and Appendix, ‘‘Mr. James Y. Kelly’s

Reminiscences about ’Dick Johnson’ Taken Down as HeSpoke, April 2, 1929, to Leland W. Meyer,’’ pp. 477–78.

12 Mrs. Samuel Harrison Smith (Margaret Bayard Smith),The First Forty Years of Washington Society (New York, 1906),quoted in Meyer, pp. 293, 304–5.

13 Charles M. Wiltse, John C. Calhoun, vol. 2, Nullifier,1829–1839 (New York, 1968; reprint of 1948 ed.), p. 37.

14 Meyer, pp. 49–58.15 Ibid., p. 58; Biographical Directory of the United States

Congress, p. 1270.16 R. M. Johnson to Andrew Stevenson et al., June 9, 1835,

in James A. Padgett, ed., ‘‘The Letters of Colonel RichardM. Johnson of Kentucky,’’ Register of the Kentucky State His-torical Society 40 (January 1942): 83–86.

17 Richard M. Johnson to Thomas Jefferson, February 27,1808, in James A. Padgett, ed., ‘‘The Letters of Colonel Rich-ard M. Johnson of Kentucky,’’ Register of the Kentucky StateHistorical Society 38 (July 1940): 190–91.

18 Richard M. Johnson to Thomas Jefferson, January 30,1813, in ibid., p. 197.

19 Richard M. Johnson to Thomas Jefferson, February 9,1813 [1814?], in ibid., p. 198.

20 Meyer, pp. 49–84.

21 Richard Mentor Johnson to Dawson et al., February 6,1836, printed in Kentucky Gazette, April 2, 1836, and re-printed in Meyer, p. 142.

22 Meyer, pp. 49–84.23 Marshall Smelser, The Democratic Republic, 1801–1815

(New York, 1968), pp. 208–9; John Niven, John C. Calhounand the Price of Union (Baton Rouge, LA, 1988), p. 36; HarryW. Fritz, ‘‘The War Hawks of 1812,’’ Capitol Studies 5 (Spring1977): 28.

24 Smelser, p. 216.25 Richard Mentor Johnson to John Armstrong, received

February 23, 1813, quoted in Meyer, pp. 100–101.26 Smelser, pp. 210, 255–56; Meyer, pp. 101–35.27 Meyer, pp. 136–88.28 U.S., Congress, House, Annals of Congress, 14th Cong.,

1st sess., pp. 1127–34, Appendix, p. 1801; 14th Cong., 2dsess., pp. 235–43, Appendix, p. 1278; Charles M. Wiltse, JohnC. Calhoun, vol. 1, Nationalist, 1782–1828 (New York, 1968;reprint of 1944 edition), pp. 125–31; U.S., Congress, Senate,The Senate, 1789–1989: Addresses on the History of the UnitedStates Senate, by Robert C. Byrd, S. Doc. 100–20, vol. 2, 1991,pp. 350–51; Meyer, pp. 168, 172, 326–27.

29 Meyer, pp. 162–67.30 Annals of Congress, 14th Cong., 2d sess., p. 1062.31 Harry Ammon, James Monroe: The Quest for National

Identity (Charlottesville, VA, 1990), pp. 358–59.32 Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, p.

1270.33 John Niven, John C. Calhoun and the Price of Union (Baton

Rouge, LA, 1988), pp. 59–80; Ammon, pp. 468–71; Meyer,pp. 189–206; Merrill D. Peterson, The Great Triumvirate: Web-ster, Clay, and Calhoun (New York, 1987), pp. 88–95; ChaseC. Mooney, William H. Crawford, 1772–1834 (Lexington, KY,1974), pp. 151–57.

34 John C. Calhoun to James Monroe, July 14, 1820, quotedin Meyer, p. 195.

35 Meyer, pp. 202–5.36 James Monroe to John C. Calhoun, July 5, 1819, quoted

in ibid., p. 202.37 Kentucky Gazette, October 8, 1819, quoted in ibid., p. 203.38 Meyer, pp. 183–88.39 Ibid., pp. 205–6; Remini, Henry Clay, pp. 207–8.40 Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., The Age of Jackson (Boston,

1945), pp. 134–36.41 Speech of Col. Richard M. Johnson to the Senate, Janu-

ary 14, 1823, quoted in Meyer, pp. 283–84.42 Schlesinger, pp. 134–36; Meyer, pp. 235, 282–89; Annals

of Congress, 17th Cong., 2d sess., pp. 23–27.43 Thomas Hart Benton, Thirty Years’ View; or, A History

of the Working of the American Government for Thirty Years,From 1820 to 1851 (New York, 1871; reprint of 1854 ed.),1:291–92.

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44 Meyer, pp. 256–63, 293–94.45 Ibid., passim; Donald R. Cole, Martin Van Buren and the

American Political System (Princeton, NJ, 1984), p. 125.46 Richard M. Johnson to Major General Andrew Jackson,

November 21, 1814, in Padgett, ed., Register of the KentuckyState Historical Society 38: 326–27.

47 Remini, Henry Clay, pp. 161–66.48 Meyer, p. 220.49 Ibid., pp. 221–22.50 Remini, Henry Clay, p. 268.51 Robert V. Remini, Andrew Jackson and the Course of

American Freedom, 1822–1832 (New York, 1981), p. 103; U.S.,Congress, Senate, Journal, Appendix, 19th Cong., specialsession of March 4, 1825; U.S., Congress, Senate, ExecutiveJournal, 19th Cong., special session, p. 441.

52 Niles’ Weekly Register, April 28, 1827, quoted in Meyer,pp. 220–21.

53 Meyer, pp. 318–19.54 Ibid., pp. 317–22.55 Ibid., pp. 251–55.56 Remini, Henry Clay, pp. 373, 716; Meyer, p. 457.57 Meyer, p. 256.58 Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, p.

1270.59 Meyer, pp. 266–71; Robert V. Remini, Andrew Jackson

and the Course of American Democracy, 1833–1845 (New York,1984), pp. 203–16, 305–6, 423; Richard M. Johnson to An-drew Jackson, February 13, 1831, in Padgett, ed., Registerof the Kentucky State Historical Society 40: 69.

60 Meyer, pp. 273–76; U.S., Congress, House, Journal, 21stCong., 1st sess., pp. 763–64; Remini, Jackson and the Courseof American Freedom, pp. 252–56.

61 Remini, Jackson and the Course of American Freedom, p.304; Meyer, pp. 393–400.

62 Walter Hugins, Jacksonian Democracy and the WorkingClass: A Study of the New York Workingmen’s Movement (Stan-ford, CA, 1960), pp. 63–64, 97.

63 John Norvell to John McLean, January 23, 1832, andWorden Pope to John McLean, quoted in Meyer, p. 398.

64 Schlesinger, p. 142.65 Robert V. Remini, ‘‘Election of 1832,’’ in History of Amer-

ican Presidential Elections, 1789–1968, ed. Arthur M. Schles-inger and Fred L. Israel, (New York, 1971), 1:507–8; JohnNiven, Martin Van Buren and the Romantic Era of AmericanPolitics (New York, 1983), p. 300.

66 Meyer, pp. 315–16, 398–402, 411.67 Major L. Wilson, The Presidency of Martin Van Buren

(Lawrence, KS, 1984), pp. 15–16; Niven, Martin Van Buren,pp. 374–76; John Arthur Garraty, Silas Wright (New York,1970; reprint of 1949 edition), p. 130; Remini, Jackson and theCourse of American Democracy, p. 256; Meyer, pp. 393–429.

68 Remini, Jackson and the Course of American Democracy,pp. 252–53.

69 Ibid., pp, 182–83, 252–55, Niven, Martin Van Buren, p.351, 372–76; Cole, p. 262; Wilson, p. 16.

70 Remini, Jackson and the Course of American Democracy,pp. 256; Niven, Martin Van Buren, pp. 374–96; Wilson, p.16; John C. Fitzpatrick, ed., The Autobiography of Martin VanBuren (Washington, DC, 1920), 2:754, quoted in Meyer, pp.337–38.

71 Niven, Martin Van Buren, p. 396; Meyer, p. 419.72 Richard M. Johnson to Andrew Stevenson, et al., June

9, 1835, in Padgett, ed., Register of the Kentucky State Histori-cal Society 40: 83–86.

73 Albert Balch to Andrew Jackson, April 4, 1835, quotedin Meyer, p. 413.

74 C.S. Morgan to Martin Van Buren, January 9, 1936,quoted in Robert Bolt, ‘‘Vice President Richard M. Johnsonof Kentucky: Hero of the Thames—Or the Great Amalgama-tor?’’ Register of the Kentucky Historical Society 75 (July 1977):201.

75 John Catron to Andrew Jackson, March 21, 1835, in Bas-sett, Correspondence of Jackson, 5:330–32.

76 Joel Silbey, ‘‘Election of 1836,’’ in Schlesinger and Israel,eds., 1:584–86.

77 Silbey, pp. 586–91; Harry L. Watson, Liberty and Power:The Politics of Jacksonian America (New York, 1990), p. 204.

78 United States Telegraph, June 3, 1835, quoted in Bolt, pp.198–99.

79 Niven, Martin Van Buren, pp. 401–2; Silbey, pp. 591–96; Senate Journal, 24th Cong., 2d sess., pp. 227–28.

80 Senate Journal, 24th Cong., 2d sess., pp. 227–28; Niven,Martin Van Buren, pp. 401–2.

81 Senate Journal, 24th Cong., 2d sess., pp. 229–31. SouthCarolina Senators John C. Calhoun and William C. Prestonand Tennessee Senator Hugh Lawson White attended butdid not vote. Wiltse, 2:303.

82 Senate Journal, 24th Cong., 2d sess., p. 231.83 Ibid., pp. 238–39.84 Ibid., Appendix, special session of March 4, 1837, pp.

355–65.85 Benton, 1:735; Cole, pp. 289–90; Remini, Jackson and the

Course of American Democracy, pp. 420–23; Stephen W.Stathis and Ronald C. Moe, ‘‘America’s Other Inaugura-tion,’’ Presidential Studies Quarterly 10 (Fall 1980): 561; Wat-son, p. 205.

86 See, for example, James C. Curtis, The Fox at Bay: MartinVan Buren and the Presidency, 1837–1841 (Lexington, KY,1970); Cole; Niven, Martin Van Buren; Wilson.

87 Niven, Martin Van Buren, pp. 423–24; Cole, pp. 307–11,318.

88 Meyer, p. 431.89 Ronald M. Satz, American Indian Policy in the Jacksonian

Era (Lincoln, NE, 1975), p. 183.90 Meyer, p. 431.91 Byrd, 2:219; Senate Journal, 25th Cong., 1st sess., pp. 27–

28; 2d sess., pp. 25, 32–33; 3d sess., p. 5; 26th Cong., 1st sess.,pp. 5, 10–11, 46.

92 Henry Barrett Learned, ‘‘Casting Votes of the Vice-Presidents, 1789–1915,’’ American Historical Review 20 (April

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1915): 571; Byrd, The Senate, 1789–1989, vol. 4, Historical Sta-tistics, 1789–1992, p. 642.

93 Ibid., p. 574.94 Kentucky Gazette, March 14, 1839, quoted in Meyer, pp.

431–32.95 Senate Journal, 25th Cong., 2d sess., pp. 181–82; 26th

Cong., 2d sess., pp. 274–76; Francis Jennings, ed., The Historyand Culture of Iroquois Diplomacy: An Interdisciplinary Guideto the Treaties of the Six Nations and Their Leagues (New York,1985), p. 206.

96 Satz, pp. 246–51; Meyer, pp. 337–39.97 Letter to Amos Kendall, August 12, 1839, enclosed in

Kendall’s letter of August 22, 1839, to Van Buren, quotedin Meyer, p. 341.

98 Kendall to Van Buren, August 22, 1839, quoted inMeyer, p. 341.

99 Meyer, pp. 339–40.100 Robert Gray Gunderson, The Log-Cabin Campaign (Lex-

ington, KY, 1957), p. 80.101 Henry B. Stanton, Random Recollections (New York,

1887), p. 61.102 Harriett Martineau, ‘‘Life at the Capital,’’ in America

Through British Eyes, ed. Allan Nevins (New York, 1948; re-vised from 1923 edition), p. 150.

103 Joseph E. Morse and R. Duff Green, eds., Thomas B.Searight’s The Old Pike: An Illustrated Narrative of the NationalRoad (Orange, VA, 1971), pp. 105–6.

104 Glyndon Van Deusen, The Jacksonian Era, 1828–1848(New York, 1959), pp. 116–28; Watson, pp. 206–209; Cole,pp. 307–41, 347–60.

105 Niven, Martin Van Buren, pp. 425–52; Watson, p. 410;Van Deusen, pp. 132–40; Cole, pp. 318–42.

106 Harriett Martineau, ‘‘Life at the Capital,’’ p. 150.107 Remini, Jackson and the Course of American Democracy,

pp. 463–64.

108 Andrew Jackson to Francis P. Blair, February 15, 1840,quoted in Remini, Jackson and the Course of American Democ-racy, p. 463.

109 Gunderson, p. 82; Meyer, pp. 435–36; Niven, MartinVan Buren, p. 463.

110 Niven, Martin Van Buren, p. 463; Gunderson, pp. 81–82; Cole, p. 358.

111 Niven, Martin Van Buren, p. 463; Gunderson, p. 83.112 Gunderson, pp. 41–75; Peterson, pp. 248, 281–96;

Remini, Henry Clay, pp. 545–67.113 Washington National Intelligencer, September 24, 1840,

quoting Wheeling Gazette, n.d., cited in Gunderson, p. 163;Wilson, p. 206.

114 Meyer, p. 433; Gunderson, pp. 241–46.115 Gunderson, p. 246.116 Remini, Henry Clay, pp. 566–67; Gunderson, pp. 253–

54.117 Gunderson, p. 255.118 Senate Journal, 26th Cong., 2d sess., pp. 171–72.119 Ibid., pp. 172–73.120 Ibid., pp. 191–92.121 Ibid., pp. 231–32.122 Meyer, pp. 452–59.123 Andrew Jackson to Martin Van Buren, September 22,

1843, quoted in Meyer, p. 460.124 R.P. Letcher to John J. Crittenden, June 2, 1842, quoted

in Meyer, p. 454.125 General McCalla to Martin Van Buren, January 11,

1843, quoted in Meyer, p. 457.126 Meyer, pp. 461–62.127 R.P. Letcher to John J. Crittenden, January 6, 1844,

quoted in ibid., p. 461.128 Meyer, pp. 473–74.

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Chapter 10

JOHN TYLER1841

JOHN TYLER

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Chapter 10

JOHN TYLER10th Vice President: 1841

To this body [the Senate] is committed in an eminent degree, the trust of guarding and protectingthe institutions handed down to us from our fathers, as well against the waves of popular and rash im-pulses on the one hand, as against attempts at executive encroachment on the other.

—VICE PRESIDENT JOHN TYLER

Go you now then, Mr. Clay, to your end of the avenue, where stands the Capitol, and there performyour duty to the country as you shall think proper. So help me God, I shall do mine at this end ofit as I shall think proper.

—PRESIDENT JOHN TYLER

He held the office of vice president for onlythirty-three days; he presided over the Senate forless than two hours. Despite this brief experi-ence, John Tyler significantly strengthened theoffice by enforcing an interpretation of the Con-stitution that many of his contemporaries dis-puted. Tyler believed that, in the event of a va-cancy in the office of president, the vice presidentwould become more than just the acting presi-dent. He would assume the chief executive’s fullpowers, salary, and residence as if he himselfhad been elected to that position. Taken forgranted today, that interpretation is owed en-tirely to this courtly and uncompromising Vir-ginian who brought to the vice-presidency agreater diversity of governmental experiencethan any of his predecessors.

Early Years

John Tyler was born on March 29, 1790, atGreenway, his family’s twelve-hundred-acreJames River estate in Charles City County, Vir-ginia. He was the second son among the eightchildren of John and Mary Armistead Tyler. Theelder John Tyler had been a prominent figure inthe American Revolution and a vigorous oppo-nent of the Constitution at the Virginia ratifying

convention. Young John Tyler’s mother diedwhen he was only seven, leaving the boy’s up-bringing to his father. During John’s late teensand early twenties, his father served as governorof Virginia and then as a federal judge. A mod-ern biographer concluded: ‘‘The most importantsingle fact that can be derived from John Tyler’sformative years is that he absorbed in toto thepolitical, social, and economic views of his dis-tinguished father.’’ 1

Tyler received his early formal education atprivate schools; at the age of twelve he enrolledin the college preparatory division of the Collegeof William and Mary. Three years later he beganhis college studies, chiefly in English literatureand classical languages, and graduated in 1807,just seventeen years old. He studied law for twoyears, first under his father’s direction, then witha cousin, and finally with Edmund Randolph,the nation’s first attorney general. Randolph’sadvocacy of a strong central government rancounter to Tyler’s interpretation of the limitedextent to which the Constitution granted powersto the national government and his belief in thesupremacy of states’ rights. Tyler feared the Con-stitution would be used to subordinate the inter-

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ests of the southern white planter class to thoseof northern merchants and propertyless workingmen, putting the South at an economic and polit-ical disadvantage.2

The young Virginian established his own legalpractice in 1811 and soon developed a reputationas an eloquent and effective advocate in han-dling difficult criminal defense cases. That yearalso brought his election, at age twenty-one, tothe Virginia house of delegates. He earned earlyacclaim through his work in persuading thehouse to pass a resolution censuring Virginia’stwo U.S. senators for their refusal to follow thelegislature’s ‘‘instructions’’ to vote against the re-charter of the Bank of the United States.3

In March 1813, weeks after he inherited theGreenway plantation on his father’s death, Tylermarried the beautiful and introverted LetitiaChristian. The death of both her parents soonafter the marriage conveyed to the bride hold-ings of land and slaves that greatly expanded thewealth that John brought to their union. Reclu-sive and preferring domestic pursuits, Letitiatook no active interest in her husband’s publiclife. During the time of his service in Congressand as vice president, she visited Washingtononly once, preferring the tranquility of the fami-ly’s plantation to the mud and grime of the na-tion’s capital. Together they had seven childrenin a tranquil and happy union disrupted onlywhen she suffered a paralytic stroke in 1839. Shedied in 1842.4

Tyler served five one-year terms in the Vir-ginia house of delegates and was chosen to siton the state executive council. In 1817, at the ageof twenty-seven, he won election to the U.S.House of Representatives, serving there until1821 without apparent distinction. He activelyopposed legislation designed to implementHenry Clay’s ‘‘American System,’’ linking a fed-erally sponsored network of canals, railroads,and turnpikes with a strong central bank andprotective tariffs in an alliance that seemed de-signed to unite the North and West at the South’sexpense.

Tyler’s views on slavery appeared ambivalent.In attacking the 1820 Missouri Compromise gov-erning the future admission of ‘‘slave’’ and‘‘free’’ states, Tyler sought without success to

deny the federal government the right to regu-late slavery. From his earliest days in the publicarena, the Virginian appeared uncomfortablewith the institution of slavery, although heowned many slaves throughout his lifetime andargued that slavery should be allowed to extendto regions where it would prove to be economi-cally viable. He expected, however, that the ‘‘pe-culiar institution’’ would eventually die out and,on various occasions over the years, he advo-cated ending both the importation of slaves andtheir sale in the District of Columbia.5

At the end of 1820, suffering from financial dif-ficulties, chronically poor health, and a string oflegislative defeats, Tyler decided to give up hiscareer in the House of Representatives. He wrotea friend, ‘‘the truth is, that I can no longer doany good here. I stand in a decided minority, andto waste words on an obstinate majority is ut-terly useless and vain.’’ 6 In 1823, however, hishealth and political ambitions restored, Tyler re-turned to the Virginia house of delegates. Twoyears later, he won election as Virginia’s gov-ernor and served two one-year terms until 1827,when he was elected to the U.S. Senate. Reelectedin 1833, Tyler served until his resignation on Feb-ruary 29, 1836. While in the Senate he servedbriefly as president pro tempore in March 1835and as chairman of the Committee on the Districtof Columbia and the Committee onManufactures.

Philosophy

In the 1830s John Tyler identified himself withthe Democratic party but differed often withPresident Andrew Jackson. The two men di-verged both in temperament—a Tidewater aris-tocrat opposing a Tennessee democrat—and inpolitical philosophy. Tyler supported the presi-dent’s veto of legislation rechartering the Bankof the United States, but he opposed Jackson’sremoval of government funds from that institu-tion. Although Tyler reluctantly advocated Jack-son’s election in both 1828 and 1832, he opposedmany of the president’s nominees to key admin-istration posts. The final break between the twocame in 1833 when Tyler, alone among SenateDemocrats, chose to oppose the Force Act, whichallowed Jackson to override South Carolina’s or-

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dinance nullifying the tariff of 1832. He fearedthe Force Act would undermine the doctrine ofstates’ rights, to which he was deeply committed.

By 1834 Tyler joined Henry Clay in actively op-posing Jackson’s policies, and he voted with aSenate majority to ‘‘censure’’ the president for re-fusing to provide information concerning his re-moval of government funds from the Bank of theUnited States. In 1836, when the Virginia legisla-ture ‘‘instructed’’ Tyler to reverse his censurevote, Tyler refused. Unlike some senators whoby that time had come to ignore such legislativeinstruction, Tyler remembered his own voteyears earlier against noncomplying senators andconcluded that he had no honorable choice butto resign from the Senate.

In 1836 the emerging Whig party was unitedonly in its opposition to Jackson. To avoid dem-onstrating their lack of unity, the Whigs chosenot to hold a presidential nominating conventionthat year.7 Party strategy called for fielding sev-eral regional candidates, nominated at the stateand local level, in the hope that they would denyJackson’s heir Martin Van Buren a majority in theelectoral college. Such an impasse would throwthe contest into the House of Representativeswhere the outcome might be more easily influ-enced to produce a Whig president. Althoughthere was little general interest expressed in thevice-presidential position, Tyler’s name ap-peared for that post on the ballots in severalstates. He was listed as the running mate of Wil-liam Henry Harrison in Maryland; of HughLawson White in Tennessee, North Carolina, andGeorgia; and of Willie Mangum in South Caro-lina. In Virginia, Tyler’s name appeared on theballot with both Harrison and White.

Van Buren won the presidency, but when thevice-presidential ballots were tallied, Tyler camein third, after Richard Mentor Johnson andFrancis Granger, with 47 electoral votes from thestates of Georgia, Maryland, South Carolina andTennessee.8 Under the provisions of the Con-stitution’s Twelfth Amendment, as no candidatefor the vice-presidency had secured a majority ofthe electoral votes, the Senate would make theselection from the top two candidates. On Feb-ruary 8, 1837, the Senate exercised this constitu-

tional prerogative for the only time in its historyand selected Johnson on the first ballot.

Senate Election Deadlock

In April 1838, Tyler won election to the Vir-ginia house of delegates for the third time—thistime as a Whig. On taking his seat early in 1839,he was unanimously chosen speaker. In that ca-pacity, he presided over a debate in which heheld an intense personal interest: the selection ofa United States senator. William C. Rives, theJacksonian Democrat who had succeeded Tylerin 1836, hoped to retain his Senate seat for an-other term. Tyler, however, decided that hewould like to return to the Senate. The Demo-crats held a slight majority in the legislature, butamong their members were a dozen so-calledConservatives, renegade Democrats who hadsupported Jackson but disagreed with the finan-cial policies of his successor, Martin Van Buren.The legislature’s regular Democrats tried to winthe support of this maverick group to ensure thatVirginia would marshal its sizeable number ofelectoral votes in favor of Van Buren in the 1840presidential election. To this end, they offered tosupport Rives, one of Virginia’s most prominentConservatives. But Rives proved unwilling tolead Virginia’s Conservatives back to the Demo-cratic fold. Consequently, the Democrats turnedto John Mason as their Senate candidate. Whigleaders might have been expected to supportTyler, who had resigned the seat in 1836 out ofsupport for that party’s doctrine. In fact, how-ever, these party leaders were more willing to‘‘sacrifice Tyler on the altar of party expediency’’and promote Rives in return for cooperationfrom his fellow Conservatives in voting for aWhig presidential candidate in 1840.9

On February 15, 1839, each house first met sep-arately to hear extended debate in support ofRives, Tyler, and Mason then convened in jointsession to vote. With heavy support from theWhig rank-and-file, Tyler received a plurality oneach of the first five ballots. On the sixth ballot,Whigs began to shift in favor of Rives, whomoved into the lead but fell short of a majorityin this and succeeding tallies. On February 25,after twenty-eight ballots and eight legislativedays during which no other business was trans-

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acted, both houses agreed to suspend the votingindefinitely. The seat remained vacant for nearlytwo years until Tyler’s election as vice presidentbroke the deadlock and opened the way for thelegislature to select Rives, who had recentlychanged his political allegiance to the Whigparty.10

Contrary to his opponents’ later charges, Tylermade no effort to obtain the vice-presidentialnomination as a consolation prize for the Senateseat denied to him. ‘‘I do declare, in the presenceof my Heavenly Judge, that the nominationgiven to me was neither solicited norexpected.’’ 11

Whig Nominating Convention

Going into their December 1839 presidentialnominating convention, Whig leaders believedthat Democratic President Martin Van Buren waseasily beatable as long as they selected a chal-lenger of moderate views who had not alienatedlarge numbers of voters. Taking its name fromthe English political party of the seventeenth andeighteenth centuries that had formed in opposi-tion to monarchial tyranny, the American Whigparty was held together primarily by its opposi-tion to the perceived executive tyranny of ‘‘KingAndrew’’ and his successor, Van Buren.

Desiring a presidential candidate who wouldacknowledge the preeminent role of Congress asmaker of national policy, the party could not ig-nore Henry Clay. As a leader of the Senate’sWhigs and orchestrator of the 1834 Senate cen-sure of Jackson, Clay personified the notion ofcongressional dominance. He was the bestknown of his party’s potential candidates; hewas the most competent; and, as a slaveholderand low-tariff advocate, he enjoyed considerablesupport in the South. Party leaders from otherregions, however, argued that Clay’s publicrecord would work to his disadvantage and that,in any event, he could not be expected to carrythe electorally essential states of New York andPennsylvania.

Turning from a battle-scarred legislative vet-eran to military heroes of uncertain politicalleanings, the Whig convention, meeting in Har-risburg, Pennsylvania, considered War of 1812generals Winfield Scott and William Henry Har-

rison. Harrison’s heroism at the Battle of Tippe-canoe was well known. He served as territorialgovernor of Indiana after the war and later rep-resented Ohio in the House of Representativesand in the Senate, but he was hardly a nationalfigure before the 1836 election.12 That year he ranwell in the presidential contest and in 1840 wonthe endorsement of Senator Daniel Webster, whosought to block his old rival, Clay. At the con-vention, Harrison gained the crucial support ofNew York political boss Thurlow Weed, whoalso wanted to prevent Clay from becoming theparty’s nominee. Weed manipulated the conven-tion’s voting rules to require a unit-rule systemthat had each state cast its entire vote for the can-didate preferred by a simple majority of its dele-gates. Weed then led his state’s influential dele-gation to secure a first-ballot victory for Har-rison, a candidate unencumbered by a politicalrecord or strong opinions. 13

The Whigs turned to the selection of a vice-presidential candidate as somewhat of an after-thought. In finding a running mate for Harrison,they sought an equally malleable candidate whowould bring suitable geographical and ideologi-cal balance to the ticket. If Clay of Kentucky hadbeen selected for the presidency, party leadersintended to find a vice-presidential candidatefrom a state closed to slavery. With Harrison theparty’s choice, they looked instead to the slavestates for a suitable contender; they found JohnTyler.

The courtly Virginian had run well in southernstates during the 1836 contest and enjoyed a solididentification with the South and states’ rightsdoctrine.14 With Harrison rumored to be an abo-litionist sympathizer, a slaveholder would nicelybalance the ticket. The Whigs particularly hopedto pick up Virginia’s twenty-three electoralvotes, which had gone to the Democrats in 1836.(Both Tyler and Harrison had been born in thesame Virginia county and their fathers hadserved terms as that state’s governor.) The selec-tion of Tyler, who had energetically campaignedfor Clay through the final convention ballot—and was believed by some even to have shedtears at his defeat—was also intended to mollifyClay’s disappointed supporters in the South. Theconvention’s general committee quickly agreed

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on Tyler and recommended him to the assem-bled delegates, who voted their unanimous ap-proval. In selecting Tyler, party leaders made noeffort to determine whether his views were com-patible with their candidate’s, for their privatelyacknowledged campaign strategy was to ‘‘foolthe voters and avoid the issues.’’ 15

The 1840 Campaign

At Harrison’s request, Tyler remained inactiveduring most of the 1840 election campaign. Hismajor contribution was his surname, whichformed the rhyming conclusion of the party slo-gan ‘‘Tippecanoe and Tyler Too.’’ Few Ameri-cans took much interest in his candidacy, for thesixty-seven-year-old Harrison appeared to be ingood health and had vowed to serve only a sin-gle four-year term.

In the campaign’s final weeks, word reachedTyler that President Van Buren’s running mate,Vice President Richard Mentor Johnson, hadbeen conducting a vigorous reelection campaignbefore enthusiastic crowds in Ohio and adjacentstates. Tyler responded with a speaking tour ofhis own in portions of Virginia, Ohio, and Penn-sylvania.16 One Democratic editor concludedthat he might as well have stayed home. ‘‘Mr.Tyler is a graceful, easy speaker, with all thatblandness of manner which belongs to the Vir-ginia character. But there is nothing forcible orstriking in his speech; no bright thoughts, nowell-turned expressions; nothing that left an im-pression on the mind from its strength and beau-ty—nothing that marked the great man.’’ 17

Saddled with responsibility for the economiccrises that characterized his administration, Mar-tin Van Buren had but a slim chance to win asecond term. Harrison, for his part, avoided tak-ing unpopular stands by repeating at every op-portunity that he would take his direction fromCongress—the best instrument for expressingthe needs and wishes of the American people.Although the popular-vote margin was rel-atively slim, the Harrison-Tyler ticket won a re-sounding electoral vote victory (234 to 60) in anelection that stimulated the participation of 80.2percent of the eligible voters, the greatest per-centage ever.

Although Tyler failed to carry his own state ofVirginia, he took some satisfaction in believingthat his Pennsylvania tour may have been re-sponsible for winning that state’s important elec-toral votes. The election also placed both housesof Congress under Whig control for the first time.A Whig newspaper summarized the con-sequences of the Harrison-Tyler victory: ‘‘It haspleased the Almighty to give the oppressed peo-ple of this misgoverned and suffering country avictory over their weak and wicked rulers. . . .The reign of incompetency, imposture and cor-ruption, is at length arrested, and the countryredeemed.’’ 18

A Brief Vice-Presidency

At 11 a.m. on March 4, 1841, the Senate con-vened in special session to play its constitutionalrole in inaugurating the Harrison presidency.After the secretary of the Senate called membersto order, Henry Clay administered the oath of of-fice to President pro tempore William R. King.Then, as a wave of excitement swept chambergalleries that had been packed to capacity sinceearly morning, Tyler entered the room accom-panied by former Vice President Richard M.Johnson, the Supreme Court, and the diplomaticcorps. The court, somber ‘‘in their black robeswith their grave, intellectual, reflectingcountenances,’’ sat in front-row seats to the pre-siding officer’s right. To his left, in colorful con-trast, sat the ambassadors decorated, ‘‘not onlywith the insignia of their various orders, but halfcovered with the richest embroidery in silver andin gold.’’ 19

John Tyler arose and proceeded with VicePresident Richard Johnson to the presiding offi-cer’s chair to take his oath from President protempore King. The new vice president then as-sumed the chair and launched a three-minute in-augural address with a ringing tribute to hispredecessors, calling it an honor ‘‘to occupy aseat which has been filled and adorned . . . byan Adams, a Jefferson, a Gerry, a Clinton, anda Tompkins.’’ He then continued with a verbalbouquet to the Senate and ‘‘the high order of themoral and intellectual power which has distin-guished it in all past time, and which still distin-guishes it.’’ In the next sentence, Tyler moved

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into his main theme—the centrality of the states’rights doctrine:

Here [in the Senate] are to be found the imme-diate representatives of the States, by whose sov-ereign will the Government has been spoken intoexistence. Here exists the perfect equality amongthe members of this confederacy, which gives tothe smallest State in the Union a voice as poten-tial as that of the largest. To this body is commit-ted in an eminent degree, the trust of guardingand protecting the institutions handed down tous from our fathers, as well against the waves ofpopular and rash impulses on the one hand, asagainst attempts at executive encroachment onthe other.

Concluding in the spirit of Vice President Jef-ferson, Tyler confessed to his shortcomings as apresiding officer and asked of the Senate ‘‘yourindulgence for my defects, and your charity formy errors. I am but little skilled in parliamentarylaw, and have been unused to preside over delib-erative assemblies. All that I can urge in excuseof my defects is, that I bring with me to this chairan earnest wish to discharge properly its duties,and a fixed determination to preside over yourdeliberations with entire impartiality.’’ 20

When Tyler finished, senators beginning newterms took their oaths. At twenty minutes pastnoon, President-elect Harrison and the inauguralarrangements committee entered the chamberand took seats in front of the secretary’s desk.After several minutes, the entire official partyrose and proceeded to the Capitol’s east porticowhere a crowd of fifty thousand awaited to wit-ness the president’s oath-taking. On that blusteryspring day, Harrison spoke without hat or over-coat for more than ninety minutes. Following theceremony, Tyler and the Senate returned to thechamber to receive the president’s cabinet nomi-nations, which were confirmed unanimously onthe following day. Without caring to attend theseries of inaugural parties or to preside over theSenate for the remainder of the special sessionthat ended on March 15, Tyler promptly re-turned to Williamsburg. He traveled there, asone biographer noted, ‘‘with the expectation ofspending the next four years in peace andquiet.’’ 21

Early in April, Secretary of State Daniel Web-ster sent word to Tyler that Harrison, worn outfrom the press of jobseekers, had fallen seriouslyill. The vice president saw no compelling need,however, to return to Washington on account ofthe president’s condition. As Senator ThomasHart Benton observed, ‘‘Mr. Tyler would feel itindelicate to repair to the seat of government, ofhis own will, on hearing the report of the Presi-dent’s illness.’’ 22 Then, at sunrise on April 5,1841, two horsemen arrived at Tyler’s plantation.They were State Department chief clerk FletcherWebster, son of Secretary of State Daniel Web-ster, and Senate assistant doorkeeper RobertBeale, whose mission was to deliver a letter fromthe cabinet addressed to ‘‘John Tyler, Vice Presi-dent of the United States.’’ The letter reportedthat President Harrison had died of pneumoniathe previous day.23 After a quick breakfast, Tylerembarked on a hurried journey by horsebackand boat that placed him back in the nation’scapital at 4 a.m. the following day.

As word of Harrison’s demise spread across astartled nation, John Quincy Adams despairedfor the country’s well-being:

Tyler is a political sectarian, of the slave-driving,Virginian, Jeffersonian school, principled againstall improvement, with all the interests and pas-sions and vices of slavery rooted in his moral andpolitical constitution—with talents not above me-diocrity, and a spirit incapable of expansion tothe dimensions of the station upon which he hasbeen cast by the hand of Providence, unseenthrough the apparent agency of chance. No oneever thought of his being placed in the executivechair.24

Although Tyler at age fifty-one was youngerthan any previous president, he was also themost experienced in the ways of government. Hehad served as a member of both houses of hisstate legislature, both houses of the U.S. Con-gress, governor of his state, and vice presidentof the United States.25 By appearance, he wascast for a leadership role. Standing slightly oversix feet, he possessed all the ‘‘features of the bestGrecian model’’ including a sharply defined aq-uiline nose. When a bust of Cicero was discov-ered during an excavation in Naples, two visit-

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ing Americans reportedly exclaimed ‘‘PresidentTyler!’’ 26

The Accidental President

Harrison’s demise after only a month in officepresented the nation with a potential constitu-tional crisis. The Constitution of that time con-tained no Twenty-fifth Amendment to lay outprocedures governing the vice president’s ac-tions when the chief executive became disabledor when there was a vacancy before the end ofthe incumbent’s term. The document providedonly that the ‘‘Powers and Duties of the said Of-fice . . . shall devolve on the Vice President. . . [who] shall act accordingly, until the Disabil-ity be removed, or a President shall be elected.’’In another section, the Constitution referred tothe vice president ‘‘when he shall exercise [em-phasis added] the Office of President of the Unit-ed States.’’ 27

These provisions had occasioned a theoreticaldiscussion between those who believed a persondoes not have to become president to exercisepresidential powers and others who held that thevice president becomes president for the balanceof the term.28 As the first vice president to suc-ceed to the presidency upon the death of hispredecessor, Tyler was determined to transformtheory into practice on behalf of the latter view,becoming president in his own right and not‘‘Vice President, acting as President’’ as Har-rison’s cabinet was inclined to label him. Sec-retary of State Webster raised his concern aboutthe constitutional implications of the successionwith William Carroll, clerk of the SupremeCourt. Carroll conveyed Webster’s misgivings toChief Justice Roger Taney, reporting that the‘‘Cabinet would be pleased to see and conferwith you at this most interesting moment.’’Taney responded with extreme caution, sayingthat he wished to avoid raising ‘‘the suspicionof desiring to intrude into the affairs which be-long to another branch of government.’’ 29

Tyler argued that his vice-presidential oathcovered the possibility of having to take over aschief executive and consequently there was noneed for him to take the separate presidentialoath. The cabinet, major newspapers, and someTyler advisers disagreed. To remove any doubt,

despite his own strong reservations, Tyler agreedto the oath, which was administered on April 6at Brown’s Indian Queen Hotel by Chief JudgeWilliam Cranch of the U.S. Circuit Court for theDistrict of Columbia. Taking this step produceda significant reward, for it boosted Tyler’s annualsalary five-fold from $5,000 to $25,000.30

In his first official move, Tyler convened Har-rison’s cabinet and listened patiently as Secretaryof State Daniel Webster advised that it had beenHarrison’s custom to bring all administrative is-sues ‘‘before the Cabinet, and their settlementwas decided by the majority, each member of theCabinet and the President having but one vote.’’Choosing his words with care, Tyler responded,‘‘I am the President, and I shall be held respon-sible for my administration. I shall be pleased toavail myself of your counsel and advice. But Ican never consent to being dictated to as to whatI shall do or not do. When you think otherwise,your resignations will be accepted.’’ 31

Outside of his cabinet, Tyler’s assumption ofthe presidency’s full powers evoked little generalconcern that he was overstepping proper con-stitutional boundaries, or that a special electionshould be called. Major newspapers argued thathe was fully justified in his action, although forseveral months after he took office some journalscontinued to refer to him as ‘‘acting president.’’One suggested a compromise view; a specialelection would be required only if the presidencywere to fall, in the absence of a vice president,to the Senate president pro tempore or the HouseSpeaker, as designated by the presidential suc-cession statute of 1792.32

As the epithet ‘‘His Accidency’’ grew in popu-larity, Congress convened on May 31, 1841, forits previously called special session and imme-diately took up the issue of Tyler’s claim to bepresident in his own right. The question wasraised as the House prepared a resolution au-thorizing a committee to follow the custom of in-forming the president that ‘‘Congress is nowready to receive any communication he may bepleased to make.’’ 33 One member moved toamend the resolution by striking out the word‘‘President’’ and substituting ‘‘Vice Presidentnow exercising the office of President.’’ Membersmore sympathetic to Tyler’s reading of the Con-

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stitution—and the need to get on with the busi-ness of the nation—offered a firm rebuttal, whichthe House then agreed to.

In the Senate, on the following day, a memberposed a hypothetical question as to what wouldhappen if the president were only temporarilydisabled and the vice president assumed the of-fice. He envisioned a major struggle at the timethe disabled president sought to resume hispowers, particularly if he and the vice presidentwere of different parties. Senator John C. Cal-houn reminded the Senate that this was not thesituation that faced them, rendering further dis-cussion pointless. And what about the Senate’spresident pro tempore? Should he assume thevice-presidency as the vice president had as-sumed the presidency? Former President protempore George Poindexter urged the incumbentpresident pro tempore, Samuel Southard, toclaim the title. Southard ignored the advice, andthe Senate then joined the House in adopting aresolution recognizing Tyler’s legitimate claim tothe presidency.34

Acting Vice President (President Pro Tempore)

In this early period of the Senate’s history,when a vice president planned to be away fromthe Capitol, the Senate customarily elected apresident pro tempore to serve for the limitedtime of that absence. This official would preside,sign legislation, and perform routine administra-tive tasks. Whenever the vice-presidency was va-cant, as it was with the deaths of George Clintonand Elbridge Gerry in James Madison’s adminis-tration, the post of president pro tempore, nextin line of presidential succession, assumedheightened importance. Two individuals heldthis crucial post during Tyler’s presidency: Sam-uel Southard, from 1841 to 1842, and Willie P.Mangum from 1842 to 1845.

Soon after Vice President Tyler left Washing-ton on the day of Harrison’s inauguration, theSenate followed Clay’s recommendation andelected Senator Samuel Southard of New Jerseyas president pro tempore. Southard had first en-tered the Senate in 1821 but resigned in 1823 tobecome secretary of the navy. In 1833, after mov-ing through a series of state and national offices,Southard returned to the Senate, where he

helped to establish the Whig party. At a timewhen Clay was attempting to consolidate hiscontrol of the Senate, Southard proved to be auseful ally. When the Senate convened in May1841, a month after Harrison’s death, Southard’ssignificance expanded. In this period of the Sen-ate’s history, the vice president or, in his absence,the president pro tempore made all committeeassignments. Southard willingly accommodatedClay in the distribution of importantchairmanships.

The next year, however, on May 3, 1842, theNew Jersey Whig resigned from the Senate dueto ill health and died soon thereafter. Severalweeks later, on May 31, the Senate selected a newpresident pro tempore, Willie P. Mangum (W-NC), a leader of the Senate’s Whig caucus.Mangum had served a Senate term in the 1830sand, as a Clay delegate to the 1839 Whig conven-tion, had been considered briefly as a vice-presi-dential nominee. He returned to the Senate in1840, where he remained as a Whig leader until1853. His 1842 selection as president pro temporeoccurred in recognition of his leadership in op-posing Tyler. He held the post through the re-mainder of Tyler’s administration.

Tyler’s Presidency

Deep divisions over the issue of establishinga new banking system overshadowed Tyler’searly presidency. In the Senate, Henry Clay ledhis party in a direction quite different from Ty-ler’s. The two men had been good friends, de-spite their philosophical differences. Tyler hadjoined the Whigs because of his strong opposi-tion to the policies of Andrew Jackson and Mar-tin Van Buren. Ideologically, however, he had lit-tle sympathy for the Whig program of a nationalbank, internal improvements, and protective tar-iffs embodied in Clay’s ‘‘American System.’’ Asa former states’ rights Democrat, Tyler empha-sized the importance of state sovereignty overnational economic integration. Both Tyler andClay held a typical nineteenth-century, anti-Jack-sonian view of the presidency as a limited, rel-atively passive office responsible for providingCongress the necessary information to pass ap-propriate legislation. They saw the president’spolicy role as essentially limited to vetoing legis-

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lation that he believed to be either unconstitu-tional or not in the nation’s best interests. Tyler,however, would have given the president suffi-cient power to keep Congress from actions thatmight erode states’ rights. Clay made a sharperdistinction, advocating an assertive Congressand a chief executive stripped of the powers ac-quired during Jackson’s years in office. Admirersand foes alike began referring to Clay as ‘‘the An-drew Jackson of the Senate.’’

Although Clay had briefly opposed Tyler’smove to take on full presidential powers afterHarrison’s death, he changed his mind andbegan to provide the new chief executive withvaluable moral and political support. Yet Clayalso realized that Tyler now blocked his ownroad to the presidency. Clay had appeared to bethe obvious successor in 1845, based on Har-rison’s announcement that he intended to serveonly one term.

Clay intended to lead the nation from the Sen-ate and he expected Tyler to help him to that ob-jective by supporting his policies. That expecta-tion quickly proved to be misplaced. Despite Ty-ler’s mild-mannered demeanor, he began to dis-play a rock-like tenacity in pushing for his ownobjectives. Clay sought to reestablish a strong,private, central bank of the United States. Tyler,consistent in his concern for preservation ofstates’ rights—and state banks—advocated aweaker bank, chartered in the District of Colum-bia, that would operate only in those states thatchose to have it. When Clay urged Tyler to pushfor a new Bank of the United States during theMay 1841 special session, Tyler said he wantedmore time and intended to put the matter offuntil the regular session in December. Clay arro-gantly responded that this would not be accept-able. Tyler is said to have countered, ‘‘Then, sir,I wish you to understand this—that you and Iwere born in the same district; that we have fedupon the same food, and have breathed the samenatal air. Go you now then, Mr. Clay, to yourend of the avenue, where stands the Capitol, andthere perform your duty to the country as youshall think proper. So help me God, I shall domine at this end of it as I shall think proper.’’ 35

In the interest of party harmony, Clay eventu-ally agreed to a compromise bank measure,

which the increasingly resentful Tyler promptlyvetoed. Congress subsequently passed a modi-fied ‘‘Fiscal Corporation’’ bill to meet the presi-dent’s specific objections. Tyler also vetoed thisact as an unconstitutional infringement on states’rights. On Saturday, September 11, 1841, in thefinal days of the special session, Tyler’s entirecabinet—with the exception of Secretary of StateWebster—resigned in a protest designed by Clayto force Tyler’s own resignation. With the vice-presidency vacant, this would place Clay’sprotege, Senate President pro tempore Southard,in the White House.

Refusing to be intimidated, Tyler respondedthe following Monday by sending the Senate anew slate of cabinet officers. Despite the presi-dent’s break with the Senate’s leaders, the bodyon September 13 quickly confirmed each of thenominees and then adjourned until December.Later that day, in a starkly dramatic move, sixtyprominent Whigs assembled in the plaza adja-cent to the Capitol. In a festive mood, they adopt-ed a manifesto that asserted the supremacy ofCongress in policy-making, condemned thepresident’s conduct, and proclaimed that theWhig party could no longer be held responsiblefor the chief executive’s actions. Tyler had be-come a president without a party.36

The chaos that ensued gave Tyler the un-wanted distinction of having ‘‘the most dis-rupted Cabinet in presidential history.’’ 37 Dur-ing his nearly four years in office, he appointedtwenty-two individuals to the administration’ssix cabinet seats. Many of these nominees weremanifestly unqualified for their assignments,and the Senate refused to confirm four of them.Among those rejected was Caleb Cushing, whomTyler chose to be secretary of the treasury. Onthe day of Cushing’s initial rejection, Tyler im-mediately resubmitted his name. The Senate, irri-tated at this disregard of its expressed will, againsaid ‘‘no’’ but by a larger margin. For a thirdtime, Tyler nominated Cushing and again theSenate decisively rejected him. The Senate’sWhig majority, stalling for time in the expecta-tion that Henry Clay would be elected presidentin 1844, also turned down, or failed to act on,four of Tyler’s Supreme Court nominees—arecord not before or since equalled.

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Positioning himself to run in 1844 as the Whigcandidate for the presidency, Clay resigned fromthe Senate in March 1842. Tyler continued thestruggle with his party’s congressional majorityby vetoing two tariff bills. As government reve-nues fell to a dangerously low level, he finallyagreed to a measure that became the Tariff Actof 1842. Although this action probably aided thenation’s economy, it destroyed any remaininghope that Tyler might govern effectively. North-ern Whigs condemned him for failing to push fora sufficiently protective tariff, and his formerstates’ rights allies in the South abandoned himfor supporting a measure that they consideredexcessively protective.

John Tyler sought to be a strong president, buthis accomplishments proved to be modest. Stub-born, proud, and unpredictable, he decisively es-tablished the right of the vice president to as-sume the full powers of the presidency in theevent of a vacancy to an unexpired term. Heboldly exercised the veto ten times, a record ex-ceeded only by Andrew Jackson among presi-dents who served in the nation’s first seventy-five years. His chief contributions lay in the fieldof foreign policy. The annexation of Texasopened a new chapter in the nation’s history. TheWebster-Ashburton treaty prevented a costlywar with Great Britain, and the Treaty ofWanghia obtained economically promising

most-favored-nation status for the United Statesin China. 38

Despite his earlier ambitions, Tyler became thefirst president not to seek a second term. (Noparty would have him as its candidate.) Afterleaving the White House on March 3, 1845, Tylerpracticed law and was appointed to the boardof visitors for the College of William and Mary.A year earlier, at the first presidential weddingto be conducted in the White House, he had mar-ried Julia Gardiner, a vivacious partner who, likehis first wife Letitia, produced seven children.39

In February 1861 the ex-president chaired a con-ference in Washington in a last-ditch effort toavert civil war. When that war began, he waselected to Virginia’s secessionist convention andthen to the provisional Congress of the Confed-eracy. He had won a seat in the ConfederateCongress’ house of representatives, but his deathon January 18, 1862, came before he could beginhis service.

Tyler biographer Robert Seager notes that he‘‘lived in a time in which many brilliant andforceful men strode the American stage . . . andhe was overshadowed by all of them, as was theoffice of the Presidency itself. . . . Had he surren-dered his states’ rights and anti-Bank principleshe might have salvaged it. He chose not to sur-render and the powerful Henry Clay crushedhim.’’ 40

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NOTES1 Robert Seager II, And Tyler Too: A Biography of John &

Julia Gardiner Tyler (Norwalk, CT, 1963), p. 50.2 Ibid., pp. 52–53.3 Ibid., pp. 55–56.4 Ibid., pp. 56–58.5 Ibid., p. 53–54.6 Quoted in ibid., p. 72.7 Oliver Perry Chitwood, John Tyler: Champion of the Old

South (New York, 1939), pp. 148–49.8 Ibid., p. 151–52.9 Ibid., pp. 157–61.10 Ibid., pp. 162–63.11 National Intelligencer, August 27, 1844; Seager, p. 135.12 Robert Gray Gunderson, The Log-Cabin Campaign (Lex-

ington, KY, 1957), pp. 41–75; Merrill D. Peterson, The GreatTriumvirate: Webster, Clay, and Calhoun (New York, 1987),pp. 248, 281–96; Robert V. Remini, Henry Clay: Statesman forthe Union (New York, 1991), pp. 545–67.

13 Norma Lois Peterson, The Presidencies of William HenryHarrison & John Tyler (Lawrence, KS, 1989), p. 21; Chitwood,pp. 164–67.

14 Seager, pp. 134–35. There is some scholarly controversyover the reasons for Tyler’s selection. The view that he wascarelessly selected may not have been widely held untilafter Tyler broke with Whig party leaders after becomingpresident. For a discussion of this question, see Norma Pe-terson, The Presidencies of William Henry Harrison & JohnTyler, p. 26; Chitwood, pp. 167–73.

15 William O. Stoddard, Lives of the Presidents, 10 vols.(New York, 1888), 5:44; Chitwood, pp. 166–67; Norma Peter-son, pp. 26–27.

16 Chitwood, pp. 184–85.17 Daily Pittsburgher, October 8, 1840, quoted in ibid., p.

187.18 Niles’ National Register, 59:163.19 Niles National Register, March 13, 1841, p. 19. This excel-

lent source provides colorful descriptions of the events ofMarch 4, 1841.

20 Chitwood, pp. 200–201; U.S., Congress, Senate, Congres-sional Globe, 26th Cong., 2d sess., March 4, 1841, pp. 231–32.

21 Chitwood, p. 202.

22 Thomas Hart Benton, Thirty Years’ View, 2 vols. (NewYork, 1871), 2:211.

23 Ruth C. Silva, Presidential Succession (Ann Arbor, MI,1951), p. 16.

24 Charles Francis Adams, ed., Memoirs of John QuincyAdams, 12 vols. (Philadelphia, 1876), 10:456–57.

25 Seager, p. 147.26 Quoted in Remini, p. 582.27 U.S. Constitution, Article II, section 1, clause 6; Article

I, section 2, clause 10.28 Stephen W. Stathis, ‘‘John Tyler’s Presidential Succes-

sion: A Reappraisal,’’ Prologue 8 (Winter 1976): 223–24, espe-cially footnote 1; Silva, pp. 2–3. See also Stephen W. Stathis,‘‘The Making of a Precedent 1841 (The Presidential Succes-sion of John Tyler),’’ (Master’s Thesis, Utah State University,1971).

29 Samuel Tyler, Memoir of Roger Brooke Taney (Baltimore,1872), pp. 295–96; Silva, pp. 16–17.

30 Sharon Stiver Gressle, ‘‘Salaries, Executive,’’ Encyclo-pedia of the American Presidency (New York, 1994), pp. 1344–46.

31 Quoted in Seager, p. 149.32 Silva, pp. 18–20.33 Congressional Globe, 27th Cong., 1st sess., pp. 3–4.34 Stathis, p. 234; Chitwood, p. 206; Silva, pp. 21–22. Even

after he left the presidency, Tyler continued to confront theissue of his proper title. On October 16, 1848, he wrote toSecretary of State James Buchanan to complain that the StateDepartment, the government’s official arbiter of protocol,had on three occasions addressed him in formal cor-respondence as ‘‘ex-vice president.’’ ‘‘I desire only to say,that if I am addressed, and especially from the State depart-ment, by title, it must be that which the Constitution confers. . .’’ [quoted in Silva, p. 21]

35 Chitwood, pp. 210–11; Seager, p. 147; Remini, p. 583.36 Norma Peterson, pp. 89–91; Seager, p. 160.37 Paul Finkelman, ‘‘John Tyler,’’ Encyclopedia of the Amer-

ican Presidency, 4:1521.38 For a balanced assessment of Tyler’s presidency, see

Norma Peterson, chapter 15.39 Seager, pp. 1–16.40 Ibid., p. xvi.

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Chapter 11

GEORGE MIFFLIN DALLAS1845–1849

GEORGE M. DALLAS

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Chapter 11

GEORGE MIFFLIN DALLAS11th Vice President: 1845–1849

[Except that he is President of the Senate, the vice president] forms no part of the government:—he enters into no administrative sphere:—he has practically no legislative, executive, or judicial func-tions:—while the Senate sits, he presides, that’s all:—he doesn’t debate or vote, (except to end a tie) hemerely preserves the order and courtesy of business . . . [When Congress is in recess] where is he togo? what has he to do?—no where, nothing! He might, to be sure, meddle with affairs of state, rummagethrough the departments, devote his leisure to the study of public questions and interests, holding himselfin readiness to counsel and to help at every emergency in the great onward movement of the vast ma-chine:—But, then, recollect, that this course would sometimes be esteemed intrusive, sometimes factious,sometimes vain and arrogant, and, as it is prescribed by no law, it could not fail to be treated lightlybecause guaranteed by no responsibility.

—GEORGE M. DALLAS, CA. 1845 1

George Mifflin Dallas admitted in his lateryears that his driving force in life was for histori-cal fame. From the 1840s on through the latterpart of the nineteenth century, Americans associ-ated his name with the acquisition of Texas andthe settlement of the Oregon boundary dispute.Texas memorialized his contributions to thestate’s history by renaming the town of Peter’sCorner in his honor. In the 1850s, when officialsin Oregon sought a name for the principal townin Polk County, they settled on the logical choice:Polk’s vice president. Thus, while largely forgot-ten today as the nation’s eleventh vice president,George Mifflin Dallas has won his measure ofimmortality in a large Texas city and a small Or-egon town.2

For four years at the heart of the Senate’s‘‘Golden Age,’’ Vice President George Dallas oc-cupied a center stage seat in the nation’s premierpolitical theater. This courtly Philadelphia aris-tocrat—whose political ambition greatly ex-ceeded his political energy—entered that arenain 1845 filled with optimism for the nation, theDemocratic party, and his own presidential fu-ture. He departed in 1849 embittered and de-

pressed, his political chances obliterated. Duringhis term, the nation fought and won a war withMexico, acquired vast new territories, settled achronic northwestern boundary dispute, discov-ered gold, and launched a communications revo-lution with the invention of the telegraph. In theSenate, where political party caucuses assumednew powers to appoint committee members anddistribute patronage, the central debates oc-curred over the status of slavery in the territoriesand the very nature of the constitutional union.With increasing frequency, senators faced con-flicting choices between the desires of their par-ties and of their constituencies. When such anunavoidable decision confronted Vice PresidentDallas in July 1846 on the then searing issue oftariff policy, he chose party over constituency—thereby forfeiting his political future.

Early Years

George Mifflin Dallas was born in Philadelphiaon July 10, 1792, the second of Alexander andArabella Smith Dallas’ six children. AlexanderDallas, a politically well-connected Philadelphialawyer, served as secretary for the Common-wealth of Pennsylvania and reporter for the

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opinions of the U.S. Supreme Court and othercourts then meeting in that city, which was at thetime the nation’s capital and leading commercialcenter. In 1801, as a reward for the elder Dallas’assistance in his presidential election campaign,Thomas Jefferson appointed him U.S. district at-torney for the eastern district of Pennsylvania.He remained in that post until 1814, when Presi-dent James Madison selected him as his treasurysecretary. In 1815, Alexander Dallas also servedconcurrently for a brief period as acting secretaryof war. He then resigned the treasury positionin 1816 to return to his law practice with the in-tention of expanding the family’s financial re-sources. However, early the following year, achronic illness led to his death at the age of fifty-nine, leaving his family without the wealth nec-essary to support its accustomed style of living.

George Dallas graduated with highest honorsfrom the College of New Jersey at Princeton in1810. He then studied law and in 1813, at agetwenty, was admitted to the Pennsylvania bar.With little taste for legal practice, he sought mili-tary service in the War of 1812 but abandonedthose plans on the objection of his ever-influen-tial father. He then readily accepted an appoint-ment to serve as private secretary to formertreasury secretary and Pennsylvania political fig-ure Albert Gallatin, who was about to embarkon a wartime mission to secure the aid of Russiain U.S. peace negotiations with Great Britain.Dallas enjoyed the opportunities that travel tothis distant land offered, but after six months or-ders took him from St. Petersburg to London toprobe for diplomatic openings that might bringthe war to an end.

In August 1814, as British troops were settingfire to the U.S. Capitol, young Dallas carried apreliminary draft of Britain’s peace terms hometo Washington and accepted President Madi-son’s appointment as remitter of the treasury, aconvenient arrangement at a time when his fa-ther was serving as that department’s secretary.The light duties of his new post left Dallas plentyof time to pursue his major vocational interest—politics.3

In 1816, lonely and lovesick, Dallas left Wash-ington for Philadelphia, where he married So-phia Chew Nicklin, daughter of an old-line Fed-

eralist family. (They would eventually have eightchildren.) His marriage extended his social andpolitical reach but, as his modern biographer re-ports, ‘‘Prestige came without money, a cir-cumstance that was doubly unfortunate becausehe had developed extravagant tastes as a youth.For this reason he continually lived beyond hismeans and was constantly in debt, a situationthat caused him on more than one occasion toreject otherwise acceptable political posts.’’ 4 Atthe start of his married life, Dallas achieved ameasure of financial stability by accepting a posi-tion as counsel to the Second Bank of the UnitedStates, an institution his father had helped createwhile treasury secretary. The 1817 death of Alex-ander Dallas abruptly ended George’s plans fora family law practice. He left the Bank of theUnited States to become deputy attorney generalof Philadelphia, a post he held until 1820.

George Mifflin Dallas cultivated a bearing ap-propriate to his aristocratic origins. Tall, withsoft hazel eyes, an aquiline nose, and sandy hair,he dressed impeccably in the finest clothes hisfashionable city could offer, wrote poetry, and,when the occasion warranted, spoke perfectlynuanced French. He developed an oratoricalstyle that capitalized on his sonorous voice andprotected him from the barbs of quicker-wittedlegal adversaries. His biographer explains that,whether ‘‘by chance or design, his habit of talk-ing slowly and emphasizing each word createdthe feeling that he was reasoning his way to aconclusion on the spot. Since he also preparedcases carefully in advance, his apparent gropingfor the right word—and finding it—reinforcedthe initial impression that a great mind was atwork.’’ 5

Dallas, however, lacked both the intense drivenecessary to achieve his high ambitions and anatural politican’s gift for warm social inter-action with those outside his immediate circle.‘‘A silk-stocking Jeffersonian in an age of egali-tarianism,’’ he preferred to remain aloof from therough-and-tumble world of political deal mak-ing. Only once in his public life, when he ran forthe vice-presidency, did he submit himself to thedecision of the voting public. The Pennsylvaniastate legislature awarded him his Senate term,and the rest of his offices were given by appoint-

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ment. At crucial moments, Dallas pulled backfrom the wrenching political compromises andexhausting coalition building necessary toachieve his lifelong quest for the presidency.6

Buchanan Rivalry

Pennsylvania’s chaotic political climate in theforty years that followed the War of 1812 pro-moted, shaped, and ultimately sidetracked Dal-las’ public career. Two factions within the state’sDemocratic party contended for power duringthat time. Led by Dallas, the Philadelphia-based‘‘Family party’’ shared his belief in the suprem-acy of the Constitution and in an active nationalgovernment that would impose protective tariffs,operate a strong central banking system, andpromote so-called internal improvements to fa-cilitate national commerce. In factional opposi-tion to Dallas stood the equally patrician JamesBuchanan of Harrisburg, head of the rival‘‘Amalgamators,’’ whose strength lay among thefarmers of western Pennsylvania.7

When the Family party gained control of thePhiladelphia city councils, its members in 1828elected Dallas as mayor. Boredom with that postquickly led Dallas—in his father’s path—to theposition of district attorney for the eastern dis-trict of Pennsylvania, where he stayed from 1829to 1831. In December 1831 he won a five-man,eleven-ballot contest in the state legislature forelection to the U.S. Senate to complete anunexpired term. In the Senate for only fourteenmonths, he chaired the Naval Affairs Committeeand supported President Jackson’s views on pro-tective tariffs and the use of force to implementfederal tariff laws in South Carolina.

A longtime supporter and financial beneficiaryof the Second Bank of the United States, whoseoriginal charter his father had drafted, Dallas re-luctantly parted company with the president onthe volcanic issue of the bank’s rechartering. Asone Dallas biographer has written: ‘‘There wasno question about how the people of Pennsylva-nia viewed the Second Bank of the United States.The Philadelphia-based institution was Penn-sylvanian by interest, location, and legislativeinitiative.’’ 8 Dallas complied with a directivefrom his state legislature that he support a new

charter, despite Jackson’s unremitting oppositionand his own view that the divisive recharterissue should be put off until after the 1832 presi-dential election. When Jackson vetoed the rechar-ter act in July 1831 and Congress failed to over-ride the veto, Dallas—always the pragmatist—dropped his support for the bank. Observing that‘‘we ought to have it, but we can do without it,’’he mollified the president and angered his state’sinfluential commercial interests.9 Dallas realizedthat his chances for reelection to the Senate bythe state legislature were uncertain. His wife So-phia, who refused to leave Philadelphia’s com-forts for muddy and cholera-ridden Washington,was growing increasingly bitter over the legisla-tive and social demands of his life in the capital.Consequently, Dallas chose not to run for a fullterm and left the Senate in March 1833.10

Although off the national stage, Dallas re-mained active in state Democratic politics. Thetension with Buchanan intensified when the lat-ter returned from his diplomatic post in Russiaand secured Pennsylvania’s other seat in the U.S.Senate. Dallas turned down opportunities to re-turn to the Senate and to become the nation’s at-torney general. Instead, he accepted an appoint-ment as state attorney general, holding that postuntil 1835, when control of the state’s party ma-chinery shifted from the declining Family partyto Buchanan’s Amalgamators. In 1837, it wasDallas’ turn for political exile, as newly electedPresident Martin Van Buren named him U.S.minister to Russia. Although Dallas enjoyed thesocial responsibilities of that post, he soon grewfrustrated at its lack of substantive duties and re-turned to the United States in 1839. He foundthat during his absence in St. Petersburg Bu-chanan had achieved a commanding position inthe home state political contest that had long en-gaged the two men.11

In December 1839, Van Buren offered the U.S.attorney-generalship to Dallas after Buchananhad rejected the post. Dallas again declined theoffer and spent the following years building hisPhiladelphia law practice. His relations with Bu-chanan remained troubled throughout thisperiod.

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The 1844 Campaign and Election

Favoring Van Buren for the 1844 Democraticpresidential nomination, Dallas worked success-fully to blunt Buchanan’s drive for that prize.Van Buren sought unsuccessfully to have theDemocratic convention held in November 1843rather than late May 1844. He had hoped to cap-ture the nomination before his opposition to theannexation of Texas became public when Con-gress convened in early December. By April1844, with Democratic support for annexation in-tensifying, Van Buren watched helplessly as hischances for regaining the White House slippedaway.

Under the influence of Van Buren’s opponents,the Democratic party’s Baltimore convention inMay adopted the Jackson-era rule that requireda two-thirds vote to select its nominee. Aftereight deadlocked ballots at the superheated andviolence-prone convention, supporters of VanBuren and his chief rival, Michigan’s Lewis Cass,united on the unheralded former House SpeakerJames K. Polk of Tennessee—who thus becamethe first successful ‘‘darkhorse’’ candidate inAmerican presidential history. To cement an alli-ance with the disgruntled Van Buren faction,Polk offered to support a Van Buren loyalist forthe vice-presidential nomination, New York Sen-ator Silas Wright. Although Wright was absentfrom the convention, those delegates who hadnot already left town willingly added him to theticket.12

Four days earlier, Professor Samuel F. B. Morsehad successfully demonstrated that his newly in-vented ‘‘Magnetic Electric Telegraph’’ couldtransmit messages over the forty-mile distancebetween the U.S. Capitol and Baltimore. SilasWright was in the Capitol Rotunda reading othertelegraphic reports from the Baltimore conven-tion when news of his nomination arrived. Bitterat the convention’s rejection of Van Buren,Wright dictated a response to Morse, who typedout the following message to the convention’swaiting delegates: ‘‘WASHINGTON. IMPORTANT!MR. WRIGHT IS HERE, AND SAYS, SAY TO THE NEW

YORK DELEGATION, THAT HE CANNOT ACCEPT THE

NOMINATION.’’ His party’s remaining delegatesin Baltimore did not fully trust this new inven-

tion and repeated their message. Morse replied:‘‘AGAIN: MR. WRIGHT IS HERE, AND WILL SUPPORT

MR. POLK CHEERFULLY, BUT CAN NOT ACCEPT THE

NOMINATION FOR VICE-PRESIDENT.’’ The unbeliev-ing convention continued its request untilWright dispatched two members of Congress ina wagon—the evening train to Baltimore had al-ready departed—bearing handwritten letters ofrejection.13

With Wright out of the picture, and with noNew York ally of Van Buren willing to accept thenomination, the convention turned to James Bu-chanan, but he immediately instructed his alliesto withdraw his name. The searchlight thenswept across several candidates from New Eng-land and came to rest on Maine’s Senator JohnFairfield, who received an impressive, but incon-clusive, 106 votes on the first ballot. At the sug-gestion of party leader and Mississippi SenatorRobert J. Walker (who was married to Dallas’niece), Pennsylvania delegates then sparked amove for Dallas, who was at home in Philadel-phia. Dallas’ views were generally compatiblewith Polk’s, especially on the key issue of annex-ing Texas. His stand in favor of protective tariffswould appeal to northeastern commercial inter-ests and offset Polk’s ambiguous position on thissensitive issue. Party strategists realized thatPennsylvania, with its prize of nearly 10 percentof the total electoral votes, which were by nomeans safely in the Democratic camp, couldprove decisive in the election. On the second bal-lot, the convention gave Dallas the nominationwith 220 votes to just 30 for Fairfield.

On May 30, sixty high-spirited delegates leftBaltimore for Philadelphia, arriving at the Dallasresidence at 3 a.m. As a bewildered Dallas stoodby his open door, the nocturnal visitors marchedby double column silently into his parlor. Form-ing a semicircle, the men burst into applause asSenator Fairfield conveyed the surprising newsand Dallas, uneasy at the prospect of returningto public life, accepted with less than abundantenthusiasm.14

The selection also came as news to presidentialnominee Polk, whose advisers quickly assuredhim that Dallas would be an excellent com-plement to the ticket. Within Pennsylvania, opin-ion was sharply divided, as resentful Buchanan

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allies feared that the less-than-dynamic Dallaswould cost their party the presidency in a contestagainst the aggressive and better-known Whigcandidates, Kentucky’s Henry Clay and New Jer-sey’s Theodore Frelinghuysen.15 One Pennsylva-nia Whig dismissively described Dallas as ‘‘agentleman by birth and education, amiable inprivate life, very bland and courteous in manner. . . a reckless partizan totally devoid of principleand capable of upholding or relinquishing . . .opinions whenever his own or his party’s inter-ests require it.’’ 16

As was customary prior to 1845, the variousstates scheduled the presidential election on dif-ferent days during November’s first twoweeks.17 When the votes were finally tallied, thePolk-Dallas ticket won fifteen out of the twenty-six states by a comfortable margin of 170 to 105electoral votes. They were far less convincing,however, in the popular vote, with a margin ofonly 6,000 out of the 2.7 million ballots cast. Polknarrowly lost his native Tennessee, while Dallasbarely carried Pennsylvania. While analystsagreed that victories in New York and Penn-sylvania made the difference for the Democraticticket, no such consensus existed about Dallas’impact on this result.18

Preparing for Office

Like many of his contemporaries on the na-tional political stage in 1845, George Dallas want-ed to be president. In accepting the Democraticnomination, Polk committed himself to servingonly one term, hoping this promise would en-courage his party’s warring factions to suspendtheir combat at least until the 1848 campaign.19

Instead, his pledge instantly prompted maneu-vering from many quarters for the 1848 nomina-tion. Four of the nation’s ten previous vice presi-dents had moved up to the presidency and Dal-las saw no reason why he should not become thefifth. For his first two years in the second office,Dallas framed his behavior with that goal inmind.

Dallas met Polk for the first time on February13, 1845, joining the president-elect for the finalleg of his railroad journey to Washington. Dallasused the opportunity to follow up on his earliersuggestions for cabinet nominees he believed

would strengthen the party—and his own presi-dential chances.20 He particularly sought to sab-otage archrival James Buchanan’s hopes of be-coming secretary of state, the other traditionallaunching pad to the White House. Buchananhad arrogantly instructed Pennsylvania’s presi-dential electors to recommend him for that postat the time they cast their ballots for the Demo-cratic ticket. This infuriated Dallas, who prom-ised a friend that, while he had become vicepresident ‘‘willy-nilly’’ and expected to endure‘‘heavy and painful and protracted sacrifices,. . . I am resolved that no one shall be taken fromPennsylvania in a cabinet office who is notori-ously hostile to the Vice President. If such achoice be made, my relations with the adminis-tration are at once at an end.’’ 21

Several weeks later, learning that Polk had in-deed chosen Buchanan, Dallas failed to follow upon his dark oath. Instead, he began quietly tolobby for the appointment of Senator Robert J.Walker—his earlier choice against Buchanan forthe state department—for the influential post oftreasury secretary. Polk, realizing that he had of-fended Dallas and Walker’s southern Democraticallies, awarded the treasury post to Walker. Dal-las continued to be sensitive about the adminis-tration’s distribution of major appointments, ashe sought to strengthen his Pennsylvania politi-cal base in order to weaken the Buchanan factionand enhance his own presidential prospects. Inhis subsequent appointments, however, Polkcontinued to antagonize Dallas, as well as othersin the Democratic party. Again, the presidenttried to appease the vice president. ‘‘I wouldhave been pleased to explain to you some of thecircumstances attending the appointments atPhiladelphia which were made some time ago,but no opportunity for that purpose has oc-curred.’’ Dallas responded that it was pointlessto discuss these matters ‘‘in as much as you havenot been able to gratify the few requests I havepreviously made.’’ Despite his frustration andsubsequent patronage losses to Secretary of StateBuchanan, who was a far tougher and more per-sistent operator, the vice president endeavoredto remain loyal to his president and party.22

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President of the Senate

From 1789 to 1845, the Senate followed thepractice of selecting its committees by ballot,with the exception of several years in the 1820sand 1830s when the power was specifically givento the presiding officer (1823–1826) or, morepointedly, to the president pro tempore (1828–1833), an officer selected by and responsible tothe Senate.23 When the Senate convened inMarch 1845 for its brief special session to receivethe new president’s executive nominations,Democratic party leaders engineered a resolu-tion that revived the practice of having the vicepresident appoint the members of standing com-mittees. Acknowledging that the vice presidentwas not directly responsible to the Senate, ad-ministration allies asserted that his was a greaterresponsibility, as guaranteed in the Constitution,‘‘to the Senate’s masters, the people of theseUnited States.’’ 24 The goal was to pack the Com-mittee on Foreign Relations with members sym-pathetic to the administration’s position on theOregon boundary question. Vice President Dal-las made the desired appointments.

In December 1845, at the opening of the Sen-ate’s regular legislative session, party leadersagain sought to give the appointment power toDallas. On this occasion, however, four rebel-lious Democrats joined minority party Whigs todefeat the resolution by a one-vote margin. Thisaction presented the Polk administration withthe unappealing likelihood that, in balloting bythe full Senate, Democrats hostile to its specificobjectives would take control of key Senate com-mittees. Dallas reported that the return to theusual procedure required him to work ‘‘unusu-ally hard . . . to superintend some sixteen ortwenty ballotings for officers and chairmen ofCommittees.’’ He was ‘‘much encouraged by thekind manner in which I am complimented on mymode of presiding. But I assure you,’’ he contin-ued, ‘‘contrary to my expectations, it is not donewithout a great deal of preparatory labor. Nowthat [the anti-administration] hostility has shewnitself, I am bound to be ready at all points andagainst surprizes.’’ 25

To end this time-consuming process, Senateparty leaders took a step of major importance for

the future development of legislative politicalparties. The Democrats and Whigs each orga-nized a party caucus to prepare lists of commit-tee assignments, an arrangement that marked thebeginning of the Senate seniority system. As longas committee members had been selected by se-cret ballot or appointed by presiding officers, amember’s experience did not guarantee his selec-tion. After 1845, seniority became a major deter-minant, particularly in the selection of committeechairmen. Legislative parties, charged with pre-paring slates of committee assignments, tendedto become more cohesive. In this period the tra-dition also began of seating in the chamber byparty—with the Democrats to the presiding offi-cer’s right and the Whigs (later the Republicans)to the left.

From his canopied dais, the vice president hadthe best seat in the nation’s best theater. On onememorable occasion, he reported to his wife that‘‘the speech of [Senator Daniel] Webster to-daywould have overwhelmed and perhaps dis-gusted you. He attacked [Pennsylvania’s Rep-resentative] Mr. C. J. Ingersoll with the savageand mangling ferocity of a tiger. For at least ahalf an hour, he grit his teeth, scowled, stamped,and roared forth the very worst & most abusivelanguage I have ever heard uttered in the Sen-ate.’’ Dallas later observed that ‘‘[v]ast intellect,like Webster’s, almost naturally glides into arro-gance.’’ 26

In his brief inaugural address to the Senate,Dallas had acknowledged that he entered intohis ‘‘tranquil and unimposing’’ new duties‘‘[w]ithout any of the cares of real power [and]none of the responsibilities of legislation’’ exceptin rare instances when he might be called on tobreak tied votes. If anything, he would stand as‘‘an organ of Freedom’s fundamental principle oforder.’’ 27 Despite this noble disclaimer of par-tisanship, Dallas involved himself deeply in thestruggle to help the president achieve his legisla-tive agenda. He worked against strong contrarypressures from the party’s western faction, ledby Senator Thomas Hart Benton, and its south-ern bloc under the inspiration of Senator John C.Calhoun. In assessing these senators’ motives,Dallas reported that Benton intended to opposeCalhoun wherever possible. ‘‘If Mr. Calhoun

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should support the [Polk] administration, Col.Benton will not be able to resist the impulse tooppose it:—on the contrary, if Mr. Calhoun op-poses, Col. Benton will be our champion. Suchare, in the highest spheres of action, the uncer-tainties and extravagancies of humanpassions!’’ 28

At the start of his term as Senate president,Dallas was called on to make an administrativedecision that had larger constitutional con-sequences. Since 1815, senators had received acompensation of eight dollars for each day theywere present in Washington. Public oppositionroutinely frustrated persistent congressional ef-forts to move instead to an annual salary. InMarch 1845 several senators hit upon a novelway to supplement their compensation—to col-lect travel expenses to and from Washington forthe special session that the Senate held at thestart of each new administration to confirm pres-idential appointments. The problem was thatsenators had already been paid for their travelto the final regular session of the Congress thathad adjourned the day before the special sessionbegan. When veteran Secretary of the Senate As-bury Dickins informed Dallas that ‘‘no distinctand controlling decision’’ had ever been made onthis issue, Dallas ruled in a lengthy written opin-ion that each senator should be paid for travelat the beginning and end of each session ‘‘with-out any enquiry or regard as to where he actuallywas or how he was actually engaged . . . andwithout any enquiry or regard as to, where heintends to travel or remain when the Senate ad-journs.’’ This decision unleashed a flood of appli-cations from current and former senators forcompensation for travel to earlier special ses-sions, until Dallas advised that the ruling wouldnot be applied retroactively. Several years later,in response to a Treasury Department challengeof the Dallas ruling, the attorney general con-cluded that the ‘‘president of the Senate is thesole judge of the amounts of compensation dueand his certificate is conclusive’’ and that ‘‘mile-age is part of a Senator’s compensation, and notmere defrayment of travelling expenses, andhence actual travel is not necessary.’’ 29

Dallas followed the custom of members ofCongress who rented rooms, for the duration of

a congressional session, either on Capitol Hill orcloser to the White House. During the regularsession of the Twenty-ninth Congress, from De-cember 1845 through August 1846, he resided atHenry Riell’s boardinghouse within a short walkof the Capitol at Third Street and Maryland Ave-nue, NE. For the first session of the ThirtiethCongress, from December 1847 to August 1848,he lived at Mrs. Gadsby’s on President’s Squareacross from the White House. For his final ses-sion, from December 1848 to March 1849, hemoved several blocks to Mr. Levi Williams’boardinghouse on the north side of PennsylvaniaAvenue, between 17th and 18th Streets,Northwest.30

At the beginning of his first regular session inDecember 1845, Dallas set a daily routine inwhich he arrived at the vice president’s office inthe Capitol at 9 a.m., remained busily engagedthere receiving visitors and presiding until 4p.m., adjourned to his lodgings for lunch, andthen returned to the Capitol until 9 or 10 p.m.For a diversion, he would stroll around the Cap-itol grounds or walk down Pennsylvania Ave-nue.31 The newly refurbished Senate chamber hepronounced ‘‘redeemed from a thousand barba-risms.’’ But he confided to his son that he ex-pected the coming session to ‘‘be one of the mostimportant, disturbed, and protracted’’ in the na-tion’s history and feared that the weakness of ad-ministration supporters in the Senate ‘‘may exactmore exertion from me than would otherwise fallmy share.’’ 32

Dallas regularly complained about the incon-veniences and demands of his daily life as vicepresident. His wife disliked Washington and re-mained in Philadelphia except for rare visits. Hedined frequently with Treasury Secretary RobertWalker and his nephew U.S. Coast Survey Su-perintendent Alexander Dallas Bache (a great-grandson of Benjamin Franklin). His biographerreports that during these years, the vice presi-dent allowed himself one luxury—a stylish Afri-can American coachman who wore a distinctiveblack hat with broad band and steel buckle. Dal-las was ill a great deal and complained of diges-tive disorders and sore feet, which he routinelybathed in hot water augmented with mustard orcayenne pepper.

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Always concerned about earning enoughmoney to support his desired social position andhis wife’s easy spending habits, Dallas supple-mented his $5,000 government salary by main-taining an active law practice during his vice-presidency. He handled several high-profilecases against the federal government, includinga claim against the Treasury Department for $15million. The decision would be made by his closefriend and relative by marriage, Treasury Sec-retary Robert Walker. Dallas, whose cocounsel inthe case was Senator Daniel Webster, consideredthat ‘‘unless Walker has lost his intelligence andfairness, [the case] will be a lucrative one.’’ ToDallas’ dismay and veiled anger, Walker decidedagainst his client.33

At the mid-point in his vice-presidency, Dallasaccepted a $1,000 fee for a secondary role in rep-resenting wealthy Philadelphian Pierce Butler inhis celebrated divorce from the Shakespeareanactress Fanny Kemble. Fearing that the nation’stop legal talent would be attracted to Kemble’sside, Butler preemptively purchased much ofthat talent, including Dallas and Daniel Webster.Despite intense criticism by political opponentsfor cashing in on his national prominence, thevice president tossed off these attacks as the‘‘hissing and gobbling’’ of ‘‘snakes and geese’’and spent his final months in office arranging anexpanded legal partnership with his son Philip.34

Tariffs and Westward Expansion

Dallas determined that he would use his vice-presidential position to advance two of the ad-ministration’s major objectives: tariff reductionand territorial expansion. As a Pennsylvanian,Dallas had traditionally supported the protec-tionist tariff policy that his state’s coal and ironinterests demanded. But as vice president, elect-ed on a platform dedicated to tariff reduction, heagreed to do anything necessary to realize thatgoal. Dallas equated the vice president’s con-stitutional power to break tied votes in the Sen-ate with the president’s constitutional power toveto acts of Congress. At the end of his vice-pres-idential term, Dallas claimed that he cast thirtytie-breaking votes during his four years in office(although only nineteen of these have been iden-tified in Senate records). Taking obvious per-

sonal satisfaction in this record, Dallas singledout this achievement and the fairness with whichhe believed he accomplished it in his farewell ad-dress to the Senate.35 Not interested in politicalsuicide, however, Dallas sought to avoid havingto exercise his singular constitutional prerogativeon the tariff issue, actively lobbying senatorsduring the debate over Treasury Secretary Walk-er’s tariff bill in the summer of 1846. He com-plained to his wife (whom he sometimes ad-dressed as ‘‘Mrs. Vice’’) that the Senate speecheson the subject were ‘‘as vapid as inexhaustible.. . . All sorts of ridiculous efforts are making, byletters, newspaper-paragraphs, and personal vis-its, to affect the Vice’s casting vote, by persuasionor threat.’’ 36

Despite Dallas’ efforts to avoid taking a stand,the Senate completed its voting on the WalkerTariff with a 27-to-27 tie. (A twenty-eighth votein favor was held in reserve by a senator whoopposed the measure but agreed to follow the in-structions of his state legislature to support it.)When he cast the tie-breaking vote in favor ofthe tariff on July 28, 1846, Dallas rationalized thathe had studied the distribution of Senate supportand concluded that backing for the measurecame from all regions of the country. Addition-ally, the measure had overwhelmingly passedthe House of Representatives, a body closer topublic sentiment. He apprehensively explainedto the citizens of Pennsylvania that ‘‘an officer,elected by the suffrages of all twenty-eight states,and bound by his oath and every constitutionalobligation, faithfully and fairly to represent, inthe execution of his high trust, all the citizens ofthe Union’’ could not ‘‘narrow his great sphereand act with reference only to [Pennsylvania’s]interests.’’ While his action, based on a mixtureof party loyalty and political opportunism,earned Dallas the respect of the president andcertain party leaders—and possible votes in 1848from the southern and western states that sup-ported low tariffs—it effectively demolished hishome state political base, ending any seriousprospects for future elective office. (He even ad-vised his wife in a message hand-delivered bythe Senate sergeant at arms, ‘‘If there be theslightest indication of a disposition to riot in the

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city of Philadelphia, owing to the passage of theTariff Bill, pack up and bring the whole broodto Washington.’’) 37

While Dallas’ tariff vote destroyed him inPennsylvania, his aggressive views on Oregonand the Mexican War crippled his campaign ef-forts elsewhere in the nation.38 In his last hopeof building the necessary national support togain the White House, the vice president shiftedhis attention to the aggressive, expansionist for-eign policy program embodied in the concept of‘‘Manifest Destiny.’’ He actively supported ef-forts to gain control of Texas, the Southwest,Cuba, and disputed portions of the Oregonterritory.

The joint United States-British occupation ofthe vast western territory in the region north ofthe forty-second parallel and south of the bound-ary at fifty-four degrees, forty minutes, wasscheduled for renewal in 1847. Dallas seized theopportunity in 1846 to call for a ‘‘settlement’’ atthe 54° 40’ line, even at the risk of war with GreatBritain. For several months early in 1846, the vicepresident pursued this position—seeking tobroaden his national political base—until Presi-dent Polk and British leaders agreed to com-promise on a northern boundary at the forty-ninth parallel. This outcome satisfied Dallas, asit removed his earlier fear that the United Stateswould be caught in a two-front war, with GreatBritain over the Oregon boundary and with Mex-ico over control of Texas. Now the nation wouldbe free to concentrate on war with Mexico, a con-flict that Dallas hoped would serve to unify theDemocratic party and propel him to the WhiteHouse. As the Mexican War continued into 1847,Dallas expanded his own objective to the takingof all Mexico. Again, a moderate course ad-vanced by more realistic leaders prevailed andforced Dallas to applaud publicly the result thatgained for the United States the Mexican statesof California and New Mexico.

The events of 1846 extinguished Dallas’ presi-dential fire. Although he remained strong inPhiladelphia and its immediate precincts, Bu-chanan sapped his strength throughout the restof their state. The vice president, incapable of theintense and sustained personal drive necessaryto secure the nomination, nonetheless sought to

bolster his political standing by advocating pop-ular sovereignty as a solution to the cripplingissue of allowing slavery in the territories. Thisstance only hardened the opposition against himand he soon abandoned his presidential quest.39

Democratic party leaders originally looked toMexican War hero Zachary Taylor as their 1848standard-bearer. When the general cast his lotwith the Whigs, Democrats turned to Michigan’sLewis Cass, who took the nomination at the Bal-timore convention on the fourth ballot. Theychose General William O. Butler as the vice-pres-idential candidate. With Martin Van Buren’sthird-party candidacy eroding the Democraticvote, Taylor and his running mate Millard Fill-more easily won the election.

By the end of the Mexican War in 1848, rela-tions between Polk and Dallas had deterioratedto the point that the two men rarely spoke to oneanother. From the first days of his vice-presi-dency, Dallas complained to his wife Sophia andothers that the president cared little for his ad-vice on either small matters or major affairs ofstate. At the outbreak of the war with Mexico,Dallas confided, ‘‘In making the officers of thenew Regiment of mounted riflemen, the tenantof the White House has maintained his consist-ency of action by excluding every one for whomI felt an interest.’’ When Polk summoned the vicepresident to the White House for ‘‘a most impor-tant communication,’’ Dallas told Sophia thatPolk had a habit of ‘‘making mountains out ofmolehills.’’ and that the meeting was ‘‘anotherillustration of the mountain and the mouse. I amheartily sick of factitious importance.’’ Dallasconsidered Polk to be ‘‘cold, devious, and two-faced.’’ When he received Thomas Macauley’snewly published History of England, he noted thatthe author’s description of Charles I’s ‘‘defects ofcharacter’’—faithlessness and cunning—‘‘are sodirectly applicable to President Polk as almost tobe curious.’’ 40

Last Session

Dallas entered the sunset of his vice-presi-dency at the three-month final session of theThirtieth Congress, beginning on December 4,1848. On the following day at noon, the Senateconvened for the reading by its clerk of President

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Polk’s State of the Union message. Dallas lis-tened for a while, until boredom compelled himto turn the chair over to Senator William King.‘‘It was insufferably long, and some of its topics,a dissertation on the American system and oneon the Veto Power especially, were almost ludi-crous from their being misplaced and prolix.’’ 41

This ‘‘lame duck’’ session, with itscontentiousness and inaction, proved particu-larly frustrating as the Democrats sought to deferaction on the volatile issues. ‘‘The great partyproject of the Session is to try hard to do noth-ing:—leaving all unsettled questions, and espe-cially the free soil one, to harass Genl. Taylornext winter.’’ 42

Dallas was constantly aware of his responsibil-ities for maintaining order on the Senate floor.During the contentious final session, Mis-sissippi’s Henry Foote constantly baited Missou-ri’s Thomas Hart Benton. While Benton neverhesitated to bully other adversaries, heinexplicably refrained from challenging the di-minutive Mississippian. As the Senate adjournedfor the day on February 10, 1849, Benton ap-proached Dallas and, in a whisper, asked wheth-er he intended to act on his earlier request thatalcoholic beverages be banned in the Senate. Dal-las responded by asking whether any drinkinghad been taking place in the chamber. ‘‘Yes, inquantities, in every part, and at all times,’’ re-sponded the agitated Missourian. Dallas, believ-ing that Benton’s concern stemmed from an ef-fort to curb Foote’s behavior and ‘‘to excuse hisown silent disregard of it in that way,’’ in-structed the sergeant at arms to ban liquor on theSenate side of the Capitol, except for membersclaiming to require it for medicinal purposes.43

Dallas told his wife that he was tempted to re-turn home, leaving his Senate duties to a presi-dent pro tempore, but he felt obligated to remainat the Capitol for the important business of re-ceiving the presidential electoral ballots, ad-dressed to his attention, that were then arrivingfrom the individual states. He explained that hisduty was to ‘‘mark on each [envelope containinga state’s ballots] the day and manner of receivingit, and file them with the Secretary [of the Sen-ate], of course without breaking the seals. If amessenger hand me the list, I give him a certifi-

cate to that effect, on which he is entitled to bepaid his expenses, at the TreasuryDepartment.’’ 44

The president expressed to the vice presidenthis ambivalence about his plans for the forth-coming inauguration of Zachary Taylor. If theplanners reserved a place for him, he would at-tend, otherwise he would follow Van Buren’s1841 precedent and simply go home. Dallas saidhe would try to ‘‘follow the proper courtesies ofpublic life,’’ unless he too was intentionallyslighted. He examined the practice of his prede-cessors and found Richard M. Johnson to be theonly vice president to have attended the swear-ing in of his successor.

On March 2, 1849, Dallas followed the vice-presidential custom of delivering a farewell ad-dress to the Senate and then stepping aside sothat the Senate could elect a president pro tem-pore to bridge the transition between administra-tions. In remarks more exalted in phrasing thanthe observations of his personal diary and cor-respondence, Dallas praised the Senate for the‘‘elevated principle and dignified tone whichmark [its] proceedings; the frank and yet forbear-ing temper of its discussions; the mutual mani-festations of conciliatory deference, so just andappropriate among the delegates of independentStates; and the consequent calmness and preci-sion of its legislative action,’’ which he believedhad ‘‘attracted to it a very large share of vener-ation and confidence.’’ He noted that, on occa-sion, tempers flared into ‘‘sudden impulses offeeling,’’ but these ‘‘transient disturbances’’ wererare and passed ‘‘over the scene like flasheswhich do but startle, and then cease, [serving]only to exhibit in stronger relief the grave deco-rum of its general conduct.’’ 45

To a standing ovation, Dallas left the chamberin what he believed would be ‘‘the last scene ofmy public life.’’ He recorded in his diary that‘‘Mr. Filmore [sic] called at my chamber in theCapitol today, shortly I had left the Senate, andremained for an hour, making enquiries as to theforms of proceeding and the general duties an-nexed to the office he was about assuming. Hewas good enough to say that every body had toldhim I eclipsed as a presiding officer, all of mypredecessors, and that he felt extreme diffidence

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in undertaking to follow me. Of course, after this,I took pleasure in answering all his questions.’’ 46

Dallas left Washington largely embitteredabout the price of success in public life, whichhe believed led ‘‘almost invariably to povertyand ignorance. Truth, Courage, Candour, Wis-dom, Firmness, Honor and Religion may by acci-dent now and then be serviceable:— but a steadyperseverance in them leads inevitably to privatelife.’’ 47 His only regret about leaving the Senatewas that he would miss the ‘‘strange politicaltableau [that] would present itself on the floorof the Senate Chamber . . . on the 6. of Marchnext [if] Mr. Clay, Genl. Cass, Mr. Van Buren,Mr, Calhoun, Mr. Webster, and Col. Benton weregrouped together! Such a convocation of self-imagined gods could not fail to be followed bymuch thunder and lightening.’’ But, he consoledhimself, ‘‘All this galaxy, in the order of nature,may disappear in the course or two or threeyears. When then? Why, the Sun will still shine,the earth still roll upon its axis, and the wormsof the Capitol be as numerous and phosphores-cent as ever.’’ 48

Later Years

Dallas returned to private life until 1856, whenJames Buchanan resigned as minister to GreatBritain to launch his presidential campaign chal-lenging President Franklin Pierce for the Demo-cratic nomination. Pierce, seeking to remove an-other potential rival for reelection, named Dallasto that prize diplomatic post. Philadelphia jour-nalist John Forney, a longtime Buchanan allywho had once described Dallas as ‘‘below medio-cre as a public man,’’ thought the sixty-four-year-old Dallas fit the part. ‘‘I do not know any-thing more charming, always excepting a lovelywoman, than a handsome old man—one who,like a winter apple, is ruddy and ripe with time,and yet sound to the heart. Such a man wasGeorge M. Dallas.’’ 49 After Buchanan won thepresidency, he retained Dallas at the Court of St.James but conducted sensitive diplomatic rela-tions with Great Britain from the White House.Tired and longing for the comforts of home andfamily, Dallas resigned his post in May 1861. Asa states’ rights Unionist, he was deeply saddenedby the eclipse of his Democratic party and its fail-ure to prevent civil war. He died at the age ofseventy-two on December 31, 1864.

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NOTES1 George M. Dallas to unknown addressee, 1845 [?], in

Roy M. Nichols, ‘‘The Library: The Mystery of the DallasPapers (Part I),’’ The Pennsylvania Magazine of History andBiography 73 (July 1949): 373 [hereafter cited as Nichols-I].

2 Lewis A. McArthur, Oregon Geographic Names, 5th ed.(Portland, OR, 1982), p. 205.

3 John M. Belohlavek, George Mifflin Dallas: Jacksonian Pa-trician (University Park, PA, 1977), pp. 13–14.

4 Ibid. pp. 4–5.5 Ibid., p. 15.6 Ibid., p. 5.7 Ibid., p. 27.8 Ibid., p. 37.9 Quoted in ibid., p. 43.10 Bruce Ambacher, ‘‘George M. Dallas and the Bank

War,’’ Pennsylvania History 42 (April 1975): 135.11 Belohlavek, p. 77.12 Charles Sellers, ‘‘Election of 1844,’’ in History of Amer-

ican Presidential Elections, edited by Arthur M. Schlesinger,Jr., and Fred L. Israel (New York, 1971), 1:759–72.

13 John Arthur Garraty, Silas Wright (New York, 1949), pp.280–82.

14 Belohlavek, pp. 86–88; Sellers, pp. 772–73.15 Belohlavek, p. 88.16 Sidney George Fisher quoted in ibid., p. 89.17 By the time of the presidential elections of 1840 and

1844, states were increasingly selecting presidential electorsby popular vote, rather than by vote of their legislatures.With presidential elections scheduled on a variety of daysthroughout the states, conditions were ripe for electionfraud. Both political parties organized gangs of voters whomoved from state to state in an attempt to boost tallies inclose elections. Finally, in 1845 Congress established a uni-form date for presidential elections—the first Tuesday afterthe first Monday in November. Congressional electionswere not similarly standardized until 1872. Peter H.Argersinger, ‘‘Electoral Processes,’’ Encyclopedia of AmericanPolitical History (New York, 1984), 2:496.

18 Sellers, p. 795; Belohlavek, p. 97.19 Paul H. Beregeron, The Presidency of James K. Polk (Law-

rence, KS, 1987), pp. 16–17.20 Dallas to Polk, December 15, 1845; Dallas to Sophia,

February 14, 1845 in Nichols-I, pp. 355–60.21 Dallas to Robert J. Walker, November 6, 1844, quoted

in Belohlavek, p. 100.22 Belohlavek, pp. 105–10.23 See Chapter 7 of this book, ‘‘John C. Calhoun,’’ pp. 10–

12.24 U.S., Congress, Congressional Globe, 29th Cong., 1st

sess., p. 20.25 Ibid., pp. 19–22; Belohlavek, pp. 107–9; Dallas to So-

phia, December 9, 1845, Nichols-I, p. 370.

26 Ingersoll had accused Webster of corruption and em-bezzlement while serving as secretary of state. Dallas to So-phia, April 7, 1846, Nichols-I, pp. 375–76; Roy F. Nichols,‘‘The Library: The Mystery of the Dallas Papers (Part II),’’The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 73 (Octo-ber 1949): 480 [hereafter cited as Nichols-II].

27 U.S., Congress, Senate, Journal, 29th Cong., Extra Ses-sion, Appendix, p. 274.

28 Dallas to Sophia, November 27, 1845, Nichols-I, p. 366.29 Ruth Ketring Nuermberger, ‘‘Asbury Dickins (1780–

1861): A Career in Government Service,’’ The North CarolinaHistorical Review 24 (July 1947): 311–12; Dallas to Sophia,March 17, 1845, Nichols-I, p. 365. On March 3, 1851, thepresident approved a statute (Chapter 42) ending the prac-tice of paying members of the previous Congress for mile-age to attend the Senate special session beginning on March4, 1853, and every four years thereafter.

30 Nichols-I, p. 391; Nichols-II, p. 475.31 Dallas to Sophia, December 2, 1845, Nichols-I, p. 369.32 Dallas to Sophia, November 27, 1845, ibid., p. 367.33 Belohlavek, pp. 134–35.34 Ibid., pp. 135–36; Dallas to Sophia, December 10, 1848,

Nichols-II, p. 483.35 Senate Journal, 30th Cong., 2d sess., March 2, 1849, p.

294. Nineteen of the thirty votes that Dallas claimed to havecast have been identified in records of Senate floor proceed-ings. If Dallas’ figure is accepted, he would hold the recordamong vice presidents for exercising this constitutional pre-rogative (although some scholars have credited JohnAdams with casting as many as thirty tie-breaking votes—see Chapter 1, note 1). If the lower figure is accurate, it stillplaces him just behind John Adams—and just ahead of JohnC. Calhoun—for the number of ties broken in a four-yearperiod. For a list of vice-presidential tie-breaking votes, seeU.S., Congress, Senate, The Senate, 1789–1989, by Robert C.Byrd, S. Doc., 100–20, 100th Cong., 1st sess., vol. 4, HistoricalStatistics, 1789–1992, 1993, pp. 640–46.

36 Dallas to Sophia, July 17, 1846, Nichols-I, pp. 384–85.37 Dallas’ public letter quoted in Charles John Biddle, Eu-

logy upon the Hon. George Mifflin Dallas Delivered before theBar of Philadelphia, February 11, 1865 (Philadelphia, 1865), p.36; Belohlavek, pp. 113–14; Dallas to Sophia, July 30, 1846,Nichols-I, p. 386.

38 Belohlavek, p. 118.39 Charles McCool Snyder, The Jacksonian Heritage: Penn-

sylvania Politics, 1833–1848 (Harrisburg, PA, 1958), pp. 205–7; Frederick Moore Binder, James Buchanan and the AmericanEmpire (Cranbury, NJ, 1994), p. 91.

40 Dallas to Sophia, June 7, 1846, Nichols-I, pp. 381–82;Dallas diary, January 14, 1849, Nichols-II, pp. 492–93;Belohlavek, pp. 132–33.

41 Dallas diary, December 5, 1848, Nichols-II, p. 475.

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42 Dallas to Sophia, December 7, 1848, ibid., p. 477.43 Dallas diary, February 10, 1849, ibid., pp. 512–13.44 Dallas to Sophia, December 7, 1848; Dallas diary, De-

cember 8, 1848, ibid., pp. 477–78.45 Senate Journal, 30th Cong., 2d sess., March 2, 1849, pp.

293–94.

46 Dallas diary, March 2, 1849, Nichols-II, pp. 515–16.47 Dallas diary, January 28, 1849, ibid., p. 501; Dallas

diary, March 2, 1849, ibid., pp. 516–17.48 Dallas diary, January 28, 1849, ibid., p. 502.49 Belohlavek, p. 107; John W. Forney, Anecdotes of Public

Men (New York, 1881), 2:102.

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Chapter 12

MILLARD FILLMORE1849–1850

MILLARD FILLMORE

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Chapter 12

MILLARD FILLMORE12th Vice President: 1849–1850

I know how difficult it is to determine what is and what is not in order, to restrain improper lan-guage, and yet not abridge the freedom of debate. But all must see how important it is that the firstdeparture from the strict rule of parliamentary decorum be checked, as a slight attack, or even insinuationof a personal character, often provokes a more severe retort, which brings out a more disorderly reply,each Senator feeling a justification in the previous aggression. There is, therefore, no point so proper tointerpose for the preservation of order as to check the first violation of it.

—MILLARD FILLMORE, APRIL 3, 1850

The new vice president needed a clerk. MillardFillmore suffered from an eye disorder that lim-ited his ability to read by candlelight, yet his offi-cial duties kept him so busy during the daytimethat he had to put off reading and preparing hiscorrespondence until evening. A clerk would bemost useful. When Fillmore’s immediate prede-cessor, George Dallas, took office in 1845, nofunding was provided for a vice-presidentialclerk because there had been no vice presidentsince 1841, when John Tyler had succeeded to thepresidency after the death of William HenryHarrison. Senator Willie Mangum (W-NC), whohad fulfilled the office’s major constitutionalfunction as Senate president pro tempore from1842 to 1845, had considered his duties too lightto justify continuing the perquisite that VicePresident Richard M. Johnson had enjoyed dur-ing his 1837–1841 term. Aware of these prece-dents, Fillmore asked Mangum, one of the Whigparty’s senior senators, to introduce the nec-essary authorizing resolution. When Mangumdid so, a Democratic senator immediately ob-jected, noting that former Vice President Dallashad gotten along just fine without a clerk.Mangum responded by citing the example ofVice President Johnson, also a Democrat. TheDemocratic senator withdrew his objection and

Fillmore got his clerk. From this experience, Fill-more may have learned both how much the Sen-ate valued precedent and how little some of itsmembers regarded the office of vice president.1

Millard Fillmore rose to the vice-presidency, inpart, because he was from New York. In presi-dential elections from 1812 to 1968, that state hadthe nation’s largest congressional delegation andtherefore was entitled to cast more votes in theelectoral college than any other state. NewYork’s electoral riches account for the fact that,during the century from 1801 to 1901, eight ofthe twenty-two vice presidents called that statehome. In designing a presidential ticket thatwould attract large blocks of electoral votes, thenational parties always paid very careful atten-tion to New York political leaders.

Millard Fillmore would occupy the nation’ssecond highest office for fewer than seventeenmonths. During his brief tenure, he suffered thefate of other vice presidents: his president ig-nored him, his state’s party leaders undercuthim, and the Senate over which he presidedbarely tolerated him. Yet the office benefittedhim, just as he improved it. The experience rati-fied and extended his stature as a significant na-tional figure. When Zachary Taylor’s deaththrust Fillmore into the presidency, few seriously

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doubted that he was up to the job. His close rela-tions with senators at a time when the Senateserved as the final arbiter of crucial national pol-icy issues eased passage of the vital compromiselegislation that staved off national political dis-integration for another decade. To his role as theSenate’s president, Fillmore brought a deepknowledge and understanding of the institu-tion’s rules, precedents, and culture. Aware thatthe incendiary climate in the Senate chamberduring 1850 could foster an explosion of dev-astating national consequence, he insisted onorder, decorum, and fair play. For his successors,he provided a valuable example, couched in thespirit of Thomas Jefferson a half century earlier.

Early Years

Millard Fillmore was born on January 7, 1800,into an impoverished farm family in the centralNew York frontier town of Locke. The second ofNathaniel and Phoebe Fillmore’s nine children,Millard found little time for formal schoolingand had barely learned to read by the age of sev-enteen. As a youth he worked on his father’sfarm—developing a muscular chest and broadshoulders that would remain a distinguishingphysical characteristic for years to come—and heserved apprenticeships to a cloth dresser and atextile mill operator. Aware of his educationaldeficiencies, young Millard struggled to improvehis reading skills, carrying a dictionary on hisdaily rounds.2 At age nineteen, he enrolled in asmall academy in the town of New Hope, wherehe engaged in his first formal education, as wellas a budding relationship with Abigail Powers,a local minister’s daughter. When Millard re-turned to the central New York tenant farm, thejudge who owned the property recognized hispotential and provided him with essential finan-cial and educational support to pursue a legal ca-reer. Young Fillmore taught in a local school andsaved enough money to buy out the time remain-ing in his textile mill apprenticeship. When, be-fore long, personal differences caused Millardand the judge to part ways, the young man oncemore returned to work on his father’s farm. In1820, the elder Fillmore moved his family westto the town of Aurora, eighteen miles from Buf-falo. There Millard resumed his work as a teach-

er and as a law clerk, until he was admitted tothe New York bar in 1824. He then opened asmall law practice in East Aurora and in 1826married Abigail Powers.3

In 1830 Millard and Abigail settled in Buffalo,the thriving western terminus of the Erie Canal.His practice flourished, as the local businesscommunity came to recognize him as an ener-getic, careful, and talented lawyer. An impres-sive figure, Fillmore stood six feet tall and hand-some, with sparkling blue eyes, a pinkish com-plexion, a jovial and kindly demeanor, and pol-ished manners. He enjoyed dressing in the latestfashions, displaying impeccable good taste thatmasked his humble origins. The Fillmore family,which now included a son and daughter, roserapidly in Buffalo society. Millard and Abigailregularly entertained the city’s elite and otherswith whom he associated in founding and pro-moting local educational, cultural, and civic in-stitutions.

Buffalo’s proximity to major water transpor-tation routes predisposed Fillmore to be a strongsupporter of John Quincy Adams’ National Re-publicans and Henry Clay’s ‘‘American System’’of internal improvements, tariffs, and nationalbank. In 1828, Fillmore met Albany editor andpolitical boss Thurlow Weed. Weed saw in Fill-more a natural politician and assisted his cam-paign, as a National Republican, for a seat in thestate assembly. Despite the strong contrary tidethat swept Democrat Andrew Jackson into theWhite House, Fillmore won his race. Over thenext few years, he rose to leadership in westernNew York’s newly emerging Whig party, spon-soring legislation beneficial to transportation, aswell as financial and educational enterprises.Fillmore and Weed would remain close allies formany years.4

In the House of Representatives

In 1832, Anti-Mason and National Republicanparty voters in the congressional district that en-compassed Buffalo elected Fillmore to the U.S.House of Representatives. There he served a sin-gle term and dedicated himself to merging thosetwo parties into a strong Whig party in opposi-tion to President Jackson’s policies. Maneuveringto repair ill feelings between his supporting

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party factions, Fillmore removed himself from areelection bid in 1834, but reentered the contestin 1836. He resumed his seat in the House thefollowing year and served there until 1843.5When the Whigs took control of the White Houseand both houses of Congress for the first timein 1841, Fillmore’s allies in the House nominatedhim for the post of Speaker. Although he camein second to a candidate supported by HenryClay, he was subsequently elected chairman ofthe Committee on Ways and Means, a powerfulposition at this time of national financial crisis.His major accomplishment as chairman was tosteer through his chamber’s rough waters, andagainst the force of President John Tyler’s oppo-sition, the protective Tariff of 1842, a key reve-nue-raising component of his party’s plan foreconomic recovery. The heads of executivebranch agencies came to fear the chairman’squietly efficient scrutiny of their budget requests,as he routinely returned their spending estimatesheavily marked in red pencil with notes askingfor thorough justification of matters great andsmall.6 At the end of the Twenty-seventh Con-gress, in March 1843, Fillmore again abandonedthe political and social life of Washington, whichhe heartily disliked, for the quiet pleasures ofBuffalo.

Neither Vice President nor Governor

Whig party elder statesman John QuincyAdams visited Buffalo in the summer of 1843 topraise publicly his former house colleague’sachievements and to urge him to return to gov-ernment service. Still enjoying the high regard ofhis party allies as a result of his successful man-agement of the 1842 tariff, Fillmore had decidedto launch a behind-the-scenes campaign for theWhig party’s 1844 vice-presidential nomination.He learned, however, that state party strategistThurlow Weed coveted that spot for his closeally, former New York governor William Sew-ard, against whom Fillmore ‘‘harbored a jealousythat had in it something of the petulance of achild.’’ 7 To derail this scheme, Fillmore made abargain with John Collier of Binghamton, a NewYork City-supported antagonist of the party’sWeed-Seward Albany faction. Fillmore wouldsupport Collier for governor and Collier would

put his influence behind Fillmore’s vice-presi-dential quest. The plan fell apart when Sewarddeclared he had no interest in the number twoposition. To protect against the election of hisenemy Collier, Weed urged Fillmore to shift hisfocus and seek the governorship. Fillmore ini-tially refused. Weed then quietly went to workto sabotage any chances that his faction-riddenparty would award Fillmore its vice-presidentialnomination. He hinted to delegates at the Whigs’Baltimore convention that Seward would accepta draft, while loudly proclaiming that no Whigbut Fillmore could win the governorship. Seeingthrough Weed’s machinations, Fillmore wrote anally: ‘‘I need not tell you that I have no desireto run for governor. . . . I am not willing to betreacherously killed by this pretended kindness.. . . Do not suppose for a moment that I thinkthey desire my nomination for governor.’’ 8

Weed’s tactics succeeded in denying Fillmore thevice-presidential nomination, as TheodoreFrelinghuysen won a third-ballot nomination tojoin Henry Clay on the party’s ticket.

Henry Clay made northern antislavery Whigsnervous. Soon after receiving the party’s presi-dential nomination with a vow of opposition tothe annexation of Texas, which seemed certainto become a slave state, he shifted to a more am-bivalent stance. As abolitionists among NewYork’s Whigs began to explore alliances withother parties, Weed redoubled his efforts to so-lidify the state party by putting Fillmore at thetop of its ticket in the race for governor. UnderWeed’s pressure, John Collier withdrew in favorof Fillmore, who then received the unanimousnomination of the New York state Whig conven-tion. Aware that the governorship could be away station on the road to greater national ambi-tions, Fillmore set aside his earlier reluctance. Heran a strong campaign based on his oppositionto Texas annexation, which he believed wouldbenefit slaveholders at the expense of the rest ofthe country. Fillmore’s views, however, provedunpopular with many voters, particularly recentimmigrants who resented his party’s nativist,anti-Catholic stance. In vain did Fillmore try toappeal to foreign-born voters by working to cre-ate a German-language newspaper in Buffalo.

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He lost by ten thousand votes to Democrat SilasWright, who earlier in the year had turned downhis party’s nomination as vice president in favorof this race.

The disaffection of New York’s antislaveryWhigs accounted for Fillmore’s defeat, and theloss of that pivotal state also cost Henry Clay thepresidency. Despite his setback, Fillmoreemerged as his party’s state leader, much to theirritation of Seward and Weed, who feared theNew York Whig party’s center of influencewould thereby shift westward from their Albanypower base to Fillmore’s in Buffalo. Thus begana politically destructive geographical and ideo-logical polarization between Fillmore in thestate’s western districts and the Seward-Weedforces in the east.9

Ambition for National Office

In his earlier life, Fillmore had shown no com-pelling ambition for public office, despite the evi-dence of his 1844 vice-presidential and guber-natorial campaigns. Twice he had given up hisseat in the U.S. House of Representatives forother goals, and the center of his personal andpolitical universe seemed to be the city of Buf-falo, where his law practice was flourishing. By1847, however, as in 1844, Fillmore had grownrestless away from the larger state and nationalarenas. He had become deeply hostile towardPresident James K. Polk, whose administrationwas reversing Whig economic gains. In addition,the president was leading the nation in a warwith Mexico aimed at acquiring western terri-tories, presumably to feed slavery’s insatiableappetite. In this frame of mind, Fillmore readilyaccepted his party’s nomination for the influen-tial post of state comptroller. (He would havepreferred a U.S. Senate seat, but none was avail-able.) By a wide margin over his Democratic op-ponent, Fillmore won the election, and his politi-cal star again began to rise. In Albany, he builta record of accomplishment that enlarged his al-ready considerable popularity. While comptrol-ler, Fillmore retained a national presence, regu-larly denouncing President Polk’s war with Mex-ico, so that by 1848, northern Whigs had cometo view the New York comptroller as a logicalvice-presidential choice to balance the likely

presidential candidacy of war hero GeneralZachary Taylor.10

The June 1848 Whig Convention

When the Whigs gathered at Philadelphia inJune 1848, party leaders expected that GeneralTaylor would win their presidential nomination.A Louisiana slaveholder, Taylor lacked partisanpolitical experience and commitment. He hadnever voted in a presidential election, but he wasan obviously electable military hero and had theimportant support of the southern or ‘‘CottonWhig’’ branch of the party. Despite unhappinessamong the party’s antislavery elements in theNorth and West, and a sputtering effort to reviveHenry Clay’s candidacy (Clay lamented, ‘‘I wishI could slay a Mexican.’’ 11), Taylor gained theWhig nomination on the fourth ballot.

Following the selection of Taylor, conventionchairman John Collier, a New Yorker and skillfulparliamentary tactician, took the rostrum andgained control of Henry Clay’s disappointed andangry forces, who threatened to disrupt the con-vention. Assuring the agitated delegates thatNew York would actively support Taylor, Collierpresented a peace offering—a ‘‘surprise’’ can-didate for vice president. On hearing the nameof Millard Fillmore, many opponents of Taylorset aside their reservations and joined to supportthe new ticket. By the second ballot, the prizewas Fillmore’s.12 Although Collier had skillfullyassociated Fillmore with Clay, playing on hiswell-established advocacy of Whig legislativeprograms, the nominee was by no means broadlysympathetic to the Kentucky statesman. How-ever, the nervous delegates were in no mood foran extended examination of Fillmore’s beliefs.Collier saw that Fillmore would balance the tick-et and block fellow New Yorkers Seward andWeed, whose wishes for a return to a larger rolein Whig affairs threatened to further polarizethat party’s factions. Weed reluctantly acqui-esced to the nomination, while Seward remaineddeeply concerned. 13

The same contentiousness reflected in the 1848convention’s proceedings made it inadvisable forparty leaders to develop a specific platform. In-stead, the Whig candidates devised their posi-tions to fit the prejudices of specific regions. Can-

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didate Fillmore told southern audiences that he‘‘regarded slavery as an evil, but one with whichthe National Government had nothing to do.’’Under the Constitution, he contended, ‘‘thewhole power over that question was vested inthe several states where the institution was toler-ated. If they regarded it as a blessing, they hada constitutional right to enjoy it; and if they re-garded it as an evil, they had the power andknew best how to apply the remedy.’’ As forCongress, Fillmore concluded that it had nopower to interfere with slavery in the stateswhere it existed. He dodged entirely the moreominous issue of slavery in the territories.14

In the weeks after the national convention,Thurlow Weed and other northern Whig leaderswho suspected Taylor of Democratic sympathiesconsidered moves to undercut his candidacy byinfluencing state party conventions to select pan-els of unpledged presidential electors. Fillmoredefused this subversive strategy by persuadingTaylor to write and publish a letter in which hedistanced himself from his vocal Democraticsupporters. In the so-called Allison Letter, Taylorasserted that Congress, not the president, shouldcontrol the nation’s policy agenda. ‘‘The personalopinions of the individual who may happen tooccupy the executive chair ought not to controlthe action of Congress upon questions of domes-tic policy; nor ought his objections to be inter-posed where questions of constitutional powerhave been settled by the various departments ofgovernment, and acquiesced in by the people.’’ 15

Thanks in great measure to the influence of theAllison Letter and Fillmore’s hard work, as wellas to the Free Soil party candidacy of Martin VanBuren that divided traditional northern Demo-cratic ranks, the Taylor-Fillmore ticket won NewYork state by a narrow margin, providing barelyenough electoral votes to swing the election tothe Whigs.16 Expressing a common belief that theWhigs had sold out their principles with the se-lection of Taylor, journalist Horace Greeley, aSeward-Weed ally, concluded that the party was‘‘at once triumphant and undone.’’ 17

A New Administration

Millard Fillmore shared Zachary Taylor’s be-lief in a strong legislature and a compliant execu-

tive. In a letter written immediately after his elec-tion, he explained that in all areas not directlycovered by the Constitution, ‘‘as to all otherquestions of mere policy, where Congress hasthe constitutional right to legislate, the will of thepeople, as expressed through their representa-tives in Congress, is to control, and that will isnot to be defeated by the arbitrary interpositionof the [executive] veto power.’’ By adhering tothis classic Whig doctrine, Taylor and Fillmorehoped to avoid the roiling sectional controversiesthat could easily wreck their administration,leaving them to the people’s representatives inCongress. With guarded optimism, Fillmore sawthe 1848 election ‘‘as putting an end to all ideasof disunion. It raises up a national party, occupy-ing a middle ground, and leaves the fanatics anddisunionists, north and south, without the hopeof destroying the fair fabric of our constitu-tion.’’ 18 Yet, even as he wrote this, secessionistconventions were gathering in the South andantislavery societies in the North were statingtheir legislative demands. As word of the revolu-tions sweeping Europe reached the UnitedStates, it became clear that the political climatein the months ahead would hardly be free ofgrave challenges to the nation’s constitutionalorder.

In the months before taking his oath of office,Fillmore had reason to believe his would be anactive vice-presidency. Thurlow Weed heardthat President-elect Taylor, fearing the unaccus-tomed administrative burdens that awaited him,had said ‘‘I wish Mr. Fillmore would take all ofthe business into his own hands.’’ The ill-in-formed Taylor believed that the vice presidentwould be an official member of his cabinet. Weedworried that Fillmore would use his new posi-tion to take control of New York state’s lucrativefederal patronage appointments, which wouldsurely accelerate the political decline of thatstate’s once-potent Weed-Seward politicalfaction.19

In a typically crafty move to rescue their for-tunes, Weed lobbied Fillmore to support Sew-ard’s candidacy for the Senate over that of JohnCollier, who had engineered Fillmore’s vice-presidential nomination. In return, Weed prom-ised full consultation in all state patronage mat-

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ters. Anxious to secure his own political base inNew York before moving onto the national stage,Fillmore abandoned Collier and yielded toWeed’s entreaties, despite his misgivings basedon twenty years of experience with theduplicitous political boss. As a result of Fill-more’s shift, Seward obtained the necessaryvotes in the state legislature to win the Senateseat. He headed to Washington with the vicepresident-elect after both men, at a dinner withWeed in Albany, had agreed to consult with oneanother from time to time on the state’s rich fed-eral patronage. Outwardly cordial to Fillmore,Seward harbored a dark plot, conceived byWeed, to sabotage Fillmore’s control over NewYork’s federal appointments. Fillmore wouldpay dearly for his abandonment of Collier.20

In 1849, March 4 fell on a Sunday. In observ-ance of the Christian sabbath, President-electTaylor chose to defer his public oath-taking tothe following day.21 Thus, on a cloudy and briskMonday morning, Fillmore met Vice PresidentGeorge Dallas at Willard’s Hotel on Pennsylva-nia Avenue, the preferred lodging place of bothmen. At 11 a.m., the two men set out for CapitolHill in an open carriage. Onlookers on Penn-sylvania Avenue had difficulty telling thepresent and future vice presidents apart. Bothwere large, clean-shaven men, dressed in somberblack with full heads of white hair. Only Fill-more’s muscular torso, pink face, and sparklingblue eyes distinguished him. At this point in thetransition process, as the president-elect wasmaking key appointments to his cabinet andthereby setting the tone of his administration,Taylor and Fillmore had met only for social occa-sions. Yet, Fillmore seemed unconcerned thatTaylor had not bothered to take advantage of hisbroad knowledge of party leaders and issues.22

An honor guard of senators escorted Fillmoreinto the mobbed Senate chamber where VicePresident Dallas led him to the presiding offi-cer’s chair. Chief Justice Roger Taney adminis-tered the oath of office, and the new vice presi-dent delivered a brief inaugural address. Fill-more confessed his inexperience in the customsand procedures of legislative bodies and askedsenators for their ‘‘indulgent forbearance.’’ Incheerful words that he would soon have cause

to reconsider, Fillmore observed that ‘‘the senateis composed of eminent statesmen, equally dis-tinguished for their high intellectual endow-ments and their amenity of manners, whose per-suasive eloquence is so happily tempered withhabitual courtesy, as to relieve your presiding of-ficer from all that would be painful in the dis-charge of his duty, and render his position asagreeable as it must be instructive.’’ 23 When heconcluded his remarks, President Polk and Gen-eral Taylor, after an awkward delay, entered thechamber and took their assigned seats. Pausingonly briefly, the presidential party then formedranks and proceeded with the senators to the in-augural platform on the Capitol’s easternportico.

In the weeks following the inauguration, Fill-more began to realize that on patronage mattersWeed and Seward had already succeeded inweakening his limited influence with the newpresident. When the important post of marshalfor New York’s northern district opened, Sewardand Weed, without consulting the vice president,sent word to Secretary of State John Clayton thatthey and Fillmore had agreed on P.V. Kellogg.Clayton forwarded Kellogg’s name to the presi-dent, who made the selection. Learning of theirduplicity, Fillmore asked Taylor to rescind theappointment, but the president refused to do sowithout consulting Clayton. Weed rushed toWashington and advised the president that Fill-more’s anger reflected a parochial dispute be-tween state factions that could best be avoidedby placing New York’s patronage recommenda-tions in other hands. He suggested GovernorHamilton Fish, a ‘‘neutral’’ figure who was actu-ally firmly within the Weed-Seward camp. Tay-lor naively agreed.24 The extent of Weed’s vic-tory became clear when Fillmore recommendedJohn Collier for the post of New York naval offi-cer. Taylor ignored the request and appointed aWeed ally to that coveted position. The ultimateFillmore defeat occurred in the vice president’sown political back yard with the appointment ofa Weed-Seward crony as collector for the port ofBuffalo. A Buffalo newspaper under Weed’s con-trol gloated, ‘‘We could put up a cow against aFillmore nominee and defeat him.’’ Reflecting on

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his lowly status, Fillmore wrote Harvard Presi-dent Edward Everett that since he had ‘‘no fa-vors to bestow, either legislative or official,’’ heexpected a restful tenure.25

By November 1849, as Congress was about toconvene for the first regular session of the Tayloradministration, Fillmore complained to the presi-dent that the administration’s appointments, in-fluenced by Weed and Seward, were destroyinghis influence in New York. He asked the presi-dent whether in the future he would be ‘‘treatedas a friend or foe?’’ Taylor promised to do bet-ter—and soon forgot his promise.

The ‘‘Memorable Senate of that fearful epoch’’

Departing Vice President George M. Dallashad regretted that he would not be present in thepresiding officer’s chair in December 1849 to wit-ness the constellation of illustrious figuresamong the sixty-member Senate of the Thirty-first Congress. Together again for what wouldprove to be their last legislative session were themembers of the already legendary ‘‘Great Trium-virate.’’ Returning from a seven-year absence,Henry Clay, whose initial Senate service datedback forty-three years to 1806, had been the Whigparty’s preeminent legislative leader. DanielWebster, an eighteen-year Senate veteran, hadtaken a sabbatical to be secretary of state in thefirst Whig administration under Harrison andTyler. And John C. Calhoun, gaunt, ill, and un-likely to survive the session, had been vice presi-dent in the John Quincy Adams and AndrewJackson administrations, as well as Webster’ssuccessor as secretary of state in the Tyler presi-dency. Each of these men was by then identifiedas the congressional personification of his region.Also present among this eminent assembly wereStephen A. Douglas, the ‘‘Little Giant’’ of Illinois;Michigan’s Lewis Cass, the recently defeatedDemocratic presidential candidate; Henry Footeand Jefferson Davis of Mississippi; Missouri’sThomas Hart Benton, approaching a thirty-yearrecord of Senate service; Seward of New York;Salmon P. Chase of Ohio, an eventual U.S. chiefjustice; the fiery Sam Houston of Texas; and—at a lesser level of eminence—the Dodges, Henryof Wisconsin and Augustus Caesar of Iowa, theSenate’s only father-son team.26

The 1848 treaty concluding the war with Mex-ico added to the nation’s land mass 500,000square miles of new western territories, includ-ing present-day California, Nevada, Utah, andmuch of New Mexico, Arizona, Wyoming, andColorado. Confronting Congress and the newTaylor administration in 1849 was the explosiveissue of how these territories would be organizedwith respect to slavery. Northern ‘‘free soil’’ ad-vocates insisted that slavery be contained in thestates where it already existed. Southern plantersand their allies believed that their region’s eco-nomic system should be allowed to operate with-out such crippling restrictions. In the 1848 presi-dential campaign, Democratic candidate LewisCass had supported the doctrine of ‘‘popularsovereignty,’’ under which the residents of theterritories would decide the issue for themselves.Former President Martin Van Buren, running asthe Free Soil party candidate, demanded supportfor the 1846 Wilmot Proviso. This amendment toan appropriations bill had failed to pass the Sen-ate, but it provided a rallying cry for antislaveryforces by proposing the prohibition of slavery inthe territory acquired from Mexico. The Whigs,standing on no platform, had simply ducked theissue during the election campaign. Southernerswho at first had believed a Louisiana slaveholderwould be a sympathetic president, soon hadcause for concern when Taylor began to take ad-vice from Senator Seward and other antislaveryWhigs.

In his December 24, 1849, annual message tothe newly convened Congress, Taylor sought todefuse this portentous issue by proposing thatCalifornia and New Mexico apply immediatelyfor statehood, bypassing the territorial stage andthe Wilmot Proviso controversy. As Mexico hadprohibited slavery in these regions, there wouldbe few slaveholders to vote in favor of that insti-tution. In fact, California had already approveda constitution that prohibited slavery. Southernmembers of Congress realized that the admissionof an additional free state would destroy the bal-ance between slave and free states that had madethe Senate the principal forum for debate on theslavery issue since the 1820 Missouri Com-promise. Taylor’s message only further inflamed

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the festering controversy among southerners,who argued that if the territories had been takenwith the blood of all Americans, they should notbe closed to those citizens choosing to move withtheir property to those regions. Southern mem-bers introduced legislation designed to preservethe balance of new states and to toughen fugitiveslave laws.

Conflicting northern proposals promptedHenry Clay in January 1850, with the assistanceof Democrat Stephen A. Douglas, to fashion an‘‘Omnibus Bill,’’ a series of eight measures to ad-dress the slavery and territorial issues that collec-tively became known as the ‘‘Compromise of1850.’’ In the weeks that followed, the compel-ling oratory of Clay, Webster, Calhoun, and oth-ers drew capacity crowds to the Senate chamber.On March 7, Daniel Webster opened his classicaddress with these memorable lines of nationalreconciliation—and political suicide—addressedto Senate President Fillmore: ‘‘Mr. President, Iwish to speak to-day, not as a Massachusettsman, nor as a northern man, but as an Amer-ican.’’ Four days later, Seward rose to denouncethe proposed compromise. Acknowledging thatthe Constitution protected slavery, he asserted,‘‘But, there is a higher law than the Constitution,which regulates our authority over the domain,and devotes it to the same noble purposes.’’These speeches drew new battle lines, with Sew-ard and the mortally ill Calhoun representingtheir sections’ hard-liners, while Webster andClay sought a middle way. Suddenly secessionseemed a real possibility.27

Obligation to Preserve Order

The death of John C. Calhoun on March 31 re-moved a tenacious opponent of the compromise.Fillmore presided at the statesman’s funeral inthe Senate chamber on April 2. On the followingday, responding to the deeply unsettled atmos-phere, the vice president took an extraordinarystep for a presiding officer—he addressed theSenate. His topic: the vice president’s ‘‘powersand duties to preserve order.’’ 28 Speaking in asolemn manner, Fillmore stated that when hehad first entered the office, he had assumed hewould not be called on to maintain order in abody with such a strong reputation for courtesy

and deference. He soon realized that he had beennaive. To arm himself against the challenge of re-curring disorderly behavior, he had consultedold Senate records and manuals of parliamentarypractice for guidance. He discovered, to no one’ssurprise, that the Constitution conferred on thevice president the general, if not express, powerto maintain order. Rules 16 and 17, adopted dur-ing the First Congress in 1789, had defined thevice president’s constitutional prerogatives. Healone possessed the authority to call a memberto order, and his decision was to be consideredfinal, not subject to appeal to the full Senate. In1828 the Senate had adopted a rule that broad-ened the chamber’s responsibility for taking no-tice of unruly senators, while weakening the vicepresident’s role. Rule 6 provided that either thevice president or a senator could take action tosilence a disorderly senator. When a senatorcalled another senator to order, the offendingwords were to be written down so that the vicepresident could review them. Then the vicepresident would rule on the merits of the ques-tion, subject to an appeal to the Senate to confirmor override that ruling. The Senate adopted thisrule after Vice President John C. Calhoun, in1826, declared that he lacked authority to call asenator to order. He also objected to the arbitrarypractice of not permitting an appeal to the fullSenate.29

Fillmore acknowledged that senators weregenerally unwilling ‘‘to appear as volunteers inthe discharge of such an invidious duty’’ as call-ing other senators to order. This reluctanceplaced a greater obligation on the vice presidentto exercise that power. The House of Representa-tives had recognized the unequal nature of theresponsibility in the wording of its comparablerule, which provided that ‘‘the Speaker shall, ora member may, call to order.’’ Fillmore con-cluded that, although some might charge himwith impeding freedom of debate, he would dohis duty to contain the first spark of disorder be-fore it ignited a conflagration that would be moredifficult to bring under control. ‘‘[A] slight at-tack, or even insinuation, of a personal character,often provokes a more severe retort, whichbrings out a more disorderly reply, each Senator

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feeling a justification in the previous aggres-sion.’’ 30 Exactly two weeks after Fillmore spokethese words, an altercation of historic propor-tions on the Senate floor dramatically validatedhis concern.

On Saturday, April 17, 1850, the Senate re-sumed its consideration of the volatile legislationrelated to the slavery issue and California state-hood. Mississippi’s senior senator, Henry S.Foote, made a motion to refer the various pro-posals to a special thirteen-member committee,which would reshape them into a new legislativeplan. Since Missouri’s Thomas Hart Benton fa-vored compromise but disliked Henry Clay’sspecific plan, he offered an amendment to under-cut Foote’s motion. Seated in his accustomedplace at the dais, Vice President Fillmore ruledthat Benton’s motion was in order, citing as hisauthority Thomas Jefferson’s Manual of Par-liamentary Practice (Section 35.2). Henry Clay rosein anger, charging that Fillmore’s ruling was anattack on the Senate’s ‘‘power,’’ ‘‘consistency,’’and ‘‘dignity.’’ He demanded that the Senatevote to reverse the decision.

Clay’s complaint triggered an extended debateand a fiery exchange in which Benton chargedFoote and his southern allies with alarming thecountry ‘‘without reason, and against reason.’’ 31

Foote, who had been goading Benton for weeks,responded by asserting that Benton had unfairlymaligned the ‘‘action of a band of patriots, wor-thy of the highest laudation, and who will beheld in veneration when their calumniators, nomatter who they may be, will be objects of gen-eral loathing and contempt.’’ 32 As Foote sharp-ened his reference to Benton, ‘‘a gentleman longdenominated the oldest member of the Senate—the father of the Senate,’’ the burly sixty-eight-year-old Missourian rose from his seat separatedfrom Foote by four desks on the rear row of theDemocratic side, shoved back his chair, and ad-vanced on the diminutive forty-six-year-old sen-ator. Foote stepped away from Benton and intothe chamber’s nearby center aisle. He removeda ‘‘five-barrelled’’ pistol from his pocket, cockedthe weapon, and pointed it at the floor. The Sen-ate exploded in pandemonium. As alarmed sen-ators called for order and blocked Benton’s ad-

vance, the ‘‘father of the Senate’’ shrieked ‘‘Ihave no pistols! Let him fire! Stand out of theway, and let the assassin fire!’’ Foote handedover his pistol to a fellow senator, while Bentondemanded to be searched to prove that he hadno weapon. Fillmore called for order, but thechamber would not be quieted. As several sen-ators shouted ‘‘Be cool!’’ Benton and Foote an-grily hurled justifications of their actions. Ac-cepting that no further business would be trans-acted that day, Fillmore recognized a senatorwho moved to adjourn. Despite his earnest prep-arations, the vice president now understood thenear impossibility of maintaining order in sucha deeply fractured Senate.33

On the following day, agreeing to Foote’s in-terrupted proposal, the Senate appointed the Se-lect Committee of Thirteen to prepare a suitablecompromise measure. The committee reportedon May 8, but for the remainder of the springand into the summer the Senate heatedly de-bated the slavery-related issues that underlay theBenton-Foote controversy. Vice President Fill-more’s estrangement from the Taylor adminis-tration deepened during this period and heturned his creative energies to service on thenewly established Smithsonian Institution’sboard of regents.

On the Fourth of July, President Taylor cele-brated the holiday by laying a ceremonial stoneat the partially constructed Washington Monu-ment and listening to a lengthy speech of rec-onciliation by Senator Henry Foote. Sufferingfrom extended exposure to the sun, the presidentreturned to the White House, ate some raw fruitand vegetables, which he washed down withlarge amounts of iced milk. He soon fell ill withthe symptoms of acute gastroenteritis, which hisdoctors diagnosed as ‘‘cholera morbus.’’ Undertheir treatment, his condition worsened. On July7, 1850, Fillmore was called from the dais in theSenate chamber to the White House to keep vigiloutside the president’s bedroom. Late in theevening of July 9, a cabinet messenger went toFillmore’s quarters in the Willard Hotel to in-form the sleepless vice president that Taylor wasdead.34

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President Fillmore

On the morning of July 10 a presidential mes-senger carried into the Senate chamber a letterin which Millard Fillmore announced the ‘‘mostafflicting bereavement’’ of President Taylor’sdeath and his own intention to take the presi-dential oath at noon in the House chamber. Thistime, unlike the first unplanned presidentialtransition less than a decade earlier, no one seri-ously questioned Fillmore’s right to take on thefull powers of the presidency. At the appointedhour, before a joint session of Congress, Fillmoretook his presidential oath. Later in the day, theentire Taylor cabinet resigned to give the newchief executive the opportunity to set his owncourse.

As president, Fillmore moved to end the stale-mate over the western lands issue. By the endof July, Clay’s omnibus compromise bill wasdead, replaced by a series of individual bills thatSenator Stephen Douglas had proposed as ameans to achieve Clay’s objectives. Workingclosely and tactfully with legislative leaders, Fill-more succeeded in shaping these measures to beacceptable to all regions and sentiments. Withina few weeks, the individual bills became law.Passage of this Compromise of 1850 resulted ina major political realignment, which placed fatalpressures on the Whig party. Northern Whigswere furious about the Fugitive Slave Act, oneof the laws enacted as part of the compromise,which Fillmore had only reluctantly signed.Thus, while Whigs in the South urged modera-tion, their northern counterparts embraced anti-slavery politics. A modern observer of the Whigparty in 1850 characterized its many divisions,including the Seward-Fillmore animosity, asmanifesting ‘‘the inescapable tension withinWhiggery between progress and stability, be-tween moral urgency and social order.’’ 35

Against this dark political landscape, Fillmoredecided once again that he preferred the charmsof life in Buffalo to the contentiousness of the na-tion’s capital. Throughout 1851, the president letit be known that he would not seek a full termin 1852, hoping to advance Daniel Webster’s can-

didacy. Webster, however, was too frail to attractthe serious support of Whig national conventiondelegates. At the last minute, Fillmore half-heartedly decided to run, in order to prevent thenomination of Mexican War hero General Win-field Scott, the candidate of Fillmore’s arch-enemy, William Seward. At the convention, dele-gates deadlocked between Seward, Scott, andWebster. After forty-six ballots, Fillmore tried tostrike a bargain with Webster. The aging states-man, the weakest of the three, refused to transferhis delegates. They and others ultimately shiftedto Scott, giving him the nomination on the fifty-third ballot. In the general election, southernWhigs abandoned their party to give the electionto the Democratic candidate, New Hampshire’sFranklin Pierce. The Whig party would neveragain be a significant national political force.

Anticipating his return to a happy life in Buf-falo, Fillmore left a chilled White House on a bit-terly cold March 4, 1853, to attend Pierce’s inau-guration. His wife, Abigail, who had sufferedpoor health for many months, stood through theextended proceedings with other dignitaries inthe slush and lightly falling snow. The next day,she complained of cold symptoms, which devel-oped into pneumonia. Her condition worsenedand she died on March 30. Fillmore returned toBuffalo, where in July 1854 his favorite daughter,Mary Abigail, died at the age of twenty-two.Grief-stricken and seeking a diversion, he reen-tered the national political arena by accepting the1856 presidential nomination of the anti-Catho-lic, anti-immigrant Know-Nothing party, com-posed of former Whig moderates and conserv-ative southern unionists. In that ill-starred ven-ture, the former president carried only Mary-land.

In 1858 Fillmore married Caroline McIntosh, awealthy Albany widow, and resumed his role asBuffalo’s leading educator and philanthropist.36

He served as the first chancellor of the Universityof Buffalo and the first president of the BuffaloHistorical Society. Millard Fillmore died at theage of seventy-four on March 8, 1874.

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NOTES1 U.S., Congress, Senate, Congressional Globe, 33d Cong.,

1st sess., pp. 4–5.2 Robert J. Rayback, Millard Fillmore: Biography of a Presi-

dent (Norwalk, CT, 1959), pp. 4–7.3 Ibid., pp. 8–15.4 Elbert B. Smith, The Presidencies of Zachary Taylor and Mil-

lard Fillmore (Lawrence, KS, 1988), pp. 44–45.5 Rayback, pp. 81–85.6 U.S., Congress, House, The Committee on Ways and

Means: A Bicentennial History, 1789–1989, by Donald R.Kennon and Rebecca M. Rogers, H. Doc. 100–244, 100thCong., 2d sess., pp. 105, 125–29.

7 Glyndon G. Van Deusen, Thurlow Weed: Wizard of theLobby (Boston, 1947), p. 127.

8 Rayback, pp. 148–51.9 Ibid., pp. 155–59; Glyndon Van Deusen, William Henry

Seward (New York, 1967), pp. 100–103.10 Rayback, pp. 177–78.11 Quoted in Gil Troy, ‘‘Election of 1848,’’ in Running for

President: The Candidates and Their Images, ed. Arthur M.Schlesinger, Jr., vol. 1, (New York, 1994), p. 188.

12 Rayback, pp. 183–86; Van Deusen, Thurlow Weed, p. 161.13 Thurlow Weed, Autobiography (1883), p. 585; Van

Deusen, William Henry Seward, pp. 107–9.14 Rayback, pp. 186–87.15 W.L. Barre, The Life and Public Services of Millard Fillmore

(New York, 1971; reprint of 1856 edition), p. 308.16 Smith, The Presidencies of Zachary Taylor and Millard Fill-

more, p. 46.17 Troy, 1:193.18 Barre, p. 311.19 Rayback, p. 192; Van Deusen, William Henry Seward, pp.

114–15.20 Smith, The Presidencies of Zachary Taylor and Millard Fill-

more, p. 165; Rayback, pp. 192–96; Van Deusen, ThurlowWeed, pp. 165–67; Van Deusen, William Henry Seward, pp.111–12.

21 Twenty-eight years had passed since an inaugurationday had fallen on a Sunday. On that occasion, in 1821, Presi-dent Monroe had taken Chief Justice John Marshall’s adviceto postpone ‘‘the oath until Monday unless some officialduty should require its being taken on Sunday.’’ (StephenW. Stathis and Ronald C. Moe, ‘‘America’s Other Inaugura-tion,’’ Presidential Studies Quarterly, 10 (Fall 1980): 553.) Thestory that Senate President Pro Tempore David Atchisonserved as ‘‘president for a day’’ on March 4, 1849, is withoutfoundation. Since Atchison’s Senate term expired on March

3, the Senate was without a president pro tempore, whounder the presidential succession plan then in effect mighthave taken over. When the Senate convened on March 5for the new Congress, it passed a resolution renewingAtchison’s appointment as the temporary presiding officer.Based on the 1821 Monroe precedent, it was assumed thatthe new president began his term on March 4, but couldnot exercise the duties of the office until he had taken theformal oath. (George H. Haynes, ‘‘President of the UnitedStates for a Single Day,’’ American Historical Review 30 (Janu-ary 1925): 308–10.

22 Rayback, pp. 196–97.23 Barre, pp. 212–13.24 Rayback, pp. 200–202; Van Deusen, William Henry Sew-

ard, pp. 114–15.25 Smith, Zachary Taylor and Millard Fillmore, p. 163,

Rayback, pp. 203–4.26 Barre, p. 316.27 This familiar story is recounted in two modern-era

studies: William W. Freehling, The Road to Disunion: Seces-sionists at Bay, 1776–1854 (New York, 1990), Chapter 28, andMerrill D. Peterson, The Great Triumvirate: Webster, Clay, andCalhoun (New York, 1987), pp. 449–76.

28 Congressional Globe, 31st Cong., 1st sess., pp. 631–32.Out of his concern for proper decorum, Fillmore reportedlyordered the removal of the large urn of snuff that had tradi-tionally been placed on the vice president’s desk. He actedbecause its availability caused members to congregate there,talking loudly and obscuring his view of the chamber. (Thisstory is drawn from the recollections of Senate AssistantDoorkeeper Isaac Bassett as reported in the New York Times,June 7, 1894.)

29 See Chapter 7, ‘‘John C. Calhoun,’’ pp. 89–92.30 Congressional Globe, 31st Cong., 1st sess., p. 632.31 Ibid., p. 762.32 Ibid.33 Elbert B. Smith, Magnificent Missourian: The Life of Thom-

as Hart Benton (New York, 1958), pp. 271–72; Smith, ThePresidencies of Zachary Taylor and Millard Fillmore, pp. 138–39; Congressional Globe, 31st Cong., 1st sess., pp. 762–64.

34 Smith, The Presidencies of Zachary Taylor and Millard Fill-more, pp. 156–57; Rayback, pp. 238–39.

35 Daniel Walker Howe, The Political Culture of the Amer-ican Whigs (Chicago, 1979), p. 207; Mark J. Stegmaier, Texas,New Mexico, and the Compromise of 1850: Boundary Disputeand Sectional Crisis (Kent, OH, 1996), p. 319.

36 Rayback, p. 416.

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Chapter 13

WILLIAM RUFUS DEVANEKING

1853

WILLIAM R. KING

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Chapter 13

WILLIAM RUFUS DEVANEKING

13th Vice President: 1853

The ceremony, although simple, was very sad and impressive, and will never be forgotten by anywho were present. To see an old man, on the very verge of the grave, clothed with honors which hecared not for, and invested with authority which he could never exercise, was truly touching. It wasonly by persuasion that Mr. King would go through with the ceremony, as he looked on it as an idleform, for he said he was conscious he would not live many weeks.

—National Intelligencer, APRIL 8, 1853

Since the adjournment of Congress, the Vice President of the United States has passed from thescenes of earth, without having entered upon the duties of the station to which he had been called bythe voice of his countrymen. Having occupied, almost continuously, for more than thirty years, a seatin one or the other of the two Houses of Congress, and having by his singular purity and wisdom, se-cured unbounded confidence and universal respect, his failing health was watched by the nation withpainful solicitude. His loss to the country, under all circumstances, has been justly regarded asirreparable.

—FRANKLIN PIERCE, DECEMBER 5, 1853 1

On April 18, 1853, death cheated William Kingof his life’s calling. Experience and temperamenthad uniquely prepared him to be the Senate’sconstitutional presiding officer, but tuberculosisdenied him that role as vice president.2 Between1836 and 1850, King had won a record-breakingeleven elections to the post of Senate presidentpro tempore. At the time of his 1852 election tothe vice-presidency, only one other member inthe body’s entire history had exceeded King’stwenty-eight years and ten months of Senateservice.3 Warm-hearted and even-tempered,King personified balance and fairness in deeplydisputatious times. Elected to the vice-presi-dential term that ran from March 4, 1853, toMarch 3, 1857, King was positioned to occupycenter stage during such tumultuous future per-formances as the party rending 1854 struggle

over the Kansas-Nebraska Act and—the singlemost dramatic act in the Senate’s history—the1856 caning of Massachusetts Senator CharlesSumner by a South Carolina representative. Onecan now only speculate about the calming rolethat this natural mediator might have played insuch events, although, ultimately, personalitiesand minds much stronger than his would directthe fateful course to national disunion and civilwar.

William King was far from a genius and he hadlittle talent as an orator. These qualities were sowell noted during his lifetime that a fellowsoutherner, Senator Robert M. T. Hunter of Vir-ginia, felt free to remark on them even in thespeak-no-evil context of a funeral oration. Hun-ter was quick to acknowledge, however, that thisguileless and self-effacing man was an individ-

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ual of integrity, sound judgment, and rich expe-rience, who could be stern ‘‘when the public in-terests or his personal honor required it.’’ Hunterand others lamented the demise of such a mod-erate and conciliatory statesman at ‘‘a period likethis [April 1853], pregnant with change, andteeming, perhaps, with great and strangeevents.’’ 4 Symbolic of the sectional balance thatKing tried to achieve, the Virginia senator’s eulo-gy was followed by one from a longtime friendfrom Massachusetts, the renowned orator Ed-ward Everett. Everett reminded all that when theSenate over the past several decades had neededa presiding officer in the absence of the vicepresident, its members ‘‘turned spontaneously’’to Senator King. ‘‘He possessed, in an eminentdegree, that quickness of perception, thatpromptness of decision, that familiarity with thenow complicated rules of congressional proceed-ings, and that urbanity of manner, which are re-quired in a presiding officer.’’ 5

Early Career

William Rufus Devane King was born inSampson County, North Carolina, on April 7,1786, the second son of William King and Mar-garet Devane. His father, a wealthy planter andjustice of the peace, had fought in the Revolu-tionary War, served as a delegate in the state con-vention called to ratify the U.S. Constitution, andwas an occasional member of the North Carolinastate assembly. At the time of his son’s birth, heowned more than two dozen slaves. Young Wil-liam studied at local academies and at the Uni-versity of North Carolina Preparatory School, afacility established in 1795 to cater to the edu-cational needs of ‘‘raw, mostly untaught youthsof diverse ages and acquirements.’’ 6 He enteredthe University of North Carolina in the summerof 1801 and proved to be a capable student, buthe left that institution at the end of his junioryear.7 Following a period of legal training withFayetteville’s William Duffy—one of the state’sleading lawyers—he gained admission to theNorth Carolina bar in 1805. A Jeffersonian Re-publican, King served in the North Carolina leg-islature’s house of commons from 1808 to 1809,and then as solicitor of the fifth circuit of the statesuperior court at Wilmington. In 1810, several

months short of the constitutionally prescribedage of twenty-five, he won the Wilmington dis-trict’s seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.8There he joined with House Speaker Henry Clay,also a freshman member, John C. Calhoun, andother young, expansionist ‘‘warhawks’’ of theTwelfth Congress in a determined and successfulcampaign to initiate hostilities with Great Brit-ain. In November 1816, King traded lawmakingfor diplomacy by resigning from the House toserve as legation secretary under WilliamPinkney, recently appointed U.S. minister toRussia. Pinkney and King traveled first to theKingdom of Naples in an unsuccessful attemptto obtain compensation for seized Americanships. In January 1817, they reached St. Peters-burg, where they served for a year. In February1818, without waiting to be formally recalled,Pinkney and King returned to the United States.9

King then moved from North Carolina to therich economic and political opportunities of thenewly organized Alabama Territory. In October1818, he purchased 750 acres of land and createdan Alabama River estate, ‘‘King’s Bend,’’ sixmiles from the town of Cahaba, the new statecapital. In March 1819, King and several othersorganized a land company and founded thenearby town of Selma, which he named for a sitein classical legend that occupied high bluffsabove a river.10 The town prospered because ofits proximity to Cahaba, which remained thestate’s capital until 1826. The former congress-man and diplomat rose quickly to local promi-nence and was selected as a delegate to the terri-tory’s July 1819 constitutional convention andthen, in December 1819, as one of Alabama’s firstUnited States senators.

Senator from Alabama

Despite his lengthy Senate service and his im-portant role as conciliator in a fractious era, Wil-liam King is not today counted among the greatstatesmen of the Senate’s ‘‘Golden Age.’’ 11 Onescholar of the period, mindful of King’s practiceof wearing a wig long after such coverings hadgone out of fashion, dismissed him as a ‘‘tall,prim, wigtopped mediocrity.’’ Novelist JohnUpdike, after his own extended research, took amore positive view of the slender and courtly

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statesman. Describing King’s face as ‘‘darklyhandsome and smolderingly receptive,’’ he char-acterized the senator as ‘‘one of those eminenceswhose strong impression on their own times hassuffered a gradual erasure upon the tablets ofhistory.’’ 12 A fellow senator offered the follow-ing assessment:

He was distinguished by the scrupulous correct-ness of his conduct. He was remarkable for hisquiet and unobtrusive, but active, practical use-fulness as a legislator. He was emphatically abusiness member of the Senate, and, without osten-tation, originated and perfected more usefulmeasures than many who filled the public eye bygreater display and daily commanded the ap-plause of a listening Senate. . . . [T]o his honorbe it spoken, he never vexed the ear of the Senatewith ill-timed, tedious, or unnecessary debate.13

A moderate Democrat, King became an activesupporter of Andrew Jackson soon after the 1825decision of the House of Representatives to selectJohn Quincy Adams over Jackson for president.In the 1828 presidential election, Alabama cast itselectoral votes for Jackson, due in large measureto King’s efforts. King generally supported theJackson administration during its stormy eight-year life, although as a southerner he was alsoassociated with the ‘‘little Senate’’ group consid-ered loyal to Jackson’s nemesis, South Carolina’sJohn C. Calhoun.14 The Alabama senator sharedJackson’s hostility to Kentuckian Henry Clay’s‘‘accursed American System’’ of centralized gov-ernmental action against foreign competitionthrough protective tariffs, a central banking sys-tem, and a public works program of canal androad-building.

In 1831 and 1832, King used his chairmanshipof the Senate Committee on Public Lands to ad-vance Jackson administration land policies. Con-sistent with his long-held views on the subject,he attacked the notion that public lands shouldbe priced primarily to produce large amounts offederal revenue (that would go ‘‘to the East topay the pensioners and support the fortifica-tions’’); he believed public lands should be soldonly to those who actually planned to settlethem. A reduction in land prices would simulta-neously stimulate territorial settlement and na-tional economic growth.15 King also subscribed

to his region’s hostility to high protective tariffs,arguing that high rates tax ‘‘the many for thebenefit of the few,’’ but he opposed John C. Cal-houn’s theory that the South had the right to‘‘nullify’’ odious laws, such as the 1828 ‘‘Tariffof Abominations.’’ ‘‘I view [nullification] as nei-ther peaceful nor constitutional, but clearly revo-lutionary in its character, and if persevered in,must, in the nature of things, result in the sever-ance of the Union. From such a calamity mayGod in His mercy deliver us.’’ When Clay earlyin 1833 presented a compromise tariff bill thatdefused the building confrontation between fed-eral force and state resistance, King, ever themoderate, quickly rose to support the measure.His moderation irritated both President Jacksonand southern hard-liners, who charged that hehad not worked hard enough to defend his re-gion’s interests.16

King contested Henry Clay’s 1832 move to re-charter the Bank of the United States, not becausehe opposed the bank, but because he objected toClay’s political opportunism, tied to that year’spresidential election. When, as part of that con-troversy, Jackson ordered the removal of federalfunds from the bank and then refused to respondto a Clay-inspired Senate demand for a copy ofa related document, the Senate took the unprece-dented action on March 28, 1834, of censuringthe president. Administration partisans, led byMissouri Senator Thomas Hart Benton and King,launched a vigorous and ultimately successfulcampaign to expunge the censure from the Sen-ate’s journal. King, who had become widely re-spected for his knowledge of the Senate’s rulesand precedents, argued that Jackson’s refusal toproduce the document was in no way an assaulton senatorial prerogatives. ‘‘The Senate was inno danger,’’ he asserted, ‘‘it had never been sostrong or so saucy as it was at the present mo-ment; why, then, was it like the Italian beggar,continually wounding itself, for the purpose ofexciting the commiseration and benevolence ofthe public.’’ 17

King’s conflict with Clay and the dangeroustenor of the times are symbolized in the clash be-tween the two men that took place in March1841, as the Senate, under Clay’s leadership, forthe first time passed to the control of a new Whig

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majority. A great battle developed over Senateprinting patronage as Clay sought to dismissDemocrat Francis P. Blair, editor of the Washing-ton Globe, as official Senate printer. Clay ‘‘be-lieved the Globe to be an infamous paper, andits chief editor an infamous man.’’ King re-sponded that Blair’s character would ‘‘comparegloriously’’ to that of Clay. The Kentucky senatorjumped to his feet and shouted, ‘‘That is false,it is a slanderous base and cowardly declarationand the senator knows it to be so.’’ King an-swered ominously, ‘‘Mr. President, I have noreply to make—none whatever. But Mr. Clay de-serves a response.’’ King then wrote out a chal-lenge to a duel and had another senator deliverit to Clay, who belatedly realized what troublehis hasty words had unleashed. As Clay andKing selected seconds and prepared for the im-minent encounter, the Senate sergeant at armsarrested both men and turned them over to acivil authority. Clay posted a five-thousand-dol-lar bond as assurance that he would keep thepeace, ‘‘and particularly towards William R.King.’’ Each wanted the matter behind him, butKing insisted on ‘‘an unequivocal apology.’’ OnMarch 14, 1841, Clay apologized and noted thathe would have been wiser to have kept quiet de-spite the intensity of his feelings against Blair.King then gave his own apology, after whichClay walked to King’s desk and said sweetly,‘‘King, give us a pinch of your snuff.’’ King roseand both men shook hands as applause engulfedthe chamber.18

Vice-Presidential Ambitions

In the late 1830s, as a leading southern mod-erate among long-serving, middle-aged senators,William King attracted attention within theDemocratic party as a prospective vice-presi-dential candidate for the 1840 election. As earlyas 1838, dissatisfaction with Vice President Rich-ard M. Johnson for his negative impact on the1836 race and his scandalous personal life 19

caused party leaders to begin the search for astrong second-term running mate for PresidentMartin Van Buren. King was a natural contender,having been on the national political stage for aquarter century and having routinely substitutedfor Johnson during the vice president’s frequent

absences from the Senate chamber. He enjoyedsignificant support in the electorally importantstate of Pennsylvania, thanks to his roommateand close ally Senator James Buchanan. Bu-chanan wished to thwart the 1844 presidentialambitions of both Senator Thomas Hart Bentonand Secretary of State John Forsyth by blockingtheir paths to the vice-presidency in 1840. (In thecloseness of their relationship in the years after1834, King and Buchanan—both lifelong bach-elors—became known as the ‘‘Siamesetwins.’’ 20) King assured Buchanan that in returnfor the Pennsylvanian’s help in obtaining thevice-presidency in 1840, he would refuse to runfor the presidency in 1844, thus clearing the wayfor Buchanan. The Pennsylvania senator agreedto King’s plan and circulated his name amongleading Democratic newspaper editors. The an-ticipated renomination of President Van Buren,a New Yorker, required balancing by a south-erner such as King. By the start of 1840, however,King’s vice-presidential chances had evaporatedbecause he was unable to generate support fromDemocratic leaders in the influential states ofNorth Carolina and Pennsylvania. At the party’snational convention in Baltimore, a motion togive the second spot to King failed to draw seri-ous interest and party leaders decided to leavethe vice-presidential selection to the individualstate party organizations.21

In 1842, King’s name again surfaced as a vice-presidential contender for the 1844 Democraticticket. Supporters of a presidential bid by SouthCarolina’s John C. Calhoun tried without successto dissuade King, as there would be room for nomore than one southerner on a national slate. Butby late 1843, the stronger candidacy of formerPresident Van Buren smothered Calhoun’s aspi-rations. For Van Buren’s running mate, thenames most frequently mentioned were James K.Polk and William King. King’s supporters ar-gued that, as a Jacksonian and resident of asouthern state loyal to the Democratic party (aslap at Polk’s Whig-inclined Tennessee), he de-served the vice-presidency.22 However, in a re-peat of his troubles four years earlier, King wasunable to attract serious support in theelectorally rich eastern states, so that his can-

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didacy had lost its vitality by the eve of the 1844Baltimore convention. Meanwhile, Van Burenhad destroyed his own chances of becoming thepresidential nominee with his announcement ofopposition to the annexation of Texas. Kinghoped that party leaders would fill that void byselecting Buchanan, in which case he wouldagain offer himself for the second spot on thegrounds that his presence would help secure es-sential electoral votes from the wavering state ofNorth Carolina.

On April 9, 1844, President Tyler ended King’spreconvention maneuvering by appointing himminister to France. Throughout 1843 and intoearly 1844, angry with Tyler’s policies, the Senatehad rejected many of his nominations to majorjudicial, cabinet, and diplomatic posts. Amongthese was the appointment as minister to Franceof Virginia Representative Henry A. Wise, de-scribed by a modern historian as a ‘‘high-strung,tobacco-chewing extrovert.’’ 23 As a result, thissensitive post had remained vacant for eighteenmonths until Tyler selected King, one of the Sen-ate’s most popular members. Easily confirmed,King left for Paris and soon succeeded in hiscentral mission: to keep France from interferingwith U.S. plans to annex Texas.24

From Paris, King kept actively in touch withnational and Alabama political developments. InApril 1846 he wrote his friend James Buchanan,now his boss as secretary of state, ‘‘Most sin-cerely do I wish that we had both remained inthe Senate.’’ 25 King therefore decided to run forhis old Senate seat, then occupied by politicalrival and fellow Democrat Dixon H. Lewis. De-siring to return in time to influence the Alabamalegislature’s election, he left for the United Statesin November 1846. In a three-way race that in-cluded Whig leader Arthur Hopkins, the legisla-ture took seventeen ballots during December1847 but failed to make a selection. Throughoutthis hotly contested battle between unionist andstates’ rights forces—a battle that one modernhistorian of Alabama labeled ‘‘probably the mostsignificant senatorial election in the antebellumperiod’’—states rights’ candidate Lewis led, fol-lowed by Hopkins and then unionist King. Onthe eighteenth ballot, in the only election defeatof his public career, King withdrew and the seat

went to Lewis.26 King, however, did not have towait long to fulfill his senatorial ambitions. With-in seven months, Alabama’s other Senate seat be-came vacant when President Polk named ArthurBagby minister to Russia. On July 1, 1848, thegovernor appointed King to fill the eight monthsremaining in Bagby’s term. Later that year, in aclose race with his nemesis Arthur Hopkins,King won a full term.27

Compromiser in 1850

The national mood had darkened duringKing’s four-year absence from the Senate. Hetold James Buchanan that he had doubts aboutthe wisdom of returning in those troubled days.‘‘A seat in the Senate is, I assure you, far frombeing desirable to me; bringing with it as it doesat this particular time especially, great respon-sibility, great labor, and no little anxiety.’’ 28

Characteristically, King tried to calm the brewingstorm. He urged northern senators to resist in-tensifying pressures to introduce antislavery pe-titions. ‘‘I speak as a senator who has been heremany years, and as one always anxious to seethe members of this body preserve that decorumand kindness toward each other which securesto the body the respect in which it is heldthroughout the country and the world.’’ 29 Hesupported the spirit, if not always the specifics,of Henry Clay’s compromise measures. He op-posed admitting California without the season-ing period of territorial status and he believedthat Congress had ‘‘about as much constitutionalpower to prohibit slavery from going into theTerritories of the United States as we have powerto pass an act carrying slavery there.’’ He be-lieved that abolishing slavery in the District ofColumbia would be unfair to the slaveholders inadjacent states, but he supported abolition of theslave trade there.

As the regional positions hardened in the tu-multuous early months of 1850, King lamentedthe ‘‘banefull spirit of party’’ that in dividing theSouth encouraged northern extremists. In April,King’s seniority and moderate views earned hima place as one of two southern Democratic rep-resentatives on the Senate’s Select Committee ofThirteen, appointed to review Henry Clay’s com-promise resolutions regarding territories and

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slavery. With a majority of the committee’s mem-bers, he agreed that slavery was a ‘‘rightful’’ sub-ject for legislative attention, but only in the legis-latures of states and not of territories. Thus, Kingtook the view of southern conservatives that theConstitution protected owners in their control ofslave property until a territory became a state.30

At home, he met bitter opposition from a factionof ‘‘Southern Rights’’ secessionists who arguedthat his voting record better reflected the inter-ests of Massachusetts, but an equally large groupof supporters praised his support for com-promise, union, and peace. He counseled pa-tience, optimistically expecting the North to re-spect southern rights, but warning that if thatsection’s actions jeopardized those rights—bothconstitutional and material—all southern menshould ‘‘hurl defiance at the fanatical crew, andunitedly determine to defend their rights atevery hazard and every sacrifice.’’ 31

Arbiter of Decorum

The Senate chamber in 1850 was frequentlyjammed to capacity as the major debates on slav-ery in the territories drew large crowds of Housemembers, reporters, and the general public eagerto get a glimpse of the likes of Henry Clay, Dan-iel Webster, Thomas Hart Benton, Stephen A.Douglas of Illinois, Sam Houston of Texas, andothers of the nation’s most notable public fig-ures. As a frequent presiding officer, King regu-larly acted to restore decorum. In this electricallycharged environment, he took every opportunityto remind other senators of his need for theirsupport ‘‘to put down the least movement to-ward disorder, or the slightest indulgence in per-sonal remarks.’’ 32

In May, while Vice President Millard Fillmorewas presiding, a senator won adoption of a rou-tine resolution to admit a local newspaper re-porter to the Senate floor. Dissatisfied with suchflagrant circumvention of the Senate’s floor ac-cess rules, another member suggested referringthe matter to a committee. Several senators pro-posed that the presiding officer be allowed toissue each member one admission permit toaward as he saw fit. According to the proposal,with a guest waiting at the chamber’s entrance,the host senator would go to the dais and request

his ticket from the vice president. New JerseySenator William Dayton predicted there wouldbe few takers. ‘‘All the multitudinous personswho hang around the Capitol will not have theface to ask Senators to go to the Vice Presidentand formally get the permit to allow them tocome on the floor every day.’’ Others laughed atthe dilemma of a senator having to decide be-tween male and female guests and the idea ofsuch a system that would have sixty senatorialguests contending with sixty senators and sev-eral hundred House members for floor space insuch cramped quarters. Senator Jefferson Davisof Mississippi sounded the most realistic note:‘‘It is utterly impossible to attempt to admit allwho desire to come on the floor. . . . The evil canonly be remedied by an enlarged chamber.’’ Asthe member most identified with Senate deco-rum and tradition, King brought the debate toa close by moving to refer the matter to a specialcommittee, knowing that another committeewould soon propose the construction of newSenate and House chambers, each with amplepublic galleries.33

Finally Vice President

On July 10, 1850, Zachary Taylor’s deathplaced Millard Fillmore in the White House andleft the vice-presidency vacant. On July 11, thesolemn Senate set aside the practice of havingeach party offer a nomination for the presidentpro tempore’s post and unanimously selectedKing for the vacancy. This otherwise routine acttook on special significance, for King would bein effect the acting vice president of the UnitedStates. King addressed the Senate in the tone ofa vice president offering an inaugural oration.Noting the unusual bipartisan support for hiselection, King vowed to enforce the Senate’srules ‘‘mildly, but firmly, and I trust impartially.. . . Should I err, I look to my brother Senators,in a spirit of kindness, to correct my errors.’’ 34

Continuing in the fashion of former Vice Presi-dent Fillmore, King worked hard to calm theangry seas that swelled with increasing violenceon the Senate floor.

King’s long quest for the vice-presidency hadresumed immediately after he returned fromFrance in 1846. However, his failure that year to

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regain his Senate seat, coupled with deep ideo-logical divisions within the Alabama Democraticparty, denied him the support necessary tolaunch a vigorous national campaign. At the1848 national convention in Baltimore, followingthe nomination of Michigan’s Lewis Cass for thepresidency, King’s was among a half-dozennames placed before the delegates. On the firstballot, he came in third. On the second ballot, theconvention selected Kentucky’s General WilliamO. Butler, a veteran of the War of 1812 and theMexican War.35

In January 1852, the Alabama state Democraticconvention endorsed the Compromise of 1850and directed the state’s national convention dele-gates to support King for either the presidencyor vice-presidency. At the jam-packed, tumul-tuous Baltimore convention, delegates selectedFranklin Pierce on the forty-ninth ballot. In apeace gesture to the Buchanan wing of the party,Pierce’s supporters allowed Buchanan’s allies tofill the second position, knowing that they wouldselect King. On the second ballot, with onlyminor opposition, King finally captured hisprize.36 During the ensuing campaign, King’s tu-berculosis, which he believed he had contractedwhile in Paris, denied him the active behind-the-scenes role that he might otherwise have played,although he worked hard to assure his region’svoters that New Hampshire’s Pierce was a‘‘northern man with southern principles.’’ King’sdeteriorating physical condition clouded the vic-tory that came in November; Pierce’s unwilling-ness to consult the vice-president-elect on cabi-net appointments deepened his malaise.

In November, King began to suffer from aworsening cough. A month later, he describedhimself as looking like a skeleton and toldfriends he doubted that he would ever recover.On December 20, two weeks into the short De-cember-March congressional session, King re-signed his Senate seat and made plans to regainhis health away from wintertime Washington.37

On January 17, 1853, King left for the more salu-tary climate of Cuba, by way of Key West, Flor-ida; he reached Havana in early February. Soonrealizing that he would be unable to return toWashington in time for the March 4, 1853, inau-guration, King requested that Congress permithim to take his oath in Cuba.38 Consequently, forthe only time in this nation’s history, Congresspassed legislation allowing the vice-president-elect to be sworn in outside the country. OnMarch 24, 1853, near Matanzas, a seaport townsixty miles east of Havana, the gravely ill states-man, too feeble to stand unaided, became the na-tion’s thirteenth vice president. Deciding that hewould make every effort to return to the UnitedStates, King set sail for Mobile on April 6. Hereached his Alabama plantation on April 17, buthis struggle was at an end. The sixty-seven-year-old King died there the following day. An oppo-sition newspaper praised his ‘‘purity and patriot-ism’’ and concluded, ‘‘[t]hough not, perhaps,brilliant, he was better—sensible, honest, neverrunning into ultraism, but in the contests be-tween the State and the federal government,maintaining the true conservative medium, sonecessary to the preservation of the constitution,the rights of the States and the Republic.’’ 39

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NOTES1 U.S., Congress, Senate, Journal, 33d Cong., 1st sess., p.

25.2 On taking office as president pro tempore in January

1837, King offered the following observations about theSenate and the role of its presiding officer. They are similarin tone and formulation to those that Vice President AaronBurr uttered on March 2, 1805.

The Senate of the United States, gentlemen, is, fromits very organization, the great conservative body inthis republic. Here is the strong citadel of liberty. Tothis body the intelligent and the virtuous, throughoutour wide-spread country, look with confidence for anunwavering and unflinching resistance to the encroach-ments of power on the one hand, and the effervescenceof popular excitement on the other. Unawed andunseduced, it should firmly maintain the constitutionin its purity, and present an impregnable barrieragainst every attack on that sacred instrument, comeit from what quarter it may. The demon of factionshould find no abiding place in this chamber, but everyheart and every head should be wholly occupied in ad-vancing the general welfare, and preserving,unimpaired, the national honor. To insure success, gen-tlemen, in the discharge of our high duties, we mustcommand the confidence and receive the support of thepeople. Calm deliberation, courtesy toward each other,order and decorum in debate, will go far, very far, toinspire that confidence and command that support. Itbecomes my duty, gentlemen, to banish (if practicable)from this hall all personal altercation; to check, at once,every remark of a character personally offensive; topreserve order, and promote harmony. . . . I earnestlysolicit your co-operation, gentlemen, in aiding my ef-forts promptly to put down every species of disorder.(U.S., Congress, Senate, Register of Debates in Congress,24th Cong., 2d sess., pp. 618–19.)

3 As early as 1824, King regularly served as the chairmanof the Committee of the Whole, a long-since-abandonedparliamentary form by which the full Senate could expediteits proceedings. (John Milton Martin, ‘‘William Rufus King:Southern Moderate,’’ Ph.D. dissertation, University ofNorth Carolina, 1955, p. 81.) Prior to 1890, the Senate electedits president pro tempore only when the vice president wasaway from the chamber. Election to that post during theSenate’s first century was generally considered an acknowl-edgment of the Senate’s respect for the individual’s judi-cious temperament. In later years, the Senate designated apermanent president pro tempore for each Congress, usu-ally the senior member of the majority party. (U.S., Con-gress, Senate, The Senate, 1789–1989: Addresses on the Historyof the United States Senate, by Robert C. Byrd, S. Doc. 100–

20, 100th Cong., 1st sess., vol. 2, 1991, Chapter 6; vol. 4, His-torical Statistics, 1993, pp. 647–53.)

4 U.S., Congress, Senate, Congressional Globe, 33d Cong.,1st sess, pp. 19–21. See also U.S., Congress, Obituary Address-es on the Occasion of the Death of the Hon. William R. King,of Alabama, Vice President of the United States, Delivered in theSenate and House of Representatives of the United States, Eighthof December, 1853 (Washington, 1854), pp. 8–13, 37. Rep-resentative Sampson Harris (D-AL) also commented thatKing lacked ‘‘many of those great attributes of mind, whichdazzle and lead captive the admiring throng . . .’’ (p. 37)and the National Intelligencer began its obituary, ‘‘Not en-dowed with shining talents, though of excellent sense . . .’’(April 20, 1853).

5 Congressional Globe, 33d Cong., 1st sess, p. 20.6 Martin, ‘‘William Rufus King: Southern Moderate,’’ pp.

3–5, 11–12.7 No book-length biography of King exists. John Milton

Martin, the only modern-era scholar to have given King’scareer serious consideration, prepared a 1955 doctoral dis-sertation (‘‘William Rufus King: Southern Moderate,’’ Uni-versity of North Carolina) and articles in the early 1960s onKing’s role as a ‘‘Jacksonian Senator’’ and his multiplequests for the vice-presidency. Biographies of King’s lead-ing contemporaries and histories of nineteenth-century Ala-bama political life give him only passing reference. A smallunorganized collection of his personal papers survives atthe Alabama Department of Archives and History in Mont-gomery. Incomplete records at the University of NorthCarolina have led to conflicting accounts of his stay there.An error-ridden biographical article by E.S.W. Dameron inthat institution’s University Magazine (March 1905, p. 317–22) credits him with graduating in 1803, but notes that the‘‘ravages of a century have despoiled his Alma Mater of allaccount of his college life.’’ Others have accepted that infor-mation, including Thomas M. Owen in History of Alabamaand Dictionary of Alabama Biography, vol. 3 (Chicago, 1921),p. 983, and Roy F. Nichols in ‘‘William Rufus Devane King,’’Dictionary of American Biography (vol. 10, p. 406). John M.Martin, King’s only reliable modern biographer, disagrees,indicating that he withdrew in 1804, ‘‘William R. King andthe Compromise of 1850,’’ The North Carolina Historical Re-view 39 (October 1962): 500. In his University of North Caro-lina doctoral dissertation (pp. 20–22), Martin explores thematter in greater detail and concludes that King felt he wassufficiently prepared to begin his legal studies.

8 By the time the Twelfth Congress convened on Novem-ber 4, 1811, King had reached the required age of twenty-five. In those early years both houses of Congress occasion-ally ignored the minimum age requirement, which was gen-erally applied at the time the oath of office was adminis-tered rather than on the date of election.

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9 Martin, ‘‘William R. King and the Compromise of 1850,’’p. 500; Martin, ‘‘William Rufus King: Southern Moderate,’’Chapter 2.

10 Martin, ‘‘William Rufus King: Southern Moderate,’’ pp.61–65. King took the name ‘‘Selma’’ from the poem byJames Macpherson, ‘‘the Song of Selma.’’ Virginia O.Foscue, Place Names in Alabama (Tuscaloosa, AL, 1989), pp.26–27, 125; Writers’ Program, Alabama, Alabama: A Guideto the Deep South (WPA American Guide Series) (New York,1941), pp. 47–50, 237–38.

11 The major documentary record of his Senate service isfound in the quasi-official proceedings of Congress, the An-nals of Congress (1811–1816; 1819–1824), the Register of De-bates in Congress (1824–1838), and the Congressional Globe(1833–1853). Yet even this record is spare, as King made fewsubstantive speeches, preferring to preside rather than todebate. He never married or had children, thus there wereno direct heirs with a vested interest in preserving a usefulrecord of his service.

12 Roy Nichols and Jeannette Nichols, ‘‘Election of 1852,’’in History of American Presidential Elections, 1789–1968, ed.Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., vol. 2 (New York, 1971), p. 942;John Updike, Memories of the Ford Administration (New York,1992), pp. 227, 233.

13 Congressional Globe, 31st Cong., 1st sess., p. 21.14 John M. Martin, ‘‘William R. King: Jacksonian Senator,’’

The Alabama Review 18 (October 1965): 243–45.15 Martin, ‘‘William R. King: Jacksonian Senator,’’ pp.

247–51; Martin, ‘‘William Rufus King: Southern Moderate,’’p. 77.

16 Martin, ‘‘William R. King: Jacksonian Senator,’’ pp. 253,256.

17 Ibid., p. 262.18 This story is derived from the account presented in

Robert V. Remini, Henry Clay: Statesman for the Union (NewYork, 1991), p. 574. Remini consulted many sources beyondthe quasi-official Congressional Globe (26th Cong., 2d sess.,pp. 245, 247–249, 256–257), which was reported in the thirdperson and without the detail that Remini located in con-temporary newspapers, letters, and diary accounts. See alsoMartin, ‘‘William Rufus King: Southern Moderate,’’ pp.183–86.

19 See Chapter 9 of this volume, ‘‘Richard Mentor John-son,’’ p. 129.

20 Philip Shriver Klein, President James Buchanan (Univer-sity Park, PA, 1962), p. 111; Novelist John Updike, in Memo-ries of the Ford Administration (pp. 227–41), speculates atlength on the nature of the intimacy between King andBuchanan.

21 John M. Martin, ‘‘William R. King and the Vice Presi-dency,’’ The Alabama Review 16 (January 1963): 35–40; Klein,pp. 131–32.

22 Martin, ‘‘William R. King and the Vice Presidency,’’ pp.43–44.

23 John Niven, John C. Calhoun and the Price of Union (BatonRouge, LA, 1988), p. 260.

24 St. George Leakin Sioussat, ‘‘John Caldwell Calhoun,’’in American Secretaries of State and Their Diplomacy, ed. Sam-uel Flagg Bemis, vol. 5 (New York, 1928), pp. 164–65, 169,208, 300; Martin, ‘‘William Rufus King: Southern Mod-erate,’’ Chapter 7.

25 Letter of April 30, 1846, quoted in Martin, ‘‘WilliamRufus King: Southern Moderate,’’ p. 268.

26 William Warren Rogers, et al., Alabama: The History ofa Deep South State (Tuscaloosa, AL, 1994), p. 155.

27 Martin, ‘‘William Rufus King: Southern Moderate,’’ pp.274–81, 290–91, 300–303.

28 Martin, ‘‘William R. King and the Compromise of1850,’’ p. 501.

29 Congressional Globe, 31st Cong., 1st sess., p. 342.30 Remini, Henry Clay: Statesman for the Union, pp. 746–

47.31 Ibid.32 Congressional Globe, 31st Cong., 1st sess., p. 915.33 Ibid., pp. 1054–55.34 Ibid., p. 1370.35 Martin, ‘‘William R. King and the Vice Presidency,’’ pp.

46–49.36 Congressional Quarterly’s Guide to U.S. Elections, 3d ed.

(Washington, DC, 1994), p. 43.37 Congressional Globe, 32d Cong., 2d sess., p. 89.38 In King’s absence, Senator Lewis Cass, as the Senate’s

oldest member, administered the oath of office to newlyelected senators. President Franklin Pierce made no ref-erence to his absent running mate during his inaugural ad-dress. Congress approved the necessary legislation onMarch 2, 1853. (Congressional Globe, 32d Cong., 2d sess., Ap-pendix, p. 341.)

39 Daily [Montgomery] Alabama Journal, April 20, 1853.

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Chapter 14

JOHN CABELL BRECKINRIDGE1857–1861

JOHN C. BRECKINRIDGE

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Chapter 14

JOHN CABELL BRECKINRIDGE14th Vice President: 1857–1861

I trust that I have the courage to lead a forlorn hope.—JOHN C. BRECKINRIDGE, 1860

The only vice president ever to take up armsagainst the government of the United States,John Cabell Breckinridge completed four yearsas vice president under James Buchanan, ran forpresident as the Southern Democratic candidatein 1860, and then returned to the Senate to leadthe remnants of the Democratic party for the firstcongressional session during the Civil War. Al-though his cousin Mary Todd Lincoln resided inthe White House and his home state of Kentuckyremained in the Union, Breckinridge chose tovolunteer his services to the Confederate army.The United States Senate formally expelled himas a traitor. When the Confederates were de-feated, Breckinridge’s personal secession forcedhim into exile abroad, bringing his promising po-litical career to a bitter end.

An Illustrious Political Family

Born at ‘‘Cabell’s Dale,’’ the Breckinridge fam-ily estate near Lexington, Kentucky, on January16, 1821, John Cabell Breckinridge was namedfor his father and grandfather. The father, JosephCabell Breckinridge, a rising young politician,died at the state capital at the age of thirty-five.Left without resources, his wife took her childrenback to Cabell’s Dale to live with their grand-mother, known affectionately as ‘‘GrandmaBlack Cap.’’ She often regaled the children withstories of their grandfather, the first John Breck-inridge, who, in addition to introducing the Ken-tucky Resolutions that denounced the Alien andSedition Acts, had helped secure the Louisiana

Purchase and had served during the administra-tion of Thomas Jefferson first as a Senate leaderand then as attorney general. The grandfathermight well have become president one day but,like his son, he died prematurely. The sense offamily mission that his grandmother impartedshaped young John C. Breckinridge’s self-imageand directed him towards a life in public office.The family also believed strongly in education,since Breckinridge’s maternal grandfather, Sam-uel Stanhope Smith, had served as president ofthe College of New Jersey at Princeton, and hisuncle Robert J. Breckinridge started Kentucky’spublic school system. The boy attended the Pres-byterian Centre College in Danville, Kentucky,where he received his bachelor’s degree at seven-teen. He then attended Princeton before return-ing to Lexington to study law at TransylvaniaUniversity.1

A tall, strikingly handsome young man witha genial air and a powerful voice, considered bymany ‘‘a perfect gentleman,’’ Breckinridge setout to make his fortune on the frontier. In 1841he and his law partner Thomas W. Bullock set-tled in the Mississippi River town of Burlingame,in the Iowa Territory. There he might have en-tered politics and pursued a career relatively freefrom the divisive issue of slavery, but Iowa’sfierce winter gave him influenza and made himhomesick for Kentucky. When he returned homeon a visit in 1843, he met and soon married MaryCyrene Burch of Georgetown. The newlyweds

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settled in Georgetown, and Breckinridge openeda law office in Lexington.2

A Rapid Political Rise

When the Mexican War began, Breckinridgevolunteered to serve as an officer in a Kentuckyinfantry regiment. In Mexico, Major Breckinridgewon the support of his troops for his acts of kind-ness, being known to give up his horse to sickand footsore soldiers. After six months in MexicoCity, he returned to Kentucky and to an almostinevitable political career. In 1849, while stillonly twenty-eight years old, he won a seat in thestate house of representatives. In that election, asin all his campaigns, he demonstrated both anexceptional ability as a stump speaker and a poli-tician’s memory for names and faces. Shortlyafter the election, he met for the first time the Illi-nois legislator who had married his cousin MaryTodd. Abraham Lincoln, while visiting his wife’sfamily in Lexington, paid courtesy calls on thecity’s lawyers. Lincoln and Breckinridge becamefriends, despite their differences in party andideology. Breckinridge was a Jacksonian Demo-crat in a state that Senator Henry Clay had madea Whig bastion. In 1851, Breckinridge shockedthe Whig party by winning the congressionalrace in Clay’s home district, a victory that alsobrought him to the attention of national Demo-cratic leaders. He arrived in Congress shortlyafter the passage of Clay’s Compromise of 1850,which had sought to settle the issue of slaveryin the territories. Breckinridge became a spokes-man for the proslavery Democrats, arguing thatthe federal government had no right to interferewith slavery anywhere, either in the District ofColumbia or in any of the territories.3

Since Breckinridge defended both the Unionand slavery, people viewed him as a moderate.The Pennsylvania newspaper publisher and po-litical adventurer John W. Forney insisted thatwhen Breckinridge came to Congress ‘‘he was inno sense an extremist.’’ Forney recalled how theyoung Breckinridge spoke with great respectabout Texas Senator Sam Houston, who de-nounced the dangers and evils of slavery. ButForney thought that Breckinridge ‘‘was too inter-esting a character to be neglected by the ableultras of the South. They saw in his winning

manners, attractive appearance, and rare talentfor public affairs, exactly the elements they need-ed in their concealed designs against the coun-try.’’ People noted that his uncle, Robert Breckin-ridge, was a prominent antislavery man, and thatas a state legislator Breckinridge had aided theKentucky Colonization Society (a branch of theAmerican Colonization Society), dedicated togradual emancipation and the resettlement offree blacks outside the United States. They sus-pected that he held private concerns about themorality of slavery and that he supported grad-ual emancipation. Yet, while Breckinridge wasno planter or large slaveholder, he owned a fewhousehold slaves and idealized the southern wayof life. He willingly defended slavery and whitesupremacy against all critics.4

The Kansas-Nebraska Controversy

In Congress, Breckinridge became an ally of Il-linois Senator Stephen A. Douglas. When Doug-las introduced the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854,which repealed the Missouri Compromise andleft the issue of slavery in the territories to thesettlers themselves—a policy known as ‘‘popularsovereignty’’—Breckinridge worked hard toenact the legislation. Going to the White House,he served as a broker between Douglas andPresident Franklin Pierce, persuading the presi-dent to support the bill. He also spoke out in theHouse in favor of leaving the settlers ‘‘free toform their own institutions, and enter the Unionwith or without slavery, as their constitutionsshould prescribe.’’ 5

During those debates in March 1854, the nor-mally even-tempered Breckinridge exchangedangry words on the House floor with DemocraticRepresentative Francis B. Cutting of New York,almost provoking a duel. ‘‘They were a high-strung pair,’’ commented Breckinridge’s friendForney. Cutting accused Breckinridge of ingrati-tude toward the North, where he had raisedcampaign funds for his tough reelection cam-paign in 1853. Breckinridge, ‘‘his eyes flashingfire,’’ interrupted Cutting’s speech, denied hischarges, denounced his language, and de-manded an apology. When Cutting refused,Breckinridge interpreted this as a challenge to aduel. He proposed that they meet near Silver

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Spring, the nearby Maryland home of his friendFrancis P. Blair, and that they duel with westernrifles. The New Yorker objected that he hadnever handled a western rifle and that as thechallenged party he should pick the weapons.Once it became clear that neither party consid-ered himself the challenger, they gained a face-saving means of withdrawing from the ‘‘code ofhonor’’ without fighting the duel. When the twonext encountered each other in the House, Breck-inridge looked his adversary in the eye and said:‘‘Cutting, give me a chew of tobacco!’’ The NewYorker drew a plug of tobacco from his pocket,cut off a wad for Breckinridge and another forhimself, and both returned to their desks chew-ing and looking happier. Those who observedthe exchange compared it to the American Indi-ans’ practice of smoking a peace pipe.6

Breckinridge supported the Kansas-NebraskaAct in the hope that it would take slavery in theterritories out of national politics, but the act hadentirely the opposite effect. Public outragethroughout the North caused the Whig party tocollapse and new antislavery parties, the Repub-lican and the American (Know-Nothing) parties,to rise in its wake. When the spread of Know-Nothing lodges in his district jeopardized hischances of reelection in 1855, Breckinridge de-clined to run for a third term. He also rejectedPresident Pierce’s nomination to serve as min-ister to Spain and negotiate American annexationof Cuba, despite the Senate’s confirmation of hisappointment. Citing his wife’s poor health andhis own precarious finances, Breckinridge re-turned to Kentucky. Land speculation in theWest helped him accumulate a considerableamount of money during his absence frompolitics.7

The Youngest Vice President

As the Democratic convention approached in1856, the three leading contenders—PresidentPierce, Senator Douglas, and former Minister toGreat Britain James Buchanan—all courtedBreckinridge. He attended the convention as adelegate, voting first for Pierce and then switch-ing to Douglas. When Douglas withdrew as agesture toward party unity, the nomination wentto Buchanan. The Kentucky delegation nomi-

nated former House Speaker Linn Boyd for vicepresident. Then a Louisiana delegate nominatedBreckinridge. Gaining the floor, Breckinridge de-clined to run against his delegation’s nominee,but his speech deeply impressed the convention.One Arkansas delegate admired ‘‘his manner, hisseverely simple style of delivery with scarcely anornament [or] gesture and deriving its force andeloquence solely from the remarkably choiceready flow of words, the rich voice and intona-tion.’’ The delegate noted that ‘‘every memberseemed riveted to his seat and each face seemedby magnetic influence to be directed to him.’’When Boyd ran poorly on the first ballot, theconvention switched to Breckinridge and nomi-nated him on the second ballot. Although Ten-nessee’s Governor Andrew Johnson grumbledthat Breckinridge’s lack of national reputationwould hurt the ticket, Buchanan’s managerswere pleased with the choice. They thoughtBreckinridge would appease Douglas, since thetwo men had been closely identified throughtheir work on the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Beingpresent at the convention, Breckinridge was pre-vailed upon to make a short acceptance speech,thanking the delegates for the nomination, en-dorsing Buchanan and the platform, and re-affirming his position as a ‘‘state’s rights man.’’The nominee was thirty-six years old—just ayear over the constitutional minimum age forholding the office—and his election would makehim the youngest vice president in Americanhistory.8

Breckinridge spent most of the campaign inKentucky, but he gave speeches in Ohio, Indiana,and Michigan, defending the Kansas-NebraskaAct. The election was a three-way race amongthe Democrats under Buchanan, the Republicansunder John Charles Fremont, and the Know-Nothings under former President Millard Fill-more. Denouncing the antislavery policies of theRepublicans and Know-Nothings, Breckinridgedescribed himself not as proslavery but as a de-fender of the people’s constitutional right tomake their own territorial laws, a position thatcaused some Deep South extremists to accusehim of harboring abolitionist views. In Novem-ber, Democrats carried all the slaveholding states

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except Maryland (which went Know-Nothing)and enough northern states to win the election.Breckinridge was proud that Kentucky voted fora Democratic presidential ticket for the first timesince 1828.9

Strained Relations with Buchanan

Buchanan won the nomination and electionprimarily because nobody knew where he stoodon the issues, since he had been out of the coun-try for the past three years as minister to Eng-land. Although his supporters promoted him as‘‘the man for the crisis,’’ Buchanan was in factthe worst man for the crisis. Narrow, secretive,petty, vindictive, and blind to corruption withinhis administration, he proved unable to bind to-gether either the factions of his party or the re-gions of his nation. A poor winner, Buchanandistrusted his rivals for the nomination and re-fused to invite Stephen Douglas to join his cabi-net or to take seriously Douglas’ patronage re-quests. Similarly snubbed, Breckinridge quicklydiscovered that he held less influence with Bu-chanan as vice president than he had as a mem-ber of the House with Pierce.10

Viewing Breckinridge as part of the Pierce-Douglas faction, Buchanan almost never con-sulted him, and rarely invited him to the WhiteHouse for either political or social gatherings.Early in the new administration, when the vicepresident asked for a private interview with thepresident, he was told instead to call at the WhiteHouse some evening and ask to see Buchanan’sniece and hostess, Harriet Lane. Taking this asa rebuff, the proud Kentuckian left town withoutcalling on either Miss Lane or the president. Hisfriends reported his resentment to Buchanan,and in short order three of the president’s con-fidants wrote to tell Breckinridge that it had beena mistake. A request to see Miss Lane was reallya password to admit a caller to see her uncle.How Breckinridge could have known this, theydid not explain. In fact, the vice president hadno private meetings with the president for overthree years.11

The new vice president bought property in theDistrict of Columbia and planned to construct,along with his good friends Senator Douglas andSenator Henry Rice of Minnesota, three large, ex-

pensive, connected houses at New Jersey Ave-nue and I Street that would become known as‘‘Minnesota Row.’’ Before the construction wascompleted, however, the friendship had becomedeeply strained when Douglas fell out withPresident Buchanan over slavery in Kansas. Aproslavery minority there had sent to Washing-ton a new territorial constitution—known as theLecompton Constitution. Buchanan threw hisweight behind the Lecompton Constitution as adevice for admitting Kansas as a state and defus-ing the explosive issue of slavery in the territory.But Douglas objected that the Lecompton Con-stitution made a mockery out of popular sov-ereignty and warned that he would fight it as afraud. Recalling the way Andrew Jackson haddealt with his opponents, Buchanan said, ‘‘Mr.Douglas, I desire you to remember that no Dem-ocrat ever yet differed from an Administrationof his choice without being crushed.’’ To whichDouglas replied, ‘‘Mr. President, I wish you toremember that General Jackson is dead.’’ Be-tween these two poles, the vice president vainlysought to steer a neutral course. He sided withBuchanan on the Lecompton Constitution butendorsed Douglas for reelection to the Senate.12

An Impartial Presiding Officer

As vice president in such a turbulent era,Breckinridge won respect for presiding grace-fully and impartially over the Senate. On January4, 1859, when the Senate met for the last time inits old chamber, he used the occasion to deliveran eloquent appeal for national unity. During itshalf century in the chamber, the Senate hadgrown from thirty-two to sixty-four members.The expansion of the nation forced them to moveto a new, more spacious chamber. During thoseyears, he observed, the Constitution had ‘‘sur-vived peace and war, prosperity and adversity’’to protect ‘‘the larger personal freedom compat-ible with public order.’’ He recalled the legisla-tive labors of Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, andJohn C. Calhoun, whose performance in thatchamber challenged their successors ‘‘to give theUnion a destiny not unworthy of the past.’’ Hetrusted that in the future ‘‘another Senate, in an-other age, shall bear to a new and larger Cham-ber, this Constitution vigorous and inviolate, and

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that the last generation of posterity shall witnessthe deliberations of the Representatives of Amer-ican States, still united, prosperous, and free.’’The vice president then led a procession to thenew chamber. Walking two-by-two behind himwere the political and military leaders of whatwould soon become the Union and theConfederacy.13

Breckinridge counseled against secession. A fa-mous incident, recounted in many memoirs ofthe era, took place at a dinner party that the vicepresident attended. South Carolina Representa-tive Lawrence Keitt repeatedly denigrated Ken-tucky’s compromising tendencies. Breckinridgeresponded by recalling a trip he had madethrough South Carolina, where he met a militiaofficer in full military regalia. ‘‘I tell you, sah, wecan not stand it any longer; we intend to fight,’’said the officer. ‘‘And from what are you suffer-ing?’’ asked Breckinridge. ‘‘Why, sah, we are suf-fering from the oppression of the Federal Gov-ernment. We have suffered under it for thirtyyears, and will stand it no more.’’ Turning toKeitt, Breckinridge advised him ‘‘to invite someof his constituents, before undertaking the war,upon a tour through the North, if only for thepurpose of teaching them what an almighty bigcountry they will have to whip before they getthrough!’’ 14

A Four-Way Race for President

Early in 1859 a New York Times correspondentin Washington wrote that ‘‘Vice President Breck-inridge stands deservedly high in public esti-mation, and has the character of a man slow toform resolves, but unceasing and inexorable intheir fulfillment.’’ At a time when the Buchananadministration was falling ‘‘in prestige and polit-ical consequence, the star of the Vice Presidentrises higher above the clouds.’’ Later that year,Linn Boyd died while campaigning for the Sen-ate, and Kentucky Democrats nominated Breck-inridge for the seat, which would become vacantat the time Breckinridge’s term as vice presidentended. Breckinridge may also have been harbor-ing even greater ambitions. Although he re-mained silent about the upcoming presidentialcampaign, many Democrats considered him astrong contender. In 1860, the Democratic con-

vention met in Charleston, South Carolina. Ste-phen Douglas was the frontrunner, but when hissupporters defeated efforts to write into the plat-form a plank protecting the right of slavery any-where in the territories, the southern delegateswalked out. They held their own convention inBaltimore and nominated Breckinridge as theirpresidential candidate.15

For national balance, the breakaway Demo-crats selected Senator Joseph Lane, a Democratfrom Oregon, for vice president. Lane had spenthis youth in Kentucky and Indiana and servedin the Mexican War. President James K. Polk hadappointed him territorial governor of Oregon, anoffice he held from 1849 to 1850 before becomingOregon’s territorial delegate to Congress in 1851.When Oregon entered the Union in 1859, he waschosen one of its first senators. Lane’s embraceof the secessionist spirit attracted him to theSouthern Democrats. Had the four-way electionof 1860 not been decided by the electoral collegebut been thrown into Congress, the Democraticmajority in the outgoing Senate might well haveelected him vice president. Instead, the raceended Lane’s political career entirely, and Or-egon became a Republican state.16

Breckinridge faced a campaign against threeold friends: Stephen Douglas, the Democraticcandidate; Abraham Lincoln, the Republican;and John Bell of Tennessee, the ConstitutionalUnion party candidate. He was not optimisticabout his chances. Privately, he told Mrs. Jeffer-son Davis, ‘‘I trust that I have the courage to leada forlorn hope.’’ At a dinner just before the nomi-nation, Breckinridge talked of not accepting it,but Jefferson Davis persuaded him to run. Wor-ried that a split in the anti-Republican votewould ensure Lincoln’s victory, Davis proposeda scheme by which Breckinridge, Douglas, andBell would agree to withdraw their candidaciesin favor of a compromise candidate. Breckin-ridge and Bell agreed, but Douglas refused, ar-guing that northern Democrats would take Lin-coln before they voted for any candidate that thesouthern firebrands had endorsed. The Illinoissenator pointed out that, while not all of Breckin-ridge’s followers were secessionists, every seces-sionist was supporting him. But Breckinridgealso counted on the support of the last three

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Democratic presidential candidates, Lewis Cass,Franklin Pierce, and James Buchanan, as well asmost of the northern Democratic senators andrepresentatives. Despite these endorsements andthe financial levies that the Buchanan adminis-tration made on all Democratic officeholders forhim, Breckinridge failed to carry any northernstates. In the four-way race, he placed third inthe popular vote and second in electoral votes.Most disappointingly, he lost Kentucky to Bell.17

A Personal Secession

Following the election, Breckinridge returnedto Washington to preside over the Senate, hopingto persuade southerners to abandon secession.But in December, South Carolina, Alabama, Mis-sissippi, and Florida left the Union. In January,Mississippi Senator Jefferson Davis and othersoutherners bid a formal farewell to the Senate.In February, Vice President Breckinridge led aprocession of senators to the House chamber tocount the electoral votes, and to announce theelection of Abraham Lincoln of Illinois. OnMarch 4, Breckinridge administered the oath ofoffice to his successor, Hannibal Hamlin, who inturn swore him into the Senate. When PresidentLincoln called Congress into special session onJuly 4, 1861, to raise the arms and men necessaryto fight the Civil War, Breckinridge returned toWashington as the leader of what was left of theSenate Democrats. Many in Washington doubtedthat he planned to offer much support to theUnion or the war effort. Breckinridge seemed outof place in the wartime capital, after so many ofhis southern friends had left. On several occa-sions, however, he visited his cousin Mary ToddLincoln at the White House.18

During the special session, which lasted untilAugust 6, 1861, Breckinridge remained firm inhis belief that the Constitution strictly limited thepowers of the federal government, regardless ofsecession and war. Although he wanted theUnion restored, he preferred a peaceful separa-tion rather than ‘‘endless, aimless, devastatingwar, at the end of which I see the grave of publicliberty and of personal freedom.’’ The most dra-matic moment of the session occurred on August1, when Senator Breckinridge took the floor tooppose the Lincoln administration’s expansion

of martial law. As he spoke, Oregon RepublicanSenator Edward D. Baker entered the chamber,dressed in the blue coat of a Union army colonel.Baker had raised and was training a militia unitknown as the California Regiment. When Breck-inridge finished, Baker challenged him: ‘‘Thesespeeches of his, sown broadcast over the land,what meaning have they? Are they not intendedfor disorganization in our very midst?’’ Bakerdemanded. ‘‘Sir, are they not words of brilliant,polished treason, even in the very Capitol?’’Within months of this exchange, Senator Bakerwas killed while leading his militia at the Battleof Ball’s Bluff along the Potomac River, and Sen-ator Breckinridge was wearing the gray uniformof a Confederate officer.19

After the special session, Breckinridge re-turned to Kentucky to try to keep his state neu-tral. He spoke at a number of peace rallies, pro-claiming that, if Kentucky took up arms againstthe Confederacy, then someone else must rep-resent the state in the Senate. Despite his efforts,pro-Union forces won the state legislative elec-tions. When another large peace rally was sched-uled for September 21, the legislature sent a regi-ment to break up the meeting and arrest Breckin-ridge. Forewarned, he packed his bag and fledto Virginia. He could no longer find any neutralground to stand upon, no way to endorse boththe Union and the southern way of life. Forcedto choose sides, Breckinridge joined his friendsin the Confederacy. In Richmond he volunteeredfor military service, exchanging, as he said, his‘‘term of six years in the Senate of the UnitedStates for the musket of a soldier.’’ On December4, 1861, the Senate by a 36 to 0 vote expelled theKentucky senator, declaring that Breckinridge,‘‘the traitor,’’ had ‘‘joined the enemies of hiscountry.’’ 20

General Breckinridge

Commissioned a brigadier general, and later amajor general, Breckinridge went west to fightat Shiloh, Stone’s River, Chickamauga, and Chat-tanooga. He returned east to the battle of ColdHarbor, and in July 1864 he and General JubalT. Early led a dramatic raid on Washington, D.C.Breckinridge’s troops advanced as far as SilverSpring, Maryland, where they sacked Francis

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Blair’s home but did not destroy it, supposedlyat the urging of Breckinridge, who had oftenbeen a guest there. Breckinridge got so close toWashington that he could see the newly com-pleted Capitol dome, and General Early jokedthat he would allow him to lead the advance intothe city so that he could sit in the vice-presi-dential chair again. But federal troops halted theConfederates, who retreated back to the Shen-andoah Valley. There, at Winchester, Virginia,they confronted Union troops commanded byPhilip H. Sheridan. The Confederate generalJohn B. Gordon later recalled that Breckinridgewas ‘‘desperately reckless’’ during that cam-paign, and ‘‘literally seemed to court death.’’When Gordon urged him to be careful, Breckin-ridge replied, ‘‘Well, general, there is little left forme if our cause is to fail.’’ As they rode from theirdefeat on the battlefield, Jubal T. Early turned toask, ‘‘General Breckinridge, what do you thinkof the ‘rights of the South in the territories’now?’’ He received no answer.21

During the closing months of the war in 1865,Jefferson Davis made Breckinridge his secretaryof war. He performed well in this final govern-ment position, firing the Confederacy’s bum-bling commissary general and trying to bringorder out of the chaos, but these efforts came toolate. When General Robert E. Lee surrenderedhis army, President Davis was determined tokeep on fighting, but Breckinridge opposed con-tinuing the war as a guerrilla campaign. ‘‘Thishas been a magnificent epic,’’ he said; ‘‘in God’sname let it not terminate in farce.’’ Fleeing Rich-mond, Breckinridge commanded the troops thataccompanied Davis and his cabinet. Davis wascaptured, but Breckinridge evaded arrest andimprisonment by fleeing through Florida to

Cuba. From there he sailed for England. Subse-quently, the Breckinridge family settled in To-ronto, Canada. His daughter Mary later re-marked that, while exile was a quiet relief for hermother, it was hard on her father, ‘‘separatedfrom the activities of life, and unable to do any-thing towards making a support for his family.’’In Canada he met other Confederate exiles, in-cluding the freed Jefferson Davis. Once, Breckin-ridge and Davis rode to Niagara. Across the riverthey could see the red stripes of the Americanflag, which Breckinridge viewed nostalgicallybut the more embittered Davis described as ‘‘thegridiron we have been fried on.’’ 22

On Christmas Day, 1868, departing PresidentAndrew Johnson issued a blanket pardon for allConfederates. John C. Breckinridge returned tothe United States in February 1869. Stopping inmany cities to visit old friends, he reached Lex-ington, Kentucky, a month later. He had not beenback in Kentucky since he fled eight years before.In welcome, a band played ‘‘Home SweetHome,’’ ‘‘Dixie,’’ and ‘‘Hail to the Chief.’’ Breck-inridge declared himself through with politics: ‘‘Ino more feel the political excitements thatmarked the scenes of my former years than if Iwere an extinct volcano.’’ Other than publiclydenouncing the lawless violence of the Ku KluxKlan, he devoted himself entirely to private mat-ters. The former vice president practiced law andbecame active in building railroads. Although hewas only fifty-four, his health declined severelyand he died on May 17, 1875. Despite his weak-ened condition at the end, Breckinridge sur-prised his doctor with his clear and strong voice.‘‘Why, Doctor,’’ the famous stump speakersmiled from his deathbed, ‘‘I can throw my voicea mile.’’ 23

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NOTES1 Frank H. Heck, Proud Kentuckian: John C. Breckinridge,

1821–1875 (Lexington, KY, 1976), pp. 1–11; James C. Klotter,The Breckinridges of Kentucky, 1760–1981 (Lexington, KY,1986), pp. 95–98.

2 Heck, pp. 11–18; Klotter, p. 101.3 Heck, pp. 22, 30–31; William C. Davis, Breckinridge:

Statesman, Soldier, Symbol (Baton Rouge, LA, 1974), p. 45.4 John W. Forney, Anecdotes of Public Men (New York,

1873), 2:41–42; Heck, pp. 30–31, 163–64; Klotter, p. 113.5 Heck, pp. 41–43.6 Forney, 2:301; Heck, pp. 44–46; Benjamin Perley Poore,

Perley’s Reminiscences of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis(Philadelphia, 1886), 1:439–42; L.A. Gobright, Recollections ofMen and Things at Washington During The Third of a Century(Philadelphia, 1869), p. 138.

7 Heck, pp. 47, 53–54; Mark W. Summers, The PlunderingGeneration: Corruption and the Crisis of the Union, 1849–1861(New York, 1987), p. 203.

8 Davis, Breckinridge, p. 145; Heck, pp. 59–60; Klotter, p.111.

9 Klotter, pp. 111, 113; Heck, pp. 55–66.10 Frederick Moore Binder, James Buchanan and the Amer-

ican Empire (Cranbury, NJ, 1994), pp. 219–22.11 Ibid., p. 223; Heck, pp. 67–68; Davis, Breckinridge, p. 172.12 Heck, pp. 69–74; Davis, Breckinridge, pp. 171–72; Elbert

B. Smith, The Presidency of James Buchanan (Lawrence, KS,1975), p. 41; Forney, 1:41–42; Robert W. Johannsen, StephenA. Douglas (New York, 1973), p. 652.

13 U.S., Congress, Senate, The Old Senate Chamber: Proceed-ings in the Senate of the United States upon Vacating their oldChamber on January 4, 1859, S. Doc. 67, 74th Cong., 1st sess.,pp. 4–15; Heck, pp. 75–76; Davis, Breckinridge, p. 194.

14 Forney, 1:283–84; Poore, 2:47; Davis, Breckinridge, p.175.

15 Davis, Breckinridge, p. 197; Smith, p. 113.16 David M. Potter, The Impending Crisis, 1848–1861 (New

York, 1976), p. 438; see also Margaret Jean Kelly, The Careerof Joseph Lane (Washington, 1942).

17 William C. Davis, Jefferson Davis: The Man and His Hour(New York, 1991), pp. 282–83; Heck, p. 85; Smith, pp. 124–26; Summers, p. 274; Lowell H. Harrison, ‘‘John C. Breckin-ridge: Nationalist, Confederate, Kentuckian,’’ The FilsonClub History Quarterly 47 (April 1973): 128.

18 Margaret Leech, Reveille in Washington, 1860–1865 (NewYork, 1941), pp. 32, 87. As a sign of the public confusionover Breckinridge’s loyalties, Mathew Brady’s studio pro-duced a photograph of Breckinridge retouched to make himappear to be wearing a Union army uniform. See SusanKismaric, American Politicians: Photographs from 1843 to 1993(New York, 1994), p. 66.

19 Heck, pp. 101–2; U.S., Congress, Senate, The Senate,1789–1989: Addresses on the History of the United States Senate,by Robert C. Byrd, S. Doc. 100–20, 100th Cong., 1st sess.,vol. 1, 1989, p. 250.

20 Heck, pp. 101–2, 106; U.S., Congress, Senate, UnitedStates Senate Election, Expulsion, and Censure Cases, 1793–1990, S. Doc. 103–33, 103d Cong., 1st sess., 1995, p. 103.

21 Klotter, p. 127; Leech, p. 345; Heck, pp. 111, 127–28;Harrison, p. 136.

22 Heck, pp. 133–34; Davis, Jefferson Davis, pp. 600–601,616–33, 658; Lucille Stilwell Williams, ‘‘John Cabell Breckin-ridge,’’ Register of the Kentucky State Historical Society 33 (Jan-uary 1935): 29.

23 Heck, pp. 149, 157; Davis, Breckinridge, pp. 593, 623.

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Chapter 15

HANNIBAL HAMLIN1861–1865

HANNIBAL HAMLIN

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Chapter 15

HANNIBAL HAMLIN15th Vice President: 1861–1865

What can I do? The slow and unsatisfactory movements of the Government do not meet with myapprobation, and that is known, and of course I am not consulted at all, nor do I think there is muchdisposition in any quarter to regard any counsel I may give much if at all.

—HANNIBAL HAMLIN, 1862

The emotional issue of slavery demolished theAmerican political system during the 1850s: theWhig party disintegrated; the Democrats di-vided; and the Free Soil and American (or Know-Nothing) parties flourished briefly and died.Emerging from the wreckage of the old system,the Republican party, which ran its first presi-dential campaign in 1856, drew converts from allof these parties. Within the new party stood menwho had spent years fighting each other underdifferent political banners. In constructing apresidential ticket in 1860, therefore, Republicansneeded candidates who would reflect their com-plex construction and reinforce their new unity.They picked a presidential candidate, AbrahamLincoln, who was not only a westerner but aWhig who claimed Henry Clay as his politicalrole model. To balance Lincoln, Republicanschose as their vice-presidential candidate Hanni-bal Hamlin, an easterner who had spent the bulkof his political career as a Democrat and who hadbattled Henry Clay when they served togetherin the United States Senate. Despite their dif-ferences, Lincoln and Hamlin shared an opposi-tion to the expansion of slavery into the westernterritories, without being abolitionists.1

Youth

Hannibal Hamlin owed his classical name tohis grandfather Eleazer Hamlin, a man well readin history, who named his first son after the

Roman general Scipio Africanus (everyone calledthe boy Africa) and called his twin sons Cyrus,after the great Persian conqueror, and Hannibal,after the Carthaginian general who crossed theAlps on elephants in his campaigns againstRome. Cyrus became a Harvard-trained medicaldoctor and moved to the village of Paris Hill,Maine, where on August 27, 1809, was born hisson, whom he named after his brother Hannibal.The boy grew up in a prosperous family, livingin an imposing, three-story white house. A natu-ral leader among his peers, physically fit and ath-letic, Hannibal was also an avid reader. He wassent to local public schools and then to HebronAcademy.

Hannibal’s ambition to become a lawyer wasnearly sidetracked, first when his elder brothertook ill, forcing him to leave school to run thefamily farm, and then when his father died, re-quiring him, under the terms of his father’s will,to stay home and take care of his mother untilhe turned twenty-one. When he came of age,however, Hannibal left home to read law at theoffices of Fessenden and Deblois, under SamuelC. Fessenden, an outspoken abolitionist and fa-ther of Hamlin’s future political rival, WilliamPitt Fessenden. The association made Hamlin anantislavery man and launched him into his newprofession. He set up his own law practice andbecame the town attorney in Hampden, Maine.2

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Democratic Politics in Maine and Washington

Politically, from the 1830s to the 1850s, Mainewas an entrenched Democratic state, and the po-litically ambitious Hamlin joined the Democraticparty. In 1835 he was elected to the state houseof representatives. Described as ‘‘tall, and gra-cious in figure, with black, piercing eyes, a skinalmost olive-colored, hair smooth, thick andjetty, a manner always courteous and affable,’’he fit easily into legislative politics, became apopular member of the house, and was soonelected its speaker. His most notable legislativeachievement was to lead the movement to abol-ish capital punishment in Maine. In 1840 he losta race for the U.S. House of Representatives, butin 1843 (after the next election was delayed untilthe districts could be reapportioned) he won aseat in Congress. There he denounced HenryClay’s economic programs and voted very muchas a Jacksonian Democrat. He became chairmanof the Committee on Elections and won a cov-eted seat on the House Rules Committee. Hamlinenjoyed considerable luck in his career, particu-larly in February 1844, when he missed sailingon the U.S. Navy frigate Princeton, which wasgoing to demonstrate its new guns. One of theguns exploded, killing Secretary of State AbelUpshur and several others.3

The extension of slavery into the territorieswas the most perplexing issue to face Congressduring Hamlin’s long career in the House andSenate. His state of Maine had entered the Unionas a result of the Missouri Compromise, whichadmitted one free state for every slave state. Butin 1846, when the United States entered a warwith Mexico, the prospects of vast new con-quered territories south of the Missouri Com-promise line raised the question of the param-eters of slavery. Hamlin joined with other radicalantislavery men in the House to devise anamendment that would prohibit the introductionof slavery into any territory taken from Mexicoas a result of the war. Pennsylvania Representa-tive David Wilmot was selected to introduce themeasure, which became known as the WilmotProviso. Hamlin introduced his own version ofthe proviso on an army appropriations bill, muchto the anger of Democratic President James K.

Polk. ‘‘Mr. Hamlin professes to be a democrat,’’the president wrote in his diary, ‘‘but has givenindications during the present session that he isdissatisfied, and is pursuing a mischievouscourse . . . on the slavery question.’’ The presi-dent attributed Hamlin’s stand to a patronagequarrel with the administration, but Hamlinstood squarely on principle. ‘‘I have no doubtthat the whole North will come to the positionI have taken,’’ he said. ‘‘Some damned rascalswho may be desirous of disposing of myself, willmutter & growl about abolitionism but I do notcare the snap of my fingers for them all.’’ 4

The Free Soil Challenge

In the House, Hamlin encountered many of themen with whom he would serve and againstwhom he would contend for the rest of his longcareer. Among others, he met RepresentativesAbraham Lincoln of Illinois, Andrew Johnson ofTennessee, and Jefferson Davis of Mississippi.He and Davis sparred frequently in the Houseand Senate over slavery. Tempers between thetwo men rose to such a level that for the onlytime in his life Hamlin thought it prudent tocarry a pistol for self-protection. The unexpecteddeath of Senator John Fairfield from malpracticeby an incompetent physician opened a Senateseat from Maine, which Hamlin was elected tofill in 1848. That same year, antislavery Whigsand Democrats united to form a Free Soil partythat nominated Martin Van Buren for president.Although Hamlin approved of their antislaveryplatform and had supported Van Buren in thepast, he could not bring himself to abandon hisparty—to which he owed his Senate seat. As aDemocratic senator, Hamlin strongly opposedHenry Clay’s proposed Compromise of 1850. Ifthe bill spread slavery into the West, he declared,‘‘it will not be with my vote.’’ 5

As a temperance man, Senator Hamlin wasdistressed by the drinking habits of his col-leagues. He observed that New York SenatorSilas Wright was never sober and even sippedwhiskey while he addressed the Senate. Hamlinestimated that as many as a third of the senatorswere drunk by the end of a daily session and thatafter a long executive session (held behind closeddoors) two-thirds of the members left inebriated.

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Nor did he approve of the ruffianly tendenciesand tempers of some senators. After a disputebetween Senator Thomas Hart Benton andHenry S. Foote, in which Foote pulled a pistolon the Senate floor, Hamlin wrote in disgust toa friend, ‘‘Don’t you think the American Senateis a dignified body!!!!!!!!’’ 6

Woolheads Versus Wildcats

The slavery issue split the Maine Democraticparty into two factions. Hamlin’s antislavery fac-tion won the name ‘‘Woolheads’’ from its oppo-nents. The Woolheads in turn labeled their ad-versaries, who opposed the Wilmot Proviso,‘‘Wildcats.’’ In addition to the slavery issue, tem-perance also divided the two factions, withHamlin’s ‘‘Woolheads’’ supporting prohibitionlaws and the ‘‘Wildcats’’ opposing them. In 1854,Hamlin denounced Senator Stephen Douglas’ ef-forts to enact the Kansas-Nebraska bill and re-peal the Missouri Compromise. ‘‘Shall we repealfreedom and make slavery?’’ he asked. ‘‘It comesto that.’’ When the bill passed the Senate by avote of 37 to 14, Hamlin was among only fourDemocrats to vote against it.7

As political turmoil reigned, Hamlin’s atten-tion was distracted by the illness of his wife,Sarah Jane Hamlin. Both Hannibal and SarahHamlin loved Washington’s social life of dances,receptions, card playing, and theater-going. Thesenator, she wrote home to their son, ‘‘has hadabout ten invitations a week to dine, and he en-joys them very much, you know how much heenjoys a good dinner.’’ But Sarah’s health de-clined so severely in 1855 that for a while he con-sidered resigning his Senate seat. Sarah JaneHamlin died from tuberculosis in April 1856.That September, Hamlin married his wife’syounger half-sister, Ellen, who was the same ageas one of his sons. Characterized as plain butwitty and warm-hearted, she bore two more ofhis children and offered him companionshipthrough the rest of his long life.8

Becoming a Republican

To some degree, Sarah’s illness provided polit-ical cover for Hannibal Hamlin at a time whenhe was under intense pressure to abandon theDemocrats in favor of the newly formed Repub-lican party. Republican leaders were anxious for

the popular Hamlin to join their party to balancethe radicals who threatened to gain control. ‘‘Wehave a great many men in our party who go offhalf cocked,’’ wrote the young editor and polit-ico, James G. Blaine. ‘‘They must be made to ridein the rear of the car instead of in the engine orelse we are in constant danger of being thrownfrom the track.’’ In 1856, Republicans wantedHamlin to head their ticket as the Republicancandidate for governor of Maine. Hamlin clungto his old party as long as he could, and also hadno desire to leave the Senate. However, Repub-licans warned him that refusal to run for gov-ernor would end any chance of his being re-turned to the Senate. Hamlin agreed to run forgovernor, but only if the legislature would sendhim back to the Senate as soon as possible. Aneffective campaigner, Hamlin canvassed thestate. Republicans won a smashing victory overboth Whigs and Democrats, sweeping all six con-gressional districts and carrying the legislature.Since Maine’s elections were held in September(because of the state’s harsh winter weather), theearly victory gave a psychological boost to thenational Republican campaign that year. Hamlinwon widespread credit for helping Republicansbroaden their electoral base.9

Inaugurated governor on January 8, 1857,Hamlin resigned on February 25 to begin histhird term as senator. In Washington he pro-vided the Republicans with a strong voiceagainst the ‘‘doughface’’ policies of JamesBuchanan’s administration. (It was a decidedlyMaine ‘‘Down East’’ voice, with Hamlin pro-nouncing ‘‘now’’ as ‘‘ne-a-ow,’’ for instance.)While boarding at the St. Charles Hotel in Wash-ington, Hamlin became reacquainted and favor-ably impressed with Andrew Johnson of Ten-nessee, with whom he had served in the Houseand who had just been elected to the Senate. Asthe 1860 elections approached, some Maine Re-publicans viewed Hamlin as a possible favorite-son candidate, in case the frontrunner, New YorkSenator William Seward, should falter. But JamesG. Blaine worked the Maine delegation to the Re-publican National Convention in favor of Abra-ham Lincoln’s nomination. On the train ride toChicago, Blaine convinced Governor Lot Morrill

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and other delegates to throw their support toLincoln. When Lincoln upset Seward, the vice-presidential nomination was offered first to theSeward camp. The disappointed Seward menput no one forward for the second spot. Therewas strong support among the delegates forCassius M. Clay, the Kentucky abolitionist, butRepublican party leaders thought him too radi-cal. By contrast, Hamlin seemed a more ‘‘natu-ral’’ choice, more moderate, but with a spotlessrecord against slavery, and a friend of Seward’sin the Senate. Hamlin won the nomination on thesecond ballot.10

The nomination came as a shock to HannibalHamlin. While playing cards in his Washingtonhotel room, Hamlin heard a racket in the cor-ridor. The door burst open and the room filledwith excited men, led by Indiana CongressmanSchuyler Colfax, who read a telegram from theconvention and addressed him as ‘‘Mr. Vice-President.’’ Stunned, Hamlin said he did notwant the office, but Ohio Senator Ben Wadewarned him that to decline would only give am-munition to the Democrats, suggesting that hewas afraid to run on a losing ticket. Hamlinagreed, whispering to Wade and Colfax: ‘‘Youpeople have spoiled a good lone hand I held.’’Afterwards, writing to his wife, Hamlin ex-plained: ‘‘I neither expected or desired it. But ithas been made and as a faithful man to the cause,it leaves me no alternative but to accept it.’’ Atleast, he conceded, the duties of the office would‘‘not be hard or unpleasant.’’ Whether in cardsor in politics, Hamlin had a lucky streak. AsBlaine observed: ‘‘He always turns up on thewinning side.’’ 11

Abra/Hamlin/coln

During the campaign, both Lincoln and Ham-lin considered it prudent to make no speeches.However, Hamlin assured Lincoln, ‘‘While Ihave been silent, I have never been so busy thro’the Press and by personal effort endeavoring tostrengthen the weak points all along the line.’’After Maine Republicans swept the Septemberelections, Hamlin traveled to Boston in Octoberto march in a torchlight parade, accompanied byMaine lumberjacks, Penobscot Indians, andparty stalwarts. One of the favorite signs com-

bined the ticket into a single name: ‘‘Abra/Ham-lin/coln.’’ On a less friendly note, southernersdenounced Lincoln and Hamlin as a radical abo-litionists. Going even further, Robert BarnwellRhett, editor of the Charleston [S.C.] Mercury,wrote that ‘‘Hamlin is what we call a mulatto.He has black blood in him.’’ An amused NewYorker, George Templeton Strong, observed thatHamlin seemed ‘‘a vigorous specimen of thepure Yankee type. His complexion is so swarthythat I cannot wonder at the demented South forbelieving him a mulatto.’’ 12

Once the election had been won, Lincoln sum-moned Hamlin to meet him in Chicago on No-vember 22. After some casual initial conversa-tion—Hamlin noted that Lincoln had started togrow a beard, and both men reminisced abouthearing each other’s speeches during their termtogether in the House of Representatives—theygot down to work. Lincoln wanted to discuss thecomposition of his cabinet and knew that Ham-lin, as a senator, had worked with and taken themeasure of many of the men he was consideringfor appointment. Lincoln was especially con-cerned about attracting his former rival, WilliamSeward, into the cabinet as secretary of state.When the Senate convened in December, SenatorHamlin carried notes from Lincoln to Sewardand pressed his colleague to accept the offer,which he did. Hamlin also successfully pro-moted Gideon Welles of Connecticut as a NewEngland candidate for the cabinet as secretary ofthe navy. These early dealings hinted that Ham-lin might play a more active role in the adminis-tration than had previous vice presidents. It soonturned out, however, that Hamlin’s usefulness toLincoln was tied mostly to his role as a seniorsenator and subsided almost as soon as he va-cated his Senate seat for the vice-presidency.13

The Lincoln-Hamlin victory triggered the se-cession of the southern states. When asked by afriend from Maine what the future would hold,the new vice president replied, ‘‘there’s going tobe a war, and a terrible one, just as surely as thesun will rise to-morrow.’’ Congress was out ofsession and Hamlin was in Maine when wordcame that Confederates had fired on Fort Sum-ter. The vice president devoted himself to raisinga Maine regiment to fight for the Union. On his

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way back to Washington, Hamlin stopped inNew York City, where he complied with Presi-dent Lincoln’s request to keep him advised dailyon what troops were leaving New York to pro-tect the capital.14

‘‘A Contingent Somebody’’

When the Senate convened on the Fourth ofJuly in 1861 to take the legislative actions nec-essary for raising and funding an army for theUnion, Vice President Hamlin discovered that hehad far less power and patronage as vice presi-dent than he had as a senator. The loss of patron-age particularly galled Hamlin, who was ‘‘notedfor his fidelity to political friends.’’ He also feltunhappy over being relegated to serving as aninactive observer of events. Hamlin consideredhimself the most unimportant man in Washing-ton, ignored equally by the administration andthe senators. He called his job ‘‘a fifth wheel ona coach’’ and identified the vice president as ‘‘acontingent somebody.’’ When Jessie BentonFremont asked Hamlin to intervene in favor ofa new military command for her husband, thevice president replied: ‘‘What can I do? The slowand unsatisfactory movements of the Govern-ment do not meet with my approbation, and thatis known, and of course I am not consulted atall, nor do I think there is much disposition inany quarter to regard any counsel I may givemuch if at all.’’ 15

Reflecting later on his office, Hamlin told aninterviewer:

There is a popular impression that the VicePresident is in reality the second officer of thegovernment not only in rank but in power andinfluence. This is a mistake. In the early days ofthe republic he was in some sort an heir apparentto the Presidency. But that is changed. He pre-sides over the Senate—he has a casting vote incase of a tie—and he appoints his own privatesecretary. But this gives him no power to wieldand no influence to exert. Every member who hasa constituency, and every Senator who representsa state, counts for more in his own locality, andwith the Executive who must needs, in wieldingthe functions of his office, gather around him,and retain by his favors, those who can vote inCongress and operate directly upon public senti-ment in their houses.

Hamlin explained that he soon saw that his officewas a ‘‘nullity’’ in Washington. He tried not tointrude upon the president, but always gave Lin-coln his views, and when asked, his advice.16

Moreover, Hamlin found presiding over theSenate so boring that he was frequently absent.In contrast to his service as a senator, when herarely missed a day of a session, as vice presidenthe would leave for Maine well before the end ofa session, turning his duties over to the presidentpro tempore. Hamlin’s inattentiveness to Senateproceedings became an embarrassment when theDelaware Democrat Willard Saulsbury launchedinto a savage attack on President Lincoln as ‘‘aweak and imbecile man.’’ Republican senatorsobjected that the remarks were not in order, butVice President Hamlin had to admit that ‘‘[t]heChair was not listening to what the Senator fromDelaware was saying, and did not hear thewords.’’ To this Saulsbury replied, ‘‘That is thefault of the Chair, and not of the Senator whowas addressing the Chair.’’ Hamlin finally or-dered Saulsbury to be seated for questioning themotives of the senators who had raised the objec-tion, and when Saulsbury refused to comply, thevice president ordered the sergeant at arms toplace the senator in custody. After a brief con-versation, Saulsbury accompanied the assistantsergeant at arms out of the chamber.16

Hamlin attributed Saulsbury’s belligerence tohis drinking. ‘‘He was very drunk—beastly so onthe night of the transaction,’’ the vice presidentwrote. ‘‘It was a most disgraceful scene.’’ As atemperance man, Hamlin determined to banishliquor from the Senate chamber and committeerooms. The combination of his rule outlawingthe sale of liquor in the Senate restaurant and thedeparture of the hard-drinking southern sen-ators after secession sobered the institution. Onevisitor to the Capitol noted, ‘‘A few Senatorswere seen walking with unsteady gait from thecloak room to their desks, but thanks to the firm-ness of Hannibal Hamlin, the Senate became apleasant place to the sober people who had tolive there.’’ 17

Throughout the war, Hamlin identified morewith the frustrated congressional radicals thanwith the more cautious President Lincoln. Those

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around Lincoln concluded that the vice presidentwas not in close sympathy with the president but‘‘was known as one who passively rather thanactively strengthened a powerful cabal of Repub-lican leaders in their aggressive hostility to Lin-coln and his general policy.’’ Lincoln did not ap-pear to hold this against Hamlin. As one news-paper correspondent of the era observed: ‘‘Lin-coln measured the men about him at their value.He knew their worth, their fidelity, and in nosense distrusted them.’’ He did not require abso-lute loyalty in order to use a person. Hamlin, forinstance, was among those who pressed Lincolnhard to issue an emancipation proclamation.Fearing at first that such a measure would dividethe North, Lincoln resisted until he believed hecould use the issue as a military advantage, togive a nobler purpose to the war. When Lincolnfirst drafted a proclamation, he invited Hamlinto dinner and let him be the first to see the docu-ment, asking for his suggestions. Hamlin laterdescribed Lincoln as ‘‘much moved at the stephe was taking.’’ 18

Dumped from the Ticket

Despite Hamlin’s grumbling about the power-lessness of the vice-presidency, he was willing tostand for reelection in 1864. Hamlin assumedthat Lincoln supported his nomination, but thepresident—an entirely pragmatic politician—doubted that Hamlin would add much strengthto the ticket in what was sure to be a difficultreelection campaign, with the survival of the na-tion at stake. Maine would vote Republicanwhether or not Hamlin was on the ticket, and hecarried little weight in any other state. Lincolnsent emissaries to sound out several prominentWar Democrats, among them Tennessee’s wargovernor, Andrew Johnson. As the thinkingwent, to nominate a southerner like Johnsonwould be a way to ‘‘nationalize the Republicanparty.’’ At the convention, to the surprise ofHamlin’s supporters, the Tennessee governoroutpolled the vice president on the first ballotand went on to win the nomination on the sec-ond. ‘‘To be Vice President is clearly not to beanything more than a reflected greatness,’’ Sec-retary of the Senate John W. Forney wrote to con-sole Hamlin. ‘‘You know how it is with the

Prince of Wales or the Heir Apparent. He is wait-ing for somebody to die, and that is all of it.’’Hamlin maintained a dignified silence but wasvexed by his defeat. Years later he wrote: ‘‘I wasdragged out of the Senate, against my wishes—tried to do my whole duty, and was thenunceremoniously ‘whistled down the wind.’While I have never complained to any one, I didnot fail to feel and know how I was treated.’’ 19

During the summer of 1864, the lame-duckvice president briefly served in the Union army.When the war began in 1861, Hamlin had en-listed as a private in the Maine Coast Guard. Hisunit was called to active duty in 1864 and or-dered to report to Fort McClary, at Kittery,Maine. Although Hamlin could have accepted apurely honorary place on the roll, he insistedupon active service. ‘‘I am the Vice-President ofthe United States, but I am also a private citizen,and as an enlisted member of your company, Iam bound to do my duty.’’ He added, ‘‘I aspireonly to be a high private in the rear ranks, andkeep step with the boys in blue.’’ Promoted tocorporal, Hamlin reported on July 7, drilled, anddid guard duty and kitchen patrol along with therest of the enlisted men. As vice president, how-ever, he was assigned to officers’ quarters. Whenhis tour of duty ended in September, he left thecompany to campaign for the Republican ticket,first in Maine, and then down through New Eng-land to New York and Pennsylvania, doing whathe could to aid Lincoln’s reelection.20

In the Vice President’s Room in the Capitol oninauguration day, Hamlin’s successor, AndrewJohnson, approached him with a request. ‘‘Mr.Hamlin, I am not well, and need a stimulant,’’he said. ‘‘Have you any whiskey?’’ Hamlin ex-plained that he had prohibited the sale of liquorin the Capitol, but when Johnson pressed his re-quest, a messenger was sent to procure a bottle.Johnson poured a tumbler and downed itstraight, then had two more drinks before goingonto the Senate floor to give an embarrassinglydrunken inaugural address. Recounting thescene later, Hamlin privately commented that ifJohnson ordinarily drank that way, ‘‘he must beable to stand a great deal.’’

A few weeks after Hamlin returned to Maine,on the morning of April 15, 1865, he encountered

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a group of sorrowful men on the street in Bangor,who informed him that Lincoln had been assas-sinated. Hamlin boarded a steamer for Washing-ton to attend the president’s funeral. At theWhite House, he stood side by side with AndrewJohnson at Lincoln’s casket, causing those whosaw them to note the irony that Hamlin hadwithin a matter of weeks missed the presidency.None could have realized how differently the na-tion’s history might have developed if Lincolnhad been succeeded by Hamlin, who favored aRadical Reconstruction of the South, rather thanby Johnson, who opposed it.21

A Post-Vice-Presidential Political Career

After Hamlin’s defeat for renomination as vicepresident, Lincoln had considered appointinghim secretary of the treasury but concluded that‘‘Hamlin has the Senate on the brain and nothingmore or less will cure him.’’ However, Hamlinwas outmaneuvered for the Senate seat by hisMaine Republican rival, William Pitt Fessenden.Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner insteadrecommended that Hamlin be appointed collec-tor of the port of Boston, and President Johnsonmade the nomination. In time, Hamlin becamedismayed over Johnson’s policies on Reconstruc-tion and his abandonment of the rights of thefreedmen. As other Republican officeholders re-signed in protest, many looked to Hamlin to jointhem, but he held onto his collectorship. Finally,the governor of Maine wrote to Hamlin that hisresignation would ‘‘strike a lofty note’’ and seta ‘‘high example’’ of sacrifice for principles. Real-izing that his political future depended upondistancing himself from Johnson, Hamlin aban-doned the office with a blast at the president.22

In 1868, against his wishes, Hamlin’s namewas put forward as a vice-presidential candidateon the ticket headed by U.S. Grant, but the nomi-nation went to House Speaker Schuyler Colfax.At last in 1869 Hamlin was elected to anotherterm in the Senate. He returned as a respected

elder statesman and served two terms. One jour-nalist who met Senator Hamlin in 1871 describedhim as attired in an antique blue swallow-tailedcoat with big brass buttons, the type worn byantebellum statesmen. Hamlin mistook the jour-nalist for a resident of Maine ‘‘and with the ami-able humbug habit of many years wrung myhand warmly and affectionately inquired for thefolks at the farm.’’ The journalist took no offense,recognizing that ‘‘this trick of pretending re-membrance is a venial sin with politicians andhead waiters, great and small.’’ Still, the incidentgave an indication of how Hamlin had survivedin politics for so long.23

In 1877, Hamlin fainted in the Senate Repub-lican cloakroom, the first signs of his heart dis-ease. He chose not to stand for reelection in 1880.The election that year of James Garfield as presi-dent made Maine’s James G. Blaine secretary ofstate. Garfield and Blaine appointed Hamlinminister to Spain, a post that carried few dutiesand allowed him to make an extended tour ofthe European continent. The most amusing partof his brief diplomatic tenure was that the var-ious foreign ministers he met ‘‘seemed to regardas of great importance’’ the fact that he hadserved as vice president. Hamlin retired frompublic service in 1882. He made his last publicappearance at a Republican Club dinner atDelmonico’s in honor of Lincoln’s birthday inFebruary 1891. There he was toasted as ‘‘The Sur-viving Standard-Bearer of 1860,’’ to thunderousapplause. A few months later, on the Fourth ofJuly in 1891, thirty years to the day after he con-vened the Senate at the start of the Civil War,Hannibal Hamlin walked from his home to theTarratine Club of Bangor, Maine. He had found-ed the social club, served as its president, andwent there every afternoon (except Sunday) toplay cards. While seated at the card table, Ham-lin collapsed and fell unconscious, dying thatnight at the age of eighty-one.24

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NOTES1 See William E. Gienapp, The Origins of the Republican

Party, 1852–1856 (New York, 1987).2 Charles Eugene Hamlin, The Life and Times of Hannibal

Hamlin (Cambridge, MA, 1899), pp. 7–8; H. Draper Hunt,Hannibal Hamlin of Maine: Lincoln’s First Vice-President (Syra-cuse, NY, 1969), pp. 1–11; Mark Scroggins, Hannibal: The Lifeof Abraham Lincoln’s First Vice President (Lanham, MD, 1994),pp. 4–19.

3 Hunt, pp. 23–26.4 Ibid., pp. 40–41; Scroggins, pp. 34–58.5 Hunt, pp. 44–47, 63; Hamlin, pp. 72–181; Frederick J.

Blue, The Free Soilers: Third Party Politics, 1848–54 (Urbana,IL, 1973), pp. 97–100.

6 Hunt, pp. 48, 62. See description of the incident in Chap-ter 12 of this volume, ‘‘Millard Fillmore,’’ p. 175.

7 Hunt, pp. 68, 81; Gienapp, pp. 47, 77.8 Hunt, pp. 84–85; Scroggins, pp. 102–5, 117–18.9 Gienapp, pp. 208, 390–94.10 Hunt, pp. 114–18, 152; John Russell Young, Men and

Memories, Personal Reminiscences (New York, 1901), pp. 48–50; Hans L. Trefousse, Andrew Johnson: A Biography (NewYork, 1989), p. 115.

11 Hunt, pp. 118–19; Hamlin, p. 580.12 Hunt, pp. 121, 125–26, 152; Hamlin, pp. 354–55, 359.13 Hunt, pp. 127, 133; Hamlin, pp. 366–75.

14 Hunt, pp. 148, 153.15 Ibid, p. 155; Benjamin Perley Poore, Perley’s

Reminiscences of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis (Phila-delphia, 1886), 2:97–98.

16 ‘‘Conversation with Hon. H. Hamlin,’’ April 8, 1879, inMichael Burlingame, ed., An Oral History of Abraham Lincoln:John G. Nicolay’s Interviews and Essays (Carbondale, IL, 1996),pp. 67–68.

16 Hunt, pp. 157–58.17 Ibid, pp. 158, 188; Hamlin, p. 497.18 Hunt, pp. 160, 189; Young, p. 54.19 David Donald, Lincoln (New York, 1995), pp. 503–6;

Hunt, pp. 177–89; Hamlin, pp. 461–89; James G. Blaine,Twenty Years of Congress: From Lincoln to Garfield (Norwich,CT, 1884), p. 522; David Donald, Charles Sumner and theRights of Man (New York, 1970), pp. 169–73.

20 Scroggins, pp. 210–12.21 Hamlin, p. 497; Hunt, p. 200; Poore, pp. 159–60.22 Scroggins, pp. 213–15; Hunt, pp. 194, 200; Beverly Wil-

son Palmer, ed., The Selected Letters of Charles Sumner (Bos-ton, 1990), 2:326–27.

23 Edward P. Mitchell, Memoirs of an Editor (New York,1924), p. 314.

24 Hunt, pp. 221, 250; Eric Foner, Reconstruction: America’sUnfinished Revolution, 1863–1877 (New York, 1988), p. 266.

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Chapter 16

ANDREW JOHNSON1865

ANDREW JOHNSON

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Chapter 16

ANDREW JOHNSON16th Vice President: 1865

The inauguration went off very well except that the Vice President Elect was too drunk to performhis duties & disgraced himself & the Senate by making a drunken foolish speech.

—SENATOR ZACHARIAH CHANDLER

Vice President-elect Andrew Johnson arrivedin Washington ill from typhoid fever. The nightbefore his March 4, 1865, inauguration, he for-tified himself with whiskey at a party hosted byhis old friend, Secretary of the Senate John W.Forney. The next morning, hung over and con-fronting cold, wet, and windy weather, Johnsonproceeded to the Capitol office of Vice PresidentHannibal Hamlin, where he complained of feel-ing weak and asked for a tumbler of whiskey.Drinking it straight, he quickly consumed twomore. Then, growing red in the face, Johnson en-tered the overcrowded and overheated Senatechamber. After Hamlin delivered a brief andstately valedictory, Johnson rose unsteadily toharangue the distinguished crowd about hishumble origins and his triumph over the rebelaristocracy. In the shocked and silent audience,President Abraham Lincoln showed an expres-sion of ‘‘unutterable sorrow,’’ while SenatorCharles Sumner covered his face with his hands.Former Vice President Hamlin tugged vainly atJohnson’s coattails, trying to cut short his re-marks. After Johnson finally quieted, took theoath of office, and kissed the Bible, he tried toswear in the new senators, but became so con-fused that he had to turn the job over to a Senateclerk.1

Without a doubt it had been the most inauspi-cious beginning to any vice-presidency. ‘‘The in-auguration went off very well except that theVice President Elect was too drunk to perform

his duties & disgraced himself & the Senate bymaking a drunken foolish speech,’’ Michigan Re-publican Senator Zachariah Chandler wrotehome to his wife. ‘‘I was never so mortified inmy life, had I been able to find a hole I wouldhave dropped through it out of sight.’’ Johnsonpresided over the Senate on March 6 but, stillfeeling unwell, he then went into seclusion at thehome of an old friend in Silver Spring, Maryland.He returned to the Senate only on the last dayof the special session, March 11. Rumors that hadhim on a drunken spree led some Radical Repub-licans to draft a resolution calling for Johnson’sresignation. Others talked of impeachment.President Lincoln, however, assured callers thathe still had confidence in Johnson, whom he hadknown for years, observing, ‘‘It has been a severelesson for Andy, but I do not think he will doit again.’’ 2

Plebian Roots

Lost in his muddled inaugural was Johnson’scelebration of his dramatic rise from ‘‘plebeian’’roots. He had been born in a log cabin in Raleigh,North Carolina, on December 29, 1808, to JacobJohnson, an illiterate bank porter and city con-stable, and his wife, Mary, known as ‘‘Polly theWeaver’’ for her work as a seamstress and laun-dress. When Andrew was three his father died.His mother remarried and later apprenticed hersons William and Andrew at James Selby’s tailorshop. Young Andy Johnson was something of a

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hell-raiser and at fifteen he and his brother gotinto trouble by pelting a neighbor’s house withpieces of wood. When the woman threatened tosue, the boys fled from Raleigh, causing their em-ployer Selby to post a ten-dollar reward for theirreturn.3

Johnson went to Laurens, South Carolina,where he worked in a tailor shop. He fell in lovewith a local girl, but her mother objected to hermarriage with a penniless tailor. Disappointed,he abandoned South Carolina and walked toTennessee. There he worked in a tailor shop andin 1827 married Eliza McCardle, daughter of aGreenville shoemaker. Eliza did not teach herhusband to read, as some stories later had it, butshe aided his further efforts at self-education.Short, stocky, and swarthy, but always impec-cably dressed, as befitted his trade, Johnson builta solid business as a tailor, invested in real estate,raised a growing family, joined a debating soci-ety, and won the title ‘‘Colonel Johnson’’ for hisrank in the state militia. With his steadily in-creasing wealth and status, he also bought a fewslaves. A staunch supporter of the Democrat An-drew Jackson, Johnson became active in localpolitics. In 1829, he won his first race as alder-man. He was chosen mayor of Greenville in 1834and elected to the Tennessee state legislature thefollowing year. In the legislature he introduceda homesteading bill that would give poor men160 acres of public land if they would live on it—a measure he persisted in pushing when hemoved to the U.S. Congress, until it became fed-eral law in 1862.4

A Rising Political Star

Tennessee Democrats, spotting Andrew John-son as a rising star and a pugnacious debater,sent him around the state to campaign for theirticket in the 1840 election. Governor James K.Polk received reports that Johnson was ‘‘astrongminded man who cuts when he does cutnot with a razor but with a case knife.’’ In 1843,Johnson won election to the U.S. House of Rep-resentatives, where he attracted attention as anoutspoken and unbending defender of Jeffer-sonian-Jacksonian principles. He opposed Whigprograms for protective tariffs and internal im-provements as unnecessary public expenditures.

He proposed cutting the number of governmentclerks, voted against raising soldiers’ pay, as-sailed military academies as aristocratic, op-posed purchasing paintings of past presidentsfor the White House, and opposed accepting thefunds bequeathed to the United States by JamesSmithson to create a Smithsonian Institution, onthe grounds that if the funds were unwisely in-vested the taxpayers would have to support theenterprise. Among those with whom he servedin Congress who had the opportunity to take hisfull measure were the Whig representative fromIllinois, Abraham Lincoln, and the Democraticrepresentative from Mississippi, Jefferson Davis.Johnson particularly sparred with Davis, whomhe portrayed as part of the South’s ‘‘illegitimate,swaggering, bastard, scrub aristocracy.’’ 5

In 1852, Tennessee elected Johnson governor.During his term he succeeded in enacting tax-supported public education for his state. He wonreelection over intense opposition and serveduntil 1856, when the legislature elected him tothe U.S. Senate. Once more, Johnson pressed forpassage of a Homestead bill, which he succeededin moving through Congress in 1860, only tohave it vetoed by President James Buchanan.While Johnson was preoccupied with his Home-stead bill, his party was breaking up over theissue of slavery in the territories. In 1860, John-son supported the Southern Democratic can-didate, John C. Breckinridge, but he strenuouslyopposed the secessionists within his party. AfterLincoln’s election, Johnson fought to keep Ten-nessee in the Union. To Andrew Johnson, seces-sion appeared simply a continuation of John C.Calhoun’s discredited policy of nullification,against which his hero Andrew Jackson hadstood his ground. Johnson threw his support be-hind Lincoln as the new embodiment ofJackson.6

War Democrat

In the spring of 1861, Johnson took the trainfrom Washington back to Tennessee and wasmobbed at several stops in Virginia. The senatorhad to pull a pistol to defend himself. AlthoughUnion sympathies were strong in the easternmountains of Tennessee, where Johnson’s home-town of Greenville was located, he found Con-

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federate flags flying around the town. Therewere enough Union sympathizers in Tennesseeto defeat an effort to call a state convention tosecede, but after the firing on Fort Sumter, senti-ment in the state swung more heavily to the Con-federates. To avoid arrest, Johnson left Tennesseeand returned to the Senate. As the only southernsenator to remain loyal to the Union after hisstate seceded, Johnson became a hero in theNorth. As a leader of the ‘‘War Democrats,’’ hedenounced ‘‘Peace Democrats’’ and defendedPresident Lincoln’s use of wartime executivepower. ‘‘I say, Let the battle go on—it is Free-dom’s cause. . . . Do not talk about Republicansnow; do not talk about Democrats now; do nottalk about Whigs or Americans now; talk aboutyour Country and the Constitution and theUnion.’’ 7

When federal troops conquered Nashville andits immediate vicinity, President Lincoln sentAndrew Johnson back to Tennessee in 1862 aswar governor. Johnson still identified himself asa Democrat, but as one who put the Union beforeparty. He denounced the state’s aristocraticplanting class who had supported the war, andsaid that if freeing their slaves would help to endthe war, then he was in favor of emancipation.‘‘Treason,’’ he said, in a much-publicized quote,‘‘must be made odious and traitors punished.’’In 1863, Tennessee held elections for a civiliangovernment. Much to Johnson’s chagrin, a con-servative, proslavery candidate won the race forgovernor. President Lincoln wired Johnson to ig-nore the results and not recognize the new gov-ernor. ‘‘Let the reconstruction be the work ofsuch men only as can be trusted for the Union,’’Lincoln instructed. ‘‘Exclude all others. . . . Getemancipation into your new state constitution.’’Following Lincoln’s advice, Johnson made any-one who wished to vote take an oath of loyalty,which was then followed by a six-month waitingperiod. Since this meant that only those who hadopposed the Confederacy could vote, Johnson’sRadical forces swept the next state elections.8

Lincoln faced a difficult campaign for reelec-tion in 1864, and he doubted that his vice presi-dent, Maine Republican Hannibal Hamlin,would add much to his ticket. Officially, thepresident maintained a hands-off attitude to-

ward the choice of a vice president, but privatelyhe sent emissaries to several War Democrats aspotential candidates on a fusion ticket. GeneralBenjamin F. Butler let the president know he hadno interest in the second spot, but Johnson ofTennessee and Daniel S. Dickinson of New Yorkboth expressed eagerness to be considered. Sec-retary of State William Seward, who countedNew York as his own political base, wanted nopart of Dickinson in the cabinet and threw hisweight behind Johnson. The fearless, tough-minded war governor of Tennessee captured theimagination of the delegates. As John W. Forneyjudged Johnson’s wartime record: ‘‘His speecheswere sound, his measures bold, his administra-tion a fair success.’’ Johnson won the nominationon the first ballot.9

Becoming a Household Word

During the campaign, the great Republican or-ator Robert G. Ingersoll wrote to Johnson saying:

The people want to see and hear you. The nameof Andrew Johnson has become a householdword all over the great West, and you are re-garded by the people of Illinois as the grandestexample of loyalty in the whole South.

Traveling to Logansport, Indiana, in October,Johnson told the crowd that a Democratic news-paper had accused the Republicans of nominat-ing ‘‘a rail-splitter’’ at the head of their ticket and‘‘a boorish tailor’’ at its tail. Rather than see thisas a rebuke, Johnson took pride in having risenup ‘‘from the mass of the people.’’ The aristocratswere offended that he was a tailor, he said, buthe had learned ‘‘that if a man does not disgracehis profession, it never disgraces him.’’ Johnsonacquitted himself well during the campaign butat times had trouble restraining himself in the ex-citement of facing a crowd, whether hostile orsupportive. Late in October 1864 he addressed alarge rally of African Americans in Nashville.Johnson noted that, since Lincoln’s emancipationproclamation had not covered territories likeTennessee that were already under Union con-trol, he had issued his own proclamation freeingthe slaves in Tennessee. He also asserted that so-ciety would be improved if the great plantationswere divided into many small farms and sold tohonest farmers. Looking out over the crowd and

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commenting on the storm of persecution throughwhich his listeners had passed, he wished thata Moses might arise to ‘‘lead them safely to theirpromised land of freedom and happiness.’’ ‘‘Youare our Moses,’’ shouted people in the crowd.‘‘We want no Moses but you!’’ ‘‘Well, then,’’ re-plied Johnson, ‘‘humble and unworthy as I am,if no other better shall be found, I will indeedby your Moses, and lead you through the RedSea of war and bondage, to a fairer future of lib-erty and peace.’’ 10

Vice President

Success on the battlefield brought Lincoln andJohnson victory in the election of 1864. As theCivil War approached its end, the equally monu-mental challenge of reconstructing the Union layahead. In Congress, the Radical Republicanswanted a victor’s peace, enforced by federaltroops, that would allow the former Confederatestates to return to the Union only on terms thatprotected the rights of the freedmen. They of-fered their plan as the Wade-Davis bill of 1864,which Lincoln killed by a pocket veto. Lincolnwanted to be free to pursue a more lenient, flexi-ble approach to Reconstruction. Having gottenthe United States into the Civil War during a con-gressional recess in 1861, Lincoln anticipatedending the war and reconstructing the Southduring the long recess between March and De-cember 1865. He presumed that his new vicepresident would be in sympathy with theseplans, since in July 1864 Johnson had congratu-lated Lincoln on his veto of the Wade-Davis bill,saying that ‘‘the real union men’’ were satisfiedwith the president’s approach.11

The vice president-elect hesitated in leavingTennessee. In January 1865, Johnson wrote toLincoln pointing out that the final abolition ofslavery in Tennessee could not be taken up untilthe new civilian legislature met that April. Hewanted to remain as war governor until thattime, before handing power over to the electedrepresentatives of the people. Johnson suggestedthat his inaugural as vice president be delayeduntil April. His friend, John W. Forney, secretaryof the Senate, had checked the records and foundthat several vice presidents (John Adams, GeorgeClinton, Elbridge Gerry, Daniel Tompkins, Mar-

tin Van Buren, and William R. King) were swornin on dates after March 4. With the war still un-derway, however, Lincoln replied that he and hiscabinet unanimously believed that Johnson mustbe in Washington by March 4. Had Johnson notcomplied, he might not have taken the oath ofoffice before Lincoln’s death on April 14, addingmore constitutional confusion to the aftermath ofthe assassination.12

An Assassination Plot

During Johnson’s six weeks as vice president,he faced greater danger than he knew. The assas-sination plot that would make Johnson presidentincluded him as a target. The circle of conspira-tors that John Wilkes Booth had gathered at Mrs.Mary Surratt’s boardinghouse had at firstplanned to capture President Lincoln and whiskhim off to the Confederacy. But the war was end-ing sooner than they anticipated, and when theattempted capture went awry, Booth decided tokill Lincoln, Vice President Johnson, and Sec-retary of State William H. Seward, therebythrowing the North into confusion and anarchy.Booth intended to kill Lincoln himself, and as-signed Lewis Payne to assassinate Seward. Forthe vice president, whom he considered the leastimportant victim, Booth assigned his weakestpartner, George Atzerodt. A German carriagemaker from Port Tobacco, Maryland, Atzerodthad spent the war years ferrying Confederatesacross the Potomac River to circumvent theUnion blockades.

On the morning of April 14, 1865, Atzerodtregistered at Kirkwood House, a hotel at the cor-ner of Twelfth Street and Pennsylvania Avenue,between the White House and the Capitol. Hetook a room almost directly above the ground-floor suite occupied by the vice president. So in-competent at conspiracy was Atzerodt that hesigned his right name to the hotel register. Hisnotion of surveillance was to spend the afternoonin the hotel bar asking suspicious questionsabout the vice president and his guard. Suffi-ciently fortified with liquor, Atzerodt armedhimself and asked the desk clerk to point out thevice president’s suite. When informed that John-son had just come back to his rooms, Atzerodtreacted in shocked surprise, and left the hotel.

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Shortly afterwards, Johnson also left for an ap-pointment with Lincoln.

When Booth arrived at the Kirkwood Houseand learned that Atzerodt was gone, he lost hopethat this weak man would have the nerve tocarry out his assignment. If he could not haveJohnson killed, Booth improvised a way of dis-crediting him. He asked for a blank card, whichhe filled out: ‘‘Don’t wish to disturb you. Are youat home? J. Wilkes Booth.’’ Booth assumed thatJohnson would have a hard time explaining thecard, since it suggested that the vice presidentwas himself part of the conspiracy. Fortunatelyfor Johnson, his secretary, William A. Browning,picked up the mail at the desk and assumed thatthe card was for him, since he had once metBooth after a performance.

A pounding at the door later that eveningawakened Andrew Johnson. Rather than GeorgeAtzerodt with a pistol, the excited man at thedoor was former Wisconsin Governor LeonardFarwell, who had just come from Ford’s Theaterand who exclaimed, ‘‘Someone has shot andmurdered the President.’’ Johnson orderedFarwell to go back to the theater to find out whathe could about the president’s condition. Farwellreturned with the District of Columbia’s provostmarshal, who assured Johnson and the crowdthat had gathered in his room that President Lin-coln was dying and that Secretary of State Wil-liam Seward was dead, as part of a gigantic plot(in fact, Seward had been badly wounded butnot killed). Johnson wished to leave immediatelyto be with the president, but the provost marshalurged him to wait until order had been restoredin the streets. At dawn, Johnson, receiving wordfrom Secretary of War Edwin Stanton that Lin-coln was dying, insisted on going to the presi-dent’s side. Flanked by Governor Farwell andthe provost marshal, the vice president walkedthe few blocks to the Petersen house, just acrossfrom Ford’s Theater, where Lincoln had beencarried. Admitted to the bedroom where the cab-inet and military leaders were gathered aroundthe president’s deathbed, Johnson stood with hishat in his hand looking down saying nothing. Hethen took Robert Lincoln’s hand, whispered afew words to him, conversed with Stanton, andwent to another parlor to pay his respects to

Mary Todd Lincoln. Somberly, he walked backto Kirkwood House. There, in his parlor, at teno’clock that morning after Lincoln’s death, John-son took the oath of office from Chief JusticeSalmon P. Chase.13

A Stormy Presidency

Lincoln’s death stunned the nation and ele-vated the often harshly criticized wartime presi-dent to a sanctified martyr. In Washington, someRadical Republicans viewed Lincoln’s death asa godsend. They held, as Johnson’s friend Forneywrote in the Philadelphia Press, that ‘‘a sternerand less gentle hand may at this juncture havebeen required to take hold of the reins of Govern-ment.’’ Johnson’s fiery rhetoric in the Senate andas war governor, his early embrace of the ‘‘statesuicide’’ theory that secession had reduced thesouthern states to the status of territories, to bereadmitted under terms set by Congress, his callfor expropriation of plantation lands, his author-ship of the Homestead Act, all suggested that thenew president would act more sympatheticallytoward Radical Reconstruction than would Lin-coln. ‘‘Johnson, we have faith in you,’’ the Radi-cal Republican Senator Ben Wade told the newpresident. ‘‘By the Gods, there will be no troublenow in running this government.’’ 14

Johnson also won admiration for his gallanttreatment of Mrs. Lincoln, who was too dis-traught to leave the White House for more thana month after her husband’s death. Rather thanmove into the White House, which served as thepresident’s office as well as his residence, Presi-dent Johnson worked out of a suite of rooms inthe Treasury Department (marked today by aplaque on the door). However, the spirit of goodwill evaporated almost a soon as Johnson beganmaking decisions regarding Reconstruction.

Showing a strange amalgam of political cour-age and ‘‘pigheaded’’ stubbornness, AndrewJohnson confounded both his supporters and hisadversaries. By the end of May 1865, it becameclear that, like Lincoln, he intended to pursue amore lenient course toward Reconstruction thanthe Radicals in Congress wanted. Members ofCongress grumbled when Johnson handed par-dons to former Confederate leaders, suspectedthat the plebeian president took pride in having

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former aristocrats petition him. Congress wasfurther shocked when the new governmentsformed under Johnson’s plan enacted ‘‘BlackCodes’’ that sought to regulate and restrict theactivities of the freedmen. There was fear alsothat the former Confederate states would sendConfederate officers and officeholders to reclaimtheir seats in Congress and undo the legislativeaccomplishments of the wartime Republican ma-jorities. When the president opposed grantingpolitical rights to the freedmen, white south-erners looked to him as a defender of white su-premacy and as their protector against Radicalretribution. The Democratic party consideredJohnson as one of their own, who might be in-duced to return to their fold.15

The predominantly Republican Washingtonpress corps had at first embraced President John-son, assuring their readers that he supportedblack suffrage and other Radical measures.Forney celebrated his old friend as a ‘‘practicalstatesman’’ whose policies offered a commonground for ‘‘all earnest loyalists.’’ Whatever hon-eymoon the new president enjoyed with Con-gress and the press ended in February 1866 whenJohnson vetoed the Freedmen’s Bureau bill. Theveto shocked Republican conservatives anddrove them into alliance with the Radicalsagainst the president. The press and even Forneydeserted Johnson. That fall, Johnson conducteda disastrous ‘‘swing around the circle,’’ cam-paigning by train in favor of congressional can-didates who supported his policies. Egged on byhecklers, he made intemperate remarks that fur-ther alienated the voters and resulted in the elec-tion of an even more hostile Congress. The newCongress seized the initiative on Reconstructionfrom the president—most notably with a con-stitutional amendment giving the freedmen theright to vote—and passed legislation to limit hisresponses. Among these laws, the Tenure of Of-fice Act prohibited the president from firing cabi-net officers and other appointees without Senateapproval. Johnson considered the act unconstitu-tional—as indeed the Supreme Court would laterdeclare it—and in February 1868 he fired his sec-retary of war, Edwin Stanton, for insubordina-tion.16

The Impeachment of Andrew Johnson

Although Johnson’s term was coming to aclose and he had little chance of nomination byany party, the House of Representatives voted toimpeach the president. The New York Tribune’seditor Horace Greeley thought this a foolhardytactic. ‘‘Why hang a man who is bent on hanginghimself?’’ Greeley asked. But the Republicanmembers of Congress and their allies in the presswanted to take no chance of the president’s sabo-taging congressional Reconstruction during hislast months in office. Said Thaddeus Stevens,leader of the House impeachers: ‘‘I don’t wantto hurt the man’s feelings by telling him he isa rascal. I’d rather put it mildly, and say hehasn’t got off that inaugural drunk yet, and justlet him retire to get sobered.’’ The House votedfor impeachment, and on March 5, 1868, theUnited States Senate convened as a court to con-sider removing Johnson from the presidency. Asthe trial opened, the majority of the northernpress favored conviction, but as the proceedingswound on, a profound sense of disillusionmentset in among the correspondents, who commu-nicated their dismay to their readers.17

Correspondent George Alfred Townsend de-scribed Johnson’s Senate trial as ‘‘a more terriblescene than the trial of Judas Iscariot might be be-fore the College of Cardinals.’’ Not a single Dem-ocrat countenanced the impeachment, he point-ed out, ‘‘It was purely within the political organi-zation which had nominated the offender.’’ Al-though Townsend was a Republican who con-sidered Johnson a barrier against any settlementof ‘‘the Southern question,’’ when he arrived atthe Capitol he found none except Charles Sum-ner and Thaddeus Stevens who seemed excitedover Johnson’s policies. ‘‘It was his abuse of theparty patronage which was an unforgiven sin.’’Johnson took patronage away from his criticsand purged over 1,600 postmasters. In addition,Townsend noted: ‘‘He had disobeyed an act ofCongress, of doubtful validity, taking away fromhim the power to make ad-interim appoint-ments, or those made between sessions of Con-gress. This was a challenge to every member ofCongress in the regular caucus ranks that offstraight come the heads of HIS post-master, HIS

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revenue officials, HIS clerks, and HIS brothers-in-law.’’ 18

Rather than appear in the Senate chamber per-sonally, President Johnson wisely left his defenseto his attorneys. Although Republicans enjoyeda more than two-thirds majority in the Senate atthe time, seven Republicans—fearing impeach-ment’s negative impact on the office of the presi-dency—broke with their party. As a result, theimpeachers failed by a single vote to achieve thetwo-thirds majority necessary to convict thepresident. In the 1868 elections, Johnson en-dorsed the Democratic candidate, Horatio Sey-mour, and was deeply disappointed over the vic-tory of the Republican, U.S. Grant. Refusing toattend Grant’s inauguration, Johnson left theWhite House in March 1869, discredited but notdisgraced. Out of office for the first time in thirtyyears, he could not stay retired. That fall he cam-paigned for a Senate seat from Tennessee andlost. Never giving up, Johnson tried again in Jan-uary 1875 and won back a seat in the Senate thathad once tormented him.19

The only former U.S. president ever to returnto serve in the Senate, Johnson saw his electionas a vindication and came back to Washingtonin triumph. He took his oath of office on March

5, along with Lincoln’s other vice president, Han-nibal Hamlin, reelected a senator from Maine.(Both men had begun their congressional servicein the House of Representatives on the same day,thirty-two years earlier.) Hamlin in 1866 had re-signed as collector of the port of Boston as a pub-lic protest against Johnson’s policies on Recon-struction. The oath was administered by VicePresident Henry Wilson, who as a senator hadvoted for Johnson’s conviction and for his dis-qualification from holding future office. WhenJohnson stepped forward to shake hands firstwith Hamlin and then Wilson, the chambererupted into cheers. A reporter asked if he woulduse his new position to settle some old scores,to which Johnson replied, ‘‘I have no enemies topunish nor friends to reward.’’ The special ses-sion ended on March 24, and Johnson returnedto Tennessee. At the home of a granddaughter,he suffered a stroke and died on July 31, 1875.A marble bust of Johnson, sculpted with a typi-cally pugnacious and defiant expression, looksdown from the gallery at the Senate chamber,where he served on three occasions as a senator,briefly presided as vice president, and was triedand acquitted in a court of impeachment.20

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NOTES1 H. Draper Hunt, Hannibal Hamlin of Maine: Lincoln’s First

Vice-President (Syracuse, NY, 1969), pp. 196–98; Lloyd PaulStryker, Andrew Johnson: A Study in Courage (New York,1929), p. 167.

2 Hans L. Trefousse, Andrew Johnson: A Biography (NewYork, 1989), pp. 188–91; John W. Forney, Anecdotes of PublicMen (New York, 1873), 1:177.

3 Trefousse, Andrew Johnson, pp. 20–23.4 Ibid., pp. 35–50.5 Ibid, pp. 43, 51–83; Donald W. Riddle, Congressman Abra-

ham Lincoln (Urbana, IL, 1957), pp. 144, 147, 159.6 Trefousse, Andrew Johnson, pp. 84–127; Eric Foner, Recon-

struction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863–1877 (NewYork, 1988), p. 176; LeRoy P. Graf, ed., The Papers of AndrewJohnson, vol. 7, 1864–1865 (Knoxville, TN, 1986), p. 9.

7 Christopher Dell, Lincoln and the War Democrats: TheGrand Erosion of Conservative Tradition (Rutherford, NJ,1975), pp. 36–37, 80.

8 Ibid., pp. 202, 238–39, 289; Foner, pp. 43–44.9 Hunt, pp. 178–89; Trefousse, Andrew Johnson, pp. 176–

79; Stryker, pp. 121–23; Forney, 1:166–67, 2:48.10 Graf, ed., 7:110, 222, 251–53.

11 Ibid., 7:30.12 Ibid., 7:420–21, 427.13 See Jim Bishop, The Day Lincoln Was Shot (New York,

1955).14 Dell, p. 323; Foner, p. 177.15 Graf, ed., 7:639; Foner, pp. 176–216; Joel H. Silbey, A

Respectable Minority: The Democratic Party in the Civil WarEra, 1860–1868 (New York, 1877), pp. 178–79.

16 Donald A. Ritchie, Press Gallery: Congress and the Wash-ington Correspondents (Cambridge, MA, 1991), pp. 79–90;Foner, pp. 261–71.

17 Ritchie, pp. 83–84; Hans L. Trefousse, Impeachment of aPresident: Andrew Johnson, the Blacks, and Reconstruction(Knoxville, TN, 1975), pp. 146–64; Benjamin Perley Poore,Perley’s Reminiscences of Sixty Years in the Nation’s Metropolis(Philadelphia, 1886), 2:229.

18 George Alfred Townsend, Washington, Outside and In-side (Hartford, CT, 1873), pp. 506–7; Foner, p. 266.

19 Michael Les Benedict, The Impeachment and Trial of An-drew Johnson (New York, 1973), pp. 126–80.

20 Trefousse, Andrew Johnson, pp. 353–79; Stryker, pp. 805–11, Hunt, pp. 202–5.

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Chapter 17

SCHUYLER COLFAX1869–1873

SCHUYLER COLFAX

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Chapter 17

SCHUYLER COLFAX17th Vice President: 1869–1873

The Vice Presidency is an elegant office whose occupant must find it his principal business to tryto discover what is the use of there being such an office at all.

—Indianapolis Journal, MARCH 7, 1871

As amiable a man who ever served in Con-gress, good-natured, kindly, cordial, and alwaysdiplomatic, Indiana’s Schuyler Colfax won thenickname ‘‘Smiler’’ Colfax. Through two of themost tumultuous decades in American publiclife, Colfax glided smoothly from the Whig toKnow-Nothing to Republican parties, minglingeasily with both conservatives and radicals. Herose to become Speaker of the House and vicepresident and seemed poised to achieve his goalof the presidency. Along the way, there werethose who doubted the sincerity behind the smileand suspected that for all his political dexterity,Colfax stood for nothing save his own advance-ment. Those close to President Abraham Lincolnlater revealed that he considered Speaker Colfaxan untrustworthy intriguer, and President Ulys-ses S. Grant seemed relieved when the Repub-lican convention dumped Vice President Colfaxfrom the ticket in 1872. Even the press, whichcounted the Indiana editor as a colleague andpumped him up to national prominence, eventu-ally turned on Colfax and shredded his once ad-mirable reputation until he disappeared into theforgotten recesses of American history.1

Early Years

Schuyler Colfax was born into a family of dis-tinguished heritage but depleted circumstances.His grandfather, who had fought in the Amer-ican Revolution and served closely with George

Washington, married Hester Schuyler, a cousinof General Philip Schuyler, and named one of hissons for Washington and another for Schuyler.Schuyler Colfax, Sr., became a teller in a bank onNew York City’s Wall Street. In 1820 he marriedHannah Stryker, the daughter of a widowedboardinghouse keeper. He died of tuberculosistwo years later, as his wife was expecting herfirst child. Four months after his father’s death,Schuyler, Jr. was born in New York City onMarch 23, 1823.

As a boy, Colfax attended public schools untilhe was ten, when he was obliged to work as aclerk in a retail store to help support himself, hismother, and his grandmother. Three years later,his mother married George W. Matthews, andthe family moved to New Carlisle, Indiana.Young Colfax worked in his stepfather’s store,which served also as the village post office.Townspeople later recalled that Colfax would siton barrels reading newspapers as they arrivedby post. He borrowed whatever books he couldget to provide himself with an education. In1841, the family moved to South Bend, whereMatthews was elected as the Whig candidate forcounty auditor and hired Schuyler as his deputy.Enjoying politics, the boy became active in a‘‘moot legislature,’’ where he gained his firstexperience in debate and parliamentaryprocedure.2

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Politics and the Press

At sixteen, Colfax wrote to Horace Greeley,editor of the influential Whig newspaper, theNew-York Tribune, offering to send occasional ar-ticles. Always open to new talent, Greeley agreedand published the boy’s writings on Indiana pol-itics, beginning a correspondence and friendshipthat lasted for the rest of their lives. Colfax alsoreported on the Indiana legislature for the Indi-ana State Journal, and when he was nineteen localWhigs engaged him to edit the South Bend FreePress. The young editor described himself as an‘‘uncompromising Whig.’’ He idolized HenryClay and embraced all of the Whig reforms, tak-ing a pledge of abstinence from alcoholic spirits(but not from the cigars he loved). In 1844 hemarried a childhood sweetheart, Evelyn Clark,and by the next year was able to purchase theFree Press, renaming it the St. Joseph Valley Reg-ister. The writer Harriet Beecher Stowe later pro-claimed it ‘‘a morally pure paper.’’ 3

Advancing from the editorial page into poli-tics, Colfax served as a delegate to the Whig con-vention of 1848 and to the convention that draft-ed a new constitution for Indiana in 1849. He ledthe opposition to a provision in the constitutionthat barred African Americans from settling inIndiana or those already in the state from pur-chasing land. Despite his efforts, this racial bar-rier stood until ruled unconstitutional as a con-sequence of the Thirteenth Amendment to theConstitution in 1865. In 1851, the Whigs choseColfax to run for Congress. At that time, Indianawas a Democratic state and Colfax narrowly lostto the incumbent Democrat. He declined to runagain in 1852. Dismayed over the disintegrationof the Whig party and offended by Senator Ste-phen A. Douglas’ Kansas-Nebraska Act that re-pealed the Missouri Compromise, Colfax againran for Congress in 1854 as an Anti-Nebraskacandidate. His friend and fellow editor HoraceGreeley, who had served a brief term in 1849, en-couraged him: ‘‘I thought it would be a nuisanceand a sacrifice for me to go to Congress,’’ he ad-vised Colfax, ‘‘but I was mistaken; it did me last-ing good. I never was brought so palpably andtryingly into collision with the embodied

scoundrelism of the nation as while inCongress.’’ 4

Building a New Party

Antislavery Whigs like Colfax sought to builda new party that combined the antislavery ele-ments among the Whigs, Democrats, and FreeSoilers, a coalition that eventually emerged asthe Republican party. For a brief time, however,it seemed likely that a nativist organization, theKnow-Nothings, might become the new majorityparty. The first Know-Nothing lodge in Indianaopened in early 1854 and by election time theparty had grown, in the words of one Methodistminister, ‘‘as thick as the Locusts in Egypt.’’ TheKnow-Nothings opposed slavery and alcoholbut turned their greatest passions against Catho-lics and immigrants. Although Colfax sharedthese nativist prejudices (arguing that ‘‘Protes-tant foreigners, who are thoroughly American-ized’’ should be admitted into the party), hemade it clear that he would remain only if theKnow-Nothings kept a firm antislavery plank intheir platform. When the new congressman ar-rived in the House of Representatives in 1855, itwas unclear which members belonged to whatparty. The New-York Tribune Almanac estimatedthat there were 118 Anti-Nebraska representa-tives, a number that included Republicans, anti-Nebraska Democrats, and antislavery Know-Nothings, comprising a slight majority of theHouse. By the following year, the Know-Nothings had already peaked and declined, andColfax announced that he would run for reelec-tion as a Republican.5

The House of Representatives proved an idealarena for Colfax’s talents. Short and stocky, fair-haired, with a ready smile, he got along wellwith his colleagues in private but never hesitatedto do battle with the opposition on the Housefloor. When Republicans held the majority, heserved energetically as chairman of the Commit-tee on Post Offices and Post Roads, handling thekind of patronage that built political organiza-tions. Never having been a lawyer, he could putcomplex issues of the day into layman’s terms.In 1856, his speech attacking laws passed by theproslavery legislature in Kansas became the mostwidely requested Republican campaign docu-

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ment. His speech raised warnings that it was ashort step between enslaving blacks and sup-pressing the civil liberties of whites. WatchingColfax battle southern representatives over theslavery issue, James Dabney McCabe recordedthat ‘‘Mr. Colfax took an active part in the de-bate, giving and receiving hard blows with allthe skill of an old gladiator.’’ 6

Colfax traveled widely, spoke frequently, andhelped fuse the various Republican and antislav-ery groups into a unified party for the 1860 elec-tion. When the southern Democrats seceded andput House Republicans in the majority, he con-sidered running for Speaker, but after testing thewaters declined to be a candidate. He resumedhis chairmanship of the Post Office Committee.Colfax took a moderate position on emanci-pation and other issues of the day, maintainingclose ties with both wings of his party. He en-joyed direct access to President Lincoln and oftenserved as a conduit of information and opinionfrom Horace Greeley and other Republican edi-tors. He worked tirelessly on behalf of the Union,recruiting regiments and raising public spirits.Yet antiwar sentiments ran strong in Indiana andmany other northern states, and in 1862 Colfaxfaced a tough campaign for reelection againstDavid A. Turpie. Winning a narrow victory fur-ther elevated Colfax within the party at a timewhen many other Republicans, including HouseSpeaker Galusha Grow, were defeated. When theThirty-eighth Congress convened in December1863, House Republicans—with their numbersconsiderably thinned—elected Schuyler ColfaxSpeaker, despite President Lincoln’s preferencefor a Speaker less tied to the Radical faction ofhis party.7

Speaker of the House

As Speaker of the House, Schuyler Colfax pre-sided, in the words of the journalist Ben: PerleyPoore, ‘‘in rather a slap-dash-knock-’em-down-auctioneer style, greatly in variance with the dec-orous dignity of his predecessors.’’ He had stud-ied and mastered the rules of the House, andboth sides considered his rulings fair. Creditedas being the most popular Speaker since HenryClay, Colfax aspired to be as powerful as Clay.Certainly, he shared Clay’s sense of the dramatic,

once stepping down from the presiding officer’schair to urge the House to expel an Ohio Demo-crat who had advocated recognizing the inde-pendence of the Confederacy. Another time theSpeaker broke precedent by requesting that hisvote be recorded in favor of the ThirteenthAmendment. Yet with the exception of thepower to appoint members to committees, theSpeaker of the House was still mostly a figure-head. Observers declared the real power in theHouse to be the tough-minded PennsylvanianThaddeus Stevens, chairman of the Appropria-tions Committee and de facto Republican floorleader.8

Washington newspaper correspondents cele-brated the election of one of their own as Speakerand threw a dinner in his honor. ‘‘We journalistsand men of the newspaper press do love you,and claim you as bone of our bone and flesh ofour flesh,’’ said correspondent Sam Wilkeson.‘‘Fill your glasses, all, in an invocation to thegods for long life, greater success, and ever-in-creasing happiness to our editorial brother in theSpeaker’s Chair.’’ In reply Colfax thanked thepress for sustaining him through all his elections.Trained in journalism, Speaker Colfax appliedthe lessons of his craft to his political career,making himself available for interviews, plantingstories, sending flattering notes to editors, sug-gesting editorials, and spreading patronage. Awidower (his wife died in 1863) with no children,Colfax was free to socialize nightly with hisfriends on Washington’s ‘‘Newspaper Row.’’ Hehoped to parlay his popularity with the pressinto a national following that would make himthe first journalist to occupy the White House.9

The press lavished more attention on SpeakerColfax than they had on Galusha Grow or anyof his immediate predecessors. They praised theregular Friday night receptions that the Speakerand his mother held and commended him for the‘‘courtesy, dignity, and equitability which he ex-hibited in the discharge of the important dutiesof the chair.’’ It was harder for the press to detectwhether Speaker Colfax actually had any influ-ence on specific legislation. He gave the radicalfirebrands wide latitude, while speaking withmoderation himself. At one point, when RadicalRepublicans were prepared to introduce a reso-

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lution in the party conference that defended theRepublican record and called for the use of blacksoldiers in the Union army, Colfax outflankedthem with a motion that substituted patriotic flagwaving for partisanship, calling instead for allloyal men to stand by the Union. His action wastaken as an effort to give the Republican partya less vindictive image that would build a broad-er base for congressional elections.10

On April 14, 1865, Colfax called at the WhiteHouse to talk over Reconstruction and othermatters with President Lincoln before Colfax lefton a long tour of the western states and terri-tories. With the war won, Lincoln was in an ebul-lient mood and held a long and pleasant con-versation with the Speaker (whom Lincoln pri-vately regarded as ‘‘a little intriguer—plausible,aspiring beyond his capacity, and not trust-worthy’’). The president invited the Speaker tojoin his party at Ford’s Theater that night, butColfax declined. Later that evening, he wasawakened with news that the president had beenshot and rushed to spend the night in the roomwhere Lincoln died.11

Reconstructing the South

During the summer of 1865, Colfax toured themining regions between the Rocky Mountainsand the Pacific. Newspaper correspondent Al-bert Richardson, who accompanied him, re-corded that the trip proved to be ‘‘one continu-ous ovation’’ for Colfax, with brass bands, ban-quets, and public receptions, during which theSpeaker made seventy speeches. He returned toa capital still uncertain over how the new Presi-dent Andrew Johnson would handle the recon-struction of the southern states. Radicals in Con-gress trusted that Johnson would use federaltroops to support tough policies toward theformer Confederacy, but there were signs thatJohnson favored a speedier, more lenient read-mission of the states. That November, at a sere-nade to mark his return to Washington, SpeakerColfax made some remarks that seemed im-promptu but that may have been prearranged.He endorsed Johnson’s attempts to begin Recon-struction prior to congressional legislation andset as a minimum for the return of the southernstates a guarantee that freedmen would be treat-

ed equally under the law. He made no mentionof the radical demand that the freedmen alsohave the right to vote. The speech won wide-spread praise in the North, where it was per-ceived as the firm foundation of Republican pol-icy on which both the president and Congresscould stand.12

Colfax’s efforts at party harmony and a mod-erate course of Reconstruction were short lived.Johnson resented Colfax’s preempting his ownstatement of policy on the subject. The presi-dent’s plans to reconstruct the South showed lit-tle regard for the rights of the freedmen, and hevetoed such relatively moderate congressionalefforts as the Freedmen’s Bureau bill. His actiondrove moderate and radical Republicans into analliance that brought about congressional Recon-struction of the South. Finally, Johnson’s dismis-sal of Secretary of War Edwin Stanton in viola-tion of the Tenure of Office Act convinced evenmoderates like Colfax that the president must beimpeached. Through all of these dramatic events,Colfax’s most astonishing success was his abilityto retain the support of all sides in his party andto hold House Republicans together. The partydefections that saved Johnson took place in theSenate rather than the House.13

From Speaker to Vice President

As the 1868 presidential election approached,Speaker Colfax believed the nomination of Ulys-ses S. Grant to be ‘‘resistless.’’ As for himself, hedeclined to run either for the Senate or for gov-ernor of Indiana, leaving the door open for thevice-presidential nomination. Colfax insistedthat presiding over the House as Speaker was‘‘the more important office’’ than presiding overthe Senate as vice president. But the vice-presi-dency was the more direct avenue to the presi-dency. At the convention, his chief rivals for thesecond spot were Senate President pro temporeBen Wade and Massachusetts Senator HenryWilson. Colfax polled fourth on the first ballotand gained steadily with each subsequent ballot.The temperance forces were delighted thatColfax’s headquarters distributed no liquor, incontrast to Senator Wade, who handed out spir-its freely among the delegates. Among Repub-licans there was a collective sense that the absti-

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nent Colfax would balance a ticket with Grant,who had been known to drink heavily.14

Colfax stayed in Washington while the Repub-lican convention met in Chicago. His goodfriend, William Orton, head of the WesternUnion Telegraph Company, arranged for Colfaxto receive dispatches from the convention everyten minutes. On May 21 Colfax was in the Speak-er’s Lobby when he received Orton’s telegramannouncing his nomination. Cheers broke out,and the room quickly filled with congressmenwishing to offer congratulations. As he left thelobby, Colfax was greeted by House staff mem-bers, who ‘‘gathered around him in the most af-fectionate manner and tendered him their re-gards.’’ Citizens hailed him as he walked acrossthe Capitol grounds. On the Senate side, BluffBen Wade received the news that he had beenbeaten and said, ‘‘Well, I guess it will be all right;he deserves it, and he will be a good presidingofficer.’’ The news was received with seeminglyuniversal applause. ‘‘His friends love him devot-edly,’’ wrote one admirer, ‘‘and his political ad-versaries . . . respect him thoroughly.’’ 15

For years, Colfax had addressed Sundayschools and temperance revival meetings,quoting from the Bible and urging his listenersto a life of virtue. He won support from the reli-gious magazines as a ‘‘Christian Statesman.’’One campaign biography praised his ‘‘spotlessintegrity’’ and declared, ‘‘So pure is his personalcharacter, that the venom of political enmity hasnever attempted to fix a stain upon it.’’ Demo-crats, however, lambasted Colfax as a bigot forthe anti-Catholicism of his Know-Nothing past.Republicans dismissed these charges as mud-slinging and organized Irish and German Grantand Colfax Clubs to court the Catholic and for-eign-born vote. (Although it was not known atthe time, U.S. Grant had also once joined theKnow-Nothings and apparently shared theiranti-Catholic prejudices.) 16

In November 1868, Grant and Colfax were nar-rowly elected over the Democratic ticket headedby New York Governor Horatio Seymour. Daysafter the election, the vice president-elect mar-ried Ellen Wade, niece of the Ohio senator he haddefeated for the vice-presidential nomination.The groom was forty-five and the bride ‘‘about

thirty,’’ an attractive and charming woman. ByApril 1870 their son Schuyler III was born. Thisdomestic bliss would in fact contribute toColfax’s political undoing. As a married man, hefound less time to socialize with his old friendsin the press, and invitations to the lavish recep-tions at his new home became harder for report-ers to receive, causing considerable resentmentamong his old friends on Newspaper Row, whothought he was putting on airs. Not a wealthyman, the new vice president could never say noto a gift. He grew indiscreet in his acceptance ofeverything from sterling silver to free railroadpasses. In 1868 Colfax also accepted some rail-road stocks from his friend Representative OakesAmes, who promised handsome dividends. Nei-ther suspected the political price that the stockwould ultimately exact.17

Plans to Retire

The first Speaker of the House ever elected vicepresident (a previous former Speaker, James K.Polk, had won the presidency in 1844), Colfaxmoved easily to the Senate chamber as a manlong familiar with the ways of Capitol Hill. TheSenate proved an easier body to preside over,leaving him with time on his hands to travel, lec-ture, and write for the press. The IndianapolisJournal observed that ‘‘the Vice Presidency is anelegant office whose occupant must find it hisprincipal business to try to discover what is theuse of there being such an office at all.’’ Colfaxconsulted periodically with President Grant, but,as one Democratic paper sneered, the vice presi-dent carried ‘‘more wind than weight.’’ His dis-tance from the president proved not to be a dis-advantage when various scandals began to tar-nish Grant and his administration. Speculationsoon arose that Colfax would replace Grant inthe next election. There was much surprise,therefore, when in September 1870, at age forty-seven, Colfax announced that he intended to re-tire at the end of his term. ‘‘I will then have hadeighteen years of continuous service at Washing-ton, mostly on a stormy sea—long enough forany one; and my ambition is all gratified and sat-isfied.’’ This was an old tactic for Colfax, whoperiodically before had announced his retire-ment and then changed his mind. Some believed

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he intended the announcement to further sepa-rate himself from the Grant administration andopen the way for the presidential nomination in1872. But the national press and Senator HenryWilson took the announcement at face value, andbefore long the movement to replace him wentfurther than Colfax had anticipated.18

Colfax predictably changed his mind early in1872 and acceded to the wishes of his friends thathe stand for reelection on ‘‘the old ticket.’’ Presi-dent Grant may have questioned Colfax’s inten-tions. In 1871 the president had sent his vicepresident an extraordinary letter, informing himthat Secretary of State Hamilton Fish wished toretire and asking him ‘‘in plain English’’ to giveup the vice-presidency for the State Department.Grant appeared to be removing Colfax as a po-tential rival. ‘‘In all my heart I hope you will sayyes,’’ he wrote, ‘‘though I confess the sacrificeyou will be making.’’ Colfax declined, and a yearlater when Senator Wilson challenged Colfax forrenomination, the president chose to remain neu-tral in the contest.19

For a man who had assiduously courted thepress for so long, Colfax found himself aban-doned by the Washington correspondents, whooverwhelmingly supported Henry Wilson.Colfax’s slide in the opinion of the Washingtonpress corps had its roots in a dinner at the begin-ning of his term as vice president, when he hadlectured them on the need to exercise their re-sponsibilities prudently, since in their hands laythe making and unmaking of great men. The re-porters had noted archly that Colfax, like otherpoliticians, had never complained about the‘‘making’’ of their reputations, just the‘‘unmaking.’’ Mary Clemmer Ames, a popularnewspaper writer in Washington, attributedColfax’s downfall to envy within the press corps.He did not invite them to his dinners and recep-tions, so they decided to ‘‘write him down.’’ Thenaturally cynical and skeptical reporters, appar-ently considering the vice president’s sanctimo-niousness contradictory to his newfound richesand opulent lifestyle, sought to take him downa few pegs. One correspondent likened Colfax to‘‘a penny dip burning high on the altar amongthe legitimate tapers of State.’’ By contrast, thereporters liked Senator Wilson, who leaked so

freely that they dubbed him ‘‘the official reporterof the [secret] executive sessions of the Senate.’’Colfax bitterly charged that Wilson had invitednewspapermen in ‘‘nearly every evening, askingthem to telegraph that he was gaining steadily,that I did not care for it.’’ When he lost the nomi-nation, the vice president magnanimously shookSenator Wilson’s hand, but one observer noticedthat his famous smile had become ‘‘a whitenedskeleton of its former self.’’ At least Colfax’s de-feat spared him having to run against his oldmentor, Horace Greeley, presidential candidatethat year on a fusion ticket of Democrats and Lib-eral Republicans.20

The Credit Mobilier Scandal

As a man still in his forties, Colfax might wellhave continued his political career after the vice-presidency, except for his connection to theworst scandal in nineteenth-century U.S. politi-cal history. In September 1872, as the presidentialcampaign was getting underway, the New YorkSun broke the four-year-old story about theCredit Mobilier, a finance company created tounderwrite construction of the transcontinentalUnion Pacific Railroad. Since the railroad de-pended on federal subsidies, the company hadrecruited Massachusetts Representative OakesAmes to distribute stock among the key mem-bers of Congress who could help them the most.Some members had paid for the stock at a lowvalue, others had put no money down at all butsimply let the generous dividends pay for thestock. On Oakes Ames’ list were the names ofboth Schuyler Colfax and Henry Wilson, alongwith such other Washington luminaries as Rep-resentatives James Garfield and James G. Blaine.In South Bend, Indiana, Vice President Colfaxmade a public statement that completely dissoci-ated himself from Credit Mobilier, assuring hislisteners that he never owned a dollar of stockthat he had not paid for.21

On January 7, 1873, the House committee in-vestigating the Credit Mobilier scandal called thevice president to testify. Ames claimed that, sinceColfax had lacked the money to buy the stock,the stock had been paid for by its own inflateddividends. Ames’ notes indicated that Colfaxhad received an additional $1,200 in dividends.

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On the stand, Colfax swore flatly that he hadnever received a dividend check from Ames, buthis testimony was contradicted by evidence fromthe files of the House sergeant at arms. Withoutmissing a beat, Colfax insisted that Ames himselfmust have signed and cashed the check. Then thecommittee produced evidence from Colfax’sWashington bank that two days after the pay-ment had been made, he had deposited $1,200in cash—and the deposit slip was in Colfax’sown handwriting. Taking two weeks to explain,Colfax claimed that he had received $200 fromhis stepfather (who worked as a clerk in theHouse of Representatives) and another $1,000from George Nesbitt, a campaign contributor bythen deceased. This story seemed so patentlyself-serving and far-fetched that even his strong-est supporters dismissed it. Making mattersworse, the committee disclosed evidence sug-gesting that Nesbitt, who manufactured station-ery, had bribed Colfax as chairman of the HousePost Office Committee in order to receive gov-ernment contracts for envelopes. A resolution toimpeach Colfax failed to pass by a mostly party-line vote, in part because just a few weeks re-mained in his term. The pious statesman hadbeen exposed, and the public was unforgiving.Colfax left the vice-presidency in disgrace, be-coming a symbol of the sordidness of Gilded Agepolitics. Later in 1873, when the failure of thetranscontinental railroads to make their bondpayments triggered a disastrous financial col-lapse on Wall Street, plunging the nation into adepression that lasted for the rest of the decade,one ruined investor muttered that it was ‘‘allSchuyler Colfax’s fault, damn him.’’ 22

Later Years

Others implicated in Credit Mobilier survivedpolitically. Henry Wilson was elected vice presi-dent. James Garfield became president in 1880,and James G. Blaine won the Republican presi-dential nomination, but not the election, in 1884.Colfax, however, returned to private life in South

Bend, Indiana. Briefly, there was talk that hisfriend William Orton would put up the funds toenable him to purchase the prestigious New-YorkTribune after Horace Greeley’s death in 1872, butthe deal fell through. Then a new opportunitydeveloped. Called upon to deliver a short speechat the unveiling of a statue of Abraham Lincolnin Springfield, Illinois, Colfax discovered that thepublic had an insatiable appetite for informationabout their martyred president. He commenceda lucrative career as a public lecturer (up to$2,500 per speech) on his wartime relationshipwith Lincoln. From time to time, Colfax’s namesurfaced as a candidate for the House or the Sen-ate, or for the presidential nomination, but he de-clined to become a candidate. ‘‘You can’t imag-ine the repugnance with which I now view theservice of the many headed public,’’ he wrote,‘‘with all its toils, its innumerable exactions of allkinds, the never ending work and worry, the ex-planations about everything which the publicthink they have a right to, the lack of independ-ence as to your goings and comings, the mis-understandings, the envyings, backbitings, etc.,etc., etc.’’ On January 13, 1885, on his way to aspeaking engagement in Iowa, Colfax was strick-en by a heart attack and died while waiting ata railroad station in Mankato, Minnesota, wherethe temperature dipped to thirty below zero. Un-recognized by those around him, the formerSpeaker and vice president was identified onlyby papers in his pocket.23

Doggerel from a critical newspaper perhapsserved as the epitaph for Schuyler Colfax’s riseto national prominence and precipitous fall fromgrace:

A beautiful smiler came in our midst,Too lively and fair to remain;They stretched him on racks till the soul of

ColfaxFlapped up into Heaven again,May the fate of poor Schuyler warn men of a

smiler,Who dividends gets on the brain! 24

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NOTES1 James G. Blaine, Twenty Years of Congress: From Lincoln

to Garfield (Norwich, CT, 1884), 1:497–98; Neil MacNeil,Forge of Democracy: The House of Representatives (New York,1963), p. 69; Allan G. Bogue, The Congressman’s Civil War(New York, 1989), p. 117.

2 Willard H. Smith, Schuyler Colfax: The Changing Fortunesof a Political Idol (Indianapolis, 1952), pp. 1–7; Albert D. Rich-ardson, A Personal History of Ulysses S. Grant with a Portraitand Sketch of Schuyler Colfax (Hartford, CT, 1868), p. 553.

3 Smith, pp. 13–16; Edward Winslow Martin [JamesDabney McCabe], The Life and Public Service of SchuylerColfax (New York, 1868), p. 15.

4 Richardson, pp. 554–55; Donald A. Ritchie, Press Gallery:Congress and the Washington Correspondents (Cambridge,MA, 1991), p. 43.

5 William E. Gienapp, The Origins of the Republican Party,1852–1856 (New York, 1987), pp. 109, 180–81, 240–41, 245.

6 Ibid, p. 359; Martin [James Dabney McCabe], p. 109.7 Charles Edward Russell, Blaine of Maine: His Life and

Times (New York, 1931), p. 237; Bogue, p. 116; David Her-bert Donald, Lincoln (New York, 1995), pp. 468–69.

8 Benjamin Perley Poore, Perley’s Reminiscences of SixtyYears in the National Metropolis (Philadelphia, 1887) 2:211;McNeil, pp. 69, 171; James G. Blaine, Twenty Years of Con-gress: From Lincoln to Garfield (Norwich, CT, 1884), 1:325–26, 497–98; Albert G. Riddle, Recollections of War Times:Reminiscences of Men and Events in Washington, 1860–1865(New York, 1895), p. 222.

9 Ritchie, pp. 63–64, 67.10 Bogue, pp. 116, 125.11 Smith, pp. 202–9.12 Richardson, p. 559; Michael Les Benedict, A Compromise

of Principle: Congressional Republicans and Reconstruction1863–1869 (New York, 1974), p. 130; Eric Foner, Reconstruc-

tion: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863–1877 (New York,1988), pp. 181, 226.

13 Benedict, pp. 168, 255; Smith, pp. 222–26.14 Foner, p. 338; Smith, p. 284, Russell, p. 237.15 Martin [James Dabney McCabe], pp. 246–47, 253.16 Russell, p. 237; Richardson, p. 560; Tyler Anbinder, Na-

tivism and Slavery: The Northern Know Nothings and the Poli-tics of the 1850s (New York, 1992), pp. 271–74.

17 Smith, pp. 308–9, 312; Mark Wahlgren Summers, TheEra of Good Stealings (New York, 1993), p. 66; McNeil, p. 198.

18 Smith, pp. 316–17, 324, 326, 333; Ernest A. McKay,Henry Wilson: Practical Radical: A Portrait of a Politician (PortWashington, NY, 1971), p. 225.

19 George S. Sirgiovanni, ‘‘Dumping the Vice President:An Historical Overview and Analysis,’’ Presidential StudiesQuarterly 24 (Fall 1994): 769–71.

20 Poore, 2:243; Ritchie, pp. 96, 106; Richard H. Abbott,Cobbler in Congress: The Life of Henry Wilson, 1812–1875 (Lex-ington, KY, 1972), p. 243; Smith, pp. 358–59; Summers, Eraof Good Stealings, p. 66; Mark Wahlgren Summers, The PressGang: Newspapers and Politics, 1865–1878 (Chapel Hill, NC,1994), pp. 152–53.

21 Smith, pp. 369–74; Ritchie, pp. 102–3.22 Smith, pp. 374–416; Russell, pp. 243–45; Sean Dennis

Cashman, America in the Gilded Age: From the Death of Lincolnto the Rise of Theodore Roosevelt (New York, 1984), p. 197;Summers, The Era of Good Stealings, pp. 52–53, 66, 242; seealso W. Allan Wilbur, ‘‘The Credit Mobilier Scandal, 1873,’’in Congress Investigates: A Documented History, 1792–1974,ed. Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. and Roger Bruns (New York,1975), pp. 1849–63.

23 Merrill D. Peterson, Lincoln in American Memory (NewYork, 1994), p. 138; Smith, pp. 422, 430, 438–39; O.J. Hollis-ter, Life of Schuyler Colfax (New York, 1886), pp. 385–91.

24 Summers, The Press Gang, p. 154.

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Chapter 18

HENRY WILSON1873–1875

HENRY WILSON

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Chapter 18

HENRY WILSON18th Vice President: 1873–1875

He was not learned, he was not eloquent, he was not logical in a high sense, he was not alwaysconsistent in his political actions, and yet he gained the confidence of the people, and he retained it tothe end of his life.

—SENATOR GEORGE BOUTWELL

Long before public opinion polling, Vice Presi-dent Henry Wilson earned recognition as a mas-ter at reading the public’s mind. During hiseighteen years in the United States Senate, Wil-son traveled relentlessly through his home stateof Massachusetts. A typical day would find himvisiting shops and factories around Boston. Thenhe would board the night train to Springfield,where he would rouse some political friend at2 a.m. and spend the rest of the night talkingover current issues, departing at dawn to catchthe early train to Northampton or Greenfield.‘‘After a week or two spent in that way,’’ hisfriend George F. Hoar observed,

never giving his own opinion, talking as if hewere all things to all men, seeming to hesitateand falter and be frightened, so if you had methim and talked with him you would have said. . . that there was no more thought, nor moresteadiness of purpose, or backbone in him thanin an easterly cloud; but at length when the timecame, and he had got ready, the easterly cloudseemed suddenly to have been charged with anelectric fire and a swift and resistless bolt flashedout, and the righteous judgment of Massachu-setts came from his lips.1

Such systematic sampling of public opinionenabled Wilson to represent the prevailing senti-ments of his constituents and to make remark-ably accurate political prognoses. This skillhelped him build political alliances and parties

and win elections. It also added an element ofopportunism to Wilson’s political maneuveringthat brought him distrust, even from his politicalallies. Yet he did not simply follow the winds ofpublic opinion whichever way they blew.Throughout his long political career, Wilson re-mained remarkably consistent in his support forhuman freedom and equality of rights for allmen and women regardless of their color orclass.

The Rise of Jeremiah Jones Colbath

Henry Wilson’s life resembled a Dickensnovel. Like Pip, David Copperfield, and Nich-olas Nickleby, he overcame a childhood of hard-ship and privation through the strength of hischaracter, his ambition, and occasional assistancefrom others. He was born Jeremiah JonesColbath on February 16, 1812, in Farmington,New Hampshire. His shiftless and intemperatefather named the child after a wealthy bachelorneighbor in vain hope of inheritance. The boygrew to hate the name, and when he came of agehad it legally changed to Henry Wilson, inspiredeither by a biography of the Philadelphia schoolteacher Henry Wilson or by a portrait of the Rev.Henry Wilson in a volume on English clergymen.The Colbaths lived from hand to mouth; ‘‘Wantsat by my cradle,’’ he later recalled. ‘‘I knowwhat it is to ask a mother for bread when shehas none to give.’’ 2

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When the boy was ten years old, his father ap-prenticed him to a nearby farmer, binding himto work until his twenty-first birthday. The ap-prenticeship supposedly allowed one month ofschool every year, so long as there was no workto be done, but he rarely had more than a fewdays of school at any time. Lacking formal edu-cation, he compensated by reading every bookin the farmhouse and borrowing other booksfrom neighbors. He read copiously from history,biography and philosophy. Also as part of hisself-improvement efforts, at age nineteen he tooka pledge of total abstinence from alcohol, whichhe maintained thereafter. In 1833 he reachedtwenty-one and was freed from his apprentice-ship. Long estranged from his parents, the newlyrenamed Henry Wilson set out for new horizons.He hunted for employment in the mills of NewHampshire and then walked one hundred milesfrom Farmington to Boston. Just outside of Bos-ton he settled in the town of Natick, where helearned shoemaking from a friend.3

The ambitious young cobbler worked so hardthat by 1836 his health required he get some rest.Gathering his savings, Wilson traveled to Wash-ington, D.C., to see the federal government. Hisattention was caught instead by the sight ofslaves laboring in the fields of Maryland and Vir-ginia and of slave pens and auctions within viewof the Capitol Building. He left Washington de-termined ‘‘to give all that I had . . . to the causeof emancipation in America,’’ he said. Wilsoncommitted himself to the antislavery movementand years later took pride in introducing the leg-islation in Congress that ended slavery in theDistrict of Columbia. Home from his journey, heenrolled briefly in three academies and thentaught school for a year, falling in love with oneof his students, Harriet Malvina Howe. Theywere married three years later, in 1840, when sheturned sixteen.4

From Shoemaker to Politician

Although he harbored political aspirations,Wilson returned to the shoemaking business.Even during the economic recession that sweptthe country in the late 1830s, he prospered.Abandoning the cobbler’s bench himself, hehired contract laborers and supervised their

work, vastly increasing his production. As a fac-tory owner, Wilson was able to build a hand-some house for his family and to devote his at-tention more fully to civic affairs.5

An active member of the Natick Debating Soci-ety, Wilson became swept up in the leading re-form issues of his day, temperance, educationalreform, and antislavery, and these in turn shapedhis politics. Although the Democratic party inMassachusetts appealed to workers and smallbusinessmen like Wilson, he was drawn insteadto the more upper-crust Whig party because itembraced the social reforms that he supported.At a time when the Whigs were seeking to ex-pand their political base, Wilson’s working-classbackground and image as the ‘‘Natick Cobbler’’appealed to the party. During the 1830s and1840s, the Whigs ran him repeatedly for the statelegislature, and he won seats in its upper andlower houses. Unlike many other Whigs, Wilsonmingled easily in the state’s factories and sa-loons. He gathered political lieutenants aroundthe state and invested some of his shoemakingearnings in the Boston Republican, which heedited from 1848 to 1851. He also joined theNatick militia, rising to brigadier general andproudly claiming the title ‘‘General Wilson’’through the rest of his long political career.6

As a self-made man, Henry Wilson felt con-tempt for aristocrats, whether Boston Brahminsor southern planters. ‘‘I for one don’t want theendorsement of the ‘best society’ in Boston untilI am dead,’’ he once declared, ‘‘—for it endorseseverything that is dead.’’ He reserved even great-er contempt for aristocratic southerners wholived off the labor of their slaves, swearing thatslavery must be ended. ‘‘Freedom and slaveryare now arrayed against each other,’’ he de-clared; ‘‘we must destroy slavery, or it will de-stroy liberty.’’ Although the Whigs promotednumerous reforms, as a national party they in-cluded many southerners who supported slav-ery. In Massachusetts, the party split between‘‘Cotton Whigs,’’ with political and economic tiesbetween the New England cotton mills and thesouthern cotton plantations, and the ‘‘ConscienceWhigs,’’ who placed freedom ahead of patronageand profits. Sensing the changing tides of publicopinion, Wilson predicted that, if antislavery

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supporters in all the old parties could bind to-gether to form a new party, they could sweepthe northern elections and displace southernersfrom power in Washington. In 1848 he aban-doned the Whigs for the new Free Soil party,which nominated Martin Van Buren for presi-dent on an antislavery platform.7

A Residue of Distrust

The Free Soil party proved to be premature.Wary voters defeated Wilson in his campaignsas the Free Soil candidate for the U.S. House ofRepresentatives in 1852 and governor in 1853.Sadly disappointed in 1853 at the defeat of a newstate constitution for which he had labored longand hard, Wilson responded by secretly joiningthe Order of the Star Spangled Banner, alsoknown as the American or Know-Nothingparty—an anti-Catholic and anti-immigrant, na-tivist movement. Given the collapse of the estab-lished parties, the Know-Nothings flourishedbriefly, offering Wilson an unsavory opportunityto promote his personal ambitions—despite theparty’s conflict with his political ideals of racialand religious equality. At the same time, Wilsoncalled for the creation of ‘‘one great Republicanparty’’ in opposition to the Kansas-NebraskaAct, which threatened to open the western terri-tories to slavery. In 1854, he ran as the Repub-lican candidate for governor, but his strange ma-neuvering during and after the campaign con-vinced many Republicans that Wilson had soldthem out by throwing the gubernatorial electionto the Know-Nothings in return for being electeda U.S. senator by the Know-Nothings in the Mas-sachusetts legislature, with the aid of Free Soilersand Democrats. Although Wilson identified him-self as a Republican, his first Senate election lefta residue of distrust that he would spend the restof his life trying to live down.8

In the Senate, Henry Wilson was inevitablycompared with his handsome, dignified, schol-arly senior colleague from Massachusetts,Charles Sumner. An idealist and fierce foe ofslavery, Sumner laced his speeches with classicalallusions and gave every indication that hewould appear quite natural in the toga of aRoman senator. Henry Wilson would haveseemed ludicrous in Roman garb or in attempt-

ing to match Sumner’s grandiloquent addresses.Listeners described Wilson instead as ‘‘an ear-nest man’’ who presented ‘‘the cold facts of acase’’ without relying on flamboyant oratory.George Boutwell, who served with him in Mas-sachusetts and national politics, judged Wilsonan especially effective speaker during electionsand estimated that during the course of Wilson’scareer he spoke to more people than anyone elsealive. Boutwell concluded of Wilson:

He was not learned, he was not eloquent, he wasnot logical in a high sense, he was not alwaysconsistent in his political actions, and yet hegained the confidence of the people, and he re-tained it to the end of his life. His success mayhave been due in part to the circumstance thathe was not far removed from the mass of the peo-ple in the particulars named, and that he actedin a period when fidelity to the cause of freedomand activity in its promotion satisfied the publicdemand.9

Despite their different backgrounds and per-sonalities, Wilson and Sumner agreed stronglyon their opposition to slavery and pooled theirefforts to destroy the ‘‘peculiar institution.’’ Evenwhen people distrusted Wilson’s wily politicalmaneuvering or disdained his plebeian roots,they gave him credit for showing backbone in hisfight against slavery. Massachusetts returnedhim to the Senate for three more terms, until hiselection as vice president.

Chairman of the Military Affairs Committee

During the 1850s, Wilson fought from the mi-nority. When the southern states seceded in 1860and 1861 and the Republicans moved into themajority, Henry Wilson assumed the chairman-ship of the Senate Committee on Military Affairs,a key legislative post during the Civil War. In themonths that Congress stood in recess, impatientRadical Republicans demanded quick militaryaction against the South. In July 1861, at thewar’s first battle, along Bull Run creek in Manas-sas, Virginia, Wilson rode out with other sen-ators, representatives, newspaper reporters, andmembers of Washington society to witness whatthey anticipated would be a Union victory. In hiscarriage, Senator Wilson carried a large hamperof sandwiches to distribute among the troops.

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Unexpectedly, however, the Confederates routedthe Union army. Wilson’s carriage was crushedand he was forced to beat an inglorious retreatback to Washington.10

Defeat at the ‘‘picnic battle,’’ sobered many inthe North who had talked of a short, easy war.In seeking to assign blame for the debacle, ru-mors spread that Wilson himself might havetipped off the enemy through his friendly rela-tionship with a Washington woman, Mrs. RoseO’Neal Greenhow. When she was arrested as aConfederate spy, ‘‘the Wild Rose’’ held a packetof love letters signed ‘‘H.’’ But the letters werenot in Wilson’s handwriting, and Mrs.Greenhow knew many other senators, membersof Lincoln’s cabinet, and other highly placedsources of information.11

Wilson went back to Massachusetts to raise avolunteer infantry, in which he wore the uniformof colonel. However, once the regiment reachedWashington, he resigned his commission and re-turned to his Senate seat. Wilson also served asa volunteer aide-de-camp to General GeorgeMcClellan, who commanded the Union armies.When he reported to the general’s camp, he wasordered to accompany other officers on a horse-back inspection of the capital’s fortifications. Asthe Boston newspaper correspondent BenjaminPerley Poore observed, ‘‘Unaccustomed tohorsemanship, the ride of thirty miles was toomuch for the Senator, who kept his bed for aweek, and then resigned his staff position.’’ Still,this brief association made Wilson more sympa-thetic to McClellan than were other Radical Re-publicans in Congress. The Radicals establisheda Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War,in part to bypass Wilson’s Military Affairs Com-mittee in scrutinizing and attacking the variousofficers of the Union army. Wilson at first de-fended the army, arguing that Democratic gen-erals were opposed to the Republican adminis-tration but not to the war. Over time, he grewdisheartened by the protracted war and impa-tient with McClellan’s overly cautious militarytactics. However, he made it a point, as commit-tee chair, to avoid public criticism of the militaryoperations of any general.12

Wilson and the Radicals

Henry Wilson soon stood among the inner cir-cle of Radical Republicans in Congress besideCharles Sumner, Benjamin Wade, Thaddeus Ste-vens, and Henry Winter Davis. He introducedbills that freed slaves in the District of Columbia,permitted African Americans to join the Unionarmy, and provided equal pay to black andwhite soldiers. Wilson pressed President Lincolnto issue an emancipation proclamation and wor-ried that the final product left many people stillenslaved in the border states. Known as one ofthe most persistent newshunters in Washington,Wilson brought knowledgeable newspaper re-porters straight from the battlefield to the WhiteHouse to brief the president. Despite his inti-macy with Lincoln, Wilson considered him toomoderate and underestimated his abilities. Thesenator was once overheard denouncing Lincolnwhile sitting in the White House waiting room.He hoped that Lincoln would withdraw from theRepublican ticket in 1864 in favor of a more radi-cal presidential candidate.13

Following Lincoln’s assassination, Wilson ini-tially hoped that the new president, his formerSenate colleague Andrew Johnson, would pur-sue the Radical Republican agenda for recon-struction of the South. He was deeply dis-appointed in Johnson’s endorsement of a speedyreturn of the Confederate states to the Unionwithout any protection for the newly freedslaves. When the Thirty-ninth Congress con-vened in December 1865, Wilson introduced thefirst civil rights initiative of the postwar Con-gress. His bill aimed at outlawing the BlackCodes and other forms of racial discriminationin the former Confederacy but, deemed too ex-treme by the non-Radical Republicans, it was de-feated. Wilson also proposed that the Constitu-tion be amended to prohibit any effort to limitthe right to vote by race.14

Johnson’s more lenient policies for Reconstruc-tion and his veto of the Freedmen’s Bureau billand other congressional efforts to protect blacksoutherners eventually drove moderate Repub-licans into an alliance with the Radicals. Overtime, Wilson saw his objectives added to theConstitution as the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and

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Fifteenth amendments. He supported the use offederal troops to enforce congressional Recon-struction, to permit freedmen to vote, and to es-tablish Republican governments in the southernstates. When Johnson stubbornly resisted theRadical programs, Wilson endorsed efforts toimpeach the president. He accused the presidentof ‘‘unworthy, if not criminal’’ motives in resist-ing the will of the people on Reconstruction andcast his vote to remove Johnson from office.However, seven moderate Republican senatorsbroke ranks with their party, and the Radicalsfailed by a single vote to achieve the two-thirdsnecessary to remove the president.15

National Ambitions

Prior to the presidential election of 1868, HenryWilson made an extended speaking tourthroughout the southern states. Many journalistsinterpreted this effort as a means of promotinghimself as a presidential candidate. In fact, Wil-son supported U.S. Grant, the hero of Appomat-tox, for president and sought the vice-presi-dential nomination for himself. Always a politi-cal mechanic bent on building coalitions, Wilsonfelt certain that the southern Republican partycould survive only if it became biracial. ‘‘I do notwant to see a white man’s party nor a blackman’s party,’’ he told a black audience in NewOrleans. ‘‘I warn you to-night, as I do the blackmen of this country everywhere, to rememberthis: that while a black man is as good as a whiteman, a white man is as good as a black man. Seeto it while you are striving to lift yourselves up,that you do not strive to pull anybody elsedown.’’ By urging southern blacks to take a con-ciliatory, nonviolent approach toward those whohad so recently enslaved and oppressed them,Wilson stunned his Radical Republican col-leagues in Congress. ‘‘Wilson is a ——————fool!’’ wrote Ohio Senator Ben Wade. Neverthe-less, southern delegates to the Republican con-vention generally supported Wilson’scandidacy.16

On the first ballot for vice president at the Chi-cago convention, Ben Wade led with Wilson notfar behind. That ballot marked Wilson’s peak,and he lost support steadily on subsequent bal-lots. When House Speaker Schuyler Colfax

gained strength, Wilson’s delegates switched toColfax, giving him the nomination. Grant’s elec-tion brought expectations that Wilson might benamed to the cabinet, but the senator asked thathis name be removed from consideration, citinghis wife’s critically ill health—she died in 1870.Still, Wilson remained an influential and fre-quently consulted senator throughout Grant’sfirst term.

Grant’s Second Vice President

By Grant’s inauguration in 1869, Massachu-setts boasted the most powerful delegation inCongress. Wilson chaired the Senate Military Af-fairs Committee, while Sumner chaired ForeignRelations. In the House, four Massachusetts rep-resentatives chaired committees, including Ap-propriations and Foreign Affairs. Commentingon the state’s two senators, Massachusetts Rep-resentative George F. Hoar noted that, whileSumner was a man of great learning, great prin-ciple, and great ego, ‘‘Wilson supplied almost ev-erything that Sumner lacked.’’ Wilson was themore practical politician, with his finger on thepublic pulse. He recognized the value of partyorganization and ‘‘did not disdain the art and di-plomacies of a partisan.’’ Wilson also combinedpractical politics with a strong inclination for re-form. He spoke out for civil rights for the freed-men, voting rights for women, federal aid to edu-cation, federal regulation of business, protectionof women, and prohibition of liquor. Hoarjudged that no other man in the Senate, ‘‘noteven Sumner, had more influence over his col-leagues’’ than did Henry Wilson.17

During Grant’s first term, the imperious Sum-ner challenged the new president and defeatedhis plans for incorporating Santo Domingo intothe United States. President Grant retaliated bygoading the Senate Republican caucus to removeSumner as chair of the Foreign Relations Com-mittee (Wilson spoke in defense of retainingSumner’s chairmanship). A wounded Sumneropposed Grant’s renomination in 1872, raisingconcerns that he and his allies might bolt to theLiberal Republican-Democratic fusion ticketheaded by the eccentric newspaper editor Hor-ace Greeley. After Vice President SchuylerColfax released word that he did not intend to

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stand for a second term, many Republican lead-ers calculated that selecting Wilson for vice presi-dent would outflank Sumner and strengthenGrant with workers and with the ‘‘old anti-slav-ery guard.’’ Saluting the working-class origins oftheir ticket, Republican posters showed idealizedversions of Grant, ‘‘the Galena Tanner,’’ and Wil-son, ‘‘the Natick Shoemaker,’’ attired in workers’aprons.18

Just as the presidential campaign got under-way in September 1872, the New York Sun pub-lished news of the Credit Mobilier scandal, offer-ing evidence that key members of Congress hadaccepted railroad stock at little or no cost, pre-sumably to guarantee their support for legisla-tion that would finance construction of a trans-continental line. On the list were the names ofGrant’s retiring vice president, Colfax, and hisnew running mate, Henry Wilson. Newspapercorrespondent Henry Van Ness Boynton sent theNew York Times a dispatch reporting that SenatorWilson had made a ‘‘full and absolute denial’’that he had ever owned Credit Mobilier stock.In truth, Wilson had purchased the stock in hiswife’s name but had later returned it. Called totestify before a House investigating committee,Boynton recounted how he had gone to see Wil-son to ask if he would deny the charges againsthim and that Wilson had given him an absolutedenial, knowing that he would file the story thatnight. Wilson did not contradict the reporter.‘‘General Boynton is a man of character andtruth,’’ he told the committee, ‘‘and I should takehis word.’’ Although the committee cleared Wil-son of any wrongdoing in taking the stock, itconcluded that the information Wilson had giventhe Times had been ‘‘calculated to convey to thepublic an erroneous impression.’’ 19

The Ravages of Ill Health

The Credit Mobilier scandal did not dissuadevoters from reelecting Grant and making HenryWilson vice president. Wilson helped the ticketby embarking on an ambitious speaking tourthat took him some ten thousand miles to deliverninety-six addresses, ruining his health in theprocess. In May 1873, the sixty-one-year-old Wil-son suffered a stroke that caused him to lose con-trol of his facial muscles and to speak thickly

whenever fatigued. Although doctors orderedhim to rest, the advice went against his nature.A friend wrote, ‘‘You know he was never stillfor five minutes, and it is more difficult for himthan for most persons to sit quietly and dreamaway the time.’’ After spending the summerrecuperating in Massachusetts, Wilson traveledto Washington in December for the opening ofthe new Congress, but by January his poor healthforced him to return home once again. Insteadof presiding over the Senate, he spent his timewriting a multi-volume history of the rise andfall of the slave power, memorializing his ownrole in the great events of the Civil War and Re-construction.20

Wilson’s ill health kept him from playing anyrole of consequence as vice president but did notsuppress his political concerns and ambitions.He lamented that a ‘‘Counter-Revolution’’ wasovertaking Reconstruction and urged his oldantislavery veterans to speak out against effortsto limit the rights of the freedmen. Wilsonblamed the decay of Reconstruction on the Grantadministration. According to RepresentativeJames Garfield, the vice president had assertedthat ‘‘Grant is now more unpopular than An-drew Johnson was in his darkest days; thatGrant’s appointments had been getting worseand worse; that he is still struggling for a thirdterm; in short that he is the millstone around theneck of our party that would sink it out of sight.’’Yet Wilson could not bring himself to admit thathis own involvement in the Credit Mobilier scan-dal, as well as the involvement of other membersof Congress in the many other scandals of theera, had dimmed the moral fervor of the antislav-ery movement and congressional Reconstruc-tion, thus undermining public confidence in anactive federal government. For the rest of thenineteenth century, political trends moved awayfrom Wilson’s cherished reforms. A new genera-tion of genteel reformers advocated limited gov-ernment, civil service reform, and other adminis-trative solutions and abandoned support for thevoting and civil rights of the freedmen, women’srights, and other social reforms that Wilsonesteemed.21

In the spring of 1875, Vice President Wilsonmade a six-week tour of the South, raising sus-

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picions that he intended to ‘‘advertise himself’’for the presidential nomination the next year. Hereturned home optimistic about the chances thatthe Republicans could build political and eco-nomic ties to conservative southerners by ap-pointing a southern ex-Whig to the cabinet andby offering economic aid to southern business(policies later adopted by the next president,Rutherford B. Hayes). Although Grant desired athird term, Wilson’s friends felt sure that the vicepresident could win the presidential nominationand election.22

Wilson’s great ambition went unfulfilled. Thatfall, he consulted Dr. William Hammond, com-plaining of pain in the back of his head and aninability to sleep. ‘‘I enjoined rest from mentallabor,’’ the doctor noted, but the vice presidentreplied that he could not comply with thosewishes ‘‘as fully as desirable.’’ Dr. Hammondsaw Wilson again in early November and noted‘‘vertigo, thickness of speech, twitching of the fa-cial muscles, irregularity of respiration, and theaction of the heart, slight difficulty of swallow-ing, and intense pain in the back of the head andnape of the neck.’’ He observed that the vicepresident’s ‘‘hands were in almost constant mo-tion and he could not sit longer than a few sec-onds without rising and pacing the floor, orchanging to another chair.’’ Wilson insisted thathe must travel to Washington for the new Con-gress but promised his doctor not to work toohard. He told a friend that ‘‘he would at leastbe able to preside at the opening of the Senate,and perhaps through most of the session.’’ 23

During the nineteenth century, many membersof Congress lived in boardinghouses and hotelswhere the plumbing left much to be desired. Toaccommodate them, the Capitol provided luxu-rious bathing rooms in its basement for theHouse and Senate. There members could soak in

large marble tubs, enjoy a massage, and havetheir hair cut and beards trimmed. On November10, 1875, Wilson went down to soak in the tubs.Soon after leaving the bath, he was struck by pa-ralysis and carried to a bed in his vice-presi-dential office, just off the Senate floor. Within afew days, he felt strong enough to receive visi-tors and seemed to be gaining strength. Whenhe awoke in his Capitol office on November 22,he was informed that Senator Orris Ferry of Con-necticut had died. Wilson lamented the passingof his generation, commenting ‘‘that makeseighty-three dead with whom I have sat in theSenate.’’ Shortly thereafter, he rolled over andquietly died, at age sixty-three. His body lay instate in the Rotunda, and his funeral was con-ducted in the Senate chamber, the vice-presi-dential chair arrayed in black crepe.

In his memory, the Senate in 1885 placed amarble bust of Wilson by the sculptor DanielChester French in the room where the vice presi-dent died.24 There the Senate also installed abronze plaque, with an inscription written by hisold friend and colleague, George F. Hoar:

IN THIS ROOM

HENRY WILSONVICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

AND A SENATOR FOR EIGHTEEN YEARS,DIED NOVEMBER 22, 1875

The son of a farm laborer, never at school morethan twelve months, in youth a journeymanshoemaker, he raised himself to the high placesof fame, honor and power, and by unweariedstudy made himself an authority in the historyof his country and of liberty and an eloquent pub-lic speaker to whom Senate and people eagerlylistened. He dealt with and controlled vast publicexpenditure during a great civil war, yet livedand died poor, and left to his grateful country-men the memory of an honorable public service,and a good name far better than riches.25

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NOTES1 George F. Hoar, Autobiography of Seventy Years (New

York, 1903), 1:218.2 Richard H. Abbott, Cobbler in Congress: The Life of Henry

Wilson, 1812–1875 (Lexington, KY, 1972), pp. 1–6; EliasNason and Thomas Russell, The Life and Public Services ofHenry Wilson, Late Vice-President of the United States (NewYork, 1969; reprint of 1876 ed.), p. 17.

3 Nason and Russell, pp. 18–21; Ernest A. McKay, HenryWilson: Practical Radical: A Portrait of a Politician (Port Wash-ington, NY, 1971), pp. 6–12.

4 Nason and Russell, pp. 29–34; Abbott, p. 11.5 McKay, Henry Wilson: Practical Radical, p. 16; Abbott, pp.

14–15.6 Abbott, pp. 30, 36.7 Ibid, pp. 27, 53.8 Ibid., pp. 46–63; Ernest A. McKay, ‘‘Henry Wilson: Un-

principled Know Nothing,’’ Mid-America 46 (January 1964):29–37; David Herbert Donald, Charles Sumner and the Com-ing of the Civil War (Chicago, 1960), p. 268; William E.Gianapp, The Origins of the Republican Party, 1852–1856(New York, 1987), pp. 135–36.

9 Allan G. Bogue, The Earnest Men: Republicans of the CivilWar Senate (Ithaca, NY, 1981), pp. 33–34; Abbott, p. 18;George S. Boutwell, Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Af-fairs (New York, 1968; reprint of 1902 ed.), 1:228–29.

10 Abbott, p. 116; McKay, Henry Wilson: Practical Radical,pp. 146–47.

11 Abbott, p. 117; Margaret Leech, Reveille in Washington,1860–1865 (New York, 1941), pp. 134–38.

12 Abbott, pp. 125–26; McKay, Henry Wilson: Practical Rad-ical, p. 161; Benjamin Perley Poore, Perley’s Reminiscences ofSixty Years in the National Metropolis (Philadelphia, 1887),2:99.

13 Wilson also introduced a bill to permit women to voteand hold office in the District. Bogue, pp. 109–10, 152, 167,169; T. Harry Williams, Lincoln and the Radicals (Madison,WI, 1941), pp. 161, 309, 316; J. Cutler Andrews, The NorthReports the Civil War (Pittsburgh, 1955), p. 332.

14 Earl M. Maltz, Civil Rights, The Constitution, and Con-gress, 1863–1869 (Lawrence, KS, 1990), pp. 43, 148; MichaelLes Benedict, A Compromise of Principle: Congressional Repub-licans and Reconstruction, 1863–1869 (New York, 1974), p. 24.

15 Abbott, pp. 200–202.16 Ibid., pp. 196–99; Benedict, pp. 259–60.17 Hoar, pp. 213, 215, 217–18; Abbott, p. 225. Henry Wil-

son, History of Antislavery Measures of the Thirty-Seventh andThirty-Eighth Congresses (Boston, 1865); History of the Recon-struction Measures of the Thirty-Ninth and Fortieth Congress(Chicago, 1868); History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Powerin America, 3 vols. (Boston, 1872–1877).

18 William B. Hesseltine, Ulysses S. Grant, Politician (NewYork, 1935), pp. 276–77; McKay, Henry Wilson: Practical Radi-cal, pp. 222–23.

19 Donald A. Ritchie, Press Gallery: Congress and the Wash-ington Correspondents (Cambridge, MA, 1991), pp. 105–6.

20 Abbott, p. 249.21 Eric Foner, Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolu-

tion, 1863–1877 (New York, 1988), p. 527; William S.McFeely, Grant: A Biography (New York, 1981), p. 406; seealso Mark Wahlgren Summers, The Era of Good Stealings(New York, 1993).

22 Abbott, p. 255.23 William A. Hammond, On The Cause of Vice-President

Wilson’s Death (Cambridge, MA, 1875), pp. 7–8.24 In 1886 the Senate began the practice of acquiring mar-

ble busts of all former vice presidents.25 Hoar, p. 219.

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Chapter 19

WILLIAM ALMON WHEELER1877–1881

WILLIAM A. WHEELER

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Chapter 19

WILLIAM ALMON WHEELER19th Vice President: 1877–1881

Who is Wheeler?—RUTHERFORD B. HAYES

In the wake of the Grant-era scandals, both theRepublican and Democratic parties searched foruntarnished candidates as they approached thepresidential election of 1876. Democrats choseone of their most prominent leaders, New YorkGovernor Samuel J. Tilden, who had won na-tional attention by taking on the Tweed Ring inNew York City. Republicans passed over theirparty’s bigger names, men who had been stainedby various exposes in the press, and settled in-stead on a ticket of Ohio Governor RutherfordB. Hayes and New York Representative WilliamA. Wheeler. Although neither man was very wellknown to the nation, both had reputations forscrupulous honesty and independence. If historyremembers William Wheeler at all, it is for hischaracter. In his introduction to John F. Ken-nedy’s Profiles in Courage, the historian AllanNevins reproduced a colloquy between Wheelerand Senator Roscoe Conkling, the Republicanpolitical boss of New York. ‘‘Wheeler, if you willact with us, there is nothing in the gift of the Stateof New York to which you may not reasonablyaspire,’’ Conkling tempted; to which Wheeler re-plied, ‘‘Mr. Conkling, there is nothing in the giftof the State of New York which will compensateme for the forfeiture of my self-respect.’’ 1

A Cautious Politician

Among the stranger individuals to occupy thevice-presidency, William Almon Wheeler seemsto have been scarred by his father’s ill health,which left him neurotically obsessed with his

own well-being. An excessively cautious politi-cian—to the point of timidity—he straddled thevarious factions in his party, avoided all commit-ments, and advanced himself politically whilecovering himself with obscurity. William Wheel-er was born on June 30, 1819, in the upstate NewYork town of Malone, near the Canadian border.His father, Almon Wheeler, had attended theUniversity of Vermont and was a promisingyoung attorney and local postmaster who diedat the age of thirty-seven, when William was justeight years old. Left in debt, his mother, Eliza,took in boarders from the nearby Franklin Acad-emy to support her two children. William at-tended the academy, farmed, and did whateverhe could to save money for college. At nineteen,with the help of a loan from a friend, he enteredthe University of Vermont in Burlington. Therehe studied for two years, at times living on breadand water, until ‘‘an affection of the eyes’’ causedhim to drop out.2

He returned to Malone, taught school andstudied law. In 1845, shortly after he was admit-ted to the bar, he married one of his former stu-dents, Mary King. A Whig, Wheeler was soonrunning for office. He became town clerk, schoolcommissioner, and school inspector. In lateryears he recalled that the thirty dollars a year heearned as town clerk, recording deeds and layingout roads, ‘‘were of more value to me than thethousands I have since attained.’’ He served asdistrict attorney for Franklin County from 1846to 1849 and, from 1850 to 1851, served in the state

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assembly, where he chaired the ways and meanscommittee. Joining the new Republican party, hemoved to the state senate in 1858 and was electedits president pro tempore. Wheeler also con-ducted a private law practice until ‘‘throat trou-ble’’ interfered with his courtroom advocacy andconvinced him to abandon the law in favor ofrunning a local bank and serving as a railroadtrustee, positions that he held until ‘‘driven frombusiness in 1865, by broken health.’’ 3

A Silent Member of the House

Wheeler was elected to serve in the U.S. Houseof Representatives from 1861 to 1863. He then re-turned to New York, where he chaired the stateconstitutional convention, a prestigious bodywhose members included two future presi-dential candidates, Horace Greeley and SamuelJ. Tilden. Although Wheeler spoke infrequently,his words carried weight, and he gained highmarks for fairness as presiding officer. In 1868he again won election to the House, where hechaired the Committee on Pacific Railroads. Itwas at this time that Iowa Representative OakesAmes, acting as an agent for the Credit Mobilier,the construction company for the Union PacificRailroad, began spreading railroad stock amonghigh-ranking members of Congress, ‘‘where itwould do the most good.’’ Wheeler not only re-fused all stocks offered to him, but resigned hischairmanship to avoid further temptation. In1872, when the Credit Mobilier scandal broke inthe newspapers, Wheeler remained clean assome of the most prominent members of Con-gress were caught with the stock. His rectitudeeven inspired him to oppose an appropriation toconstruct a post office in his home town ofMalone.

Wheeler stayed aloof from the New York statepolitical machine run by Senator RoscoeConkling. In 1872, Conkling maneuvered tomake Wheeler Speaker of the House in place ofhis hated rival, James G. Blaine. Wheeler de-clined to have anything to do with the schemeand supported Blaine, who apparently hadpromised, but never delivered on the promise,to make Wheeler chairman of the House Appro-priations Committee. Wheeler also cited his poorhealth as a reason for not putting himself for-

ward, and only the persuasiveness of his wifeand friends kept him from retiring fromCongress.4

In the House, Wheeler generally kept silent un-less he was managing a bill, but then he alwaysproved to be well prepared and highly effective.He remained in the political shadows until 1874,when as a member of the House Committee onSouthern Affairs he investigated a disputed elec-tion in Louisiana. The election of 1872 had tornapart the Republican party in the state, with halfof the party machinery supporting William PittKellogg for governor, and the other half joiningthe Democrats on a fusion ticket. The electionboard declared the Democratic candidates thevictors, but Republicans refused to concede.They created their own election board, whichgave the governorship to Kellogg and a numberof disputed elections to their candidates for thestate legislature. After President Grant recog-nized Kellogg as governor, a battle erupted onthe streets of New Orleans that left fifty-six peo-ple dead. A mob ousted Kellogg, but federaltroops restored him to office.5

The Wheeler Compromise

Traveling to Louisiana, Wheeler and othercommittee members heard highly emotional andcontradictory testimony from both sides. It wasWheeler who forged the compromise that letKellogg remain as governor and allowed thecommittee to arbitrate the disputed seats in thelegislature, most of which went to the Demo-crats. In March 1875, the House endorsed the‘‘Wheeler compromise,’’ a plan which essentiallyundid federal Reconstruction of the state andheld out hope for peace between the North andSouth a decade after the Civil War had ended.When Louisiana Democrats violated the spirit ofthe compromise by unseating even more Repub-lican state legislators, in order to elect a Demo-crat to the U.S. Senate, most northern politiciansand newspapers ignored the violations. TheNorth seemed relieved to escape the responsibil-ities of Reconstruction. Representative Wheelerobserved that northerners had expected toomuch from the South and declared that it wastime to admit the failure of efforts to promotepeace with the sword. His compromise taught

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WILLIAM A. WHEELER

northern Republicans how to cut their losses.Thereafter the party concentrated on preservingits power in the North while scaling down itsmilitary efforts in the South, even if that meantabandoning the political rights of the freedmen.6

Wheeler was content in his life as a memberof the House of Representatives and dreamed ofbecoming Speaker. However, in early 1876 someRepublicans began talking of him as a candidatefor president or vice president. The politically as-tute manager of the Western Associated Press,William Henry Smith, predicted that the GOPticket would be Hayes and Wheeler. Upon hear-ing this forecast, Ohio Governor Rutherford B.Hayes wrote to his wife, ‘‘I am ashamed to say,Who is Wheeler?’’ Because Wheeler had servedin the House from 1861 to 1863 and again from1869 to 1877, while Hayes had been a representa-tive during the intervening years from 1865 to1867, there had been no overlap in their service.7

A Quiet Candidate

At the Republican convention in Cincinnati,Wheeler received a handful of votes for presi-dent, but the major contest was between SenatorConkling, House Speaker Blaine, and GovernorHayes. When Conkling’s nomination seemed im-possible, his party machine, the ‘‘stalwarts,’’threw their support to Hayes as the best way ofstopping Blaine, leader of the ‘‘half-breed’’ fac-tion. Having helped Hayes win the presidentialnomination, the stalwarts considered the vice-presidency theirs to name and they put forwardNew York Representative Stewart Woodford.The half-breeds, however, wanted the stalwartsoff the ticket. Massachusetts half-breed SenatorGeorge F. Hoar promoted his friend Wheeler asa man of high moral character. Hoar approachedthe distinguished author James Russell Lowell,a member of the Massachusetts delegation, onWheeler’s behalf. When Lowell replied that hewas unwilling to vote for anyone about whomhe knew so little, Hoar responded, ‘‘Mr. Lowell,Mr. Wheeler is a very sensible man. He knowsThe Bigelow Papers by heart.’’ Lowell, the au-thor of The Bigelow Papers, said nothing but laterwas overheard telling other delegates, ‘‘I under-stand that Mr. Wheeler is a very sensible man.’’ 8

Former Vermont Senator and RepresentativeLuke Poland placed Wheeler’s name in nomina-tion, while Conkling’s lieutenant Tom Platt nom-inated Woodford. The publicity Wheeler had re-ceived for his compromise, coupled with hisindependence from the Conkling machine, ap-pealed to the delegates, who voted for him over-whelmingly. When the roll call of the statesreached New York, the stalwarts realized theywere about to lose and withdrew Woodford’sname. The New York delegation voted unani-mously for Wheeler—a bitter pill for Conkling’ssupporters to swallow.9

During the campaign, Democrats vainlysought scandals in the pasts of the Republicancandidates but could find nothing that would tarWheeler’s reputation. One campaign biographyboasted that, at the time when it was fashionablefor congressmen ‘‘to dabble in railroad stocksand bonds,’’ Wheeler had neither bought norsold a share of stock or a single bond in any Pa-cific railroad. He had served his country in Con-gress for ten years without adding to the per-sonal wealth that he brought to Washington.‘‘With simple tastes,’’ his biographer extolled,‘‘he has never been greedy of gain either for itsown sake or for the luxury it would buy. As alegislator, the thought never occurred to him thathis influence could bring riches, and not theshadow of a stain rests on his name.’’ Wheelerhad also voted against the ‘‘salary grab’’—an un-popular attempt by members of Congress toraise their pay retroactively—and refused the in-crease in his own salary.10

Wheeler also appealed to the professionalsongwriters, who in 1876 were just taking overthe business of writing campaign songs from theamateurs who had long prevailed. The Tin PanAlley men leaned towards puns, alliteration andother word-plays in their songs. Thus the sheetmusic for ‘‘We’ll Go for Hayes! We’ll Wheel’erin on Time’’ showed Wheeler pushing Hayes ina wheelbarrow toward the White House.11

While Wheeler did not detract from the ticket,he added little to it and even refused to cam-paign. The Democratic vice-presidential nomineeThomas Hendricks spoke in the swing state ofIndiana, but Wheeler declined all invitationsfrom the Republicans. In a remarkable reply to

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James G. Blaine’s invitation to speak to a seriesof mass meetings in Maine, Wheeler cited hisfrailty and insomnia as excuses:

I greatly regret my physical inability to do littlein the way of speaking in his canvass. But I haveno reserve of strength to draw upon. I was driv-en from business in 1865, by broken health andhave never been strong since. . . . My trouble foryears has been wakefulness at night. No residentof the grave or a lunatic asylum has sufferedmore from this cause than I have. Speaking, andthe presence of crowds, excite me and intensifymy wakefulness. . . . Gov. Hayes wrote me, ask-ing me to go to Indiana and Ohio, to which I an-swered as I write you. . . . I regret that I was nom-inated. You know I did not want the place. Ishould have gone back to the House, and intoa Republican majority. I should have almost toa certainty, been its Speaker, which I wouldgreatly prefer to being laid away.12

All that Wheeler would do was to issue the tra-ditional letter of acceptance of his nomination.The conciliatory tone of that letter toward theSouth was seen as part of the Republicans’ strat-egy of trying to detach the old southern Whigsfrom the southern Democrats. Candidate Hayesissued a similarly ambiguous endorsement ofreconciliation with the South. At the Republicanconvention, the civil rights leader FrederickDouglass had challenged the delegates to decidewhether they meant to uphold for blacks therights they had written into the Constitution orwhether they could ‘‘get along without the voteof the black man in the South.’’ The Hayes andWheeler ticket suggested that the party had cho-sen the latter course.13

The Contested Election

On election night, it looked as if Tilden andHendricks had defeated Hayes and Wheeler, es-pecially after Democrats captured Wheeler’shome state of New York. Republican newspapersconceded the election, but Zachariah Chandler,chairman of the Republican National Committee,saw hope in the southern electors and dis-patched telegrams to party leaders in thosesouthern states still under Reconstruction rule,alerting them that the election was still unde-cided. Three southern states each sent two sets

of electoral ballots, one set for Tilden and one setfor Hayes. One of the disputed states was Louisi-ana, where only a year earlier Wheeler hadfound evidence that the state board of electionhad produced fraudulent returns. Now his elec-tion as vice president depended upon that sameboard.14

After a specially created electoral commissionawarded all of the disputed ballots to Hayes, ajoint session of Congress still had to count theballots, and there was talk of angry Democratsmarching on Washington by the thousands toprevent this ‘‘steal’’ of the election. To avoidbloodshed, friends of both candidates met at theWormley Hotel in Washington in late February1877. There they agreed to a compromise thatsettled the election and ended Reconstruction. Inreturn for Hayes’ election, Republicans offeredfederal funds to build railroads through the rav-aged South and otherwise restore the southerneconomy, promised to appoint a southerner tothe cabinet, and—most important—pledged toremove all federal troops from the southernstates. When members of the Democratic major-ity in the House of Representatives still tried toblock the counting of the electoral ballots, a Lou-isiana representative assured them that an ac-ceptable arrangement had been negotiated at theWormley Hotel. The revolt fizzled, and at 4 a.m.on March 2, senators marched to the Housechamber to declare Hayes president. Hayesupheld the bargain and removed the federaltroops, abandoning black voters todisfranchisement and segregation.15

Hymn Singing and Square Talk

Although they had not known each other be-fore their nomination, Hayes and Wheeler devel-oped an unusually friendly relationship while inoffice. The Hayes family—scorned by manyWashington politicos for their old-fashionedmanner and strict adherence to temperance—be-came a surrogate family to the lonely vice presi-dent, a sixty-year old widower with no children.The vice president was fond of hymn singing,and each Sunday evening the Hayes family in-vited Wheeler and a few other friends to theWhite House library, where Secretary of the Inte-rior Carl Schurz played the piano and the vice

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president distributed copies of The PresbyterianHymn and Tune Book for ‘‘a revelry of sweetsounds and mingling of souls.’’ 16

Wheeler also provided Hayes with adviceabout appointments, recommending that selec-tions be made according to ‘‘personal character,recognized capacity and experience.’’ He espe-cially warned Hayes about the hostility that theConkling machine exhibited toward the new ad-ministration. At one point, Hayes noted in hisdiary that Wheeler was critical of cabinet mem-bers who, when approached by jobseekers, re-sponded equivocally. ‘‘When there is no hopetell the man so,’’ Wheeler asserted. ‘‘He will bedisappointed at the time, but it is the best way.’’Hayes observed that Wheeler was right.‘‘Prompt and square talk is in the long run safestand is just to the parties concerned. I must alsobear this in mind.’’ 17

Despite their friendship, Hayes rarely con-sulted Wheeler and did not include him withinhis circle of advisers. Wheeler spent his vice-presidency presiding over Senate debates, a jobhe found dull and monotonous, comparing hisrole of repeating set phrases to that of a parrot.During his term, he cast six tie-breaking votes,including one that helped his old friend WilliamPitt Kellogg to be seated as senator from Louisi-ana. Wheeler grew particularly frustrated atbeing left out of both cabinet meetings and partycaucuses and feeling that he was generally ig-nored. The greatest trial of being vice president,he once commented, was attending church. ‘‘Ihear the minister praying for the President, hisCabinet, both Houses of Congress, the SupremeCourt, the governors and legislatures of all thestates and every individual heathen . . . and findmyself wholly left out.’’ 18

A Forgotten Man

Wheeler made it easy for his nation to forgetthat he existed. A more assertive man might haverisen to lead the opposition to the Conkling ma-chine, but Wheeler contented himself with sneer-ing at Conkling rather than challenging him. Thevice president urged President Hayes not to ap-pear weak and yielding to Conkling. But whenHayes took on Conkling by removing his lieuten-ants Chester A. Arthur and Alonzo Cornell from

their lucrative posts at the New York custom-house, Wheeler disapproved the action becausehe feared it might split the party. Wheeler evenendorsed Cornell’s candidacy for governor ofNew York.19

In December 1879, the Republican NationalCommittee met in Washington, as a first step to-ward nominating the presidential ticket for 1880.Hayes had let it be known that he would notstand for a second term, and sentiments withinthe party seemed to be roughly divided betweenGrant and Blaine. In his diary Hayes com-mented, ‘‘If New York could with a fair degreeof unity, present a man like say the Vice Presi-dent . . . he would probably be nominated.’’ Butthere was no hope of the factions in New Yorkuniting, especially over someone who opposedRoscoe Conkling.20 At the convention, James A.Garfield defeated Grant, Blaine, and other can-didates on the thirty-sixth ballot to become theRepublican nominee. He and his running mateChester A. Arthur went on to win the election.

In March 1881, Wheeler turned over the vice-presidency to his successor, Conkling’s confed-erate Chet Arthur. Within months, Conklinglaunched his last great political battle against thenew president. In May, both New York senators,Conkling and Tom Platt, dramatically resignedand returned to Albany, where they expected thestate legislature to reelect them as a sign of soli-darity in their patronage struggles with Garfield.Instead, the legislature rebelled. A number ofcandidates entered the Senate race, includingformer Vice President Wheeler. On several bal-lots, Wheeler ran ahead of Conkling. Althoughneither won the election, Conkling’s biographerconcluded that ‘‘the ambition of former Vice-President Wheeler was a major contributingcause’’ to Conkling’s defeat. Crushed by his de-feat and by Garfield’s assassination, Conkling re-tired from politics to a lucrative Wall Street lawpractice. William A. Wheeler also retired frompublic life, turning down an appointment fromPresident Chester Arthur to serve on a commis-sion to study the tariff because, he said, hishealth was not up to it. He died on June 4, 1887,in Malone, a forgotten man.21

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NOTES1 John F. Kennedy, Profiles in Courage (New York, 1956),

p. xiv.2 William Dean Howells, Sketch of the Life and Character of

Rutherford B. Hayes, Also a Biographical Sketch of William A.Wheeler (New York, 1876), pp. 5–7; see also James T. Otten,‘‘Grand Old Partyman: William A. Wheeler and the Repub-lican Party, 1850–1880,’’ (Ph.D. dissertation, University ofSouth Carolina, 1976), pp. 1–11, 285–86.

3 Howells, p. 10; Keith Ian Polakoff, The Politics of Inertia:The Election of 1876 and the End of Reconstruction (BatonRouge, LA, 1973), p. 123.

4 Otten, pp. 63–79, 288–89.5 Polakoff, p. 181.6 Ibid; William Gillette, Retreat from Reconstruction, 1869–

1879 (Baton Rouge, LA, 1979), pp. 133, 294.7 Howells, p. 12; Polakoff, p. 37.8 Herbert Eaton, Presidential Timber: A History of Nominat-

ing Conventions, 1868–1960 (New York, 1964), pp. 55–59;Richard E. Welch, Jr., George Frisbie Hoar and the Half-BreedRepublicans (Cambridge, MA, 1971), p. 55.

9 Polakoff, pp. 67–68; David M. Jordan, Roscoe Conkling ofNew York: Voice in the Senate (Ithaca, NY, 1971), p. 241.

10 Howells, pp. 16–17, 20.

11 Irwin Silber, Songs America Voted By (Harrisburg, PA,1971), p. 115.

12 Mark Wahlgren Summers, The Era of Good Stealings(New York, 1993), p. 281; Polakoff, p. 123.

13 Gillette, pp. 304, 419.14 Ibid., p. 332; Otten, p. 218.15 For details of the compromise, see C. Vann Woodward,

Reunion and Reaction; The Compromise of 1877 and the End ofReconstruction (New York, 1991; reprint of 1951 edition); EricFoner, Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863–1877 (New York, 1988); and Polakoff. See also Chapter 21of this volume, ‘‘Thomas Andrews Hendricks,’’ p. 263.

16 Kenneth E. Davison, The Presidency of Rutherford B.Hayes (Westport, CT, 1972), pp. 84–85.

17 Otten, p. 171; T. Harry Williams, ed., Hayes: The Diaryof a President, 1875–1881 (New York, 1964), pp. 69, 129.

18 Howells, p. 26; Otten, pp. 176, 181, 292; U.S., Congress,Senate, The Senate, 1789–1989, by Robert C. Byrd, S. Doc.100–20, 100th Cong., 1st sess., vol. 4, Historical Statistics,1789–1992, 1993, p. 644.

19 Williams, ed., p. 302; Otten, pp. 209, 256, 263.20 Williams, ed., pp. 256–57.21 Jordan, pp. 407–8; Otten, pp. 277–79.

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Chapter 20

CHESTER ALAN ARTHUR1881

CHESTER A. ARTHUR

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Chapter 20

CHESTER ALAN ARTHUR20th Vice President: 1881

Such an honor and opportunity comes to very few of the millions of Americans, and to that manbut once. No man can refuse it, and I will not.

—CHESTER A. ARTHUR

Following the Civil War and Reconstruction,‘‘boss rule’’ and ‘‘machine politics’’ flourished inthe United States, and nowhere more intenselythan in New York, the most populated state inthe Union. The Tweed Ring ran the Democraticparty’s Tammany Hall apparatus in New York,and an equally powerful machine operated with-in the state’s Republican party. Throughout the1870s, that party’s ‘‘stalwart’’ faction, led by Sen-ator Roscoe Conkling, dominated New York pol-itics until it reached both its apex and nadir with-in the space of a few months in 1881. Althoughresponsible for some of the most tawdry politicsin American history, Conkling’s machine alsoproduced two vice presidents, Chester Alan Ar-thur and Levi P. Morton, one of whom—Ar-thur—became president of the United Statesunder tragic circumstances and turned againstthe machine and its spoilsmen.

A spellbinding orator with a commandingpresence, Senator Roscoe Conkling was the un-crowned leader of the Senate in an era before ma-jority and minority leaders were formally des-ignated. One woman newspaper correspondentdescribed him as the most alluring politician ofhis time and ‘‘the Apollo of the Senate.’’ NewYork’s other senator, Thomas C. Platt, similarlyconsidered Conkling one of the handsomest menhe had ever met.

He was over six feet tall, of slender build, andstood straight as an arrow. . . . A curl, describedas Hyperion, rolled over his forehead. An impe-

rial [air] added much to the beauty of his Apollo-like appearance. His noble figure, flashing eyeand majestic voice made one forget that he wassomewhat foppish in his dress.A physical fitnessfanatic, Conkling boxed to keep in shape for hispolitical battles, and a journalist noted thatConkling also ‘‘loved to use words as a prize-fighter loves to use his fists.’’ No one admiredConkling’s talents and abilities more than hehimself. A vain and haughty man with a monu-mental ego, he believed himself unfettered by therules that governed lesser mortals. These im-pulses led him to carry on a scandalous affairwith Kate Chase Sprague, the wife of his Senatecolleague William Sprague, and to challengeopenly two presidents—Rutherford B. Hayes andJames A. Garfield—for power and patronage.1

Conkling built his political machine on a richsource of patronage, the New York customhouse,headed by the collector of the port of New York.Before income taxes, the chief sources of federalrevenue were the duties charged on importedgoods. The busy port of New York served as thepoint of deposit for many imports, and its cus-tomhouse became the largest federal office in thegovernment, taking in more revenue and hand-ing out more jobs than any other. Since the daysof Andrew Jackson, the ‘‘spoils system’’ had pre-vailed in the hiring and retention of federal em-ployees. Each new administration cleaned house,regardless of the ability of individual civil serv-ants, making room for its own appointees. Aswas the case at the city and state level, these fed-

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eral jobs provided the glue that united politicalparty organizations. Yet increasingly in the post-Civil War era, federal offices like the New Yorkcustomhouse became symbols of waste, fraud,and incompetence that cost the government mil-lions of dollars.2

Political Lieutenant in the Conkling Machine

From 1871 to 1877, the head of the New Yorkcustomhouse was Roscoe Conkling’s close ally,Chester Alan Arthur. Born in North Fairfield,Vermont, on October 5, 1829, Arthur was the sonof a Baptist minister who held a succession ofpastorates throughout Vermont and upstateNew York. When his father finally settled at achurch in Schenectady, young Arthur was ableto attend Union College, from which he grad-uated Phi Beta Kappa in 1848. For a few yearshe taught school and was a principal. He thenstudied law and gained admission to the bar inNew York City in 1854. During the Civil War,he became a judge advocate general and later thequartermaster general of the New York militia.Although he never saw combat, these posts en-abled him to campaign as ‘‘General Arthur’’ inhis later political career.

Arthur married Virginia-born Ellen LewisHerndon in 1859 and established his family ina handsome brownstone on Lexington Avenuenear Gramercy Park. His law practice enabledhim to live in a conspicuously stylish fashion. Atfirst, Arthur was identified with the conservativewing of his party, led by former Governor Wil-liam H. Seward and Albany boss Thurlow Weed.But at the state convention in 1867, he enteredthe orbit of the rising political star RoscoeConkling. An upstate Republican, Conklingneeded alliances with New York City men andrecruited Arthur into his organization.Conkling’s biographer David Jordan assessedArthur as ‘‘a shrewd, imaginative, and meticu-lous political manager; he was a master orga-nizer, a necessity for Conkling’s new organiza-tion.’’ The popular ‘‘Chet’’ Arthur rose quicklywithin the ranks of the machine. In 1871, Presi-dent Ulysses S. Grant rewarded Conkling’s loy-alty to his administration by appointing Arthurto the highly lucrative post of collector of theport of New York.3

Numerous scandals within the administrationof President Ulysses S. Grant led Republicans toseek a less-tarnished candidate for the 1876 con-test. Chet Arthur supported Conkling’s bid forthe Republican presidential nomination, butwhen the nomination went instead to the reform-conscious governor of Ohio, Rutherford B.Hayes, Arthur threw the support of his office be-hind Hayes, raising funds and getting out votersto help Hayes carry New York and win the elec-tion. Rather than showing his gratitude, how-ever, President Hayes appointed a commissionto investigate the New York customhouse. Whenthe group’s report exposed inefficiency, graft,and a bloated payroll, Hayes issued an order for-bidding federal officeholders to take part in po-litical activities, so that the customhouse couldbe run under a merit system. Conkling’s lieuten-ants, Arthur as collector and Alonzo Cornell asnaval officer of the port—both members of theRepublican State Committee—should have re-signed under this order, but they refused. Hayesthen fired both men and nominated TheodoreRoosevelt, Sr. (father of the future president) andL. Bradford Prince to replace them. An outragedConkling persuaded the Senate to reject bothnominations.4

The Stalwarts and the Half-Breeds

As the election of 1880 approached, Hayeschose not to seek a second term. Rather than be-come a candidate himself, Conkling threw hissupport behind former president U.S. Grant.Conkling particularly wanted to block the nomi-nation of his longtime rival, Senator and formerHouse Speaker James G. Blaine of Maine. Backin 1866, when they were both members of theHouse, Blaine had delivered a sarcastic speechthat mocked Conkling’s ‘‘turkey-gobbler strut’’and ‘‘Hyperion curl.’’ Delighted political car-toonists had seized on these characteristics tomock Conkling. Although Blaine and Conklingserved together in the House and Senate for an-other fourteen years, they never spoke to one an-other again. Each dedicated himself to blockingthe other from becoming president.5

At the national convention in June, Conklingproposed a unit rule to force the entire New Yorkdelegation to support Grant, but William H. Rob-

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ertson, a Blaine supporter, led a minority of thedelegation to rebel against the stalwarts. Robert-son’s faction, known dismissively as ‘‘half-breeds,’’ joined with other independent dele-gates to defeat the unit rule. The result was anextended deadlock that was broken only whenthe Blaine forces swung their support to adarkhorse candidate, Ohio Representative JamesA. Garfield. Garfield’s supporters realized thatthey needed a New Yorker on the ticket, not onlyfor the state’s large potential harvest of electoralvotes but also to mollify Conkling. Garfield atfirst wanted Levi P. Morton, his friend from theHouse of Representatives, but Morton felt hecould not accept without Conkling’s approval.When Conkling made it clear that no friend ofhis should join the ticket, Morton declined. TheGarfield forces next turned to Chet Arthur, whoshowed no such reluctance. ‘‘Such an honor andopportunity comes to very few of the millions ofAmericans, and to that man but once,’’ Arthurtold Conkling. ‘‘No man can refuse it, and I willnot.’’ 6

The selection of Chet Arthur for vice presidentdid not pacify Conkling, whom Garfield knewwas a man ‘‘inspired more by his hates than hisloves.’’ In August 1880, Garfield went to NewYork to make peace with Conkling’s machine. Inthe Fifth Avenue Hotel rooms of Levi Morton,Garfield met with Arthur, Platt, and other ma-chine leaders—but not with Conkling, whostayed away. The Conkling men sought an un-derstanding about patronage in a Garfield ad-ministration. In return for assurances that hewould take their wishes into consideration forNew York appointments, they agreed to raisefunds for his campaign. According to Platt, Gar-field also disavowed any close relations withHayes’ civil service proposals. With these guar-antees, the Conkling machine threw its weightbehind Garfield, enabling him to win a very nar-row victory in November. It was said that, whileGarfield owed his nomination to Blaine, he owedhis election to Conkling.7

Party reformers were chagrined at the choiceof Chet Arthur, the recently deposed collector ofthe port of New York and a symbol of corruptmachine politics, as Garfield’s running mate.Most Republican newspapers held the vice-pres-

idential candidate in low esteem. One campaignbiography devoted 533 pages to Garfield andonly 21 pages—almost as an embarrassedaside—to Arthur. Enumerating his ‘‘good’’qualities, the campaign tract observed that hisface was ‘‘full, fat and fair,’’ that he did not talkwith ‘‘offensive accents,’’ that he dressed ‘‘in per-fect good taste,’’ and that he was ‘‘fairly cor-pulent as his pictures very well suggest.’’ 8 Ar-thur probably gained some public sympathy forhis wife’s death in 1880, which left him to raisea son and young daughter.

An Evenly Balanced Senate

Once elected, Vice President Arthur provedcrucial to his party’s fortunes in the Senate. Atthe beginning of the Forty-seventh Congress, theparty balance in the Senate was exactly equal, asituation in which the vice president’s vote mightbe needed to give the Republicans a majority toorganize the body and chair its committees.When the Senate met on March 4, 1881, therewere 37 Republicans, 37 Democrats, and 2 Inde-pendents. One of the Independents, former Su-preme Court Justice David Davis, announcedthat he planned to vote with the Democrats toorganize the chamber. If the other Independent,William Mahone of Virginia, could also be per-suaded to join them, the Democrats would takethe majority. Rumors spread that the WhiteHouse was plying Mahone with ‘‘champagneand satisfaction,’’ or promises of patronage, towin him for the Republicans. With a noisy mobwatching from the galleries, Vice President Ar-thur directed the clerk to call the roll. WhenMahone’s name was reached, the Virginia sen-ator, sitting on the Democratic side of the aisle,voted with the Republicans, giving Arthur thedeciding vote. For his vote, Mahone received abasket of flowers from the White House, thechairmanship of the Agriculture Committee, andcontrol of federal patronage in Virginia. Demo-crats, however, intended to fight the administra-tion at every turn, making every vote—especiallythe vice president’s—critical.9

At this juncture, a fissure disrupted Repub-lican ranks. Much to Roscoe Conkling’s chagrin,President Garfield had named James G. Blaine assecretary of state, and from that post Blaine plot-

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ted against his longtime rival. While a numberof offices went to Conkling men, they were ex-cluded from the cabinet seats they desired—es-pecially the secretary of the treasury, which hadjurisdiction over the collector of the Port of NewYork. On the day before their inauguration, Ar-thur had visited Garfield, along with SenatorsConkling and Platt, to plead for their candidatefor treasury secretary. As Garfield noted in hisdiary, Conkling seemed ‘‘full of apprehensionthat he had been or was to be cheated.’’ 10

‘‘A Square Blow at Conkling’’

Conkling had good reason for apprehension.On March 23, Vice President Arthur, while pre-siding over the Senate, received a list of presi-dential nominations. His eye fell on the name ofNew York state senator William H. Robertson forcollector of the port of New York, which, as onereporter described it, represented ‘‘a square blowat Conkling.’’ Arthur folded the document sothat Robertson’s name appeared uppermost andhad a page deliver it to Senator Conkling. Fromthe press gallery, reporters watched Conklingwalk rapidly to his colleague Platt and hold a‘‘whispered conference.’’ Conkling made itknown that he considered the nomination per-sonally offensive, and Vice President Arthurjoined with Senators Conkling and Platt in a let-ter asking the president to withdraw Robertson’sname. At the Republican caucus, Conkling deliv-ered a long, eloquent, and bitter attack on thepresident for his breach of senatorial courtesy.He persuaded Senate Republicans to postponethe customs collectors’ nominations and take upless controversial posts. President Garfield retali-ated by withdrawing the nominations of five ofConkling’s men. When it began to look as if Sen-ate Democrats would contribute enough votes toconfirm Robertson, Conkling and his colleagueTom Platt decided to resign from the Senate andreturn to New York, where they expected thestate legislature to reelect them as a sign of en-dorsement in their power struggle with thepresident.11

Vice President Arthur had no trouble decidingwhich side to take in this epic struggle betweenhis president and his party boss. After the Senateadjourned, Arthur also journeyed to Albany,

where he lobbied for Conkling’s reelection. J. L.Connery, the editor of the New York Herald,which the Conkling machine courted, recalledArthur telling him in confidence that Garfieldhad been neither honorable nor truthful. ‘‘It is ahard thing to say of a President of the UnitedStates, but it is, unfortunately, only the truth,’’said Arthur. ‘‘Garfield—spurred by Blaine, bywhom he is easily led—has broken every pledgemade to us; not only that, but he seems to havewished to do it in a most offensive way.’’ Gar-field’s supporters, however, never forgave Ar-thur for his betrayal of the president.12

A Presidential Assassination

The strategy of the Conkling forces unraveledwhen the New York legislature reacted nega-tively to the ‘‘childish’’ resignations of its twosenators. Led by state senate president pro tem-pore William Robertson (the customs collectornominee), the half-breeds called on legislators to‘‘stand by the administration,’’ and the legisla-ture entered a month-long deadlock over thesenatorial elections. On July 2, Platt withdrewfrom the race in a last-ditch attempt to improveConkling’s chances of reelection. That same day,on the brink of victory, President Garfieldwalked arm in arm with Secretary of State Blainethrough Washington’s Baltimore and Ohio rail-road station. A crazed assassin shot the presidentin the back and then identified himself withConkling’s stalwarts. After lingering throughoutthe summer, the mortally wounded Garfielddied on September 19. By then the New York leg-islature had rejected Conkling’s bid for reelec-tion. ‘‘How can I speak into a grave?’’ Conklingcomplained. ‘‘How can I battle with a shroud. Si-lence is a duty and a doom.’’ 13

Garfield’s death elevated to the presidency aman who had shared an apartment in Washing-ton with Conkling and who had sided withConkling against Garfield. Political observersnaturally assumed that Conkling would domi-nate Chet Arthur’s administration. Newspapercorrespondent Theron Crawford later noted thatConkling ‘‘had been in the habit of patronizingMr. Arthur, and had given him political ordersfor so many years that he could not imagine thispleasure-loving, easy-going man capable of re-

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bellion.’’ Arthur was in New York when Garfielddied, and it was Roscoe Conkling who carriedthe new president’s bag to the station when heleft for Washington.

Less than a month later, Conkling arrived inWashington and held a private meeting with Ar-thur. Reporters speculated that the two had cho-sen a new cabinet, yet no announcement wasmade to the press. Neither man would publiclyacknowledge what had transpired, but their as-sociates described a stormy session. Conklingpresented his patronage demands: he wantedWilliam Robertson dismissed as collector and hehimself was willing to accept a cabinet portfolio.But Conkling underestimated how deeply the as-sassination had shocked and sobered Chester Ar-thur. Senator Platt described Arthur as ‘‘over-come with grief,’’ particularly after newspapersquoted the assassin saying ‘‘I am a Stalwart, andI want Arthur for President.’’ Feeling the weightof his new office and calculating that publicopinion would never tolerate Robertson’s re-moval, the president rejected Conkling’s advice.A New York Republican leader told a friend inthe press that President Arthur felt very bitterover the demands Conkling had made on him.‘‘You can put it down for a fact that ‘Conk’ want-ed ‘Chet’ to remove Robertson and appoint oneof our fellows collector.’’ When Arthur refused,Conkling stormed out, swearing that all of hisfriends had turned traitor to him.14

Conkling’s mistress, Kate Chase Sprague, triedto intercede with the president, reminding himof ‘‘the vital importance of placing a robust, cou-rageous, clear-headed man at the head of theTreasury,’’ and arguing that Conkling would bea ‘‘tower of strength’’ in the cabinet. But Arthuroffered neither a cabinet appointment nor the re-moval of Robertson as collector. Instead,Conkling went into permanent political exile. Al-though Arthur later named Conkling to the Su-preme Court, his former leader declined. At thesame time, Arthur accepted Blaine’s resignationas secretary of state, feeling that by doing so hehad neutralized the heads of both warring fac-tions and could steer a course between them.Senator Chauncey Depew later judged that,while Arthur tried to govern fairly, ‘‘he was not

big enough, nor strong enough, to contend withthe powerful men who were antagonized.’’ 15

Support for Civil Service Reform

Since the martyred President Garfield was re-garded as a ‘‘victim of that accursed greed forspoils of office,’’ his death rallied public supportbehind civil service reform legislation. In Ar-thur’s first annual message to Congress in De-cember 1881, he pledged his willingness to en-force any reform legislation that Congress mightenact modeled on the British civil service system.Democratic Senator George H. Pendleton of Ohiosponsored a measure that became known as thePendleton Act, which President Arthur signed inJanuary 1883. The Pendleton Act established a bi-partisan Civil Service Commission to set rules bywhich federal jobs would be filled. The actplaced about 14,000 jobs, about one-tenth of thetotal federal employment at the time, under civilservice. Although by no means a complete rever-sal of the spoils system, it took a large step inthat direction. As the journalist Henry Stoddardmused, it was a strange turn of events that aspoilsman like Chester Arthur should sign thefirst effective civil service law and also be thefirst president to veto a river and harbor appro-priations bill as excessive ‘‘—the bill that hadcome to be known as the ‘pork barrel’ bill intowhich both parties dug deep.’’ 16

The initial reaction to Vice President Arthur’selevation to the presidency had been one of uni-versal dismay: ‘‘Chet Arthur in the WhiteHouse!’’ But, as chief executive, Chester Alan Ar-thur replaced Chet Arthur. The new presidentacted in a dignified manner, made strong ap-pointments, and won approval for the ‘‘elevatedtone’’ of his administration. He redecorated theWhite House and entertained regally. He becamefamous for his fourteen-course dinners that oftenkept his guests at the table until after midnight,consuming fine wines and rich foods. Overeatingand underexercising did not help Arthur’shealth, and during his presidency he sufferedfrom kidney disease that slowly sapped hisstrength. In 1884, he made himself available forrenomination. ‘‘Arthur has given us a good ad-ministration, but it has been negatively ratherthan positively good,’’ wrote one dubious jour-

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nalist. ‘‘He has done well, in other words, by notdoing anything bad. This kind of goodness doesnot count for much in presidential cam-paigns.’’ 17

Arthur’s attempt to steer a course between thestalwarts and half-breeds succeeded only inalienating both sides. At the Republican conven-tion, the remnants of the stalwart wing (led byTom Platt) supported James G. Blaine, on thegrounds that Arthur had deserted them. Whenthey tried to persuade Conkling, now a highlysuccessful New York attorney, to emerge fromhis political retirement and endorse Blaine’spresidential candidacy, Conkling acidly replied,

‘‘No thank you, I don’t engage in criminal prac-tice.’’ Blaine lost New York by a whisker—andwith it the election. Grover Cleveland, who hadowed his election as governor of New York tothe split between the stalwarts and the half-breeds, now became the first Democratic presi-dent since the Civil War. Chester Arthur re-turned to his New York law office. Rapidly de-clining in health, he died on November 17, 1886,less than two years after leaving the WhiteHouse. He had been chosen as vice presidentwithout much expectation but, when thrust intothe presidency, he rose to the occasion and con-ducted the office with style.18

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NOTES1 David J. Rothman, Politics and Power: The United States

Senate, 1869–1901 (Cambridge, MA, 1966), pp. 27–30; Don-ald A. Ritchie, Press Gallery: Congress and the Washington Cor-respondents (Cambridge, MA, 1991), p. 156; Louis J. Lang,ed., The Autobiography of Thomas Collier Platt (New York,1910), p. 55; Henry L. Stoddard, As I Knew Them: Presidentsand Politics from Grant to Coolidge (New York, 1927), p. 115.

2 Ari Hoogenboom, Outlawing the Spoils: A History of theCivil Service Reform Movement, 1865–1883 (Urbana, IL, 1961),pp. 1–32.

3 David M. Jordan, Roscoe Conkling of New York: Voice inthe Senate (Ithaca, NY, 1971), pp. 146–48.

4 Ibid., pp. 155–78; Chester L. Barrows, William M. Evarts:Lawyer, Diplomat, Statesman (Chapel Hill, NC, 1941), p. 326.

5 Ritchie, pp. 136–37.6 Jordan, p. 341; Stoddard, pp. 118–19; Chauncey M.

Depew, My Memories of Eighty Years (New York, 1924), pp.122–23.

7 Justus D. Doenecke, The Presidencies of James A. Garfield& Chester A. Arthur (Lawrence, KS, 1981), pp. 26–27; Jordan,p. 439; Lang, ed., pp. 128–32; Alfred R. Conkling, The Lifeand Letters of Roscoe Conkling, Orator, Statesman, Advocate(New York, 1889), p. 614. See also Chapter 22 of this volume,‘‘Levi P. Morton,’’ p. 271.

8 James S. Brisbin, From The Tow-Path to the White House:The Early Life and Public Career of James A. Garfield (Philadel-phia, 1880), pp. 546–47.

9 ‘‘The Great Senate Deadlock: 1881,’’ Senate History 9(July 1984): 1, 9–10.

10 Harry James Brown and Frederic D. Williams, eds., TheDiary of James A. Garfield (East Lansing, MI, 1981), 4:552.

11 Ben: Perley Poore, Perley’s Reminiscences of Sixty Yearsin the National Metropolis (Philadelphia, 1886), pp. 400–402;Conkling, p. 640; Doenecke, p. 45.

12 Theodore Clarke Smith, The Life and Letters of JamesAbram Garfield (New Haven, CT, 1925), 2:1128–29; T.B.Connery, ‘‘Secret History of the Garfield-Conkling Trag-edy,’’ Cosmopolitan 23 (June 1897): 145–62.

13 Jordan, pp. 379–409; Henry L. Stoddard, p. 114.14 Theron C. Crawford, James G. Blaine: A Study of His Life

and Career, from the Standpoint of a Personal Witness of thePrincipal Events in his History (Philadelphia, 1893), p. 525;Thomas C. Reeves, Gentleman Boss: The Life of Chester A. Ar-thur (New York, 1975), p. 256; William C. Hudson, RandomRecollections of an Old Political Reporter (New York, 1911), p.127; Lang, ed., pp. 162–63.

15 Katherine Chase Sprague to Chester A. Arthur, October21, 1881, Chester A. Arthur Papers, Library of Congress;Crawford, pp. 508, 546; Depew, p. 118.

16 Hoogenboom, pp. 213–53; Stoddard, p. 122.17 Poore, p. 431; Stoddard, pp. 117, 285; Francis Carpenter,

ed., Carp’s Washington (New York, 1960), p. 30; Doenecke,pp. 76–77, 80, 183–84.

18 Lang, ed., p. 181; Ritchie, p. 137.

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Chapter 21

THOMAS ANDREWSHENDRICKS

1885

THOMAS A. HENDRICKS

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Chapter 21

THOMAS ANDREWSHENDRICKS

21st Vice President: 1885

There were no neutral tints in his own political colors.—SENATOR DANIEL VOORHEES

American political parties have traditionallybeen coalitions of contradictory and contentiousforces. The electoral college is largely responsiblefor the loose-knit nature of these political parties.Victory requires a majority of electors fromthroughout the nation, a feat nearly impossiblefor any party rooted in a single region or clus-tered about one ideology or interest group. Tobuild such national coalitions, politicians mustreach out to those with whom they may disagree.The Democratic party emerged from Thomas Jef-ferson’s defense of the yeoman farmer againstAlexander Hamilton’s efforts to use the govern-ment to promote American industry and finance.Yet to build a national party, Jefferson neededto embrace New York’s Tammany Hall, whichrepresented urban interests. Nearly a centurylater, Indiana’s Thomas A. Hendricks confrontedthat same split. He was a ‘‘soft-money’’ agrarianreformer, who ran twice for vice president onDemocratic tickets headed by two different‘‘hard-money’’ New York governors.

Early Years

A son of the Mississippi Valley, Thomas A.Hendricks was born on a farm near Zanesville,Ohio, on September 7, 1819, to John and JaneThomson Hendricks. When just six months old,he moved with his parents to Indiana, where hisfather’s older brother, William, was a U.S. rep-

resentative and a soon-to-be governor of thatnew state. Hendricks was raised as a staunchPresbyterian and a Jacksonian Democrat, the twopillars of his thinking throughout his life. He at-tended the Presbyterian-run Hanover College inIndiana, where he proved an average student buta skillful debater. After graduating, he went eastto Pennsylvania to study at a law school run byone of his uncles. In 1843 he was admitted to thebar and practiced in Shelbyville, Indiana. Thatsame year, he met Eliza Morgan, a vivaciousteenager from Ohio who was visiting in Indiana.After two years of correspondence, he felt finan-cially secure enough to propose, and they weremarried in 1845. Their only child died at agethree. In later years, an old neighbor said that hedoubted whether Hendricks could haveachieved his political success without Eliza. ‘‘Sheis generous, wise and discreet. The man born toget on in the world always marries that kind ofwoman, it appears.’’ 1

Slavery and Politics

Always ambitious, Hendricks plunged intopolitics. He was elected to the Indiana house ofrepresentatives in 1848, served as a delegate tothe state constitutional convention in 1849, andwon a seat in the U.S. House of Representativesin 1850. A popular member of the House, he be-came a follower of Illinois Democratic Senator

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Stephen A. Douglas and supported Douglas’controversial Kansas-Nebraska Act. That statuterepealed the Missouri Compromise and per-mitted residents of the territories to determinewhether or not to permit slavery, a conceptknown as ‘‘popular sovereignty.’’ Public outragein the North caused the dissolution of the oldWhig party and a period of political instabilitythat eventually resulted in the emergence of thenew Republican party. Hendricks believed hisvote for the Kansas-Nebraska Act reflected thesentiments of his constituents, although it waslater cited as the cause of his defeat for reelectionin 1854. He was opposed by a former Democratrepresenting a coalition of Free Soilers, abolition-ists, temperance advocates, Know-Nothings, andWhigs. Hendricks denounced the nativism of theKnow-Nothing movement and defended therights of immigrants and religious minorities.Despite these admirable stands for minorityrights, he had a blind eye on racial issues. As adelegate to the Indiana constitutional conventionin 1849, he had led the move to enact ‘‘BlackLaws’’ that promoted segregation and restrictedthe migration of free blacks into the state.2

After losing his seat in Congress, Hendricks in1855 accepted an appointment from PresidentFranklin Pierce to become commissioner of theGeneral Land Office in the Interior Department,a post he held through 1859. As a Douglas Dem-ocrat, he felt increasingly out of step with theanti-Douglas administration of James Buchananand resigned his office to return to Indiana,where in 1860 he ran unsuccessfully for gov-ernor. He then moved to Indianapolis to practicelaw.3

A Pro-Union Democrat

When the Civil War erupted in 1861, theDemocratic party in Indiana divided betweenpeace and pro-Union factions. Jesse D. Bright,the president pro tempore of the U.S. Senate, ledthe party’s peace wing, while Hendricks becamea leading ‘‘War Democrat.’’ Bright, an imperiousman who had tolerated no opposition in histwenty-year domination of the state Democraticparty, was expelled from the Senate in February1862, when it was discovered that he had writtena letter addressed to Jefferson Davis as ‘‘Presi-

dent of the Confederate States,’’ recommendingthat the Confederacy purchase rifles from an In-diana manufacturer. Bright expected that the In-diana legislature would reelect him, but insteadJudge David Turpie was chosen to fill the fewmonths remaining in his term. The legislatureelected Thomas Hendricks to take the seat dur-ing the next full term. Bright thereafter blamedHendricks for his defeat.4

When peace Democrats in the state legislatureattempted to pass antiwar resolutions, pro-Union members bolted. Hendricks recognizedthat the peace movement would discredit theparty, and he was sufficiently familiar with thelegislature to be certain that there were enoughpro-Union Democrats to defeat the resolutions.Accepting both his reasoning and his headcounting, the bolters resumed their seats and de-feated the peace resolutions.5

Hendricks took his oath as a U.S. senator in1863, becoming one of only ten Democrats facingthirty-three Republicans. He soon assumed therole of his party’s recognized leader in the Sen-ate. Hendricks was a thorough partisan. ‘‘Therewere no neutral tints in his own political colors,’’future Indiana Democratic Senator Daniel Voor-hees later commented. But even Republican sen-ators acknowledged that his speeches were wellprepared and that his arguments were plau-sible—if one accepted all of his premises. Assess-ing Hendricks’ Senate career, the journalist A.K.McClure later said, ‘‘He was a Democratic Sen-ator in the most trying times of the war, whenmany less faithful or less discreet men madehopeless shipwreck of their political future, butthe record of Mr. Hendricks has stood the sever-est test and is conspicuous for its freedom fromthe partisan blunders which then and since haveranked as crimes.’’ 6

President Abraham Lincoln cultivated the sup-port of War Democrats like Hendricks. As Con-gress prepared to adjourn in March 1865, Hen-dricks paid a last visit to the president, who toldhim, ‘‘We have differed in politics, Senator Hen-dricks, but you have uniformly treated my ad-ministration with fairness.’’ During the period ofcongressional Reconstruction of the South thatfollowed the war, Hendricks never missed an op-portunity to remind Republican senators that

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President Lincoln had opposed such radical Re-construction measures as the Wade-Davis billand had wanted a speedy return of the southernstates to the Union. Hendricks consistently op-posed repealing the fugitive slave laws untilslavery was constitutionally abolished, and hetried to prevent African Americans from gainingthe right to vote. ‘‘I say we are not of the samerace,’’ Hendricks declared; ‘‘we are so differentthat we ought not to compose one politicalcommunity.’’ 7

Hendricks emerged as one of the few promi-nent Democrats not to be stigmatized as a Cop-perhead (or southern sympathizer) during thewar. As a result, his name arose for the 1868Democratic presidential nomination. He lost thenomination to New York Governor Horatio Sey-mour but went back to Indiana, where he wasnominated to run for governor. In the fall, bothSeymour and Hendricks were defeated. Hen-dricks returned to his law practice and bided histime for a revival of Democratic fortunes. Look-ing toward the 1872 presidential election, formerIowa Senator A.C. Dodge recommended Hen-dricks as a ‘‘worthy, able and excellent man.’’ Hebelieved that there was strong support through-out the Midwest for the Indianan, although hedoubted that Hendricks would run well in theEast. The Democrats instead nominated the ec-centric newspaper editor Horace Greeley forpresident on a fusion ticket with liberal Repub-licans who opposed the corruption of the UlyssesGrant administration. That same year, IndianaDemocrats nominated Hendricks to run againfor governor and, while Greeley went down toa crashing defeat, Hendricks won the Indianastate house.8

Tilden-Hendricks

His victory in that important swing state madeHendricks a frontrunner for the Democratic pres-idential nomination in 1876. However, after thepanic of 1873 and the widespread economic crisisthat followed, Hendricks became publicly identi-fied with agrarian reform and ‘‘soft money.’’Currency reformers believed that postwar con-tractions of the currency had caused the eco-nomic depression and that inflation of the cur-rency through issuance of greenbacks or in-

creased minting of silver currency would lowerfarmers’ costs of repaying their debts. Such argu-ments struck fear into eastern financial circles,whose members supported sound currencybased on gold and believed that any debasing ofthe currency would rob creditors of just returnson their investments. The hard-money elementwithin the Democratic party rallied behind thenomination of Samuel J. Tilden, known in somecircles as the ‘‘Great Forecloser.’’ To balanceTilden, the party nominated the soft-money Hen-dricks for vice president.

The Republican candidate, Ohio governorRutherford B. Hayes, carried every midwesternstate except Hendricks’ Indiana. On electionnight, it appeared that the Tilden-Hendricks tick-et had won both the popular and the electoralvote, but the outcome in three southern statesstill controlled by Reconstruction governmentsremained in dispute. Both Republicans andDemocrats claimed these electoral votes. TheDemocrats needed just one more state to win, theRepublicans needed all of the disputed votes.When a deadlock developed between the Repub-lican Senate and the Democratic House overcounting the electoral votes, both sides reluc-tantly agreed to set up a special electoral com-mission. Republicans gained an 8-to-7 majorityon the commission, and by that straight partyvote the commission assigned all of the disputedelectoral votes to Hayes, who was sworn in aspresident. To prevent a new civil war, Tilden andHendricks accepted the outcome, but thereafterDemocrats charged that the election had beenstolen from them.9

Hobbled by Illness

After the electoral disappointment, Hendricksand his wife consoled themselves with a longjourney through Europe. He returned to his lawpractice and continued to speak out on the issuesof the day. Hoosiers were ‘‘a speech-loving peo-ple,’’ as one of Hendricks’ biographers noted,and large crowds always showed up for his ora-tions. In 1880, Indiana once again boosted Hen-dricks for president, but while he was vacation-ing at Hot Springs, Arkansas, Hendricks suffereda stroke. Two years later, he developed a lame-ness in one foot—a result, claimed the journalist

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Ben: Perley Poore, of Hendricks’ frequent publicspeaking engagements:

While speaking he was in the habit of bendingforward on the tip of his right foot, resting theentire weight upon it. From the pressure of hisright shoe a swelling arose on one of his toes.. . . In twenty-four hours erysipelas [an acute skininflammation] developed, and it was only afteran illness of six months that he recovered. Buthe always afterwards was somewhat lame, espe-cially when he was fatigued.10

As the 1884 election approached, SamuelTilden, who had also suffered a paralytic stroke,mentioned to a newspaper reporter that his oldrunning mate Thomas Hendricks wanted a re-prise of the 1876 ticket of Tilden and Hendricks,‘‘and I do not wonder, considering myweakness!’’ Tilden announced his withdrawalfrom the race, which left the Democratic nomina-tion wide open. No one doubted that Hendrickswas available for the nomination in 1884, but hisconstant availability in every presidential elec-tion since 1868 had devalued his candidacy. Theparty looked for a new face to unite them andlead them to victory after so many years in theminority. Hendricks was dismissed as a man of‘‘inordinate ambition.’’ 11

Cleveland-Hendricks

Hendricks attended the Democratic NationalConvention in 1884 not as a candidate but ratheras a delegate who would nominate former Indi-ana Senator Joseph E. McDonald. His appear-ance at the convention drew much enthusiasticapplause, since he represented the ‘‘old ticket’’of 1876 that had been robbed of victory. As theconvention moved toward nominating the re-form governor of New York, Grover Cleveland,Cleveland’s opponents—especially New YorkCity’s Tammany Hall—concluded that Hen-dricks was the only man around whom the op-position could be united. They planned a strat-egy to stampede the convention to Hendricks thenext day. Just as Indiana swung its vote to him,Hendricks entered the convention hall througha door facing the delegates. The band struck upa tune as Tammany Hall boss John Kelly and hishenchmen leaped from their seats and beganshouting for Hendricks. As the delegates pa-

raded, Hendricks sat calmly. ‘‘To those nearhim,’’ Indiana Senator Daniel Voorhees asserted,‘‘he simply appeared to enjoy in a quiet silentway the popular approval of his long and faith-ful services.’’ 12

These tactics might have worked, except thatCleveland’s managers got wind of the conspiracyand sent messages to all the delegates warningthem not to get caught up in any spurious dem-onstrations. Cleveland’s supporters argued thatNew York was essential for a Democratic victoryand that Cleveland, a hard-money reform gov-ernor, could attract liberal Republican voters, agroup known as the mugwumps. These argu-ments prevailed, and the Hendricks boom fiz-zled when Illinois increased its vote for Cleve-land, followed by enough other states to giveCleveland the nomination at the end of the sec-ond ballot. Hendricks was rewarded with thevice-presidential nomination, once again to bal-ance a hard-money presidential candidate and tooffer the promise of carrying the swing state ofIndiana.13

The prospect of victory invigorated Hendricks,and he campaigned valiantly, proving ‘‘a towerof strength for the ticket’’ in what has often beendescribed as the ‘‘dirtiest’’ campaign in Amer-ican political history. He attacked the incumbentRepublican administration, helped stop a partybolt by Tammany Hall, drew large crowds to hisspeeches, and dramatically survived a late-nighttrain wreck while campaigning in Illinois. Hen-dricks won praise as an ‘‘urbane leader.’’ Hestood five feet nine inches tall and was describedas ‘‘well proportioned and stoutly built, thoughnot corpulent.’’ His once light hair had turnedsilver, and he wore ‘‘the least of side whiskers,which are light gray, and his complexion is fair.’’As a speaker he was clear and forceful, while inconversation he was ‘‘easy, courteous, cautious,and deferential.14

Vice President of the Spoilsmen

In 1884, Democrats won their first presidentialelection since 1856, and Thomas Hendricks re-turned as presiding officer to the Senate wherehe had once served in a pitifully small minority.From the start, however, Hendricks found him-self at odds with President Cleveland, a scru-

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pulously honest man with good intentions butlimited vision. Unlike Hendricks, who had longcalled for more government intervention in theeconomy to promote agrarian reform, Clevelandadvocated laissez-faire economics and was a So-cial Darwinist who thought the slightest hint ofgovernment paternalism would undermine thenational character.15

Mugwump reformers waited to see if Cleve-land would expand the Civil Service System re-cently established by the Pendleton Act, butDemocrats, long out of power, demanded pa-tronage. Vice President Hendricks and manyDemocratic senators, furious when Cleveland ig-nored the patronage requests of their state partyorganizations, considered the president’s con-duct ‘‘treacherous.’’ Cleveland dismissed thesecomplaints as the howls of old Jacksonianspoilsmen and wild-eyed currency reformers,among whom he counted his vice president. Butby midsummer 1885, Cleveland buckled at thethreat of revolt within his party. He replaced hiscivil-service-reform-minded assistant postmastergeneral with former Illinois Congressman AdlaiStevenson, ‘‘who understood practical politics.’’Given free rein, Stevenson replaced Republicanpostmasters with deserving Democrats at a fastclip, until more than 40,000 federal jobs changedhands.16

The Indiana Democratic organization was par-ticularly outspoken about its dissatisfaction withCleveland’s skimpy patronage, and Vice Presi-dent Hendricks became known as ‘‘Vice Presi-dent of the spoilsmen.’’ The label ‘‘spoilsman’’distressed Hendricks. As one senator who knewhim explained, Hendricks felt the charge camefrom those who ‘‘had been wont to linger in theshade and slumber while he and the ‘boys,’ ashe loved sometimes to call the party workers,had borne the heat and dust and burden of thebattle.’’ 17

In September, Hendricks left Washington to at-tend the thirty-fifth anniversary reunion of thesurviving members of the constitutional conven-tion of Indiana and to rest in anticipation of thecoming session of Congress in December. While

at home in Indianapolis, he died in his sleep onNovember 25, 1885.

Death of the Vice President

Hendricks’ death eliminated the leader of thepossible rival camp to Cleveland’s presidency,but also for the second time in a decade deprivedthe nation of a vice president for more than threeyears, raising concerns about the problem ofpresidential succession. If Cleveland should die,who would become president? The PresidentialSuccession Act of 1792 provided that the Senate’spresident pro tempore and the Speaker of theHouse, in that order, should succeed. There wasconcern that one of these offices might soon befilled with members of the opposition ratherthan members of Cleveland’s party, since bothposts were vacant at the time of Hendricks’ sud-den death and, while Democrats controlled theHouse, Republicans controlled the Senate. Onthe recommendation of Massachusetts Repub-lican Senator George F. Hoar, Congress in 1886adopted a law that eliminated congressional offi-cers from the line of succession in favor of cabi-net officers, in order of their rank. This systemprevailed until 1947, when the death of a presi-dent had again left the vice-presidency open foralmost an entire term, stimulating another re-evaluation and a different solution to theproblem.18

When President Cleveland ran for reelection in1888, Democrats had to choose a replacement forThomas Hendricks. The honor went to formerOhio Senator Allen G. Thurman. This time,Cleveland faced a Hoosier Republican, SenatorBenjamin Harrison. Without Hendricks on theticket, the Democrats failed to carry Indiana. Al-though Cleveland won a plurality of the popularvote, he lost the electoral college and with it thepresidency.

Hendricks’ death, as the veteran journalist Ben:Perley Poore judged, ‘‘removed an officialaround whom the disaffected Democrats couldhave crystallized into a formidable opposition,’’for Hendricks had not been disposed to acceptbeing what Hannibal Hamlin had described asthe fifth wheel on a coach.19

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NOTES1 W.U. Hensel, ‘‘A Biographical Sketch of Thomas A.

Hendricks,’’ in William Dorsheimer, Life and Public Servicesof Hon. Grover Cleveland (New York, 1884), pp. 184–95; JohnW. Holcombe and Hubert M. Skinner, Life and Public Servicesof Thomas A. Hendricks with Selected Speeches and Writings (In-dianapolis, 1886), p. 93.

2 Hensel, pp. 210–12; Holcombe and Skinner, pp. 117–18;Ralph D. Gray, ‘‘Thomas A. Hendricks: Spokesman for theDemocracy,’’ in Gentlemen from Indiana: National Party Can-didates, 1836–1940, ed. Ralph D. Gray (Indianapolis, 1977),p. 126.

3 Gray, p. 128.4 Holcombe and Skinner, pp. 195, 245.5 Christopher Dell, Lincoln and the War Democrats: The

Grand Erosion of Conservative Tradition (Rutherford, NJ,1975), p. 201.

6 U.S., Congress, Memorial Addresses on the Life and Char-acter of Thomas A. Hendricks (Washington: GovernmentPrinting Office, 1886), pp. 26, 38–39; Hensel, p. 225.

7 Holcombe and Skinner, p. 267; Hensel, p. 226; EricFoner, Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863–1877 (New York, 1988), pp. 278–79.

8 Horace Samuel Merrill, Bourbon Democracy of the MiddleWest, 1865–1896 (Seattle, 1967; reprint of 1953 edition), p.71.

9 The best account of the disputed election is Keith IanPolakoff, The Politics of Inertia: The Election of 1876 and theEnd of Reconstruction (Baton Rouge, LA, 1976). See alsoChapter 19 of this volume, ‘‘William Almon Wheeler,’’ p.246.

10 Hensel, pp. 279, 284; Ben: Perley Poore, Perley’sReminiscences of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis (Phila-delphia, 1887), 2:503–4.

11 Herbert Eaton, Presidential Timber: A History of Nominat-ing Conventions, 1868–1960 (New York, 1964), pp. 102–7;Allan Nevins, Grover Cleveland, A Study in Courage (NewYork, 1932), pp. 146–47; Memorial Addresses, p. 25.

12 Nevins, p. 154; Memorial Addresses, p. 29.13 Eaton, p. 111; Nevins, p. 154; Poore, p. 284; Richard E.

Welch, Jr., The Presidencies of Grover Cleveland (Lawrence,KS, 1988), pp. 28–29.

14 Nevins, p. 177; Hensel, p. 255; Holcombe and Skinner,pp. 7, 363–64.

15 Vincent P. De Santis, ‘‘Grover Cleveland: Revitalizationof the Presidency,’’ in Six Presidents from the Empire State,ed. Harry J. Sievers (Tarrytown, NY, 1974), pp. 90–91.

16 John A. Garraty, The New Commonwealth, 1877–1890(New York, 1968), pp. 288–90; Horace Samuel Merrill, Bour-bon Leader: Grover Cleveland and the Democratic Party (Boston,1957), p. 99. See also Chapter 23 of this volume, ‘‘AdlaiEwing Stevenson,’’ pp. 280–81.

17 Nevins, pp. 237, 247; Memorial Addresses, p. 63.18 Chester L. Barrows, William M. Evarts: Lawyer, Dip-

lomat, Statesman (Chapel Hill, NC, 1941), p. 446; Richard E.Welch, Jr., George Frisbie Hoar and the Half-Breed Republicans(Cambridge, MA, 1971), p. 137; John D. Feerick, From FailingHands: The Story of Presidential Succession (New York, 1965),pp. 140–46.

19 Poore, 2:503–4.

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Chapter 22

LEVI PARSONS MORTON1889–1893

LEVI P. MORTON

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Chapter 22

LEVI PARSONS MORTON22nd Vice President: 1889–1893

Business experience had taught him conservatism. He never was influenced by crazy theorists.—SENATOR THOMAS C. PLATT

Like a hero from the pages of a Horatio Algernovel, Levi P. Morton worked his way up bypluck and luck to fame and fortune. From a boytoiling in a country store, he rose to become oneof the nation’s wealthiest and most influentialbankers and vice president of the United States.Morton might have become president as well,had his political acumen matched his financialability.

Youth

Born on May 16, 1824, in the little village ofShoreham, Vermont, Levi Parsons Morton wasnamed for his uncle, the first American mission-ary to Palestine. He was the son of a Congrega-tional preacher, who moved his family fromchurch to church in New England, never accru-ing much wealth. Although young Morton want-ed to attend college, his father was too poor tosend him. An older brother advised him not toworry about further schooling since ‘‘a self-taught man is worth two of your college boys.’’Instead, Morton took a job in a country store.After getting his fill of heavy manual labor, hesought respite as a teacher in a country school.Then he took another clerkship in the generalstore of W.W. Estabrook, in Concord, NewHampshire, where he learned the bookkeeper’sart of calculating profit and loss.1

Estabrook dispatched Morton to run his storein Hanover, New Hampshire. There the youngMorton lived with the family of a DartmouthCollege professor and met Lucy Young Kimball,

whom he would eventually marry thirteen yearslater. But first he had a fortune to earn. Mortonlater recalled that he was happiest ‘‘when I waslearning how to accomplish things; when I wasbuilding up my business.’’ When his employerwent bankrupt, the chief creditor, James M.Beebe, came to New Hampshire to inspect thesituation and was impressed enough withMorton’s industriousness to invite him to joinJames M. Beebe & Co. in Boston—‘‘the businessMecca for every Yankee boy.’’ Beebe & Co., Bos-ton’s largest importing firm, soon took JuniusSpencer Morgan as a partner, thus introducingLevi Morton to Morgan’s son, J.P. Morgan, whowould one day become his principal rival as abanker. In 1854, Beebe sent Morton to New YorkCity to take charge of the company’s operationsthere. A year later, Morton formed his own drygoods company in New York. Finally wealthyand secure enough to settle down, he marriedLucy Kimball in 1856. The new Mrs. Morton dis-liked his Old Testament name of Levi and begancalling her husband ‘‘L.P,’’ as he became knownamong family and friends thereafter.2

Banking and Politics

Morton’s chief business was importing cottonfrom the South for New England’s textile indus-try and exporting manufactured goods from theNorth to the agricultural South. When the CivilWar broke out in the spring of 1861, his loss ofsouthern clients forced him to suspend business.For the next decade, Morton worked to pay back

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his own creditors, dollar for dollar. Although thewar soon stimulated the northern economy andrebuilt Morton’s financial base, he saw a saferand more profitable future in banking. In 1863,he founded a Wall Street banking house, laternamed Morton, Bliss & Co., with a London firmcalled Morton, Rose. By the end of the war,Morton’s bank could challenge the powerful JayCooke & Co. for the right to handle governmenttransactions. In 1873 Cooke’s bank failed, leavingMorton as one of the preeminent bankers in thenation.3

Morton’s gracious manners and generous cam-paign contributions made him many friends inWashington, among them President Ulysses S.Grant and Grant’s strongest supporter in Con-gress, Senator Roscoe Conkling of New York.Morton and his British partner, Sir John Rose, ex-panded their financial and political fortunes byfacilitating U.S. negotiations with Great Britainto settle the ‘‘Alabama Claims.’’ During the war,Britain had violated its neutrality by allowing theconstruction of Confederate shipping on its soil.Senator Charles Sumner, chairman of the ForeignRelations Committee, pressed the administrationto demand large-scale compensation from Brit-ain, including the annexation of Canada, even ifthose claims led the two nations to war. Mortonand Rose persuaded the British and Americansto accept international arbitration of their warclaims; the U.S. to reduce its demands; and theBritish to pay $15 million in damages, for whichthe house of Morton, Rose acted as disbursingoffice. When advised that the government’s posi-tion would be strengthened by using Morton,Rose as its agent, President Grant questionedwhether Morton’s firm was strong because of thegovernment’s patronage rather than the otherway around.4

After his wife Lucy died in 1871, L.P. Mortonmarried Anna Livingston Reade Street in 1873.Anna’s connections as a member of New York’sold Knickerbocker society helped propel Mortoninto New York’s political scene. From all ac-counts, Anna Morton combined great charm,wisdom and prudence, making her admirablysuited to be the wife of a political man. In 1876,Morton became financial chairman of the Repub-lican National Committee. Aware that success in

this position might reward him with an attractivediplomatic post, he was also considering a racefor Congress. Morton asked his friend WhitelawReid, editor of the New-York Tribune, ‘‘If elected,and I wanted a foreign mission, could I well re-sign and accept that, or if defeated, what then?’’adding ‘‘I have never made a speech in my life.’’Reid encouraged him not to worry about speech-making but advised that a resignation from anewly won office would create some bitterness.When Morton declared his candidacy for aHouse seat from New York’s Eleventh District,a fashionable residential area around upper FifthAvenue, he ran on a platform of sound currencybased on the gold standard. That plank wouldremain consistent through his next quarter cen-tury in politics. His opponents pictured him asa plutocrat and ‘‘a tool of Wall Street,’’ chargesthat would similarly follow him in every elec-tion. Morton lost by a narrow margin but wonwhen he ran again for the seat in 1878.5

The Conkling Machine

In politics, Morton identified himself with theNew York political faction, the ‘‘stalwarts,’’headed by Republican Senator Roscoe Conkling.Opposing the stalwarts were the ‘‘half-breed’’Republicans who rallied behind Senator JamesG. Blaine of Maine. Conkling and Blaine werebitter personal and political rivals, yet few sub-stantive differences existed between their rivalfactions on the issues of the day. Conkling’s ma-chine was more identified with New York’s fi-nancial interests and made sound currency itschief legislative aim, while the half-breeds placedmore emphasis on railroads, industry, and theprotective tariff. Both organizations, however,thrived on government patronage and opposedcivil service reform. Morton’s presence in theConkling machine attested to its connectionswith Wall Street financiers.

Entering Congress in 1879, Morton acted asmuch as a representative of Morton, Bliss & Co.as he did as a representative of the Eleventh Dis-trict, since he saw no difference between his owninterests and those of his constituents. The news-paper reporter George Alfred Townsend de-scribed Morton as ‘‘not a loquacious man, andyet an interesting talker, and one of the

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pleasantest expressions of his face is that of therespectful, intelligent listener.’’ He stood six feettall, straight-limbed and erect, and walked with‘‘flexible and quiet movements.’’ With close-cropped hair and a square jaw, his face had a cos-mopolitan appearance, ‘‘though the New Eng-land lines are decided.’’ The ‘‘whole tone of histalk and character are toward tranquillity,’’Townsend observed. In the House, Morton was‘‘a close listener, a silent critic, a genial answerer;neither intrusive nor obtrusive.’’ Since Mortonwas wealthier than his colleagues, he was ableto establish his family in a handsome house onLafayette Square that became a popular meetingplace for politicos and high society. Morton wona reputation for his urbanity and generous hospi-tality. Among the friends he made was Rep-resentative James Garfield of Ohio.6

Declining the Vice-Presidency

In 1880, Morton went to the Republican con-vention as a Conkling lieutenant, dedicated towinning a third-term nomination for Ulysses S.Grant. Conkling’s stalwarts were equally deter-mined to stop the nomination of Blaine. Whena deadlock developed, Blaine’s half-breeds threwtheir support to Garfield, a darkhorse candidate.Once Garfield won the nomination, he realizedthat he would need a New Yorker on the ticketand immediately thought of his wealthy andwell-positioned friend, L.P. Morton. Mortonscurried to find Conkling, who objected. WhenMorton declined the offer, the vice-presidentialnomination went instead to another Conklingman, Chester A. Arthur, who had fewer scruplesabout breaking with the boss.

Still trying to make peace with the Conklingfaction, Garfield came to New York in August1880 for a meeting in Morton’s suite at the FifthAvenue Hotel. There, Garfield promised to sup-port the Conkling machine’s patronage de-mands, which included the post of secretary ofthe treasury. The Treasury Department oversawthe New York customhouse, upon whose patron-age the New York machine had been built. Mor-ton agreed to chair Garfield’s campaign financecommittee, assuming that the treasury portfoliowould be his. After winning the election, how-ever, Garfield insisted that he had made no spe-

cific pledges. In December 1880, Garfield re-corded in his diary that Morton was ‘‘under mis-apprehension’’ that he had been promised theTreasury Department. ‘‘This was not my under-standing and seems wholly inadmissable. Itwould be a congestion of financial power at themoney centre and would create jealousy at theWest.’’ 7

Blaine, who had been named secretary of state,pronounced Morton ‘‘unfit’’ for the treasury,while Senator Conkling traveled to Garfield’shome in Mentor, Ohio, to lobby for Morton.Conkling wanted to balance Blaine in the cabinet,to protect his organization’s control over theNew York customhouse, and to remove Mortonfrom a hotly contested race for the other Senateseat from New York, which Conkling wanted forTom Platt. Haughtily, Conkling told the presi-dent-elect that New York would rather be passedover completely in the cabinet if it could not ob-tain the Treasury Department. Even Garfield’swife Lucretia joined the fray when she wrotefrom a New York shopping trip:

Mr. [Whitelaw] Reid told me this morning thatMorton had been very ugly in his talk about you,using the expression that seems to be so gratify-ing to the Conkling clique, ‘‘That Ohio man can-not be relied upon to stand by his pledges.’’ 8

Shortly before the inauguration, Garfield of-fered Morton the secretaryship of the navy,which he accepted. But Conkling and Arthurroused Morton from his bed in the middle of thenight and persuaded him to decline the post. Thenext day Garfield recorded: ‘‘Morton brokedown on my hands under the pressure of hisN.Y. friends, who called him out of bed at 4 thismorning to prevent his taking the Navy Dep’t.. . . The N.Y. delegation are in a great row be-cause I do not give the Treasury to that state.’’Despite his exasperation, Garfield still owedMorton something for his work as campaign fi-nance chairman and settled on making him min-ister to France.9

Collapse of the Conkling Machine

As president, Garfield confronted theConkling machine by appointing the half-breedRepublican William Robertson to be collector ofthe port of New York and head of the custom-

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house. His action triggered a series of events thatculminated in the resignations of SenatorsConkling and Platt, who expected to be reelectedby the New York legislature as a show of sup-port. Instead, both were defeated. In the midstof this monumental struggle, on July 2, 1881,President Garfield was shot by a deranged fol-lower of Conkling’s stalwarts. On July 20, whenMorton sailed for France, Garfield was still lin-gering and recovery seemed possible. But onSeptember 19, the president died, making Ches-ter Arthur—and not L.P. Morton—president ofthe United States. Morton spent the next fouryears in the diplomatic service, attending largelyto the ceremonies connected with France’s gift ofthe Statue of Liberty to the United States. But hestill harbored ambitions for a seat in the Senate.10

By the time Morton returned to the UnitedStates, Roscoe Conkling had quit politics for a lu-crative law practice and Tom Platt had pickedup Conkling’s leadership of the New York party.In 1884 Platt decided to support Blaine for presi-dent, on the grounds that Chet Arthur had de-serted his former friends. Morton followed thePlatt machine into the Blaine camp. He was oneof the two hundred businessmen who attendedthe infamous ‘‘millionaires’ dinner’’ given inBlaine’s honor at Delmonico’s restaurant on Oc-tober 29, 1884. At that dinner, a Protestant min-ister rose to denounce the Democrats as the partyof ‘‘rum, Romanism, and rebellion.’’ Blaine ig-nored the remark, but Democrats seized upon itand publicized it widely among Irish voters.Blaine lost New York by a narrow margin andwith it the presidency.11

Platt put Morton forward unsuccessfully forsenator in 1885 and 1887. In the former instance,Morton was perceived as the frontrunner, havinggreater resources and the full backing of Platt’smachine. But Platt’s men had made the mistakeof taking all the key committee posts in the stateassembly, causing the ‘‘soreheads’’ who hadbeen left out to unite behind another candidate,who snatched away the coveted Senate seat. The1887 election was a three-man race, in which an-other candidate appeared to have a better chanceof winning for the stalwarts. Morton’s with-drawal from the race, seen as an expression ofhis selfless sense of duty to his party (or faction

of the party), raised his chances for the vice-pres-idential nomination in 1888.12

A Strange Victory

When James G. Blaine, declining in health,made it clear he would not run again for presi-dent in 1888, Tom Platt threw New York’s sup-port to Indiana Senator Benjamin Harrison—thegrandson of former President William HenryHarrison. Blaine recommended Harrison as thebest candidate and suggested for vice presidentformer Representative William Walter Phelps ofNew Jersey. However, Platt’s support of Mortonhelped the banker defeat Phelps by a margin offive to one. The ticket of Harrison and Mortonput together a strange victory in the presidentialelection. They lost the popular vote by 90,000 butstill managed to beat the incumbent PresidentGrover Cleveland in the electoral college, 233 to168. The journalist Arthur Wallace Dunn attrib-uted the Republican success in 1888 to the com-bined political shrewdness of Republican Na-tional Committee chairman and PennsylvaniaSenator Matt Quay and New York party bossTom Platt.13

As president, however, Benjamin Harrisonwould not allow Platt and Quay to dictate hiscabinet and other federal appointments. Al-though principled, his stand against thespoilsmen alienated him from those most re-sponsible for his election. A thoughtful man,Harrison was cold in person but articulate andcompelling as a public speaker. By contrast, VicePresident Morton was no public speaker, but ‘‘aloveable personality,’’ who ‘‘filled every positionwith grace, dignity, and ability.’’ In an era ofgreed, corruption, and excess, Harrison andMorton both epitomized family life and puri-tanical religious values. Harrison’s cabinet wasconservative and business oriented, with the de-partment store magnate John Wanamaker serv-ing as postmaster general. The politicalofficeseekers ridiculed the publicity received byHarrison’s family, particularly his grand-daughter, known as Baby Ruth (namesake of thecandy bar); they scoffed that the supposedly pu-ritanical Morton owned Washington’s ShorehamHotel (which he named after his Vermont birth-place), where liquor was sold; and they belittled

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the attention given to Wanamaker’s Sundayschool teaching. As a spoilsmen’s verse put it:

The baby rules the White House,Levi runs the bar,

Wanny runs the Sunday school,And dammit here we are! 14

Due to Mrs. Harrison’s illnesses and death in1892, Anna Morton often entertained on behalfof the administration at the vice president’s man-sion on Scott Circle. ‘‘Mrs. Morton became theleader of society in Washington, and there wasnever a more brilliant and popular leader thanshe,’’ according to one account. ‘‘It was her in-nate graciousness, her innate tact, and her kind-ness of heart . . . which won her admiration andrespect of all.’’ Morton, whose only child by hisfirst marriage had died in infancy, had fivedaughters by his second wife and boasted a live-ly home.15

The Businessman’s Cabinet and the Millionaires’Club

Just as Harrison’s cabinet was called the ‘‘busi-nessman’s cabinet’’ for its inclusion of Wana-maker and the Vermont marble baron RedfieldProctor, the Senate over which Vice PresidentMorton presided was dubbed a ‘‘millionaires’club.’’ In the late nineteenth century, business-men had steadily gained control over both theRepublican and Democratic parties and usedtheir political positions to advance their eco-nomic interests. Senators became identified asspokesmen for railroads, timber, mining, andother industries. As California Senator GeorgeHearst, who had made his millions in mining,proclaimed: ‘‘the members of the Senate are thesurvivors of the fittest.’’ It seemed appropriate,therefore, that the Senate’s presiding officershould be one of the nation’s most prominentbankers.16

President Harrison considered the greatestfailure of his administration to be its inability topass the federal elections bill sponsored byHenry Cabot Lodge. Known as the ‘‘Force bill,’’it was intended to force the South to permit blackmen to vote and thereby protect their civil rights.After Republican losses in the congressional elec-tions of 1890, the Senate had taken up the Lodgebill again, only to encounter a Democratic fili-buster by those who believed it would restore a

Reconstruction-like Republican rule in the South.Harrison summoned Republican senators to theWhite House and urged them to do everythingpossible to pass the bill. But western silver Re-publicans believed that the nation’s most press-ing need was an inflated currency to cure eco-nomic ills. These Republicans joined Democratsin passing a resolution to take up a new currencymeasure in place of the elections bill.

The elections bill reached the Senate floor onlybecause of Vice President Morton’s tie-breakingvote. But the bill immediately encountered an-other filibuster, and Morton did nothing to helpRepublican efforts to break it. Republican sen-ators hoped to persuade Morton to vacate hischair, in order to allow a more sympatheticmember to preside, but Morton insisted on beingpresent throughout the debate. Because the vicepresident had announced that he planned to pre-side as a neutral figure and not follow the dic-tates of the Republican caucus, he was accusedof doing little to maintain party discipline andcompared unfavorably to Speaker of the HouseThomas Brackett Reed, who presided with aniron fist. Massachusetts Senator George F. Hoarsneered at Morton as one of those vice presidentswho ‘‘asserted their authority with as little showof force as if they were presiding over a companyof guests at their own table.’’ Finally on January22, 1891, a resolution to replace the elections billwith another was passed 35 to 34, and the elec-tions bill died.17

Unceremoniously Dumped

As the Republican convention approached in1892, Morton’s supporters floated his name forthe presidency, but he lacked the necessary dele-gate votes. Then Secretary of State Blaine re-signed from Harrison’s cabinet to become a can-didate himself. The ‘‘Old Guard’’ bosses, notablyPennsylvania’s Quay and New York’s Platt, sup-ported Blaine, but President Harrison held themajority of the delegates. Morton wasunceremoniously dumped from the ticket infavor of another New Yorker, his supposedfriend Whitelaw Reid. President Harrison appar-ently had never cared much for his vice presi-dent—or forgiven him for his neutrality over theForce bill—and did not demand his renomina-

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tion. At the same time, the ‘‘Platt Contingent’’ atthe convention determined that a Harrison ticketwas doomed to defeat, and they had better plansfor Morton.18

In 1894, Platt ran Morton for governor of NewYork, a race that he won handily. Platt later me-morialized Morton as ‘‘the safest Governor NewYork ever had. Business experience had taughthim conservatism. He never was influenced bycrazy theorists, but conducted his administrationas he did his great private financial institutions.’’Senator Chauncey Depew similarly creditedMorton as bringing to the governorship ‘‘busi-ness ability which had made him one of the greatmerchants and foremost bankers.’’ In 1896, Plattput the seventy-two-year-old Governor Mortonforward as New York’s favorite son for the Re-publican presidential nomination, to stop thenomination of Ohio Governor William McKin-

ley, whose past flirtation with free silver worriedthe gold standard men of the East. Platt orga-nized banquets and planted newspaper edi-torials that encouraged Morton to envision him-self in the White House. But these efforts wererouted by the campaign strategies of the brilliantbusinessman-tactician Mark Hanna, who engi-neered McKinley’s nomination.19

Morton retired from politics and returned tohis banking career, organizing the Morton TrustCompany. In 1909, when Morton was in hiseighties, an offer came from J.P. Morgan tomerge the Morton bank into the Morgan Guar-anty Trust Company. Morton deeply regrettedthat, as a result of the merger, the company bear-ing his name was retired from the businessworld. L.P. Morton died on his ninety-sixthbirthday in 1920, already a long-forgotten namein both banking and politics.20

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NOTES1 Robert McNutt McElroy, Levi Parsons Morton: Banker,

Diplomat and Statesman (New York, 1975; reprint of 1930 edi-tion), pp. 25–26.

2 Ibid., pp. 20–37, 39; George Alfred Townsend, ‘‘Levi P.Morton: A Biography,’’ in Lew Wallace, Life of Gen. Ben Har-rison (Philadelphia, 1888), p. 361.

3 McElroy, pp. 42, 51.4 David M. Jordan, Roscoe Conkling of New York: Voice in

the Senate (Ithaca, NY, 1971), pp. 151–52; William S.McFeely, Grant, A Biography (New York, 1981), pp. 333, 336,355.

5 Royal Cortissoz, The Life of Whitelaw Reid (New York,1921), 1:351; McElroy, pp. 71–74.

6 McElroy, pp. 84–88, 97; Townsend, pp. 354–55, 372.7 Theodore Clarke Smith, The Life and Letters of James

Abram Garfield (New Haven, CT, 1925), 2:1047, 1055; LouisJ. Lang, ed., The Autobiography of Thomas Collier Platt (NewYork, 1910), pp. 128, 131–32. See also Chapter 20 of this vol-ume, ‘‘Chester Alan Arthur,’’ p. 253.

8 Smith, pp. 1074, 1078, 1083–84.9 Ibid., pp. 1090–91: Harry James Brown and Frederick D.

Williams, The Diary of James A. Garfield (East Lansing, MI,1981), 4:552; Jordan, p. 376.

10 Smith, p. 1072; Justus D. Doenecke, The Presidencies ofJames A. Garfield & Chester A. Arthur (Lawrence, KS, 1981),pp. 20–21, 30, 95.

11 Lang, ed., p. 181; Jordan, pp. 416–17.12 Chester L. Barrows, William M. Evarts: Lawyer, Diplomat,

Statesman (Chapel Hill, NC, 1941), pp. 436–37; Lang, ed., pp.187–92; Paul Lancaster, Gentleman of the Press: The Life and

Times of an Early Reporter, Julian Ralph of the Sun (Syracuse,NY, 1992), p. 141.

13 Robert F. Wesser, ‘‘Election of 1888,’’ in History of Amer-ican Presidential Elections, 1789–1968, ed. Arthur M. Schles-inger, Jr., and Fred L. Israel (New York, 1969), 2:1635; Ar-thur Wallace Dunn, From Harrison to Harding: A PersonalNarrative, Covering a Third of a Century, 1888–1921 (PortWashington, NY, 1972; reprint of 1922 edition), 1:8.

14 Homer Socolofsky and Allan B. Spetter, The Presidencyof Benjamin Harrison (Lawrence, KS, 1987), pp. 19–45; FrankCarpenter, Carp’s Washington (New York, 1960), p. 305;Chauncey M. Depew, My Memories of Eighty Years (NewYork, 1924), p. 220; Herbert Adams Gibbons, John Wana-maker (New York, 1926), 1:328.

15 Great Leaders and National Issues of 1896 (New York,1896), p. 287.

16 Thomas C. Corchran and William Miller, The Age of En-terprise: A Social History of Industrial America (New York,1942), pp. 162–64.

17 McElroy, pp. 188–91; Socolofsky and Spetter, pp. 64–65; Charles W. Calhoun, ‘‘Civil Religion and the Gilded AgePresidency: The Case of Benjamin Harrison,’’ PresidentialStudies Quarterly 23 (Fall 1993): 658; George F. Hoar, Auto-biography of Seventy Years (New York, 1903), 2:68.

18 McElroy, pp. 194–205; H. Wayne Morgan, From Hayesto McKinley: National Party Politics, 1877–1896 (Syracuse, NY,1969), p. 415.

19 Lang, ed., pp. 332–33; Depew, pp. 147, 218, 220; JamesA. Kehl, Boss Rule in the Gilded Age: Matt Quay of Pennsylva-nia (Pittsburgh, 1981), pp. 199–203; Morgan, p. 491.

20 McElroy, p. 320.

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Chapter 23

ADLAI EWING STEVENSON1893–1897

ADLAI E. STEVENSON

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Chapter 23

ADLAI EWING STEVENSON23rd Vice President: 1893–1897

‘‘Has Mr. Cleveland yet consulted you to that extent?’’ Vice President Stevenson was once asked.‘‘Not yet,’’ he replied. ‘‘But, there are still a few weeks of my term remaining.’’

In February 1900, the Chicago American ran aphotograph of former Vice President Adlai Ste-venson holding his new grandson, Adlai EwingStevenson II. That year the grandfather wasagain nominated to run for vice president on theDemocratic ticket. A half century later, thegrandson would run twice as the Democraticnominee for president and gain even greater na-tional and international prominence. Yet it wasthe grandfather who came closest to becomingpresident of the United States—when PresidentGrover Cleveland underwent critical surgery.1

Youth

The Stevenson family were Presbyterians fromNorthern Ireland who migrated first to Penn-sylvania and then to North Carolina and Ken-tucky. Adlai E. Stevenson, son of John TurnerStevenson and Eliza Ewing Stevenson, was bornon the family farm in Christian County, Ken-tucky, on October 23, 1835. He attended the com-mon school in Blue Water, Kentucky, presidedover by a ‘‘dreaded schoolmaster,’’ Mr. Caskie.Years later, when as vice-presidential candidateStevenson was about to speak at a barbecue inKentucky, the elderly schoolmaster approachedthe platform and inquired, ‘‘Adlai, I came twentymiles to hear you speak; don’t you rememberme?’’ Stevenson instantly replied, ‘‘Yes, Mr.Caskie, I still have a few marks left to rememberyou by!’’ 2

In 1852, when Adlai was sixteen, frost killedthe family’s tobacco crop. His father set free their

few slaves and moved to Bloomington, Illinois,where he operated a sawmill. Adlai worked inthe mill and taught school, earning money forcollege. He attended the Presbyterian-run CentreCollege in Danville, Kentucky, headed by theReverend Lewis Warner Green. Adlai fell in lovewith Green’s daughter Letitia, but family prob-lems delayed their marriage for nine years. Hisfather’s death prompted Adlai to return toBloomington to run the sawmill; then, when theReverend Green died, Letitia and her mothermoved near Bloomington. Mrs. Green consid-ered the Stevensons socially inferior and did notfavor a marriage between the young people,even though Adlai had studied law and hadbeen admitted to the bar in 1858. Not until 1866did Adlai and Letitia finally marry. They hadthree daughters and a son, Lewis, who becamefather to the later presidential candidate.3

A Democrat in Republican Territory

As a young lawyer, Stevenson encounteredsuch celebrated Illinois attorneys as Stephen A.Douglas and Abraham Lincoln, campaigning forDouglas in his 1858 Senate race against Lincoln.Stevenson also made speeches against the‘‘Know-Nothing’’ movement, a nativist groupopposed to immigrants and Catholics. Thatstand helped cement his support in Illinois’ largeGerman and Irish communities. In a predomi-nantly Republican area, the Democratic Steven-son won friends through his storytelling and hiswarm and engaging personality. In 1860 at the

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age of twenty-five, he was appointed master inchancery (an aide in a court of equity), his firstpublic office, which he held during the CivilWar. In 1864 Stevenson was elected district attor-ney, and at the end of his term in 1868 he enteredlaw practice with his cousin, James S. Ewing. Ste-venson & Ewing became one of the state’s mostprominent law firms.4

In 1874, when Stevenson ran for the House ofRepresentatives as a Democrat, local Republicannewspapers painted him as a ‘‘vile secessionist,’’but the continuing hardships from the economicpanic of 1873 caused voters to sweep him intooffice with the first Democratic congressionalmajority since the Civil War. In the presidentialelection year of 1876, however, the Republicanticket headed by Rutherford B. Hayes carried hisdistrict, and Stevenson was narrowly defeatedfor reelection, taking 49.6 percent of the vote.Then, in 1878, he ran on both the Democratic andGreenback tickets and won. Returning to aHouse from which one-third of his earlier col-leagues had either voluntarily retired or been re-tired by the voters gave Stevenson a sense of theswiftly changing tides of politics. In 1880, againa presidential election year, he once more lostnarrowly, and he was defeated in his final racefor Congress in 1882.5

The Headsman of the Post Office

Stevenson served as a delegate to the Demo-cratic convention of 1884 that nominated GroverCleveland for president. Cleveland’s reformrecord as governor of New York helped win overRepublican reformers, the mugwumps, who en-abled him to defeat the popular but scandal-rid-den Republican candidate James G. Blaine. WhenCleveland took office as president, the mug-wumps expected him to carry out the goals ofcivil service reform rather than return to thespoilsmanship of Jacksonian Democracy. Theyfelt reassured at first when Cleveland appointedan able Republican as postmaster of New YorkCity. But job-hungry Democrats besieged the ad-ministration for patronage, and the presidenthad to respond to the angry rumblings from hisparty on Capitol Hill.

Particularly at stake were the 55,000 fourth-class postmasters. Although paying just a thou-

sand dollars a year, these offices were criticallyimportant to local political operations. In smalltowns, the postmaster knew everyone, as well asthe mail they received and the newspapers andmagazines they read. This knowledge placed thepostmasters in an excellent position to keep thenational party organization informed on publicopinion. The local postmasters would also dis-tribute party literature in bulk more cheaply thanif it were individually addressed. Former Demo-cratic nominee Samuel J. Tilden, a master politi-cal organizer, reminded the Cleveland adminis-tration that these rural post offices essentiallyserved as their party’s local headquarters. Toleave them in the hands of Republicans wouldbe ‘‘infidelity to the principles and causes of theAdministration.’’ 6

When First Assistant Postmaster General Mal-colm Hay, a civil service reformer, resigned dueto ill health after only three months in office,Cleveland appointed the more partisan AdlaiStevenson to succeed him. Given free rein to re-move Republican officeholders, Stevenson thor-oughly enjoyed swinging the axe. One Repub-lican journalist described Stevenson as ‘‘an offi-cial axman who beheaded Republican office-holders with the precision and dispatch of theFrench guillotine in the days of the Revolution.’’Dubbed ‘‘the Headsman’’ for replacing some40,000 Republicans with deserving Democrats,he once ‘‘decapitated sixty-five Republican post-masters in two minutes.’’ Republicans protestedbut recognized that they had swung the sameaxe, and even the mugwumps realized that truecivil service reform probably could not beachieved until greater balance was achieved be-tween Democratic and Republican office-holders.7

Cleveland rewarded Stevenson with a judicialnomination to the supreme court of the Districtof Columbia, but Senate Republicans refused toconfirm the man who had discharged so manyof their postmasters. When Cleveland was de-feated for reelection in 1888, President BenjaminHarrison appointed James S. Clarkson as first as-sistant postmaster general, and Clarksonpromptly undid Stevenson’s handiwork by re-placing 32,335 of the fourth-class postmasters.When the Democrats chose Cleveland once again

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as their standard bearer in 1892, they appeasedparty regulars by the nomination of the‘‘headsman of the post-office,’’ Adlai Stevenson,for vice president. As a supporter of using green-backs and free silver to inflate the currency andalleviate economic distress in the rural districts,Stevenson balanced the ticket headed by Cleve-land, the hard-money, gold-standard supporter.Just before the election, Cleveland learned thatRepublicans were planning a lurid expose ofStevenson’s soft-money record. Cleveland’s cam-paign manager caught Stevenson at a speakingengagement in West Virginia and handed him aletter endorsing sound money. Stevenson signedthe letter and released it to the press, thus defus-ing the issue. The winning Cleveland-Stevensonticket carried Illinois, although not Stevenson’shome district.8

Civil service reformers held out hope for thesecond Cleveland administration but saw VicePresident Stevenson as a symbol of the spoilssystem. He never hesitated to feed names ofDemocrats to the Post Office Department. Oncehe called at the Treasury Department to protestagainst an appointment and was shown a letterhe had written endorsing the candidate. Steven-son told the treasury officials not to pay attentionto any of his written endorsements; if he reallyfavored someone he would tell them personally.9

Silver and Gold

While such stories about ‘‘Uncle Adlai’’brought smiles around Washington, Stevenson’spresence as next in line to the presidency fright-ened Cleveland’s more conservative supporters.Just before Cleveland took office, a financialpanic on Wall Street had plunged the nation intodepression. As a staunch advocate of limitedgovernment, Cleveland disapproved of any gov-ernment program to reduce economic suffering.By contrast, Vice President Stevenson rep-resented the ‘‘populist doctrines’’ of currency re-form that were creeping into the Democraticparty. In June 1893, after Cleveland proposed re-peal of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act and areturn to the gold standard, one of his hard-money supporters wrote Cleveland saying: ‘‘Iwish you had Congress in session now. You maynot be alive in September. It would make a vast

difference to the United States if you were not.’’The writer did not know that Cleveland faced apotentially fatal operation. A habitual cigar-smoker, Cleveland had developed cancer of themouth that required immediate surgery. Thepresident insisted that the surgery be kept secretto avoid another panic on Wall Street over thethought of a silverite like Stevenson in the WhiteHouse. While on a yacht in New York harborthat summer, Cleveland had his entire upper jawremoved and replaced with an artificial device,an operation that left no outward scar. The can-cer surgery remained secret for another quartercentury. Cleveland’s aides explained that he hadmerely had dental work. His vice president littlerealized how close he came to the presidencythat summer.10

Meanwhile, a major battle loomed in the Sen-ate over currency reform. In 1890, the RepublicanPresident Harrison had supported the ShermanSilver Purchase Act in return for silver Repub-licans’ support of the protective tariff namedafter Ohio Representative—and future Presi-dent—William McKinley. But in the 1890 elec-tions the unpopular McKinley tariff defeatedmany Republicans, including McKinley, restoredDemocratic majorities in Congress, and bolsteredthe populist movement that was demandingmore government intervention in railroad regu-lation, currency reform, and farm relief. Disdain-ful of the populists, Cleveland interpreted theRepublican defeat as vindication of his policies.Upon reentering the White House in 1893, hewas determined to repeal the Sherman Act to re-store business confidence and therefore calledCongress into extraordinary session in August toconsider the issue.11

In October 1893, efforts to repeal the ShermanSilver Purchase Act met with a filibuster in theSenate. Indiana Senator Daniel Voorhees, leaderof the Cleveland Democrats, announced that theSenate would remain in continuous session untila vote was taken. Opponents made repeated callsfor quorums, feigned illness, and refused to ap-pear even when summoned by the Senate ser-geant at arms. Those conducting the filibusterbenefitted from the cooperation of the presidingofficer. Vice President Stevenson refused to turnhis back on the silverites, who had helped to

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nominate him, and gave no aid to the adminis-tration in whipping the dissenters into line. Theprominent Washington correspondent JulianRalph knew that the Senate had no formal clo-ture procedure but heard that it might be pos-sible for the vice president to cut off debate bysimply ordering a vote. Ralph asked the opinionof former House Speaker Thomas B. Reed, whohad broken similar dilatory actions in the Houseby counting the minority as present even if theyfailed to answer the roll. Reed asserted that thevice president ‘‘could do whatever he pleased ifhe had a majority behind him.’’ But DemocratIsham G. Harris of Tennessee, the president protempore, strongly disagreed. ‘‘Why, sir, I don’tbelieve he would live to accomplish it,’’ saidHarris (who later repudiated the threateningquote when it appeared in the Ralph story).12

New York Democratic Senator David Hill fol-lowed Ralph’s suggestion by circulating a peti-tion to force the vice president to overrule all dil-atory motions, but it failed to attract many sign-ers. Nor were Democrats able to agree on adop-tion of a cloture rule. Finally, the Senate accepteda compromise arranged by Maryland Demo-cratic Senator Arthur Pue Gorman that estab-lished a gradual reduction of silver purchasesover a three-year period. Although this agree-ment made possible passage of the repeal, Presi-dent Cleveland never forgave Gorman for hiscompromise and thereafter rarely consulted thisimportant Democratic leader. Repeal of the Sher-man Silver Purchase Act only contracted the cur-rency and further weakened the economy.Silverites called it the ‘‘Crime of 1893.’’ TheDemocrats became tagged as the party of the‘‘empty dinnerpail’’ and suffered sweeping con-gressional defeats in 1894.13

A Notable Sense of Humor

Adlai Stevenson enjoyed his role as vice presi-dent, presiding over ‘‘the most august legislativeassembly known to men.’’ He won praise for rul-ing in a dignified, nonpartisan manner. In per-sonal appearance he stood six feet tall and was‘‘of fine personal bearing and uniformly cour-teous to all.’’ Although he was often a guest atthe White House, Stevenson admitted that hewas less an adviser to the president than ‘‘the

neighbor to his counsels.’’ He credited the presi-dent with being ‘‘courteous at all times’’ butnoted that ‘‘no guards were necessary to thepreservation of his dignity. No one would havethought of undue familiarity.’’ For his part,President Cleveland snorted that his vice presi-dent had surrounded himself with a coterie offree-silver men dubbed the ‘‘Stevenson cabinet.’’The president even mused that the economy hadgotten so bad and the Democratic party so di-vided that ‘‘the logical thing for me to do . . .was to resign and hand the Executive branch toMr. Stevenson,’’ joking that he would try to gethis friends jobs in Stevenson’s new cabinet.14

Toward the end of his term, ‘‘Uncle Adlai’’was a dinner guest at the home of SenatorGorman. The vice president had a strong senseof humor, which he suppressed while presidingover the Senate but let loose in private. At din-ner, Stevenson said he resented the familiarcharge that vice presidents were never consultedby the president and told a story about VicePresident John Breckinridge once being con-sulted by President James Buchanan—about thewording of his Thanksgiving message. ‘‘Has Mr.Cleveland yet consulted you to that extent?’’Senator Gorman asked. ‘‘Not yet,’’ Stevenson re-plied. ‘‘But, there are still a few weeks of my termremaining.’’ 15

Stevenson was mentioned as a candidate tosucceed Cleveland in 1896. Although he chairedthe Illinois delegation to the Democratic NationalConvention, he gained little support. As oneDemocrat noted, ‘‘the young men of the countryare determined to have something to say duringthe next election, and are tired of these oldhacks.’’ Stevenson received a smattering of votes,but the convention was taken by storm by a thir-ty-six-year-old former representative from Ne-braska, William Jennings Bryan, who deliveredhis fiery ‘‘Cross of Gold’’ speech in favor of afree-silver plank in the platform. Not only didthe Democrats repudiate Cleveland by embrac-ing free silver, but they also nominated Bryan forpresident. Many Cleveland Democrats, includ-ing most Democratic newspapers, refused tosupport Bryan, but Vice President Stevenson loy-ally endorsed the ticket. In the fall, Bryan con-ducted the nation’s first whistle-stop campaign,

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traveling extensively around the country andcapturing people’s imaginations. Although hedid far better than expected, he lost the electionto Ohio’s Republican governor, WilliamMcKinley.16

A bimetallist himself, McKinley ran on a gold-standard platform. But McKinley wanted toenact a protective tariff, and, to win supportfrom silver Republicans, he promised to appointa bipartisan commission to negotiate an inter-national agreement on bimetallism. Silveriteshoped that a prominent Democrat might be ap-pointed, but when their leading candidates de-clined they settled for ‘‘a man of no particularweight,’’ the former vice president. The work ofthe commission came to naught. Stevensonfound more satisfaction as a political speaker, ad-dressing all things ‘‘purely and absolutelyDemocratic.’’ 17

After the 1896 election, Bryan became the titu-lar leader of the Democrats and frontrunner forthe nomination in 1900. Much of the newspaperspeculation about who would run as the party’svice-presidential candidate centered on IndianaSenator Benjamin Shively. But when reporter Ar-thur Wallace Dunn interviewed Shively at theconvention, the senator said he ‘‘did not want theglory of a defeat as a vice presidential can-didate.’’ A disappointed Dunn said that he stillhad to file a story on the vice-presidential nomi-nation, and then added: ‘‘I believe I’ll write apiece about old Uncle Adlai.’’ ‘‘That’s a goodidea,’’ said Shively. ‘‘Stevenson is just the man.There you have it. Uniting the old Cleveland ele-ment with the new Bryan Democracy. You’ve gotenough for one story. But say, this is more thana joke. Stevenson is just the man.’’ For the restof the day, Dunn heard other favorable remarksabout Stevenson, and by that night the formervice president was the leading contender, sinceno one else was ‘‘very anxious to be the tail ofwhat they considered was a forlorn hopeticket.’’ 18

The Populists had already nominated the tick-et of Bryan and Charles A. Towne, a silver Re-publican from Minnesota, with the tacit under-standing that Towne would step aside if theDemocrats nominated someone else. Bryan pre-ferred his good friend Towne, but Democrats

wanted one of their own, and the regular ele-ment of the party felt comfortable with Steven-son. Towne withdrew and campaigned for Bryanand Stevenson. As a result, Stevenson, who hadrun with Cleveland in 1892, now ran with hisnemesis Bryan in 1900. Twenty-five years seniorto Bryan, Stevenson added age and experienceto the ticket. Nevertheless, their effort neverstood a chance against the Republican ticket ofMcKinley and Theodore Roosevelt. Stevensonreturned again to private practice in Illinois,making one last attempt at office in an unsuc-cessful race for governor in 1908. After that, heretired to Bloomington, where his Republicanneighbors described him as ‘‘windy butamusing.’’ 19

Grandfather and Grandson

Through Stevenson’s long career, his wifeLetitia was a ‘‘keen observer and judge of people,and a charming hostess.’’ Although sufferingfrom migraine headaches and severe rheu-matism that forced her to wear leg braces whenstanding at receptions, she dutifully supportedhis many political campaigns. Letitia also helpedestablish the Daughters of the American Revolu-tion as a way of healing the divisions betweenthe North and South after the Civil War. She suc-ceeded Mrs. Benjamin Harrison as the DAR’ssecond president-general. Adlai Stevenson II re-membered his grandparents’ home as ‘‘a veryformal household.’’ The vice president ad-dressed his wife as ‘‘Mrs. Stevenson’’ and shecalled him ‘‘Mr. Stevenson.’’ Young Adlai con-sidered his grandfather ‘‘one of the great racon-teurs of his day’’ and learned much about Amer-ican history and politics from him. At his grand-father’s house in Bloomington he met many ‘‘dis-tinguished Democrats’’ from around the land, in-cluding William Jennings Bryan. He recalled thathanging on the wall was a lithograph, ‘‘The LostBet,’’ depicting a gentleman in top hat and frockcoat paying off an election bet by pulling awagon down a street beneath a banner that read:‘‘Grover Cleveland and Adlai E. Stevenson.’’ 20

Adlai Stevenson died in Bloomington on June14, 1914. Thirty-eight years later, his grandsonand namesake, then serving as governor of Illi-nois, agonized over whether to make himself

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available for the Democratic nomination forpresident. When Adlai E. Stevenson II appearedon the television news show Meet the Press, a re-porter from the Chicago Daily News pressed himfor a commitment by saying: ‘‘Wouldn’t yourgrandfather, Vice President Stevenson, twirl inhis grave if he saw you running away from a

chance to be the Democratic nominee in 1952?’’Stevenson, who loathed giving up his governor-ship for what most likely would be a futile cam-paign against the war hero Dwight Eisenhower,blanched at the comparison and replied, ‘‘I thinkwe have to leave Grandfather lie.’’ 21

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NOTES1 Jeff Broadwater, Adlai Stevenson and American Politics:

The Odyssey of a Cold War Liberal (New York, 1994), p. 1.2 Adlai E. Stevenson, Something Of Men I Have Known

(Chicago, 1909), p. 47.3 Porter McKeever, Adlai Stevenson: His Life and Legacy

(New York, 1989), pp. 15–18; Jean H. Baker, The Stevensons:A Biography of an American Family (New York, 1996), pp. 82–95.

4 George Spiel, The Battle of 1900 (Chicago, 1900), p. 475;Broadwater, p. 1.

5 McKeever, p. 17; Stevenson, p. 47; Baker, pp. 112–22.6 Horace Samuel Merrill, William Freeman Vilas, Doc-

trinaire Democrat (Madison, WI, 1954), pp. 100, 102–3.7 David S. Barry, Forty Years in Washington (Boston, 1924),

p. 191; Solomon X. Griffin, People and Politics: Observationsby a Massachusetts Editor (Boston, 1923), p. 307; Wayne Mor-gan, From Hayes to McKinley: National Party Politics, 1877–1896 (Syracuse, NY, 1969), p. 446; Merrill, William FreemanVilas, p. 105.

8 Griffin, pp. 307, 327; McKeever, p. 17; Herbert Eaton,Presidential Timber: A History of Nominating Conventions,1868–1960 (New York, 1964), pp. 145–47; Allan Nevins, Gro-ver Cleveland, A Study in Courage (New York, 1932), pp. 504–5.

9 Nevins, p. 518.10 Horace Samuel Merrill, Bourbon Democracy of the Middle

West, 1865–1896 (Seattle, 1967; reprint of 1953 edition), pp.216, 237; Morgan, p. 450; Richard E. Welch, Jr., The Presi-

dencies of Grover Cleveland (Lawrence, KS, 1988), pp. 60, 106,119; Robert H. Ferrell, Ill-Advised: Presidential Health andPublic Trust (Columbia, MO, 1992), pp. 3–11.

11 Paolo E. Coletta, ‘‘The Democratic Party, 1884–1910,’’in History of U.S. Political Parties, ed. Arthur M. Schlesinger,Jr. (New York, 1980), 2:996.

12 Paul Lancaster, Gentleman of the Press: The Life and Timesof an Early Reporter, Julian Ralph of the Sun (Syracuse, NY,1992), p. 221.

13 John R. Lambert, Arthur Pue Gorman (Baton Rouge, LA,1953), pp. 193, 195, 199; Baker, pp. 163–71.

14 Stevenson, pp. 63, 243–44; Spiel, p. 477; Allan Nevins,ed., Letters of Grover Cleveland, 1850–1908 (Boston, 1933), p.380.

15 David S. Barry, Forty Years in Washington (Boston, 1924),pp. 191–92.

16 Merrill, William Freeman Vilas, p. 198.17 Leon Burr Richardson, William E. Chandler, Republican

(New York, 1940), p. 551; Spiel, p. 477.18 Arthur Wallace Dunn, From Harrison to Harding: A Per-

sonal Narrative, Covering a Third of a Century, 1888–1921 (PortWashington, NY, 1972; reprint of 1922 edition), 1:344; Baker,pp. 174–77.

19 Louis W. Koenig, Bryan: A Political Biography of WilliamJennings Bryan (New York, 1971), p. 324; Broadwater, p. 2.

20 McKeever, p. 18; John Bartlow Martin, Adlai Stevenson(New York, 1952)., p. 41; Baker, pp. 154–63.

21 McKeever, p. 185.

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Chapter 24

GARRET AUGUSTUS HOBART1897–1899

GARRET AUGUSTUS HOBART

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Chapter 24

GARRET AUGUSTUS HOBART24th Vice President: 1897–1899

For the first time in my recollection, and the last for that matter, the Vice President was recognizedas somebody, as a part of the Administration, as a part of the body over which he presided.

—VETERAN NEWSPAPER CORRESPONDENT

It seems startling that someone who never heldprior office outside of a state legislature could benominated and elected Vice President of theUnited States, as was Garret Augustus Hobart in1896. By the time convention delegates chose thelast nineteenth-century vice president, they hadcome to regard that office as little more than a‘‘fifth wheel to the executive coach.’’ The nomi-nation was in their view simply a device for bal-ancing the ticket, either by ideology or by region.‘‘Gus’’ Hobart, an easterner chosen to run witha middle westerner, William McKinley of Ohio,completely shared McKinley’s conservative po-litical philosophy. With warm feelings for Ho-bart, President McKinley decided to rescue thevice-presidency from its low estate. McKinley soembraced the vice president as his friend, associ-ate, and confidant that Hobart’s home on Lafay-ette Square became known as the ‘‘Little CreamWhite House,’’ and Hobart as the ‘‘AssistantPresident.’’ 1

Youth

Hobart was the descendant of a long line ofclergymen, with a family tree that dated back tothe Massachusetts Bay Colony of the early seven-teenth century. In 1841 his father had left NewEngland to open a primary school in LongBranch, New Jersey. There, on June 3, 1844, Gar-ret Augustus Hobart was born. Young Hobart at-tended his father’s school and then went toboarding school. As a member of the Reformed

Church, he attended Rutgers College, which wasthen under that church’s control. He graduatedat the top of his class in 1863. Although the na-tion was deeply engaged in the Civil War, Ho-bart did not join the Union army. Instead, hestudied law in Paterson, New Jersey, under thetutelage of Socrates Tuttle, a childhood friend ofhis father’s. He became a lawyer in 1866, and onJuly 21, 1869, married Tuttle’s daughter, Jennie.Hobart’s family had long been Democrats, butmarriage into the Republican Tuttle householdconverted the young man to the Grand OldParty.2

Not a Conventional Politician

After service as clerk of a grand jury, Hobartwas elected a judge in Paterson in 1868. In 1871,after his father-in-law became mayor, Hobartwas appointed to the post of city counsel. Thefollowing year he went to the state assembly, ris-ing speedily to become speaker in 1874. In 1876he won election to the state senate, which chosehim as senate president in 1881, according himthe distinction of being the first person to headboth houses of the New Jersey legislature. De-spite these achievements, Hobart was no politi-cian in the conventional sense. ‘‘He was not fondof standing in the public eye,’’ a friend later as-sessed. ‘‘He did not seek popularity by thosemethods which usually evoke the applause andadmiration of the multitude. He was notspectacular.’’ 3

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A rotund, jovial, hospitable man, Hobart dis-played much tact, charm, and ability to workwith other people. These qualities, which madehim an outstanding state legislator, should havehelped him move up to the national legislature,if it had not been for his increasingly lucrativelaw practice in New Jersey. The many banks andrailroads among his clients made him wealthy,and he was loath to abandon his comfortablefamily life in New Jersey for the demands of apolitical career in Washington. (The Hobarthome, ‘‘Carroll Hall,’’ was reputedly the ‘‘largestand most sumptuous in Paterson.’’) Severaltimes Hobart stood for the United States Senatebut never fought hard enough to win electionfrom a state legislature in which he was im-mensely popular. He served instead as chairmanof the State Republican Committee from 1880 to1891 and as a member of the party’s nationalcommittee.4

A Homesick Candidate

Since the Civil War, New Jersey had leaned to-ward Democratic presidential candidates. Presi-dent Grover Cleveland had carried the state in1892, but, during the economic depression thatfollowed, both houses of the legislature and thegovernorship of New Jersey went Republican,suggesting that the state could be taken by thenational ticket in 1896. Looking over the scene,the Democratic New York Graphic noted that therewas no other Republican in New Jersey as strongas this ‘‘sturdy, bright faced, genialgentleman.’’ 5

In 1896, the New Jersey delegation went to theRepublican convention in St. Louis determinedto nominate Hobart for vice president, as a wayof consolidating the party’s recent gains withintheir state. When Ohio Governor McKinley de-feated House Speaker Thomas Reed and severalother prominent candidates for the presidentialnomination, newspapers identified some twentypotential candidates for the vice-presidency. Allof them were governors, cabinet members, sen-ators, and representatives, with the exception ofHobart, who remained unknown outside of hisstate. Yet when the vote was taken, Hobart, whohad attended the convention as a delegate,emerged the nominee.

Hobart insisted that he had not sought thenomination but that it was handed to him as ‘‘atribute from my friends.’’ It came equally as atribute from Marcus A. Hanna, the Cleveland in-dustrialist and political strategist who master-minded McKinley’s nomination. Hanna wanteda ticket to satisfy the business interests of Amer-ica, and Hobart, a corporate lawyer, fit that re-quirement perfectly. Hanna’s biographer notedthat, even if Hobart did little to strengthen theticket, ‘‘he did nothing to weaken it.’’ 6

Hobart himself felt ambivalent about thehonor. Ambitious for national office, he was real-istic enough to know what it would ultimatelycost him. From the convention, he wrote to hiswife:

I have been too busy to be homesick, but, to tellthe honest truth, I am heart-sick over my ownprospects. It looks to me I will be nominated forVice-President whether I want it or not, and asI get nearer to the point where I may, I am dis-mayed at the thought. . . . If I want a nomination,everything is going my way. But when I realizeall that it means in work, worry, and loss of homeand bliss, I am overcome, so overcome I am sim-ply miserable.7

Unlike the Democratic presidential candidateWilliam Jennings Bryan, who barnstormed thecountry making speeches, William McKinleystayed at home in Canton, Ohio, running hiscampaign from his front porch. Hobart similarlylimited his speaking to his portico in New Jersey.McKinley and Hobart stood firm for the goldstandard and the protective tariff. Bryan, for hispart, ran on a ‘‘Free Silver’’ platform and at-tracted many desperate farmers and debtors tohis crusade. But economic conditions—and cor-porate interests—favored the Republicans.McKinley won by a half million votes, or 51 per-cent of the total cast. His Republican ticket car-ried 23 of the 45 states, including Hobart’s NewJersey.

The Little Cream White House

For a running mate, McKinley had preferredSpeaker Thomas B. Reed, with whom he hadworked for many years in the House, but Reedwould accept only the top spot on the ticket. Al-though McKinley and Hobart were strangers by

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comparison, the president had no difficultywarming up to Gus Hobart. The wealthy Ho-barts leased a house at 21 Lafayette Square,which became known as the ‘‘Little Cream WhiteHouse.’’ Built in 1828 by Col. Ogle Tayloe, thehouse had hosted Washington’s high societyduring the antebellum years. At the outset of theCivil War, General George McClellan had takenit as his headquarters. After the war, Pennsylva-nia Senator Don Cameron had remodeled and re-stored the old house. The Hobarts used it to en-tertain lavishly—particularly because PresidentMcKinley’s wife was an invalid who could notshoulder the traditional social burdens of theWhite House. The president frequently attendedHobart’s dinners and afternoon smokers, wherehe could meet informally with party leadersfrom Capitol Hill.8

No previous vice president had visited theWhite House as often as Gus Hobart, due in partto the warm friendship that developed betweenIda McKinley and Jennie Hobart. Mrs. McKinleysuffered from epilepsy, which left her a reclusein the White House. President McKinley dotedon his wife and grew to depend on Jennie Ho-bart, who visited Ida daily. ‘‘The President con-stantly turned to me to help her wherever Icould,’’ Mrs. Hobart wrote in her memoirs, ‘‘—not because I was Second Lady, but because Iwas their good friend.’’ Whenever McKinley hadto be away from his wife in the evenings, hewould entrust her to Jennie Hobart’s care. Healso invited Mrs. Hobart to White House socialfunctions because her presence ‘‘gave him con-fidence.’’ In addition to seeing each other inWashington, the McKinleys and Hobarts vaca-tioned together at Bluff Point on LakeChamplain.9

McKinley looked on Hobart as a trusted ad-viser. Although the vice president was not in-vited to join meetings of the cabinet, the presi-dent and cabinet members consulted with himfreely. The mutual regard between the two menmade them, in the words of one acquaintance,‘‘coadjustors in the fixing of the policies of theAdministration to an extent never beforeknown.’’ Arthur Wallace Dunn, a newspapercorrespondent who covered presidents fromBenjamin Harrison to Warren Harding, mar-

veled that ‘‘for the first time in my recollection,and the last for that matter, the Vice Presidentwas recognized as somebody, as a part of the Ad-ministration, and as a part of the body overwhich he presided.’’ Dunn described Hobart asa ‘‘business politician,’’ whose knowledge of the‘‘relations between business and politics’’ madehis judgments extremely useful. McKinley eventurned to his vice president for personal financialadvice. Having once suffered the embarrassmentof declaring personal bankruptcy, McKinleyturned over a portion of his monthly presidentialsalary, which Vice President Hobart invested forhim.10

The Splendid Little War

Although Hobart socialized more frequentlyand worked more closely with the president thanhad most of his predecessors, his primary func-tion remained that of presiding over the Senate.In his brief, self-deprecatory inaugural address,Hobart had told the senators that, while he wasunfamiliar with their rules and procedures, hewould work to the best of his abilities, feelingconfident that they would indulge him as consid-erately as they had all of the previous occupantsof the chair. Hobart’s experiences presiding overthe New Jersey assembly and state senate servedhim well, and he soon won favorable notices forimpartial and informed rulings. MassachusettsSenator Henry Cabot Lodge applauded Hobartfor abandoning his predecessors’ habit of ‘‘sub-mitting nearly every question of order to the Sen-ate,’’ and instead ruling promptly on thesepoints himself, ‘‘as every presiding officer oughtto do.’’ One newspaper correspondent wrotethat, initially, Hobart’s ‘‘business-like advice andwarning intimations rather nettled many of theSenators,’’ but that over time he appeared to cap-tivate the Senate with his genial good nature.11

Hobart settled comfortably into the job. Senatevouchers show that he purchased for the VicePresident’s Room in the Capitol silk mohair car-peting, Neapolitan silk curtains, Persian throwrugs, and ‘‘a silk velour slumber robe’’ made tomatch the velour cushions on his sofa. Hobartalso ordered the grandfather clock and the im-posing mahogany desk that his successors con-tinue to use.12 Presiding over the Senate was no

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easy task, however. In 1898, following the unex-plained sinking of the U.S. battleship Maine inHavana harbor, sentiment in the Senate swungsharply toward war with Spain, which at thattime still ruled Cuba as a colony. PresidentMcKinley’s cautious attempts to avoid going towar made him seem indecisive. WhenMcKinley’s friend Senator William Mason of Illi-nois announced in favor of war, a demonstrationbroke out on the Senate floor that Hobart foundimpossible to quiet. As Mrs. Hobart recalled, thevice president was ‘‘worried to desperation’’over the rising rebelliousness of the Senate, andtook his concerns to McKinley. ‘‘Mr. President,I can no longer hold back the Senate,’’ hewarned. ‘‘They will act without you if you do notact at once.’’ Accepting the inevitable, McKinleycalled on Congress to declare that a state of warexisted with Spain. Hobart sent the president apen to sign the declaration.13

The ‘‘splendid little war’’ with Spain wasfought and won within a six-month period. Atthe conclusion of the Fifty-fifth Congress, VicePresident Hobart congratulated the Senate onthis remarkable achievement, noting that ‘‘unlikeany other session in the history of our country,this Congress has witnessed the inception, pros-ecution, and conclusion of a war.’’ More than justa war Congress, it had also been a peace Con-gress, having approved the ratification of theTreaty of Paris that ended the Spanish-AmericanWar.

The vice president played a significant part inone aspect of that peace treaty. Although theUnited States had pledged not to take Cuba asits own territory, it did decide to hold the Phil-ippine Islands, unexpectedly acquired fromSpain. After the Senate had approved the peacetreaty by the necessary two-thirds vote, GeorgiaDemocrat Augustus O. Bacon had sponsored anamendment promising independence to the Phil-ippines if it established a stable government. Dueto the absence of several administration support-ers, the vote was tied at 29 to 29. Hobart assuredthe taking of the territory for the United Statesby casting the deciding vote against Bacon’samendment.14

The Vice President’s Valedictory

The vice president’s speech concluding the sec-ond session of the Fifty-fifth Congress was in facthis valedictory, for he would die before the nextCongress convened. In addressing the senatorsfor the last time, he noted that ‘‘the Senate of theUnited States is a peculiar body. . . . made up,as you know of many elements, and in its mem-bership you will find not only straight and stal-wart Republicans, to whose active efforts thecountry is now looking for relief, butBimetallists, Populists, Silverites—both Repub-lican and Democratic—and a few gold Demo-crats.’’ Despite the senators’ many differences,Hobart as presiding officer observed that each ofthem stood on the common ground of patriot-ism, pride in the nation’s history, zealousness forits Constitution, and devotion to its flag. For ageneration old enough to remember the CivilWar, the Spanish-American War appeared torepresent the end of the old divisions that hadled to secession. Former Union and Confederatesoldiers supported a common war effort, withsome from both sides donning uniforms onceagain.15

Beginning in early 1899, Hobart suffered fromfainting spells triggered by serious heart prob-lems. He never fully recovered. Yet that summerhe performed a last major service for the McKin-ley administration when he helped the gentlepresident to fire his secretary of war, GeneralRussell A. Alger. A large, affable man with presi-dential ambitions, Alger had become tarred byscandals that emerged during the Spanish-Amer-ican war—particularly charges that unscrupu-lous war suppliers had fed ‘‘embalmed beef’’ toAmerican soldiers. McKinley saw the need tosacrifice his secretary of war to the demands ofpublic opinion, but could not bring himself tofire a friend. When Secretary of State John Haydeclined to deliver the bad news, the task fell toHobart. That summer, Alger and his wife regu-larly spent weekends with the Hobarts at theirsummer house at Norwood Park, New Jersey.One evening, Hobart took Alger into the smok-ing room and suggested that he find some excusefor retiring from the cabinet. During the nextweek, newspapers published stories that Alger

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had been pressured to step down but that thepresident was standing loyally by him. The ob-livious Alger returned to Hobart’s seaside homethe next weekend and insisted that in light of thepresident’s loyal backing he had no reason toleave the cabinet. Now Hobart bluntly explainedthat the president would feel ‘‘very much re-lieved’’ if the secretary would resign. Algercould not believe what he was hearing until Ho-bart admitted that he was speaking with thepresident’s authorization. The shaken secretaryof war hurried back to Washington and at nineo’clock on Monday morning handed his resigna-tion to President McKinley.16

As Hobart suffered increasingly debilitatingattacks and his strength declined, rumors spreadthat his illness would keep him from runningagain for vice president. In the fall of 1899, asMcKinley was preparing a grand reception tohonor the return of Admiral George Dewey fromthe Philippines, he invited the Hobarts to stay atthe White House. ‘‘I can imagine no place whereyou will be more comfortable than here.’’ ButHobart declined. He conceded that he must re-main in Paterson and could not return to Wash-

ington either for the Dewey reception or to pre-side again over the Senate when it reconvenedthat December. This public announcement wasan admission that the vice president was ‘‘in vir-tual retirement,’’ with no hope of recovery. Ho-bart died on November 21, 1899. Arriving at theHobart home in Paterson for the funeral, Presi-dent McKinley told the family, ‘‘No one outsideof this home feels this loss more deeply than Ido.’’ 17

History has remembered Garret Hobart less forhis life than for his death. The void he left wasquickly filled. The powerful Senator MarkHanna moved into the ‘‘Little Cream WhiteHouse,’’ and the vacant vice-presidency wassoon occupied by one of America’s most dy-namic political leaders, Theodore Roosevelt.McKinley’s second running mate in 1900 bore lit-tle resemblance to the man he succeeded. Inshort order the young, energetic Roosevelt—andthe progressive reform movement he em-bodied—eclipsed not only Hobart but McKinleyas well, as the United States entered the twenti-eth century.

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NOTES1 David S. Barry, Forty Years in Washington (Boston, 1924),

p. 246; David Magie, Life of Garret Augustus Hobart, Twenty-fourth Vice-President of the United States (New York, 1910),p. 169.

2 Magie, pp. 1–26, 42; Jennie Tuttle Hobart, Memories(Paterson, NJ., 1930), p. 3.

3 Address of Honorable John W. Griggs at the Unveiling of theStatue of Garret Augustus Hobart, Late Vice-President of theUnited States at Paterson, New Jersey, June 3, 1903 (Paterson,NJ, 1903), p. 4.

4 Magie, pp. 27–57; Edward S. Ellis, et al., Great Leadersand National Issues of 1896 (William Ellis Scull, 1896), p. 542.

5 Magie, p. 50.6 Ibid., pp. 58, 74; Margaret Leech, In The Days of McKinley

(New York, 1959), p. 83; Herbert D. Croly, Marcus AlonzoHanna (New York, 1912), p. 191.

7 Magie, p. 79.8 Barry, pp. 245–46; Magie, pp. 116–17; H. Wayne Morgan,

William McKinley and His America (Syracuse, NY, 1963), pp.220, 274.

9 Leech, p. 435; Magie, p. 170; Hobart, pp. 13–14, 19, 29.10 Address of Honorable John W. Griggs, p. 9; Arthur Wallace

Dunn, From Harrison to Harding: A Personal Narrative, Cover-ing a Third of a Century, 1888–1921 (Port Washington, NY,1972; reprint of 1922 edition), 1:224–25; Morgan, p. 321.

11 U.S., Congress, Senate, Congressional Record, 55th Cong.,special session, p. 1; Magie, pp. 151–52, 156.

12 Hobart’s purchases are documented in the reports ofthe Secretary of the Senate and in a booklet published bythe Office of the Senate Curator, The Vice President’s Room.

13 Horace Samuel Merrill and Marion Galbraith Merrill,The Republican Command, 1897–1913 (Lexington, KY, 1971),p. 49; Leech, pp. 184–85, 193; Hobart, pp. 58–60.

14 Harold U. Faulkner, Politics, Reform and Expansion,1890–1900 (New York, 1959), p. 258; Lewis L. Gould, ThePresidency of William McKinley (Lawrence, KY, 1980), p. 150.

15 Magie, pp. 162–63.16 Barry, pp. 256–59; Magie, pp. 209–11.17 Magie, pp. 176, 212–17, 231; Hobart, p. 68.

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Chapter 25

THEODORE ROOSEVELT1901

THEODORE ROOSEVELT

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Chapter 25

THEODORE ROOSEVELT25th Vice President: 1901

I would a great deal rather be anything, say professor of history, than Vice-President.—THEODORE ROOSEVELT 1

Senator Thomas C. Platt of New York declaredthat he went to the presidential inaugural of 1901‘‘to see Theodore Roosevelt take the veil.’’ 2 Roo-sevelt, the governor of New York, had been elect-ed vice president the previous autumn on Wil-liam McKinley’s Republican ticket, and Plattlooked forward to having the maverick governorin seclusion for four years. The new vice presi-dent was not entirely certain of his own pros-pects, stating that ‘‘it [the vice-presidency] is nota steppingstone to anything except oblivion’’—hardly a ringing endorsement of the nation’s sec-ond highest office.3 Yet this was the prevailingopinion about the vice-presidency at the begin-ning of the twentieth century. Most of Roo-sevelt’s nearest predecessors were men of lim-ited qualifications and interests whose functionswere primarily social. Some observers hopedthat this office would finally tame the firebrandRoosevelt, but if the Rough Rider’s active andadventurous past was any indication, the vice-presidency was in for some changes.

Youth

The life of Theodore Roosevelt is one of thegreat American stories. He was born on October27, 1858, in New York City to a prominent familyof moderate wealth. Theodore Roosevelt, Sr., apartner in the importing firm of Roosevelt andSon, was a well-known philanthropist, teachingin mission schools and founding the Children’sAid Society. His wife, Martha Bulloch, was a

woman of remarkable beauty and refined taste.The couple made a striking contrast: Theodorebeing a vigorous entrepreneur of somewhat mer-curial temperament, while Martha, a Georgian,was the stereotypical ‘‘southern belle.’’ Theo-dore, Jr., the second of four children, was a frailboy, frequently suffering from severe asthmaticattacks. As an adolescent, however, he had takenhis father’s advice to ‘‘make’’ his body, so thatby the time he entered Harvard in 1876, he wasan accomplished athlete and outstanding boxer.At Harvard, Roosevelt excelled in natural scienceand politics, graduating twenty-first in a class of177.

Upon graduation, Roosevelt had a number ofcareers open to him. He had long consideredscience his greatest strength—his first publishedwork, The Summer Birds of the Adirondacks, ap-peared in 1877 while he was still an undergradu-ate—but was gradually losing professional inter-est in the topic. He began studying law at Co-lumbia and undertook his first work of history,The Naval War of 1812 (published in 1882). It waspolitics, however, that most piqued his interest.This possible vocation horrified Roosevelt’s fam-ily and social peers, most of whom consideredpolitics a low and dirty activity dominated bycorrupt bosses and ill-bred immigrants. Theo-dore, however, decided that he ‘‘intended to beone of the governing class,’’ a determination thatwould dominate the rest of his life.4

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Legislator, Cowboy, and Naturalist

In 1881, at the age of twenty-three, Rooseveltwas elected to the New York state assembly asa Republican. He quickly established himself asthe leader of a group of young independent-minded Republican legislators, known as the‘‘Roosevelt Republicans,’’ who fought to cleanup New York politics by opposing the power ofboth the Republican state machine and the Tam-many Hall Democrats of New York City. Roo-sevelt gained a widespread reputation for hon-esty, integrity, and vigor. In his second term, hewas made minority leader of the assembly andin his third term collaborated often with Demo-cratic Governor Grover Cleveland to pass reformlegislation, especially civil service reform.5

This seemingly charmed career was side-tracked in February of 1884, when Roosevelt suf-fered the deaths of both his wife and his mother.He had met the beautiful Alice Lee while he wasat Harvard and they had married on October 27,1880, a handsome couple who delighted in thesocial life of New York. Alice became ill withBright’s Disease immediately after giving birthto their first child, also named Alice. At the sametime, Martha Roosevelt lay ill with typhoid feverin an upstairs room. On Valentine’s Day, 1884,Martha died, followed the next morning byAlice, who died in her husband’s arms. The blowwas tremendous, causing Theodore to lament inhis diary, ‘‘The light has gone out of my life.’’He never spoke of Alice Lee Roosevelt again. Hedeclined to run for reelection to the assembly, de-ciding instead to go west and forget his sorrowsby becoming a cowboy. He purchased a ranchin the Dakota Territory and spent the next twoyears tending to a large herd of cattle, chasingoutlaws, writing popular books about the Westsuch as Hunting Trips of a Ranchman (1885), andcreating an image as one of the nation’s mostenigmatic cowboys.6

These sojourns in the West helped to expandone of Roosevelt’s greatest interests, his love ofnature. As a young man Roosevelt had enjoyedstudying the plant and animal life of his nativeNew York. The Dakota Territory opened up newexperiences and also fostered a concern for thevanishing wildlife of the nation. Throughout his

subsequent political career, he would maintainan interest in preserving America’s natural beau-ty, despite his penchant for shooting at much ofit on western hunting trips. Whether it was thefounding of Boone and Crockett Clubs through-out the country or setting up wildlife preservesas president, this interest would remain a con-stant throughout his life. Another constant inter-est was history. In all, Roosevelt wrote fourteenbooks on various topics, as well as numerous ar-ticles. While not recognized as great works ofhistory, his Naval War of 1812, Thomas Hart Benton(1886), and Winning of the West (1889) were con-sidered standard works for decades. All of thishe accomplished while pursuing an active careerin politics.7

Even in his attempts at seclusion, Rooseveltcould not entirely escape from politics. Beforeleaving for the Dakotas in 1884, he led the NewYork delegation to the Republican National Con-vention in an attempt to block the presidentialnomination of James G. Blaine. When this effortfailed, Roosevelt declined to follow the exampleof other reformers, who switched their allegianceto the Democratic candidate, Grover Cleveland.As he boarded his train for the Dakotas, he indi-cated that he would support the Republicannominee. The reform press reacted with outrage,excoriating their former hero from afar. Duringhis years as a cowboy, Roosevelt made frequenttrips back east to attend to family business andregaled reporters with tales of his exotic adven-tures. This ensured that his name remained inthe papers in New York, as well as spreading tomore western locales. He remained enough inthe public eye, in fact, that upon one of his returntrips in 1886, the party nominated him for mayorof New York City.8

Politics and War

After losing the three-way mayoral race of1886 and spending a few years on his literarypursuits, Roosevelt held a succession of ap-pointed posts in which he performed well andcontinued to enhance his public reputation. In1889 he became a civil service commissionerunder President Benjamin Harrison. He left thisposition in 1895 to become a New York City po-lice commissioner, and then, in 1897, President

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William McKinley appointed him assistant sec-retary of the navy. Roosevelt found himself inthis office when the United States declared waron Spain in 1898. Never one to miss the action,Roosevelt promptly resigned his post to form avolunteer regiment of western cowboys and east-ern adventurers that the press dubbed ‘‘Roo-sevelt’s Rough Riders.’’ The Spanish-AmericanWar did not last long, but it was long enoughfor the Rough Riders to ride (or march, since onlyColonel Roosevelt was actually mounted) intoAmerican folklore. After the well-chronicled Bat-tle of San Juan Hill, Roosevelt returned to theUnited States as the most famous man in thenation.9

In the summer of 1898, the New York Repub-lican party was searching for a gubernatorialcandidate. As the current Republican adminis-tration was plagued with scandals and fallingpopularity, the prospects of a Democratic victoryin the fall were rising daily. It quickly becameobvious to party leaders that only a man of tre-mendous popularity and an impeccable reputa-tion for honesty and ‘‘clean government’’ couldrescue the party from defeat. That man was thevigorous colonel just returned from Cuba, Theo-dore Roosevelt. The man whose opinionmattered most, however, was not so sure. Sen-ator Thomas Platt had risen to power in the partythe old-fashioned way, by climbing up throughthe party machinery. By 1898, he had establishedhimself as the unquestioned leader of the stateGOP. Known as the ‘‘Easy Boss,’’ Platt was in aposition to decide who the state conventionwould nominate for governor. As a veteran NewYork politician, Platt had seen Roosevelt in ac-tion and was suspicious of the young man’s re-form attitude, his lack of sympathy for the ma-chine, and his immense personal popularity. Thelast thing the Easy Boss wanted was a challengeto his power within the party. On the other hand,Roosevelt had shown his party regularity by notbolting the Blaine campaign in 1884, and hismost virulent tirades were usually reserved forthe Democratic Tammany Hall machine in NewYork City. Most of all, Platt saw in the famouscolonel a way to keep the party in office, an out-

come far preferable to the election of a hostileDemocratic administration.10

On September 17, Roosevelt went to see Plattat the senator’s apartment in the Fifth AvenueHotel in order to come to some sort of workingagreement. The reformers once more cried out inprotest that their leader was consorting with theenemy. Roosevelt’s ambiguous relationship withmany vocal reform advocates was a recurringtheme during his career. Those who worked tooverthrow the machines did not see how a politi-cian could further the cause of reform while stillworking with men like Tom Platt. Roosevelt was,above all else, a man of action who measuredsuccess by results. He was willing to com-promise in order to accomplish gradual changes.He was contemptuous of what he called ‘‘profes-sional reformers,’’ men who refused to bendtheir ideals to the realities of power. While othersrailed at the system from without, Rooseveltwould try to reform it from within, but to do thisrequired power.11

Governor of New York

Senator Platt agreed to Roosevelt’s nominationafter the candidate promised to consult him onappointments to office and important policymatters. Roosevelt’s campaign was rather sim-ple; he promised merely to run a ‘‘clean’’ admin-istration and capitalized on his popularity withthe voters. Although he may not have had a clearprogram in mind while running for office, oncein, he quickly showed that he had no intentionof being a mere caretaker for the machine. It be-came apparent that he and Senator Platt had dif-ferent definitions of ‘‘consultation.’’ One of thegovernor’s first decisions was to appoint a newadministrator for the state canal system. It wasin this office that most of the worst scandals ofthe previous administration had taken place.Senator Platt had promised the position toFrancis J. Hendricks of Syracuse. When Roo-sevelt refused to make the appointment (becauseHendricks was from a ‘‘canal county’’), Platt wasincensed. Roosevelt managed to calm the situa-tion by drawing up a list of names, all good partymen, and allowing Platt to choose from it. By thismethod, most future appointments were madeamicably, but the governor had shown his inde-

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pendence and given the Easy Boss an uneasyfeeling about the future.12

Conflicts over policy would be a more difficultmatter. Governor Roosevelt supported legisla-tion authorizing the state supreme court to in-spect the books of corporations, endorsedantimonopoly legislation, pushed for better civilservice laws, supported an eight-hour-day lawfor public employees, and advocated a minimumwage for New York City’s school teachers. Theseand other measures ran afoul of Senator Platt’swishes, but the issue which most disturbed himwas Roosevelt’s support for a tax on public fran-chises. Platt’s political machine was financed pri-marily by large corporations in New York, manyof which held public franchises. Nothing wasmore hateful to these interests than corporatetaxes, especially on companies that were, in theireyes at least, providing a public service such aswater or gas. By forcing the franchise tax throughthe legislature, Roosevelt made powerful en-emies who informed Senator Platt of their dis-approval. The boss worried that his hold on theparty was fading because of his inability to con-trol his governor. He began reconsidering his re-lationship with Theodore Roosevelt.13

Getting rid of Governor Roosevelt did notpromise to be easy. While the impetuous gov-ernor may have made enemies in the businesscommunity, he was immensely popular with thepublic. In fact, it was this popularity that madehim such an effective governor. One reason Sen-ator Platt had acquiesced in Roosevelt’s nomina-tion was that the senator anticipated controllingthe state assembly. As long as Platt’s will was su-preme in the legislature, the governor’s mostthreatening schemes could be defeated. Roo-sevelt, however, had developed a weapon capa-ble of changing the minds of wavering legisla-tors. During his campaign for election, the gov-ernor had demonstrated the power of his person-ality; as one observer remarked, ‘‘Teddy . . .[was] a wonder . . . there were immense gather-ings of enthusiastic people at every stoppingplace. . . . [Even when] the speech was nothing,. . . the man’s presence was everything. It waselectrical, magnetic.’’ Roosevelt was aware of hishold on the public imagination. As the most vig-orous governor most New Yorkers had ever

seen, Roosevelt used constant publicity to pushfor his programs. He regularly held two pressconferences a day and consulted experts of allkinds on complex issues.14 The growing mediaof the day feasted on this constant flow of infor-mation, and the public loved it. Under such in-tense public scrutiny, only the most intransigentof legislators cared to challenge Roosevelt. Thismethod of public persuasion would serve Roo-sevelt well in the future, as it defined his politicalstyle and formed his most lasting contribution tothe political process in the twentieth century.

Deciding Whether to Run for Vice President

During Roosevelt’s term as governor, many ofhis friends and admirers began once more to con-sider his future. As governor of New York, henaturally became a potential candidate for presi-dent. Even Senator Platt realized this when hewas considering Roosevelt’s gubernatorial nomi-nation, saying, ‘‘If he becomes Governor of NewYork, sooner or later, with his personality, hewill have to be President of the United States.. . . I am afraid to start that thing going.’’ 15 In1900 however, the Republicans already had acandidate in incumbent President WilliamMcKinley. Few doubted that Roosevelt would bea candidate in 1904; the problem was what heshould do until then. Even if Roosevelt were re-elected governor, he could only serve until 1902,leaving two years before he could run for presi-dent. Roosevelt himself did not believe that hiscurrent popularity could last another fouryears.16 His friends, however, found a solutionto his problem: they would make him vicepresident.

The most conspicuous proponent of this ideawas Massachusetts Senator Henry Cabot Lodge.Roosevelt and Lodge had been close friends formany years, and Lodge had no doubt about hisfriend’s presidential destiny. Lodge was surethat the vice-presidency was the way to the Exec-utive Mansion. This must have sounded odd tomany since the vice-presidency was widely per-ceived as ‘‘a spot to gain four years of rest anda good income,’’ 17 hardly the sort of office to ap-peal to an active man like Roosevelt. Lodge,however, knew his friend well enough to realize

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that all Roosevelt needed to succeed was a placein the spotlight. As Lodge later put it,

I do not pretend to say that the office [of vicepresident] in itself is suited to you and to yourhabits, but for the future it is, in my judgement,invaluable. It takes you out of the cut-throat poli-tics of New York, where I am sure they wouldhave destroyed your prospects, if you had re-mained two years longer, and it gives you a posi-tion in the eyes of the country second only to thatof the President.18

Some of Roosevelt’s other friends also speculatedthat the vice president’s role as presiding officerof the Senate would keep him in the public eyemuch more effectively than his current positionas governor of New York. Finally, many of hiswestern supporters were eager for the oppor-tunity to promote their man for a national office,especially after his appearance at the Rough Rid-ers’ reunion in Las Vegas in 1899. Newspapersall over the West championed him for the vice-presidency in 1900 and the presidency in 1904.Some even suggested replacing McKinley in1900.19 The movement was gathering momen-tum, and Vice President Garret A. Hobart’sdeath in November 1899 only increased thepace—but what about the candidate?

While flattered by all the support for his can-didacy, Roosevelt did not relish the idea of beingvice president. He worried that as vice presidenthe ‘‘could not do anything.’’ 20 For a man whothrived on the ‘‘strenuous life,’’ it was an un-pleasant prospect indeed. He would have few re-sponsibilities in the office, and it would restricthis ability to speak out on issues that greatly con-cerned him. He worried that ‘‘if I did anything[as vice president] I would attract suspicion andantagonism.’’ He considered the potential for avice president to be active in formulating policyto be ‘‘infinitesimal.’’ 21 As governor of NewYork, at least, he was actively doing the workthat so stimulated him; as vice president thatwould not be possible.

Presiding over the Senate did not appeal tohim either. The job would undoubtedly be a‘‘bore’’ and might, in fact, prove quite madden-ing. As he wrote to Lodge, ‘‘I should be in a coldshiver of rage at inability to answer hounds like

[Senator Richard] Pettigrew [D-SD] and thescarcely more admirable [Senator William]Mason [R-IL] and [Senator Eugene] Hale [R-ME].. . . I would be seeing continually things that Iwould like to do, and very possibly would liketo do differently from the way in which they arebeing done.’’ The vice president had little, if any,real authority in the Senate, and Roosevelt wasadamant that he would ‘‘not like to be afigurehead.’’ 22

There were also financial reasons for Roo-sevelt’s reluctance to run. He was, by his ownstandards, a man of ‘‘very moderate means.’’ Thevice president was expected to carry on an activesocial life in Washington, which required ‘‘theexpenditure of a good deal of money for enter-taining and the like.’’ Roosevelt could certainlynot entertain on a scale comparable to that ofLevi Morton and Garret Hobart, the two most re-cent Republican vice presidents. Still, if the officeheld opportunities to do valuable work, Roo-sevelt would have tolerated the financial prob-lems.23 Unfortunately, the vice-presidency of-fered few such possibilities and promised to bea financial strain as well.

The more Roosevelt thought about it, the lessappealing the vice-presidency became. He con-tinually expressed this opinion to anyone whoasked, finally stating, ‘‘I would a great deal rath-er be anything, say professor of history, thanVice-President.’’ 24 It was not, however, a teach-ing position that attracted his attention. The posi-tion that Roosevelt really wanted was secretaryof war, but McKinley appointed Elihu Root tothat recently vacated post. Roosevelt’s secondchoice was governor general of the Philippines,but the president, not trusting Roosevelt’s im-petuous nature, was unlikely to grant him thatoffice.25 With these options unavailable, the gov-ernor’s mansion seemed the best place for him.It was left for the Easy Boss to step in and supplythe final piece to the nomination puzzle.

Senator Platt was looking for a way to get Gov-ernor Roosevelt out of New York. The corpora-tions and large financial interests of the statewere increasingly disturbed by the governor’sperformance, especially his support of the fran-chise tax, and were anxious to return to businessas usual. They placed growing pressure on Sen-

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ator Platt to do something about his governor.While reluctant to resort to a potentially disas-trous fight against Roosevelt’s renomination forgovernor, the boss saw an opportunity in all thetalk about the vice-presidency. If he could pushRoosevelt into that position devoid of power, hewould get the young reformer out of the way,appease his financial supporters, and be free toselect a more pliable governor as Roosevelt’s re-placement. It seemed the perfect solution.26

The boss proceeded to push Roosevelt’s nameto party leaders and hinted to the governor thathe might not support him for a second guber-natorial term. This challenge from the machine,however, only raised the fighting spirit in Roo-sevelt, who was never one to a retreat from polit-ical battle. In February 1900 Roosevelt thereforeattempted to remove himself from the vice-presi-dential race, telling the New York Tribune that‘‘under no circumstances could I, or would I, ac-cept the nomination for the vice presidency.’’ 27

The boom for his nomination, however, contin-ued, with friends and foes alike fanning theflames.

Meanwhile, in Washington, President McKin-ley remained silent on the issue. The presidenthad never been greatly impressed by GovernorRoosevelt for reasons of both personality andpolicy. Yet, after Hobart’s death, he gave no indi-cation of preference in the selection of his newrunning mate. Most Republican leaders believedRoosevelt would bring a new kind of glamor andexcitement to their ticket. The governor was a re-cent war hero, whose record in office had beenvery popular and less radical than some hadfeared. There were also no other similarly attrac-tive candidates available.28 McKinley may havebeen opposed to Roosevelt, but he proposed noalternatives, and his silence seemed to indicateacceptance.

Election of 1900

By the time the Republican National Conven-tion opened in June in Philadelphia, it had be-come obvious that Roosevelt was the favorite toreceive the vice-presidential nomination. Whenhe continued to protest that he would rather begovernor of New York, Lodge warned him that,if he attended the convention, his nomination

was assured. But Roosevelt could not stay away,claiming that to do so would look like coward-ice.29 As a result, despite his protestations, hismagnetic presence at the convention fired the en-thusiasm of his partisans to a fever pitch. Whenhe appeared for the opening session clad in ablack hat reminiscent of the Rough Riders’Cuban campaign—what one delegate called ‘‘anacceptance hat’’—his nomination was sealed.Scores of western delegates spent that night pa-rading and chanting ‘‘We want Teddy.’’ As Sen-ator Platt put it, ‘‘Roosevelt might as well standunder Niagara Falls and try to spit water backas to stop his nomination by this convention.’’ 30

Ohio Senator Mark Hanna, who opposed theRoosevelt nomination, tried to block the move-ment from his position as convention chairman,but without support from the president he coulddo little against the combined forces of Platt,Pennsylvania boss Matthew Quay (who had anold score to settle with Hanna), and genuinepopular will. In desperation, Hanna could onlyprotest, ‘‘Don’t you realize that there’s only onelife between this madman and the WhiteHouse?’’ 31

Theodore Roosevelt really did not want to bevice president, but he was a confirmed politicalrealist with presidential ambitions. He knew thatregaining the nomination for governor of NewYork would be difficult, if not impossible,against the open opposition of Senator Platt, andeven a successful gubernatorial campaign prom-ised only two years of political struggle againstgrowing corporate hostility. Although Rooseveltcontinued to fight his own nomination, his pro-tests grew gradually weaker, until, by the timeof the convention, they were no longer convinc-ing. Everything pointed to the vice-presidency,and Theodore Roosevelt knew how to read thesigns. He did not pursue the office, but when itwas thrust upon him, he accepted it. For goodor ill, he was now President McKinley’s runningmate and he was determined to make the bestof it.

Republican strategy in 1900 was to let theiryouthful vice-presidential candidate take to thehustings while President McKinley conductedhis ‘‘front porch campaign,’’ just as he had in1896, except this time he received guests at the

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White House rather than his home in Canton,Ohio. This strategy suited the vigorous Rooseveltextremely well, as he proclaimed himself to be‘‘strong as a bull moose.’’ It allowed him to tourthe West and Midwest, taking on Democraticpresidential candidate William Jennings Bryanon issues of the tariff, the gold standard, andAmerican empire. These two great orators setstandards of stamina never before seen. Roo-sevelt covered 21,000 miles in twenty-four states,making over 600 speeches.32 Roosevelt’s tourhelped the GOP compensate for Bryan’s popu-larity in the West and it added life to an other-wise dull campaign. The vice-presidential can-didate radiated energy, while McKinley sat onhis porch in Washington, reminding the nationhow prosperous it was.

For Roosevelt, the campaign also provided anopportunity to perform on a national stage. Ev-erywhere he went, he drew huge crowds andconstant public attention. As historian John Mil-ton Cooper, Jr., has put it, ‘‘The sheer fascinationof his presence among people who had alreadyread or heard about him, together with the pun-gency of his personality, made him the sensationof the 1900 campaign.’’ 33 Roosevelt’s nationwidetour helped accelerate the growing trend towarddirect, personal campaign techniques. Through-out the nation, ‘‘boy orators’’ such as Roosevelt,Bryan, and Robert M. LaFollette of Wisconsinwere altering the system of party campaigningthat had persisted for decades. Rather than rely-ing solely on their parties to obtain office, theyused whistle-stop campaigns and the burgeon-ing mass media to take their message directly tothe voters. They pushed for direct primaries inorder to bypass the party machines and relied onpublic indignation to insist on reforms. TheodoreRoosevelt was helping to lead the way forchanges in American political campaigns thatwould reverberate throughout the twentieth cen-tury.34 Of course, the press played its part in pro-moting these changes. Roosevelt, as the most in-teresting candidate in 1900, received more presscoverage than even the presidential candidates,and certainly more than the Democratic nomineefor vice president, Adlai Stevenson. Reportersloved Roosevelt because he was always good

news copy. While other politicians relied on edi-tors for favorable press coverage, Roosevelt hadan ongoing rapport with reporters. They couldgo to any politician for opinions; they could goto Roosevelt for stories. His campaign domi-nated the news. As journalist Finley PeterDunne’s favorite character ‘‘Mr. Dooley’’ put it,‘‘’Tis Teddy alone that’s r-runnin’, an’ he ain’trunnin’, he’s gallopin’.’’ 35

An Unenthusiastic Presiding Officer

McKinley’s reelection was nearly a foregoneconclusion. The nation was prosperous and theadministration was popular. On election day,McKinley received 51.6 percent of the vote, upfrom 51 percent in 1896. He lost only one state(Kentucky) from the previous election whileadding Washington, Wyoming, Utah, South Da-kota, Kansas, and Nebraska. Roosevelt’s popu-larity in the West may have influenced thesestates, but the prosperity of McKinley’s first termhad also reduced the impact of ‘‘free silver’’ asa decisive issue, depriving Bryan of his greatestwestern appeal.36

Roosevelt was not overjoyed at being vicepresident but was proud of helping the ticketachieve victory. He did, however, show earlysigns of frustration at the prospect of inactivity.He declined an invitation to speak in February1901, ‘‘chiefly for the excellent reason that I havenothing whatever to say.’’ 37 His penchant forspeaking out would return soon enough, but thisinitial hesitation reflected the uncertainty of Roo-sevelt’s new position. Accustomed to the aggres-sive pursuit of his own policies, he now had tobe careful not to offend either his president orthe party leadership, a goal he had failed toachieve in New York. It was a potentially tryingsituation for an active and outspoken youngman.

The first task of the new vice president was topreside over the Senate, meeting in a special ses-sion for four days beginning March 4. This briefappearance did not give Roosevelt much time tomake an impression, but in those four days heimpressed no one. He had not been looking for-ward to this role, but as he characteristically putit, ‘‘Now all that there is for me to do is to per-form with regularity and dignity the duty of pre-

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siding over the Senate, and to remember the factthat the duty not being very important is no ex-cuse for shirking it.’’ 38 He proved as ill-suitedfor the role as he was unenthusiastic. His mindwandered, and he had a limited grasp of Senateprocedures. As Senator Joseph Foraker tactfullyput it, ‘‘his peculiar qualifications for the publicservice fitted him better for wider, broader andmore useful fields.’’ 39 Roosevelt confessed tobeing ‘‘the poorest presiding officer the Senateever had.’’ 40 The first impressions made by thenew vice president in the Senate were hardlyencouraging.

Once the Senate adjourned, Roosevelt returnedhome to New York to spend the summer withhis wife and seven children, his most enjoyablevacation in years. Two years after the death ofhis first wife, Theodore had married his child-hood sweetheart, Edith Carow. Edith was a veryprivate woman who never seemed entirely com-fortable with the publicity that always sur-rounded her husband. Privately, however, herinfluence went even beyond the difficult task ofraising the rambunctious Roosevelt children. Shecontrolled the family’s finances—Theodore hav-ing never been good at managing his money—and it was later suspected that she was influen-tial in his presidential appointments because shewas considered a better judge of character thanhe was. (From 1901 to 1909, as first lady, Edithwould help transform the White House into acenterpiece for the social and cultural life ofWashington and the nation.) The lack of pressingbusiness as vice president allowed Theodore tospend time playing football with his sons andsparring with his tempestuous older daughter,Alice. Theodore’s relationship with Alice wouldbecome increasingly strained during his presi-dency as she struggled for greater independence.As he later put it, ‘‘I can be President of the Unit-ed States, or I can attend to Alice. I can’t doboth.’’ During Roosevelt’s presidency, ‘‘PrincessAlice’’ would become a celebrity as a Washing-ton socialite and a prominent model of the inde-pendent young woman of the new century. Shewould eventually marry Republican Congress-man Nicholas Longworth of Ohio, a futureSpeaker of the House, in 1906, and become one

of the most famous matrons of Washingtonsociety.41

Because of his lack of interest in the official du-ties of his new office, Roosevelt in the summerof 1901 began looking for other activities and fo-cused on two. First, he resumed a regular speak-ing schedule. These speeches reveal that, withoutmore immediate matters to deal with, histhoughts were increasingly turning to one of hisfavorite topics: foreign policy. He spoke tocrowds in New York and New England aboutthe need for an effective navy and the threatfrom a newly powerful Germany.42 PerhapsRoosevelt saw this as an area in which he wouldhave some freedom, because he and McKinley,while not always in complete accord, had similarviews on foreign policy. Roosevelt’s more viru-lent criticism was aimed at anti-imperialistDemocrats, who were McKinley’s enemies aswell. By spending his time attacking the Demo-crats on foreign policy, he might avoid disturb-ing the Old Guard in his own party with his pro-gressive views on domestic matters.

Vice President Roosevelt’s second activity re-vealed his ambition. He spent considerable timelining up support for a presidential bid in 1904.Despite his concerns that opposition from theparty in New York would deny him the nomina-tion, he cautiously pursued a course designed tobuild a broad base of popular support. He con-centrated his efforts especially in the West,where he was already popular and where theBryanite Democrats represented a significantelectoral challenge. Friends such as WilliamAllen White in Kansas, Philip B. Stewart in Colo-rado, and Booker T. Washington in the Southbegan acting as unofficial campaign managers,and he planned a national speaking tour for1902. Roosevelt also undertook a potentiallymore risky strategy of supporting progressive-minded Republicans in state elections. He volun-teered to assist Albert B. Cummins of Iowa in hiscampaign for governor. Cummins had defeatedan Old Guard opponent for the nomination andin supporting him too heartily, Roosevelt ran therisk of offending the national party leadership.He may have been willing to take that chance inorder to build a separate base of party supportand appeal to the growing public interest in pro-

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gressive candidates. Roosevelt was preparingonce more for political battle, and, on the whole,the odds looked good.43

It appeared that Vice President Roosevelt’s of-ficial responsibilities were to be limited, at leastfor the moment, since President McKinley didnot consult him either on policy or appoint-ments. Although McKinley had used Vice Presi-dent Hobart as his liaison with the Senate, Roo-sevelt was poorly suited for this role, since heshone more as a public spokesman than as a par-liamentary operator. In addition, the Senate wasdominated by Old Guard Republicans, most ofwhom were wary of Roosevelt’s insurgent im-pulses. In any event, McKinley was not likely toentrust his impetuous vice president with legis-lative responsibilities, because he distrusted theyounger man’s lack of caution. Roosevelt, for hispart, chafed under the restraints of McKinley’sslowness in dealing with contentious issues. Asa result, while the relations between the two menwere amicable and professional, they were notclose.44

Early in September 1901, everything changed.On September 5 President McKinley, a longtimeadvocate of protective tariffs, delivered a majorpolicy speech at the Pan American Exposition inBuffalo, New York. In his address, the presidentcalled for a new era of reciprocal trade with othernations, in which the old trade barriers must fall.‘‘The period of exclusiveness is past . . . the ex-pansion of our trade and commerce is the press-ing problem,’’ he declared. The next day, Sep-tember 6, the president held a public receptionin the Temple of Music. At slightly after 4 p.m.,a young anarchist named Leon Czolgosz walkedup to the president with a gun in his right hand,hidden in a bandage. He fired two shots at thepresident: one bounced off a button, but theother lodged in McKinley’s stomach. For a week,the president struggled to survive, but on Sep-tember 14 he expired, whispering the title of hisfavorite hymn, ‘‘Nearer, My God, To Thee.’’ 45

McKinley’s pathbreaking initiative for lower tar-iffs died with him.

Upon hearing of the shooting, Roosevelt hadrushed to Buffalo, but when the doctors had beenencouraged by the president’s progress afterthree days, the vice president had departed for

the Adirondacks. On September 13, he was re-called by a note from Secretary of War ElihuRoot, ‘‘The President appears to be dying, andmembers of the Cabinet in Buffalo think youshould lose no time in coming.’’ Making a furi-ous trip by buckboard and special train, Roo-sevelt arrived in Buffalo on the fourteenth to findthe president already dead. After paying his re-spects to Mrs. McKinley, he met with the cabinet,telling them, ‘‘I wish to say that it shall be myaim to continue, absolutely unbroken, the policyof President McKinley for the peace, the prosper-ity, and the honor of our beloved country.’’ Hethen took the oath of office, becoming, at forty-two, the youngest president in the nation’shistory.46

A Popular President

Roosevelt’s pledge to continue McKinley’spolicies was not only meant to calm the nation,but was consistent with his conception of the roleof the vice president. In an article for Review ofReviews in 1896, Roosevelt, then New York City’spolice commissioner, had described the vicepresident as a ‘‘functionless official’’ except forthe possibility of becoming ‘‘the head of thewhole nation.’’ He therefore stressed:

The Vice-President should so far as possiblerepresent the same views and principles whichhave secured the nomination and election of thePresident, and he should be a man standing wellin the councils of the party, trusted by his fellowparty leaders, and able in the event of any acci-dent to his chief to take up the work of the latterjust where it was left.47

Of course, the man holding the office in Sep-tember 1901 did not fit this model. Roosevelt hadnot been selected because of his similarities toMcKinley and, now that he was president, wouldnot take long to go his own way. He almost im-mediately began pursuing a nature conservationprogram and in a few months would instigatean antitrust suit against the Northern SecuritiesCompany. He would genuinely attempt to steera middle course between the Old Guard and theinsurgent Republicans, but pressure for changewas rising and Roosevelt’s heart had alwaysbeen with the reformers.48 His first annual mes-sage to Congress, calling for some regulation of

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corporations, served notice that life under Roo-sevelt would be different from life underMcKinley.

President Roosevelt inherited a number of ad-vantages from his predecessor. The first was apowerful and efficient party organization, builtby Mark Hanna, which Roosevelt immediatelybegan making his own. He used appointmentsand the connections he had already made to givepower to his supporters and prepare for the con-vention of 1904. He also inherited a talented andable cabinet. He would rely a great deal on menlike Secretary of State John Hay, Secretary of WarElihu Root, and McKinley’s personal secretaryGeorge Courtelyou. Roosevelt had also learnedsome things about press relations fromMcKinley’s White House. The McKinley admin-istration, thanks primarily to the enterprisingCortelyou, had made innovative changes in han-dling the media. McKinley had used press re-leases, pre-released speech transcripts, and ‘‘trialballoons’’ to shape news reports as no otherpresident had ever done. Roosevelt combinedthis efficiency with his own tremendous person-ality to dominate the news. His control of the in-formation the papers reported gave him extraor-dinary power to shape his own publicity.49

Because Roosevelt was vice president for soshort a time, he had little impact on the office,but thanks to his skill at publicity, the potentialcertainly existed for him to have played an influ-ential role in that office. Roosevelt had defiedconventional practice by waging an active na-tional campaign for the vice-presidency, 50 dem-onstrating his ability to publicize the Republicancause and reach out to the voters in a way thatMcKinley could not. It seems likely that McKin-ley, a man well aware of the power of the press,might have continued to use Roosevelt in a simi-lar fashion, as a sort of ‘‘public persuader’’ forthe administration.51 McKinley had indicatedthat he would pursue trade reciprocity agree-ments in his second term, had begun to preparean antitrust agenda, and had hinted that hemight take up the tariff issue.52 If so, Rooseveltwould have been the ideal man to sell these pro-grams to the public.

Theodore Roosevelt became one of the nation’smost active and popular presidents, easily win-

ning reelection in 1904. He pursued importantdomestic legislation, such as the Hepburn Act(for greater regulation of railroads) and the PureFood and Drug acts, and he led the nation intoa more active role in international relations. In1906, he became the first American to receive theNobel Prize for Peace for his mediation of theRusso-Japanese War.

After leaving office in 1909, Roosevelt em-barked on a hunting safari in Africa, returninghome in 1910 to a hero’s welcome. In 1912, dis-enchanted with the policies of his presidentialsuccessor William Howard Taft, Roosevelt de-cided to run for president once more. Denied thenomination by the Republicans, he formed hisown party, the Progressive or Bull Moose party,chose Hiram Johnson of California as a runningmate, and ran against Taft. The three contenders,Roosevelt, Taft, and Democrat Woodrow Wilson,the eventual winner, together produced one ofthe most memorable presidential campaigns inU.S. history. When the ballots were counted,Roosevelt’s independent candidacy came in sec-ond, ahead of Taft’s Republican ticket.53

After the campaign of 1912, Roosevelt retiredonce more into private life. He would not, how-ever, remain in the background. Upon the out-break of World War I in Europe in 1914, Roo-sevelt called for immediate entry by the UnitedStates on the side of the Allies. When PresidentWilson adopted a policy of neutrality, Rooseveltbecame the president’s most vociferous critic.After the United States entered the war in 1917,Roosevelt proposed to lead a division of volun-teers, a reincarnation of the Rough Riders, tofight in France and was outraged when PresidentWilson refused him a command. Roosevelt con-tinued to criticize Wilson throughout the war,but late in 1918, as peace negotiations proceededin Paris, Roosevelt fell ill. On January 6, 1919, atthe age of sixty, Theodore Roosevelt died in hissleep.54

As Henry Cabot Lodge had predicted, the vice-presidency proved a stepping stone for Roo-sevelt to the White House, though not in the wayhe had foreseen. Theodore Roosevelt was electedvice president thanks to a combination of SenatorPlatt’s desire to get him out of the way and apopular movement among friends and admirers

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within the GOP. Despite Platt’s hope that hewould fade from view, Roosevelt appeared to beon the path to the presidency, poised to use thevice-presidency in novel ways to build his own

support for 1904. Lodge thus proved a betterprophet than either Roosevelt or Platt. The vice-presidency led, not to oblivion, but to the WhiteHouse.

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NOTES1 Elting E. Morison, ed., The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt,

vol. 2, The Years of Preparation, 1898–1900 (Cambridge, 1951),p. 1174.

2 Quoted in Irving G. Williams, The Rise of the Vice Presi-dency (Washington, D.C., 1956), p. 81.

3 Morison, 2:1439.4 Edmund Morris, The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt (New

York, 1979), pp. 32–36, 60–70, 128, 135–56. This is the mostdetailed and colorful account of Roosevelt’s life and earlycareer.

5 Ibid., pp. 159–201, 227–67; William Henry Harbaugh,Power and Responsibility: The Life and Times of Theodore Roo-sevelt (New York, 1961), pp. 27–28. Harbaugh provides themost thorough scholarly account of Roosevelt’s publiccareer.

6 Morris, pp. 240–45, 270–341. As chairman of the Stock-man’s Association, Roosevelt was automatically a deputysheriff of Billings County, a responsibility he took very seri-ously.

7 Ibid., pp. 382–85, 153–56, 386–93. Boone and CrockettClubs were dedicated to preserving wildlife throughout thenation and to westward expansion.

8 Ibid., pp. 261–68, 345–47.9 Ibid., Chapters 16–25.10 Ibid., pp. 665–66; Harbaugh, Power and Responsibility,

pp. 108–11.11 Harbaugh, Power and Responsibility, pp. 109–11.12 Ibid., pp. 111–14.13 Ibid., pp. 114–21.14 Ibid., pp. 113–22; John Morton Blum, The Republican

Roosevelt, 2d ed. (New York, 1964), pp. 15–16.15 Quoted in Morris, p. 666.16 Henry Cabot Lodge, ed., Selections from the Correspond-

ence of Theodore Roosevelt and Henry Cabot Lodge, 1884–1918(New York, 1925), 1:426.

17 David J. Rothman, Politics and Power: The United StatesSenate, 1869–1901 (Cambridge, MA, 1966), p. 157.

18 Lodge, 1:467.19 Morison, 2:1157; Harbaugh, Power and Responsibility, p.

123.20 Morris, p. 718.21 Lodge, 1:435, 442.22 Morison, 2:1157; Lodge, 1:448.23 Morison, 2:1140; Lodge, 1:442.24 Morison, 2:1174.25 G. Wallace Chessman, ‘‘Theodore Roosevelt’s Cam-

paign Against the Vice-Presidency,’’ Historian 14 (Spring1952): 174–75; Lodge, 1:442.

26 Williams, p. 73; Morison, 2:449.27 Quoted in Chessman, ‘‘Theodore Roosevelt’s Cam-

paign Against the Vice-Presidency,’’ p. 179.

28 John Milton Cooper, Jr., Pivotal Decades: The UnitedStates, 1900–1920 (New York, 1990), p. 29. This work offersan outstanding general synthesis of the politics of this era.

29 Lodge, 1:460.30 Quoted in Harbaugh, Power and Responsibility, p. 135.31 Quoted in Blum, p. 22.32 Harbaugh, Power and Responsibility, pp. 137–38.33 Cooper, Pivotal Decades, pp. 29–30.34 Ibid., pp. 28–30.35 Chalmers M. Roberts, The Washington Post: The First 100

Years (Boston, 1977), p. 57; David S. Barry, Forty Years inWashington (Boston, 1924), p. 270; Morris, p. 731.

36 William H. Harbaugh, ‘‘The Republican Party, 1893–1932,’’ in History of U.S. Political Parties, ed. Arthur M.Schlesinger, Jr., vol. 3, 1910–1945, From Square Deal to NewDeal (New York, 1973), p. 2080; Cooper, Pivotal Decades, pp.24–25.

37 Morison, 2:1422; Lodge, 1:484.38 Morison, 2:1446.39 Quoted in Barry, p. 273.40 Quoted in Williams, p. 81.41 Harbaugh, Power and Responsibility, pp. 143–44; Morris,

pp. 26, 313, 359, 372; Lewis Gould, The Presidency of TheodoreRoosevelt (Lawrence, KS, 1991), pp. 102–4, 226.

42 Lodge, 1:484–88, 492–94.43 Morison, 3:121, 129; G. Wallace Chessman, Theodore

Roosevelt and the Politics of Power (Boston, 1969), pp. 79–83;Blum, p. 40; Williams, p. 81; Gould, The Presidency of Theo-dore Roosevelt, p. 128.

44 Chessman, Theodore Roosevelt and the Politics of Power,p. 77; Lewis Gould, The Presidency of William McKinley (Law-rence, KS, 1980), p. 215; Morison, pp. 56–57.

45 Gould, The Presidency of William McKinley, pp. 251–52;Harbaugh, Power and Responsibility, pp. 144–45.

46 Harbaugh, Power and Responsibility, pp. 144–46.47 Theodore Roosevelt, ‘‘The Three Vice-Presidential Can-

didates and What They Represent,’’ American Monthly Re-view of Reviews 14 (September 1896): 289–91.

48 Harbaugh, ‘‘The Republican Party, 1893–1932,’’ p. 2080;Chessman, Theodore Roosevelt and the Politics of Power, pp.82–84.

49 Chessman, Theodore Roosevelt and the Politics of Power,pp. 80–82; Blum, pp. 38–44; Gould, The Presidency of TheodoreRoosevelt, pp. 16–21; Robert C. Hilderbrand, Power and thePeople: Executive Management of Public Opinion in Foreign Af-fairs, 1897–1921 (Chapel Hill, NC, 1981), pp. 52–61; John Mil-ton Cooper, The Warrior and the Priest: Woodrow Wilson andTheodore Roosevelt (Cambridge, 1983), pp. 65, 70.

50 Although most scholars have credited Roosevelt withbeing the first vice-presidential candidate to wage a na-tional campaign, Richard Mentor Johnson also did so in

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1840. See Chapter 9 of this volume, ‘‘Richard Mentor John-son,’’ p. 130.

51 This role is suggested in Horace Samuel Merrill andMarion Galbraith Merrill, The Republican Command, 1897–1913 (Lexington, KY, 1971), p. 95.

52 Gould, The Presidency of William McKinley, pp. 249–51;Cooper, The Warrior and the Priest, p. 77. McKinley’s un-timely death permits only speculation about his full inten-tions, but his public and private statements indicate prep-

arations for a more active agenda of antitrust and tariff leg-islation.

53 For the most penetrating discussions of Roosevelt’spresidency see Blum’s Republican Roosevelt and Gould’sPresidency of Theodore Roosevelt. Chessman’s Theodore Roo-sevelt and the Politics of Power is also helpful. For the electionof 1912, see Cooper’s The Warrior and the Priest.

54 The fullest account of Roosevelt’s post-presidential ac-tivities appears in Harbaugh’s Power and Responsibility.

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Chapter 26

CHARLES WARRENFAIRBANKS

1905–1909

CHARLES W. FAIRBANKS

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Chapter 26

CHARLES WARRENFAIRBANKS

26th Vice President: 1905–1909

My name must not be considered for Vice President and if it is presented, I wish it withdrawn.Please withdraw it.

—CHARLES WARREN FAIRBANKS 1

In the summer of 1904 Senator Charles WarrenFairbanks wanted to be president of the UnitedStates. Many in 1900 had seen him as the naturalsuccessor to his good friend President WilliamMcKinley. Now, however, it was not the fallenMcKinley who occupied the White House, butTheodore Roosevelt, and the president appearedon his way to easy renomination at the 1904 Re-publican convention. When members of the Re-publican Old Guard suggested Fairbanks for vicepresident, the senator saw an opportunity for ad-vancement. After all, the second spot had led tothe presidency for Roosevelt, it might do thesame for him. The vice-presidency might provea good place from which to maneuver for the1908 convention, and anything could happenwith the impetuous Roosevelt in the WhiteHouse. As Finley Peter Dunne’s fictional char-acter Mr. Dooley speculated, ‘‘Th’ way they gotSinitor Fairbanks to accipt was by showin’ hima pitcher iv our gr-reat an’ noble prisidint thryinto jump a horse over a six-foot fence.’’ 2 Most ofall, Roosevelt’s prodigious shadow seemed a nat-ural place for a man described by friends as ‘‘asafe and popular politician’’ to wait for his turnin the White House.3 If ever a man seemed des-tined to remain in the political shadows, it wasCharles Warren Fairbanks.

Youth

Charles Fairbanks was born on May 11, 1852,in a modest log house in Ohio. His father,Loriston Fairbanks, was a farmer and wagonmaker who had moved from New York to gointo business for himself. He became active inUnion County as a member of the agriculturalboard, and his wife, Mary Adelaide Smith, wasa local temperance advocate. As a moderatelywealthy farmer, Fairbanks could afford to sendhis son Charles to college at Ohio Wesleyan.Charles excelled at his studies, graduating eighthout of forty-four in the class of 1874. He contin-ued his education at Cleveland Law College, tak-ing only six months to complete his courses andpass the bar.4

On October 6, 1874, Charles married CorneliaCole and moved with her to Indianapolis, Indi-ana, where, with the help of an uncle, Charlestook a position as attorney with the Chesapeakeand Ohio railroad system. Over the next decade,young Fairbanks built a sterling reputation—aswell as a personal fortune—as a lawyer for nu-merous railroad interests in the Midwest. Hespecialized in dealing with bankrupt railroadsand he prosecuted strikers after the Indianapolisrailroad strike in 1877. These activities brought

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the young lawyer to the attention of Indiana’sRepublican party.5

Leader of the Indiana Republicans

In 1884, Indiana’s Republicans split in theirsupport of presidential candidates, some favor-ing Walter Q. Gresham and others preferringBenjamin Harrison. The election of Harrison in1888 seemingly jeopardized Fairbanks’ pros-pects, since he had been active on behalf of theGresham faction. Harrison’s lackluster perform-ance in the White House, however, followed byimpressive Democratic victories in 1892, gaveFairbanks the opportunity to return to promi-nence in the state by helping to rebuild the party.The campaign of 1892 also brought him into con-tact with the governor of Ohio, William McKin-ley. The two men formed a friendship that lasteduntil McKinley’s untimely death in 1901 andproved extremely beneficial to the careers of bothmen.6

Even though he held no office, Fairbanks man-aged to gain control of the Indiana Republicanparty, primarily because of his wealth. He spentfreely on campaigns and consistently urgedparty unity behind candidates at all levels. Per-sistent letter writing and encouragement en-deared him to GOP officeholders throughout thestate, and he used his connections with the rail-roads to obtain passes for political allies. Perhapsmost importantly, he secretly owned a majorityinterest in the state’s largest newspaper, The Indi-anapolis News. By 1901, he had also purchased themajor opposition daily, The Indianapolis Journal.Fairbanks’ control of the press significantly pro-moted the Republican cause in Indiana.7

As leader of his state’s Republican party, Fair-banks stood in an excellent position to commandthe attention of the national party. With the par-ties almost evenly balanced in the late nineteenthcentury, a small shift in the voting patterns ofone of the more densely populated industrialstates could win or lose a presidential election.Indiana was one of these vital states. In the thir-teen presidential elections from 1868 to 1916,eleven of the national tickets boasted a Hoosiercandidate, usually running for vice president.Charles Fairbanks thus became an importantman in Republican electoral considerations.8

When William McKinley ran for president in1896, he made his friend Fairbanks a key playerin his campaign strategy. Fairbanks ranMcKinley’s campaign in Indiana and delivereda united Hoosier delegation for McKinley at theRepublican National Convention in St. Louis. Astemporary chairman of that convention, Fair-banks uncharacteristically delivered a stirringkeynote address, in which he lambasted theDemocrats and advocated the gold standard forcurrency.9 McKinley won the Republican nomi-nation handily, then defeated Democrat WilliamJennings Bryan in the general election. Indiana,which he won by only about 18,000 votes,proved instrumental to his victory.10

On the state level, the Republicans also didwell enough to regain control of the Indiana leg-islature, guaranteeing that they would determinethat body’s choice of a United States senator.Speculation naturally turned to Charles Fair-banks. The wealthy lawyer had assisted many ofthe Republican legislators during their cam-paigns; now they could return the favor. With alittle help from President McKinley, Fairbankseasily won election to his first political office.11

A Senator with Presidential Ambitions

Fairbanks’ Senate career proved competent ifunspectacular. He stuck to the party line and waswell respected among his colleagues. As chair-man of the Immigration Committee, he favoredrestricting immigration and requiring a literacytest before entry into the United States—bothpopular positions. When the Immigration Com-mittee proved too contentious for his liking, Fair-banks moved to the chairmanship of the moreagreeable Committee on Public Buildings andGrounds. Although he had originally opposedthe pressure for war with Spain in 1898, he faith-fully followed President McKinley’s lead whenwar came. The president appointed him to theJoint-High Commission to decide the U.S.-Cana-dian boundary in Alaska. No settlement wasreached, but Fairbanks helped his own popu-larity by declaring, ‘‘I am opposed to the yieldingof an inch of United States territory.’’ The peopleof Alaska showed their appreciation by namingthe city of Fairbanks in his honor. Perhaps Fair-banks’ only controversial stand in the Senate was

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his support for the demands of black soldiersfighting in Cuba that they be commanded byblack officers. Thanks to the senator’s interven-tion, Indiana became the first state to accept thisposition as general policy for its militia units.12

Fairbanks’ calm demeanor and ‘‘safe’’ Repub-lican views made him very popular in the Senate.As a senator from a pivotal state and a consistentdefender of the McKinley administration, Fair-banks emerged as a natural successor to McKin-ley. He certainly looked like a president: tall (ap-proximately six feet, four inches), dignified, al-ways clad in a proper Prince Albert coat.13 In1900 some conservatives, most notably Ohio Sen-ator Mark Hanna, tried to maneuver Fairbanksinto a vice-presidential nomination.14 The con-servative attempt to block the nomination ofNew York Governor Theodore Roosevelt endedin failure, but the mention of Fairbanks for vicepresident fueled the senator’s already growingambition. The Indianan turned down Hanna’soffer for practical reasons and because he had sethis sights higher. As one journalist put it, ‘‘[Fair-banks] had dreams of the White House. He pre-ferred to remain in the Senate until the real callcame.’’ 15

Charles Fairbanks’ political fortunes changeddramatically on September 6, 1901, when Presi-dent McKinley was assassinated while visitingthe Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo. He lostnot only a friend, but also a political patron. Al-though McKinley’s successor, Theodore Roo-sevelt, promised to continue the fallen presi-dent’s policies, Fairbanks’ close connection to theWhite House was severed. Beyond these per-sonal considerations, the nation’s political envi-ronment was about to change—partly in re-sponse to Roosevelt—in ways that would leaveFairbanks in the shadows. President Rooseveltbrought a new glamour to the presidency. Hedominated the news and shifted the national de-bate to new issues.16 None of these changesproved helpful to Fairbanks’ presidentialambitions.

Conditions were also changing in Indiana. In1899 the state legislature had elected a youngfirebrand named Albert J. Beveridge to the Sen-ate. The new junior senator from Indiana was apowerful orator who shot to prominence by ad-

vocating a policy of overseas expansion for theUnited States. His growing power in Indianarepresented a challenge to Fairbanks. The threatbecame increasingly severe as Beveridge gradu-ally broke away from the party’s Old Guard andbegan siding with the insurgents in calling forgreater regulation of railroads and businesstrusts. No longer merely over party power, thebattle had come also to concern policies. To makematters worse for Fairbanks, President Rooseveltquite obviously preferred the counsel of SenatorBeveridge.17

This smoldering conflict erupted in 1901 whena federal judgeship became available in Indiana.Beveridge recommended an old friend, FrancisBaker, whom Fairbanks adamantly refused toendorse. The squabble became public and waswidely seen as a test of prestige within the state.Because this type of patronage could crucially af-fect a politician’s ability to accumulate and wieldpower, the dispute had serious repercussions forFairbanks. When Roosevelt nominated Baker,apparently without much concern for the prerog-atives of the senior senator, there was little ques-tion which of Indiana’s senators had the favor ofthe White House.18

Vice-Presidential Candidate

Charles Fairbanks saw his presidential hopesgradually slipping away. President Roosevelt ef-fectively maneuvered throughout 1902 and 1903to gain control of the party and ensure his re-nomination in 1904. Some conservatives consid-ered supporting Mark Hanna for the nomination,but Hanna’s death in February 1904 ended anyreal opposition to Roosevelt within the GOP.With Hanna gone, Fairbanks became more close-ly identified as the heir to McKinley, but Roo-sevelt’s presence—rather than McKinley’s spir-it—had come to dominate the party.

Still, the Old Guard could not simply be dis-missed. If one of their own could not be the presi-dential nominee, they would choose the vice-presidential candidate. Fairbanks was the obvi-ous choice, since conservatives thought highly ofhim yet he managed not to offend the party’smore progressive elements. Roosevelt was farfrom pleased with the idea of Fairbanks for vicepresident. He would have preferred Representa-

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tive Robert R. Hitt of Illinois, but he did not con-sider the vice-presidential nomination worth afight. For his part, Fairbanks followed Roo-sevelt’s example from 1900 by declaring that hewas not a candidate. His friends, however, hadlittle doubt of his interest in the position, and heprivately informed Roosevelt that he wouldserve in any way the president indicated. Withsolid support from New York, Pennsylvania, andIndiana (thanks to the acquiescence of SenatorBeveridge) Fairbanks was easily placed on the1904 Republican ticket in order to appease theOld Guard.19

By avoiding controversy and contentious is-sues, Fairbanks made himself a useful runningmate, conservative enough to alleviate businessuneasiness about Roosevelt but not so outspokenas to be unacceptable to the insurgents. Still, thereaction was not entirely favorable. The New YorkJournal called Fairbanks ‘‘a mere blank wall uponwhich the influences that control the Republicanparty can paint what they will.’’ 20

If the goal of constructing a national presi-dential ticket is to achieve a complementary bal-ance between its two members, the Republicanticket of 1904 came close to being ideal. Rooseveltand Fairbanks differed from one another in near-ly every way. The ticket offered balance bothgeographically, between New York and Indiana,and ideologically, from progressive to conserv-ative. Perhaps the greatest contrast was one ofpersonality. The vigorous and ebullient Roo-sevelt differed markedly from the calm and coolFairbanks. One wag called the 1904 ticket ‘‘TheHot Tamale and the Indiana Icicle.’’ Fairbanks’cool demeanor often led cartoonists to portrayhim as a block of ice.21 Although friends claimedhe was a very genial fellow in private and onlyappeared austere, 22 the icy image remained thepopular one, providing an interesting contrast tothe ‘‘strenuous life’’ of President Roosevelt.

Mrs. Fairbanks partially offset this impressionof coldness. Cornelia Fairbanks had become oneof the most popular hostesses in Washington, re-nowned for her charm and tact. She also re-mained active as president-general of the Daugh-ters of the American Revolution. The Fairbanks’Washington home, the Van Wyck House near

Dupont Circle, occupied a prominent place in thecapital’s social landscape.23

Charles Fairbanks assumed the principal Re-publican campaign duties for the ticket in 1904,as tradition dictated that incumbent presidentsremain at work in the White House. He touredall the northern states and spent the final weekensuring a Republican victory in Indiana.24 Histask turned out to be relatively easy thanks toTheodore Roosevelt’s enormous popularity andthe Democratic nomination of the rather lifelessJudge Alton B. Parker of New York. The Repub-licans’ landslide victory over Democrats Parkerand Henry G. Davis unquestionably resultedfrom Roosevelt’s popularity, but Fairbanks wasnow vice president and he hoped his star wason the rise once more. He began making plansto pursue an even higher calling in 1908.

President of the Senate

In an 1896 article for Review of Reviews, Roo-sevelt, while New York City police commis-sioner, had argued that the vice president shouldparticipate actively in a presidential administra-tion, including attendance at cabinet meetingsand consultation on all major decisions. He evenposited that the vice president should be givena regular vote in the Senate.25 Now that he waspresident, however, Roosevelt displayed no in-tention of following his own advice. He did notinvite Fairbanks to participate in the cabinet andconsulted the vice president about nothing ofsubstance. Roosevelt certainly showed no incli-nation to support granting Fairbanks a vote inthe Senate and, given Fairbanks’ conservativetendencies, would probably have opposed anyattempt to do so. Discussing the office abstractlyturned out to be quite different from dealingwith a flesh-and-blood occupant.

The new vice president spent much of his timepresiding over the Senate. He undoubtedly feltcomfortable dealing with his old friends on Cap-itol Hill, and President Roosevelt gave him noth-ing else to do. As Senate president, Fairbankshad little direct power to affect the course of leg-islation, but working in tandem with the Repub-lican leadership he was able to play a role inpassing the president’s ambitious legislative pro-gram that included the Hepburn Act regulating

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railroad rates, the Pure Food and Drug Act, andan employer’s liability law for the District ofColumbia.

Fairbanks, Republican Senate leader NelsonAldrich of Rhode Island, and Speaker of theHouse Joe Cannon of Illinois also worked to-gether effectively to bury unwanted legislationin hostile committees and to rule oppositionspeakers ‘‘out of order’’ at every opportunity.26

Fairbanks never had a chance to break a tiedvote, but he seldom missed a session and opposi-tion speakers remained sensitive to his vigilancein the chair.

In 1907, Fairbanks wielded the power of his of-fice against his old foe Albert Beveridge. Whenthe Senate considered legislation for governmentinspection of packaged meat, Beveridge advo-cated charging the inspection fees to the meatpackers, but was unsuccessful in his attempts.Later in the session, he offered this plan as anamendment to the agriculture appropriationsbill. In order to stop the amendment, SenatorFrancis Warren of Wyoming raised a point oforder that the amendment contained ‘‘generallegislation’’ and, therefore, under Senate rules,could not be added to an appropriations bill. Thepresiding officer, Vice President Fairbanks, couldeither rule on the point of order himself orpresent it to the Senate for a decision. SenatorJacob Gallinger of New Hampshire submitted alist of precedents in which previous officers hadreferred similar points of order to the Senate fordetermination. Fairbanks promptly ignoredthese precedents and ruled Beveridge’s amend-ment out of order, observing, ‘‘During thepresent session the Chair has frequently been in-vited by Senators to submit to the Senate pointsof order on amendments which were not inorder, and in every case of such invitation theChair has felt obliged to decline to do so.’’ Fair-banks took further pleasure in chastisingBeveridge for offering an amendment that wasvery similar to a bill Beveridge had introducedthe previous December. If the matter were of‘‘such large consequence,’’ he asserted, the Sen-ate would have dealt with it then, in ‘‘an orderlyand appropriate way.’’ 27 The vice-presidencymay not have had much power, but Fairbanksknew how to use what he had.

The most famous instance of Fairbanks’ effec-tiveness as presiding officer came in May 1908during debate over the conference report on theAldrich-Vreeland Emergency Currency Act. Thislegislation authorized the issuance of emergencycurrency based on state bonds, municipal bonds,and railroad bonds. The inclusion of bonds fromrailroad companies enraged many midwesternand southern progressives, who saw it as an ex-ample of the railroads’ control of Congress. AsSenator Robert C. Byrd observed in discussingthis incident in a 1989 address to the Senate,‘‘Filibusters are inherently much more difficultto wage successfully on conference reports thanon bills, because conference reports are notamendable.’’ 28 Nevertheless, Republican Sen-ator Robert La Follette of Wisconsin, leading thesmall but determined opposition to the legisla-tion, decided to filibuster. By holding the floor,La Follette and Democratic Senators ThomasGore of Oklahoma and William Stone of Mis-souri hoped to force the leadership to drop rail-road bonds from the measure. La Follette beganspeaking at 12:20 p.m. on Friday, May 29. EitherGore or Stone was to take the floor when he fin-ished and, by speaking in rotation, they could sti-fle Senate business indefinitely.

A filibuster in the early twentieth centurycould be particularly unpleasant. In the summer,an extremely hot Senate chamber customarilydrove senators to the cloakrooms for relief. Dur-ing a filibuster, however, if too many membersleft the chamber, the speaker, or an ally, couldsuggest the absence of a quorum without losingcontrol of the floor. This procedure required thevice president to direct that the roll be called,and, if a quorum (forty-seven members at thattime) were not present, the Senate would ad-journ until a quorum could be obtained, furthercontributing to the filibuster’s objective of delay.In any event, the quorum call allowed the speak-er a few moments to seek water or food andsome fresh air. When Robert La Follette took thefloor on May 29, 1908, he brought a clerk withhim to keep track of the number of senatorspresent. Since the day turned out to be especiallywarm, senators had no desire to linger in thesweltering chamber. Whenever the count of

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members in the chamber fell below the requirednumber, La Follette would stop his speech tosuggest the absence of a quorum, forcing his col-leagues to file back into the chamber to answerthe roll. This cycle continued for hours. WhenVice President Fairbanks ordered La Follette’sclerk, who had been keeping count for his boss,to leave the chamber, other members friendly tothe Wisconsin senator’s cause took up the count-ing. Finally, at about 11:45 that night, after thirty-two quorum calls, Fairbanks, under the guidanceof party leader Aldrich, managed to limit the tac-tic by making a resourceful parliamentary rulingthat some business other than debate must takeplace between quorum calls. Not until 2:25 a.m.on Saturday, May 30, did La Follette finally es-tablish the absence of a quorum, at which pointthe Senate adjourned until the sergeant at armsroused enough senators from bed to begin de-bate once more, at 3:40 a.m., allowing La Follettea short nap.

La Follette continued until 7:00 a.m. WilliamStone followed, holding the floor until 1:30 p.m.,and then yielded to Senator Gore. Gore was tospeak until 4:30 p.m., when Stone would return.At the appointed time, Gore, who was blind,heard that Stone had returned, but when Goreyielded the floor, Stone, either by mistake orthrough chicanery, had stepped outside thechamber for a moment. Vice President Fairbanks,alert to his opportunity, immediately recognizedNelson Aldrich, who moved that the vote betaken on his bill. Fairbanks, ignoring otherspeakers shouting for recognition, directed theclerk to call the yeas and nays, and Aldrich, firston the roll, answered in the affirmative. UnderSenate rules, once a vote began, it could not bestopped for further debate. After more thantwenty-eight hours, the filibuster was broken.29

The passage of the Aldrich-Vreeland Actpleased President Roosevelt, but his vice presi-dent’s other Senate rulings would not alwaysproduce such agreeable results. Roosevelt spentmost of 1907 and 1908 fighting with Congress.The Senate, especially, erected roadblocks to thepresident’s legislative initiatives, particularlythose seeking to expand the powers of the execu-tive branch. Roosevelt believed that Congresswas incapable of making the kind of informed,

disinterested decisions necessary to regulate thenation’s powerful trusts. He preferred to rely onexecutive agencies, staffed by experts whom heconsidered capable of maintaining a carefulwatch over the nation’s business community. Heargued that efficient executive power, ratherthan clumsy intermittent legislation, would mosteffectively deal with the trusts. The Hepburn billincluded provisions allowing the Interstate Com-merce Commission to set railroad rates, and Roo-sevelt pursued legislation to allow executiveagencies to set maximum prices for certain com-modities. While the Senate eventually agreed tothe Hepburn bill with some modifications, it jeal-ously guarded its prerogatives against what itsaw as presidential encroachment. Even a presi-dent as persuasive as Theodore Roosevelt haddifficulty convincing Congress to expand the ex-ecutive’s power.30

Opposition from his own party in the Senateconstantly frustrated Roosevelt, who attemptedto rouse public opinion in support of greater ex-ecutive power. For their part, many Republicansenators bristled at the seemingly endless flowof presidential messages from the White House,as well as at Roosevelt’s constant public criticismof their cherished institution.31 Vice presidentFairbanks’ sympathies plainly lay with the Sen-ate, and when his term ended in 1909, he usedhis farewell address to launch a vigorous defenseof his Senate colleagues. He supported the recordof the recent session against ‘‘erroneous’’ criti-cism that it was unresponsive to the popular will.‘‘The Senate of the United States,’’ he said, ‘‘wasdesigned by our fathers to be a deliberativechamber in the fullest and best sense—a chamberwhere the passions of the hour might be arrestedand where the better judgement of the peoplewould find ultimate expression.’’ Offering a Sen-ate response to Roosevelt’s ‘‘bully pulpit,’’ he de-clared, ‘‘A servile Senate was not contemplatedby its founders.’’ 32

Pursuit of the Presidency

During his vice-presidency, Fairbanks alsospent considerable time trying to secure the Re-publican presidential nomination in 1908. In thisendeavor, he faced serious obstacles. His ownlackluster image offered cartoonists and writers

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a favorite target. When President Roosevelt toldcolumnist Finley Peter Dunne that he was con-sidering taking a ride in a submarine, Dunne ad-vised, ‘‘You really shouldn’t do it—-unless youtake Fairbanks with you.’’ 33 Fairbanks evenearned a short mention in David Graham Phil-lips’ 1906 expose The Treason of the Senate, wherehe is referred to as the ‘‘presiding genius’’ of theSenate.34

Fairbanks’ popularity increased somewhatafter a supposed attempt on his life. While thevice president was laying the cornerstone for anew federal building in Flint, Michigan, policearrested a man in the crowd carrying a thirty-two-caliber revolver and pockets full of ‘‘socialis-tic literature.’’ This incident surely evokedmemories of the assassination of PresidentMcKinley. Fairbanks also tried to use favorablepublicity to bolster his image. He spent the sum-mer of 1905 on a farm he owned in Illinois tryingto appeal to the farm vote. He had himself photo-graphed chopping down a tree and cutting it up,perhaps trying to emulate Roosevelt’s much-ad-mired vigor. Still, no one outside the inner circleof the Republican party seemed to pay much at-tention. The New York Daily News committed hisobscurity to verse, saying:

Fairbanks was in town two daysYet no one seemed the wiser;

He yearned to meet the public gazeHis own press advertiser.

He strolled about the town at willWithout much molestation,

The only effect was a heavy chillAnd his own great agitation.

A stranger on a foreign shoreWould scare up more attention;

And he is feeling extra soreFor lack of even mention.35

In his effort to attract support, Fairbanks’ ora-tory proved less than appealing. The Nation de-clared, ‘‘No public speaker can more quicklydrive an audience to dispair.’’ 36 He seemed bothuninspiring and out of step with the times. Dur-ing an era of growing clamor for progressive re-forms, Fairbanks’ speeches were full of what oneobserver called ‘‘splendid verbosity,’’ simplyequating the Republican party with prosperity.During the congressional races of 1906, he spokeoften for GOP candidates, stressing the theme

‘‘Let Well Enough Alone.’’ Collier’s Weeklysummed up his performance with another poem:

Then Mr. Fairbanks waxed quite warm;His voice ris to a roar.

He yelled: ‘‘I say to you, my friends,That two and two make four,’’

And thereupon all doubts dissolved,All fears were put to rout;

Pie-seekers said that Fairbanks knewJust what he was about.

He did not name unbusted trustsOr mention Standard Oil;

He did not talk of railroad graftNor speak of children’s toil.

He said the crops looked mighty well,The cattle all seemed fat,

The sky was blue, the grass still grew,And the G.O.P. stood pat.

And he let it go at that.37

The only substantive issue that really seemedto hold Fairbanks’ attention was the gold stand-ard. He had demanded a strong gold plank inthe Indiana platform in 1896 and succeeded inhelping McKinley make that a major part of the1896 campaign.38 After McKinley’s victory in1900, however, the gold standard had ceased tobe a salient issue for the public. Fairbanks’ con-tinued reliance on it seemed safe and popular,but not likely to create a groundswell of support.It was merely one more instance of Fairbanks’failure to keep up with the rapid politicalchanges of the new century.

An even more serious problem for Fairbanksloomed in the form of opposition from TheodoreRoosevelt. The president had already announcedhe would not run in 1908, but he intended tochoose his own successor. His list clearly did notinclude Fairbanks. Roosevelt preferred Secretaryof State Elihu Root, but his age (over sixty) andbackground in corporate law made him an un-likely choice. The president, therefore, settled onhis secretary of war and close friend, WilliamHoward Taft, using the power of his office to se-cure convention delegations loyal to Taft. By thetime the convention began, Taft’s selection wasnearly determined.39 Against the power of apopular incumbent president, Fairbanks neverhad a chance.

Roosevelt could hardly conceal his scorn forFairbanks. The president liked to tell amusingstories about his uninspiring vice president andwould often discuss his preferred successors in

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Fairbanks’ presence without mentioning the gen-tleman from Indiana.40 When Fairbanks andNew York Governor Charles Evans Hughes bothshowed some strength as possible nominees inthe summer of 1908, Roosevelt seemed stunned.As he exclaimed to a Hughes supporter beforethe convention, ‘‘Do you know whom we havemost trouble in beating? Not Hughes—butFairbanks! Think of it—Charley Fairbanks! I wasnever more surprised in my life. I never dreamtof such a thing. He’s got a hold in Kentucky, In-diana, and some other states that is hard tobreak. How and why is beyond me.’’ 41 Thisstrength, though, was illusory compared to theinfluence wielded by Roosevelt on behalf of Taft.After gaining the nomination, Taft went on towin an easy victory over William Jennings Bryanin November.

Still Active in Politics

After the inauguration of Taft and new VicePresident James Sherman in March 1909, Fair-banks returned to Indiana to live the life of acountry gentleman. He remained marginally ac-tive in Indiana politics but tried to maintain alow profile during the disastrous party split in1912. In 1914, the former vice president returnedto prominence once more as the advocate ofparty unity. The Indiana delegation to the 1916Republican National Convention supported himas a ‘‘favorite son’’ candidate for president, inhopes of a deadlocked convention. WhenCharles Evans Hughes obtained the nomination,there was talk of proposing Fairbanks for vicepresident. The prospect of reacquiring his oldposition did not appeal to Fairbanks. He wiredhis friends in the Indiana delegation, ‘‘My namemust not be considered for Vice President andif it is presented, I wish it withdrawn. Pleasewithdraw it.’’ When, despite Fairbanks’ wishes,he was nominated on the first ballot, 42 his loy-alty to the party induced him to accept the nomi-nation and fulfill his duty as a candidate. Hetoured the country calling for a return to the hightariff policies that Democratic President Wood-row Wilson had abandoned. Neither Fairbanksnor his opponent and fellow Hoosier, Demo-cratic Vice President Thomas Marshall, arousedmuch enthusiasm. As the New Republic put it,

‘‘Mr. Marshall is an argument for the election ofMr. Hughes. Mr. Fairbanks is an argument forthe re-election of Mr. Wilson.’’ Hughes and Fair-banks suffered a narrow defeat in 1916, but Fair-banks could take comfort that Indiana swungonce more into the Republican column.43

After the election, Charles Fairbanks again re-tired to private life. He remained active in theIndiana Forestry Association, a conservationgroup of which he was founder and first presi-dent (perhaps his only similarity to Roosevelt).During the First World War, he visited severalarmy camps to encourage the troops and spokefor the Liberty Loan campaigns. Fairbanks diedon June 14, 1918, at the age of sixty-six.

Ironically, the message from the RepublicanNational Convention in 1904 notifying CharlesFairbanks of his nomination for the vice-presi-dency spoke in glowing terms of the party’sunity. It lamented previous selections that hadbeen made to appease defeated factions and re-joiced that this selection was not such a case. Itcompared the hoped-for collaboration betweenRoosevelt and Fairbanks to that of McKinley andGarret Hobart (conspicuously passing overMcKinley and Roosevelt).44 The author of thismessage surely must have been aware of its inac-curacy. Roosevelt accepted Fairbanks because hedid not consider the office worth a fight. Fair-banks took the position in hopes that it wouldlead to the presidency. The two men never co-operated well and spent the last two years of theadministration actually working at cross pur-poses. Roosevelt thwarted Fairbanks’ bid for thepresidential nomination, while Fairbanks helpedto bottle up Roosevelt’s legislation in the Senate.

Charles Fairbanks was neither a great oratornor a brilliant political thinker. He succeeded bymastering the intricacies of the Senate and byavoiding controversy. Like so many other Indi-ana politicians, Fairbanks excelled as a politicalinsider. He was skilled in the arts of politicalmanagement and compromise.45 Those skillsmade him a valued member of the Senate andan influential state politician but were far lessuseful in presidential politics. Perhaps an ob-server in 1897 had him pegged best when hesaid, ‘‘Fairbanks may not be a great Statesman,but he certainly is a great Politician.’’ 46 By un-

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derstanding party politics, Fairbanks advancedas far as the vice-presidency. Yet, in an era domi-nated by the likes of Roosevelt, Wilson, Bryan,

and La Follette, Fairbanks’ political skills werenot sufficient to allow him to escape the shadowsof those men.

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NOTES1 Quoted in Herbert J. Rissler, ‘‘Charles Warren Fair-

banks: Conservative Hoosier,’’ (Ph.D. dissertation, IndianaUniversity, 1961), p. 266.

2 James H. Madison, ‘‘Charles Warren Fairbanks and Indi-ana Republicanism,’’ in Ralph D. Gray, ed., Gentlemen FromIndiana: National Party Candidates, 1836–1940 (Indianapolis,1977), p. 184.

3 William Henry Smith, The Life and Speeches of Hon.Charles Warren Fairbanks (Indianapolis, 1904), p. 7.

4 Rissler, pp. 5–27.5 Ibid., pp. 28–35.6 Ibid., pp. 40–62; Smith, p. 39.7 John Braeman, Albert J. Beveridge: American Nationalist

(Chicago, 1971), pp. 73–77; Madison, p. 177; Donald A.Ritchie, Press Gallery: Congress and the Washington Cor-respondents (Cambridge, MA, 1991), p. 182.

8 Rissler, preface; Ralph D. Gray, ed., Gentlemen From Indi-ana: National Party Candidates, 1836–1940 (Indianapolis,1977), Chapters VII-XI.

9 Smith, pp. 44–55; Rissler, pp. 64–72; Madison, p. 179.10 Congressional Quarterly’s Guide to U.S. Elections, 3d. ed.

(Washington, 1994), p. 444.11 Rissler, pp. 76–77; Madison, p. 179.12 Rissler, pp. 80–97.13 Madison, pp. 181–82.14 Lewis L. Gould, ‘‘Charles Warren Fairbanks and the

Republican National Convention of 1900: A Memoir,’’ Indi-ana Magazine of History 77 (December 1981): 370.

15 Henry L. Stoddard, As I Knew Them: Presidents and Poli-tics From Grant to Coolidge (New York, 1927), p. 248.

16 For the most thorough discussion of Roosevelt’s presi-dency, see Lewis L. Gould, The Presidency of Theodore Roo-sevelt (Lawrence, KS, 1991). For a discussion of Roosevelt’svice-presidency, see Chapter 25 of this volume, ‘‘TheodoreRoosevelt,’’ pp. 303–5.

17 For the life and career of Albert J. Beveridge, seeBraeman, Albert J. Beveridge: American Nationalist andClaude G. Bowers, Beveridge and the Progressive Era (NewYork, 1932).

18 Braeman, pp. 76–77; Bowers, 175–76.19 Gould, The Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt, p. 135;

Rissler, pp. 135–50; Irving G. Williams, The Rise of the VicePresidency (Washington, 1956), pp. 86–87.

20 Rissler, p. 115.21 Ibid., p. 151; Gould, ‘‘Charles Warren Fairbanks,’’ p.

361.

22 George F. Sparks, ed., A Many Colored Toga: The Diaryof Henry Fountain Ashurst (Tucson, 1962), p. 79.

23 Thomas R. Shipp, ‘‘Charles Warren Fairbanks, Repub-lican Candidate for Vice President,’’ American Monthly Re-view of Reviews 30 (August 1904): 181.

24 Rissler, pp. 157–58.25 Theodore Roosevelt, ‘‘The Three Vice-Presidential Can-

didates and What They Represent,’’ American Monthly Re-view of Reviews 14 (September 1896): 289–97.

26 Williams, p. 90.27 Braeman, p. 109; Asher C. Hinds, Hind’s Precedents of

the House of Representatives of the United States, vol. 2 (Wash-ington, 1907), pp. 883–85.

28 U.S., Congress, Senate, The Senate, 1789–1989: Addresseson the History of the United States Senate, by Robert C. Byrd,S. Doc., 100–20, 100th Cong., 1st sess., vol 2, 1991, p. 108.

29 Belle Case La Follette and Fola La Follette, Robert M.La Follette, June 14, 1855–June 18, 1925 (New York, 1953), pp.238–56. This source gives the most detailed and interesting,if one sided, account of the filibuster.

30 John M. Blum, The Republican Roosevelt, 2d ed. (NewYork, 1964), pp. 87, 95–96, 105, 107–8.

31 Gould, The Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt, pp. 276–77,291–94.

32 U.S., Congress, Senate, Congressional Record, 60th Cong.,2d sess., 1909, p. 3825.

33 Jules Witcover, Crapshoot: Rolling the Dice on the VicePresidency (New York, 1992), p. 58.

34 David Graham Phillips, The Treason of the Senate (Chi-cago, 1964; reprint of 1906 edition), p. 198.

35 Rissler, pp. 169–72.36 Ibid., pp. 145–46.37 Ibid., pp. 178–79, 202.38 Ibid., pp. 69–70; Stoddard, p. 239.39 Gould, The Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt, pp. 271–73,

283–84.40 Williams, pp. 88–89.41 Stoddard, p. 335.42 Rissler, pp. 265–66.43 Ibid., pp. 266–71; Congressional Quarterly’s Guide to U.S.

Elections, p. 449.44 Smith, pp. 234–35.45 For an excellent overview of Indiana politics and the

general skills of Hoosier politicians, see Philip R.VanderMeer, The Hoosier Politician: Officeholding and PoliticalCulture in Indiana 1896–1920 (Urbana, IL, 1985).

46 Madison, p. 173.

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Chapter 27

JAMES SCHOOLCRAFTSHERMAN

1909–1912

JAMES SCHOOLCRAFT SHERMAN

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Chapter 27

JAMES SCHOOLCRAFTSHERMAN

27th Vice President: 1909–1912

You will have to act on your own account. I am to be Vice President and acting as a messengerboy is not part of the duties as Vice President.

—JAMES SCHOOLCRAFT SHERMAN TO PRESIDENT WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT

A marble bust of James Schoolcraft Shermanhas the distinction of being the only vice-presi-dential bust in the United States Capitol witheyeglasses. Sherman apparently had thoughtthat no one would recognize him without hisglasses. However, over time he has grown so ob-scure that no one recognizes him even with hisglasses.1 Capitol visitors often confuse him withthe more famous Senator John Sherman, authorof the Sherman Antitrust Act. Yet while he neverauthored a famous bill, ‘‘Sunny Jim’’ Shermanwas a powerful leader in the House of Rep-resentatives, a skilled parliamentarian, and apopular presiding officer of the Senate during hisvice-presidency under William Howard Taft.

Youth

James S. Sherman was born on October 24,1855, in Utica, New York, where his grandfather,Willett Sherman, ran a profitable glass factoryand owned an impressive farm. In later years,Senator Elihu Root recalled spending summersat his own grandfather’s farm and ‘‘the big,white house, with the great columns,’’ of Sher-man’s grandfather’s adjoining farm. Root be-lieved that Sherman inherited his probusinesspolitics from his grandfather. Sherman’s father,Richard U. Sherman, headed a food canningcompany and published a Democratic news-paper.

Young James Sherman graduated fromWhitestown Seminary in 1874 and then attendedHamilton College, where he achieved recogni-tion for his skills in oratory and debate. His ge-nial temperament made him ‘‘the most popularman in his class.’’ He graduated from Hamiltonin 1878, received his law degree there the follow-ing year, and was admitted to the New Yorkstate bar in 1880, practicing in a firm with hisbrother-in-law. In 1881, he married Carrie Bab-cock of East Orange, New Jersey; they wouldhave three sons.

Sherman was a joiner. In college he had joinedthe Sigma Phi fraternity. He was active in theDutch Reformed Church. He was a member ofthe Royal Arcanum, the Order of Elks, and of allthe local clubs in Utica. In politics, he broke withhis Democratic father to become a Republicanand at the age of twenty-nine won election asmayor of Utica. Two years later, in 1886, his dis-trict elected him to the U.S. House of Representa-tives. Except for the two years following his de-feat for reelection in 1890, he remained in na-tional public office for the rest of his life.2

A Jolly Coterie in the House

As a Republican committed to a high protec-tive tariff, Sherman blamed his single defeat onan angry voter reaction to the McKinley Tariffof 1890, which had swept many members of his

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party out of Congress (including William McKin-ley). In 1892 Sherman narrowly defeated Demo-crat Henry Bentley, who had beaten him in 1890,and returned to Congress. There Sherman rees-tablished himself as the leader of a ‘‘jolly coterie’’of New York Republicans. Speaker Thomas B.Reed, who enjoyed the company of these young-er men, promoted Sherman in the House hier-archy. Democratic Leader Champ Clark identi-fied him as among the ‘‘Big Five’’ in the HouseRepublican leadership, but Sherman never helda party leadership post or chaired a major com-mittee. He served on the committees on the Judi-ciary, Census, Industrial Arts and Expositions,Interstate and Foreign Commerce, and Rules;and for fourteen years he chaired the Indian Af-fairs Committee. Democratic RepresentativeJohn Sharp Williams believed that Shermancould have had a seat on either of the most im-portant House committees, Appropriations orWays and Means, ‘‘for the asking.’’ But the NewYorker always stood aside in favor of friendswho wanted those appointments, ‘‘thereby mak-ing the task of the Speaker, who was in thosedays always the party leader, easier and thepathway of his friends pleasanter.’’ 3

The secret of Sherman’s success in the Housewas his recognized parliamentary ability. When-ever House Speakers Tom Reed, David Hender-son, and Joseph Cannon had to leave the chair,they knew that they could trust Sherman withthe gavel, because he was a ‘‘decisive, self-pos-sessed, and able parliamentarian.’’ Unlike thesmaller Senate, the House regularly used the de-vice of a ‘‘committee of the whole’’ as a meansof suspending its rules and moving ahead morespeedily on legislation, since a smaller quorumwas needed for the committee of the whole, anddebate was limited. Amendments could be votedupon, but the final bill had to be reported backto the full House to be voted upon in regular ses-sion. Officially known as the Committee of theWhole House on the State of the Union, this com-mittee comprised all House members and met inthe House chamber. To indicate that the Housewas meeting in the committee of the whole rath-er than in regular session, the House sergeant atarms lowered the House mace from its pedestal,

and the Speaker stepped down as presiding offi-cer in favor of another member. Henry CabotLodge declared that Sherman ‘‘gradually cameto be recognized as the best Chairman of theCommittee of the Whole whom that great bodyhad known in many years.’’ Presiding effectivelyover the committee of the whole, said Lodge,was ‘‘a severe test of a man’s qualities, bothmoral and mental. He must have strength ofcharacter as well as ability, quickness in decisionmust go hand in hand with knowledge, andfirmness must always be accompanied by goodtemper.’’ 4

While in the House, Sherman was a leader inthe fight to preserve the gold standard againstPopulist proposals for ‘‘free silver’’—by whichfarmers hoped to reduce their debts by fuelinginflation through an expansion of the amount ofmoney in circulation. Sherman also foughtDemocratic President Grover Cleveland’s effortsto lower the tariff. When the Republicans re-turned to power with the election of WilliamMcKinley as president in 1896, Sherman playeda key role in passage of the Dingley Tariff thatreversed Democratic efforts and restored thehigh protective tariff. As usual, Speaker Reedturned the gavel over to Sherman to chair thecommittee of the whole throughout most of thedebate on the Dingley Tariff. When SpeakerReed retired in 1900, Sherman sought the Speak-ership but lost to David Henderson. He becameHenderson’s right-hand man and continued toplay that role under Henderson’s successor, thepowerful ‘‘Uncle Joe’’ Cannon.5

McKinley’s assassination in 1901 transferredthe presidency to the dynamic Theodore Roo-sevelt, whose strong personality stimulated a na-tional reform movement that had grown out ofa series of local responses to the human abusesof industrialism. Progressives demandedchange, which conservative leaders in Congressresisted. Sherman stood with the Old Guard.‘‘He was preeminently a stand-patter and proudof it,’’ recalled Senator Chauncey Depew. Hav-ing inherited the presidency of the New HartfordCanning Company from his father, Shermanfought progressive efforts to require accurate la-beling of the weights and measures of cannedjelly, catsup, corn, and other foods. He proposed

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a substitute amendment that required only thatif a canner did label the weight and measure ofthe product, that such labeling must be accurate.This caused Dr. Harvey Wiley, who led the cru-sade for pure food and drug laws, to rename‘‘Sunny Jim’’ Sherman as ‘‘Short-weight Jim.’’ 6

The Republican Congressional CampaignCommittee

Sherman chaired the Republican Congres-sional Campaign Committee during the congres-sional elections of 1906, raising large campaigncontributions from business interests and gain-ing further recognition from his party’s leaders.Sherman himself faced a hard fight for reelectionthat year. At one point, he turned desperately toan old fraternity brother, Elihu Root, then sec-retary of state in the Roosevelt administration.Sherman invited Root to speak for him and forthe New York Republican gubernatorial can-didate, Charles Evans Hughes, who was lockedin battle with the Democratic candidate, news-paper publisher William Randolph Hearst. OtherRepublican leaders, fearing that Hearst might ex-ploit Root’s corporate connections to embarrassthe Republican ticket, pleaded with Root to can-cel his trip. But Sherman begged Root to recon-sider. Root made the speech, in which he strong-ly and eloquently denounced Hearst, an attackthat was credited with helping Hughes and Sher-man win their elections.7

In 1908, Sherman chaired the Republican stateconvention for the third time (having previouslydone so in 1895 and 1900). His supporters thenlaunched a vice-presidential boom for him. Presi-dent Theodore Roosevelt had announced that hewould not stand for a third term, and had anoint-ed Secretary of War William Howard Taft as hissuccessor. The New York delegation went to theconvention pledged to their governor, CharlesEvans Hughes, for president, but as one journal-ist observed, the state’s delegation was actuallyanxious to nominate Sherman for the secondplace on the ticket. Fortunately for Sherman’sambitions, Governor Hughes did nothing to pro-mote his candidacy. Hughes’ cool aloofness in-spired a Gridiron Club parody of an oldspiritual:

Swing low, sweet chariot,

You’ll have to if you’re after me;Swing low, sweet chariot,

For I’m lying low, you see.8

A Machiavellian Nomination

Taft won the nomination and would have pre-ferred a progressive running mate, someone ofthe stature of Indiana Senator Albert Beveridgeor Iowa Senator Jonathan Dolliver. But Housemembers, led by Speaker Cannon, pressed forthe nomination of James Sherman. On the sur-face, it seemed as though Sherman won the nom-ination by default, after the more progressivepossibilities withdrew their names from consid-eration. But years later, in his memoirs, SenatorChauncey Depew revealed a more Machiavellianversion of what had happened. The New Yorkdelegation had lobbied hard to convince Taft’smanagers that New York would be a critical statein the election, and that a New Yorker wouldmost strengthen the ticket headed by a ‘‘west-erner’’ like Taft of Ohio. Since Taft’s managershad already discussed the nomination with sev-eral other potential candidates, they could notturn to Sherman without first dissuading thesepeople—and doing so without offending theirstates. As Depew explained:

The method adopted by one of the leadingmanagers was both adroit and hazardous. Hewould call up a candidate on the telephone andsay to him: ‘‘The friends of Mr. Taft are very fa-vorable to you for vice-president. Will you acceptthe nomination?’’ The candidate would hesitateand begin to explain his ambitions, his career andits possibilities, and the matter which he wouldhave to consider. Before the prospective can-didate had finished, the manager would say,‘‘Very sorry, deeply regret,’’ and put up thetelephone.

When the nomination was made these gentle-men who might have succeeded would comearound to the manager and say impatiently andindignantly: ‘‘I was all right. Why did you cut meoff?’’ However, those gentlemen have had theircompensation. Whenever you meet one of themhe will say to you: ‘‘I was offered the vice-presi-dency with Taft but was so situated that I couldnot accept.’’ 9

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Straddling Party Divisions

House Democratic minority leader ChampClark agreed that Sherman stood prominently inthe House, but no more so than a half dozenother Republicans. In Clark’s estimation, Sher-man was ‘‘an industrious, level-headed, capablemember, and a capital presiding officer,’’ but intruth he received the nomination as a means ofplacating the GOP’s conservative wing, whichviewed Taft suspiciously as a progressive. ‘‘TheStand-patters selected Sherman partly becausehe wanted it, partly because they could trusthim, and partly because he was perhaps the mostacceptable of all the Old Guard chieftains in theHouse to President Roosevelt,’’ Clark assessed.The vice-presidential nomination was clinchedwhen Speaker Cannon stepped onto the plat-form, hiked up his sleeves, and offered an impas-sioned endorsement of Sherman. With the OldGuard’s stamp of approval, ‘‘the two wingsflapped together.’’ 10

While well-known in Washington, Shermanhad little popular identification across the na-tion, and it is doubtful that he brought manyvotes to the Taft ticket. The opposition Demo-cratic candidate was William Jennings Bryan,who had twice before lost the presidency, in 1896and 1900. Few Republicans would have voted forBryan regardless of who ran with Taft, but Sher-man campaigned with good grace. When theDemocratic candidate for vice president, JohnWorth Kern, came to Utica he received a tele-gram from Sherman, who was campaigning else-where, welcoming Kern to his home city andurging him to call upon the Sherman family.11

For the third and last time, William JenningsBryan went down to defeat as Taft and Shermanwere elected. While Taft prepared to enter theWhite House, Theodore Roosevelt made ar-rangements to leave the country for an extendedhunting trip in Africa and tour of Europe, to givehis successor a chance to establish himself. EvenTaft had trouble in accepting the departure of thedynamic Roosevelt from the presidency. ‘‘WhenI hear someone say Mr. President,’’ said Taft, ‘‘Ilook around expecting to see Roosevelt.’’ FacingTaft was the problem of keeping together thewarring conservative and progressive factions of

the Republican party. Roosevelt had finessedparty unity by talking publicly of reform whileworking privately with conservative leaders inCongress, and by steering absolutely clear ofsuch divisive issues as the tariff. Taft came intooffice with a reputation for progressivism butwith the support of such powerful conservativesas Rhode Island Senator Nelson Aldrich, whohad worked quietly behind the scenes for Taft’snomination. During the campaign, Taft hadmanaged to straddle party divisions, but once heassumed the office, he would have to choosesides.12

No Messenger Boy

At first, Taft thought he had a perfect role forSherman. The president-elect said that he had nointention of having anything to do with the reac-tionary House Speaker Cannon. ‘‘I am going torely on you, Jim, to take care of Cannon for me,’’said Taft. ‘‘Whatever I have to do there will bedone through you.’’ ‘‘Not through me,’’ Shermandeclined. ‘‘You will have to act on your own ac-count. I am to be Vice President and acting asa messenger boy is not part of the duties as VicePresident.’’ A month later, Taft invited Cannonto visit him, and thereafter Taft and Cannon metregularly at the White House. It was the begin-ning of a drift to the right that would eventuallyalienate Taft from Republican progressives.13

Whatever ill-will may have resulted from Sher-man’s refusal to cooperate over handling Speak-er Cannon evaporated in the glow of the inau-gural festivities. Taft’s wife, Helen, later wrotethat Vice President and Mrs. Sherman shared abox with them at the inaugural ball. ‘‘They alsohad with them a large family party and wereboth so jolly and so much in the festive spirit thatformality disappeared.’’ 14

When Taft met with Speaker Cannon in De-cember 1908, he learned that the House Waysand Means Committee was at work on major tar-iff revisions. Taft favored lowering tariff ratesand negotiating reciprocal trade agreementswith other nations to stimulate internationaltrade, but congressional conservatives remainedcommitted to high tariff duties to protect Amer-ican industries. House Ways and Means Com-mittee chairman Sereno Payne eventually pro-

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duced the Payne bill, which pleased Taft by itsmoderate tariff reductions. In the Senate, how-ever, Finance Committee chairman Nelson Al-drich amended the tariff with massive increasesin rates. Insurgent Republicans led by WisconsinSenator Robert La Follette fought the Payne-Al-drich Tariff, but Aldrich prevailed. Never indoubt was the stance of the Senate’s new presid-ing officer, Vice President Sherman, a lifelonghigh-tariff man. In the end, President Taft sidedwith Sherman and the protectionists and signedthe bill. As progressives began to reevaluate theirassessment of Taft, the president compoundedhis problems by speaking out in defense of thePayne-Aldrich Tariff at Winona, Wisconsin, inSenator La Follette’s home state, describing thetariff as ‘‘the best bill that the Republican partyever passed.’’ At the same time, Vice PresidentSherman was telling people that the Republicanparty ‘‘had fulfilled every campaign pledge inpassing the Aldrich bill.’’ 15

Growing Relationship Between Taft and Sherman

The more conservative the president became,the closer he grew to his vice president. Taftfound that he liked Sherman, a man who ‘‘hatedshams, believed in regular party organization,and was more anxious to hold the good thingsestablished by the past than to surrender themin search for less certain benefits to be derivedfrom radical changes in the future.’’ Like Taft,Sherman possessed a jovial spirit, and the presi-dent credited the vice president with accom-plishing much on Capitol Hill by his ‘‘charm ofspeech and manner, and his spirit of conciliationand compromise.’’ Sherman succeeded througha ‘‘sunny disposition and natural good will toall.’’ Yet he also manifested what Taft called ‘‘astubborn adherence’’ to his principles. ‘‘In otherwords,’’ said Taft, ‘‘it would be unjust to Mr.Sherman to suggest that his sunny dispositionand his anxiety to make everybody within thereach of his influence happy, was any indicationof a lack of strength of character, of firmness ofpurpose, and of clearness of decision as to whathe thought was right in politics.’’ 16

From all accounts, Sherman showed fairness,judicial temperament, and good humor in his ca-

pacity as presiding officer. ‘‘In the Senate wehave no rules,’’ observed New York SenatorChauncey Depew. Sherman had risen in theHouse because of his mastery at presiding overthe House, whose rules were more rigid and itsprecedents voluminous. He thus found it quitea change to ‘‘preside over a body which is gov-erned practically by no rules whatever, but is arule unto itself.’’ Depew noted that the older sen-ators resented any effort on the part of the chairto curb their wanderings or their ‘‘very unregu-lated wills.’’ He recalled how the vice presidenthad ruled against Texas Democrat Joseph W. Bai-ley, one of the most quarrelsome senators, who

instantly declared that the independence of theSenate had been invaded by the Vice Presidentwho was not a member of the Senate but onlyits Constitutional presiding officer; that he hadno right to use a position which was largely oneof courtesy to violate the traditions of the mostaugust body in the world and deny, or attemptto deny, to a Senator the rights to which everySenator was entitled.

Throughout this attack, Sherman showed notrace of emotion.

He was the presiding officer personified. Withperfect calmness, good humor, and dignity, hestated the case to a breathless Senate. He did itso clearly and convincingly that the Senate satdown upon the tumultuous senator, and Sher-man’s decisions were never after questioned.17

Always showing his sunny disposition in pub-lic, Sherman played tough-minded, hard-ballpolitics in private. ‘‘Sherman’s indictments,’’President Taft once complained, ‘‘are as abruptand severe as a school master’s.’’ When progres-sives revolted against the Payne-Aldrich tariff,Sherman advised: ‘‘Mr. President, you can’t ca-jole these people. You have to hit them with aclub.’’ Sherman recommended cutting offpostmastership appointments to the progres-sives as punishment for their disloyalty, to whichTaft replied: ‘‘I hate to use the patronage as aclub unless I have to.’’ ‘‘It is your only club,’’Sherman rebutted. ‘‘You have other weapons,but the appointing power is your only club.’’ 18

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Roosevelt and Taft Split

In January 1910, Taft fired Theodore Roo-sevelt’s good friend Gifford Pinchot as head ofthe U.S. Forest Service, after Pinchot had accusedTaft’s secretary of the interior, Richard Ballinger,of undermining the conservation program infavor of business interests. Sherman stronglybacked Taft’s decision, and when a joint congres-sional committee was established to investigatethe Ballinger-Pinchot controversy, the vice presi-dent made sure to name only Taft supporters tothe committee. Not surprisingly, the committeeexonerated Ballinger, but the incident further di-vided the Republican party.19

As the 1910 congressional elections ap-proached, Taft dispatched Vice President Sher-man on a number of political missions. In Wis-consin, Taft tried to block the renomination ofthe Senate’s leading insurgent, Robert LaFollette. Although the state had abandoned partynominating conferences in favor of primary elec-tions, conservatives had organized a ‘‘true Re-publican meeting.’’ The president sent Shermanto bestow the administration’s blessing. Despitetheir efforts, however, La Follette easily won re-nomination and reelection.20

Sherman then plunged into New York statepolitics, where Governor Charles Evans Hughes’resignation to become a Supreme Court justicehad triggered open warfare between conserv-ative and progressive Republicans. WilliamBarnes of Albany, who led the party’s OldGuard, selected Vice President Sherman as tem-porary chairman of the state convention to nomi-nate the next governor. But Representative Her-bert Parson, the Republican national committee-man for New York and leader of the party orga-nization in New York City, appealed to formerpresident Theodore Roosevelt for help. Roo-sevelt, who had just returned from his long over-seas journey, was deeply angered over theBallinger-Pinchot affair, and dismayed by the in-creasingly conservative tendencies of the Taft ad-ministration. Roosevelt agreed to run againstSherman for chairman to help insure the nomina-tion of a progressive candidate for governor anda more progressive platform.21

Roosevelt maintained that his candidacy wasdirected against Sherman and not against the ad-ministration. He portrayed Sherman as havingspread the erroneous impression of having Taft’ssupport. Yet Sherman remained in close commu-nication with Taft by telephone throughout theNew York convention fight, and at one point thepresident laughed as he told aides, ‘‘They havedefeated Theodore.’’ But Sherman could notovercome Roosevelt’s immense popularity, andconvention delegates voted, 568 to 443, to rejectSherman in favor of Roosevelt. Although Taftmaintained public neutrality, Sherman’s defeatwas widely perceived as a defeat for thepresident.22

The internal split proved a disaster for the Re-publican party in the 1910 congressional mid-term elections. Republicans lost eight seats in theSenate—where insurgents now held the balanceof power—and lost their majority in the Houseto the Democrats. In the hope of restoring har-mony, Taft invited the leading insurgent sen-ators to the White House to discuss patronage.All but the implacable La Follette attended. Butthese efforts alarmed the party’s conservatives,who warned that, if Taft embraced the progres-sives, the Old Guard might throw their supportto Vice President Sherman in 1912. Harmonywas the last thing that the hapless Taft couldachieve.23

Death and Defeat

At first, Senator La Follette emerged as theprincipal challenger to Taft’s renomination, butwhen the overworked and exhausted La Follettesuffered a breakdown in February 1912, Theo-dore Roosevelt jumped into the race for the Re-publican nomination. In a series of bitter con-frontations, Roosevelt won the popular pri-maries but Taft retained control of the party ma-chinery that chose a majority of the delegates. InNew York, Sherman’s forces managed to gain 78delegates for Taft, with only 12 for Roosevelt.24

Denied the nomination, the former presidentwalked out of the Republican convention to formthe Progressive (‘‘Bull Moose’’) party. Democratsmeanwhile had nominated the progressive gov-ernor of New Jersey, Woodrow Wilson, who be-

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came the frontrunner by virtue of the Republicansplit.

With Taft’s defeat in the November electionsan almost foregone conclusion, the Republicanconvention renominated Sherman with little fussor attention. He became the first sitting vicepresident to be renominated since John C. Cal-houn, eighty years earlier. New York Repub-licans continued to argue that Sherman wouldbring the most strength to the ticket. In fact, Sher-man was too ill to campaign that year. Since 1904he had suffered from Bright’s disease, a seriouskidney ailment. During the long session of theSenate in 1912, Sherman’s discomfort had beenincreased by the Senate’s inability to elect a Re-publican president pro tempore who might spellhim as presiding officer. He returned to Utica,where his family doctor diagnosed his conditionas dangerous and prescribed rest and relaxation.His doctor urged him not even to deliver hisspeech accepting the nomination, at ceremoniesplanned for late August. ‘‘You may know allabout medicine,’’ Sherman responded, ‘‘but youdon’t know about politics.’’ Sherman wentthrough with the ceremonies and spoke for halfan hour. Two days later, his health collapsed,leaving him bedridden. By mid-September, Sher-man felt well enough to travel to Connecticut,where he checked into an oceanside hotel to re-cuperate. When reporters caught up with himand asked why he had avoided campaigning,Sherman replied, ‘‘Don’t you think I look like asick man?’’ 25

His longtime colleague and adversary, RobertLa Follette, later noted that ‘‘the hand of death’’had been upon Sherman throughout his vice-presidency. ‘‘From the first its shadow went withhim in and out of this Chamber, stood over himat his desk, followed him down the corridors,pursued him to his home. Month after month,waking or sleeping, in social cheer or the stillhours of the night, it was his constant compan-ion. Before all others he was the first to knowwhat threatened him.’’ Yet Sherman never al-lowed his illness to hamper him. ‘‘He bore anoutward geniality and spirit that dispelled fearfrom all his friends.’’ 26

On October 30, 1912, President Taft was at adinner at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, after launch-

ing the battleship New York, when word camethat Vice President Sherman had died. He wasfifty-seven years old. Taft asked the diners to ad-journ in Sherman’s memory and later issued astatement that he felt ‘‘a sense of personal be-reavement in the loss of a friend.’’ Privately, Taftfretted that Sherman’s death might dissuadepeople from voting for the ticket. Mrs. Taft con-sidered Sherman’s death ‘‘very unfortunate’’coming just before the election. ‘‘You have theworst luck,’’ she commiserated with herhusband.27

A Deceased Running Mate

Taft considered naming the progressive gov-ernor of Missouri, Herbert S. Hadley, to replaceSherman, but members of the national committeepersuaded the president that it would be poorpolitics to choose someone who was unlikely tocarry his own state in the election. So Taft putoff the decision and went into the election witha deceased running mate. It mattered little, sincethe Democratic candidate, Woodrow Wilson,won the presidency with 435 electoral votes; theProgressive candidate, Theodore Roosevelt, tooksecond place with 88 electoral votes; and Taftcame in a dismal third, with only the 8 electoralvotes of Vermont and Utah. In January, the Re-publican National Committee named anotherNew Yorker, Columbia University presidentNicholas Butler, to fill out the Republican ticketfor purposes of receiving electoral votes, whichwere counted on February 12, 1913. Taft’s reelec-tion campaign remains one of the worst defeatsever suffered by a Republican presidential can-didate (in 1936, Alf Landon tied Taft by winningonly 8 electoral votes).28

Various memorial services were held to honorthe deceased vice president. Senator Elihu Rootpaid tribute to Sunny Jim, whose ‘‘smile was al-ways bright; his fair, ruddy face was alwaysglowing with kindly feeling; and the impressionproduced by his just and sweet and serene tem-perament was so strong that the world thoughtof him as a bright and cheerful man. It was allreal; there was none of it put on.’’ SenatorChauncey Depew commended Sherman’s stead-fast defense of the protective tariff, ‘‘the fun-damental principle of all his political career.’’

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Democratic Senator John Worth Kern, who hadlost the vice-presidency to Sherman in 1908, re-called his arrival in the Senate in 1911. Vice Presi-dent Sherman had been so anxious to show hisgood will that within minutes after Kern hadtaken the oath of office, Sherman invited him totake the gavel and preside over the Senate. ‘‘Iprotested that I was a stranger, not only to thisbody but its procedure,’’ said Kern,

but he insisted, saying, ‘‘It will be only for a fewminutes and it is for my own pleasure and gratifi-cation that I ask you to do me this personalfavor.’’ And from that time on until the last henever lost an opportunity to make me feel thathowever wide our political differences—andthey were irreconcilable—I had in him a friendon whose fidelity I might always rely.

Senator Charles Curtis of Kansas, who hadserved with Sherman in the House, and whowould follow him as vice president during Her-bert Hoover’s administration, described Sher-man as a fatherly man: ‘‘He was at once inter-ested in the things in which you were interested,and immediately took upon himself the cloak ofhelper and adviser. He was thus particularly use-ful and congenial to new Members, and com-manded for himself respect and support in ev-erything he undertook.’’ 29

An Unexpected Reappearance

Despite these eulogies, James Schoolcraft Sher-man quickly disappeared from public memory.He remained the least-remembered twentieth-

century vice president until 1974, when he madean unexpected reappearance in E.L. Doctorow’sbest-selling novel Ragtime. At a climactic mo-ment in the book, Sarah, a black domestic, triedto intercede on behalf of her husband, when VicePresident Sherman attends a campaign rally inNew Rochelle, New York:

When the Vice-President’s car, a Packard,rolled up to the curb and the man himselfstepped out, a cheer went up. Sunny Jim Sher-man was a New York State politician with manyfriends in Westchester. He was a round baldingman and in such ill health that he would not sur-vive the campaign. Sarah broke through the lineand ran toward him calling, in her confusion,President! President! Her arm was extended andher black hand reached toward him. He shrankfrom the contact. Perhaps in the dark windyevening of impending storm it seemed to Sher-man’s guards that Sarah’s black hand was aweapon. A militiaman stepped forward and,with the deadly officiousness of armed men whoprotect the famous, brought the butt of hisSpringfield against Sarah’s chest as hard as hecould. She fell. A Secret Service man jumped ontop of her. The Vice-President disappeared intothe hotel.30

That scene, which led to Sarah’s death in thenovel, was entirely fictitious. Sherman simplyserved as the novelist’s metaphor of anunhealthy and unresponsive political system. Al-though perhaps better than total obscurity, it wasnot the way ‘‘Sunny Jim’’ would have wanted tobe remembered.

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NOTES1 Senate Curator James Ketchum provided the following

information in response to the popular belief that Sherman’smarble bust was damaged in the 1983 explosion that tookplace on the second floor of the Capitol’s Senate wing, adja-cent to the Sherman bust. ‘‘As Bessie Potter Vonnoh beganworking on the translation of her Sherman bust from plasterto marble, she discovered an imperfection near the surfaceof the stone. She raised her concern about its possible effecton the finished piece with the Senate Library Committee.In response, Chairman George Peabody Wetmore asked ar-chitect Thomas Hastings (of the firm of Carrere and Hast-ings) and sculptor James Earle Fraser to look into the matter.Both agreed that the discoloration on the right cheek wasof little concern. Unfortunately, as the carving progressed,the dark spot became more apparent. There was little thatcould be done to minimize it and the work proceeded tocompletion. After the 1983 bombing of the Capitol, it waserroneously reported that the area in question, located justbelow Sherman’s glasses, resulted from the explosion. Thebust of J.S. Sherman, including his glasses, survived thatbombing unscathed.’’

2 Memorial Services in Honor of the Memory of the Late JamesSchoolcraft Sherman, Vice-President of the United States (NewYork, 1913), pp. 12, 34–35.

3 Ibid., pp. 5–6; Samuel W. McCall, The Life of ThomasBrackett Reed (Boston, 1914), p. 164; James Schoolcraft Sher-man, Late Vice President of the United States, Memorial Address-es Delivered at a Joint Session of the Senate and the House ofRepresentatives of the United States, February 15, 1913 (Wash-ington, 1913), p. 50.

4 Memorial Addresses, pp. 38–39, 50.5 Ibid., pp. 21–22.6 Ibid., p. 23; Mark Sullivan, Our Times, 1900–1925 (New

York, 1953), 2:521; James Harvey Young, Pure Food: Securingthe Federal Food and Drugs Act of 1906 (Princeton, NJ, 1989).

7 Henry F. Pringle, Theodore Roosevelt, A Biography (NewYork, 1956), p. 318; Philip C. Jessup, Elihu Root (New York,1938), 2:114–15, 122.

8 Arthur Wallace Dunn, From Harrison to Harding: A Per-sonal Narrative, Covering a Third of a Century, 1888–1921 (PortWashington, NY, 1971; reprint of 1922 edition), 2:73, 201;Arthur Wallace Dunn, Gridiron Nights (New York, 1915), p.201.

9 Chauncey M. Depew, My Memories of Eighty Years (NewYork, 1924), pp. 176–77.

10 Champ Clark, My Quarter Century of American Politics(New York, 1920), 2:284–87.

11 Memorial Addresses, p. 43.12 Henry F. Pringle, The Life and Times of William Howard

Taft (Norwalk, CT, 1967; reprint of 1939 edition), p. 399;Horace Samuel Merrill and Marion Galbraith Merrill, TheRepublican Command, 1897–1913 (Lexington, KY, 1971), p.274.

13 Henry L. Stoddard, As I Knew Them: Presidents and Poli-tics from Grant to Coolidge (New York, 1927), p. 347.

14 Mrs. William Howard Taft, Recollections of Full Years(New York, 1914), p. 345.

15 Merrill and Merrill, pp. 277–98; George E. Mowry, Theo-dore Roosevelt and the Progressive Movement (New York,1946), p. 70.

16 Memorial Services, pp. 9–10.17 Ibid., p. 28; Clark, 2:285.18 Judith Icke Anderson, William Howard Taft, An Intimate

History (New York, 1981), pp. 132, 187.19 William Manners, TR and Will: A Friendship That Split

the Republican Party (New York, 1969), pp. 104–23.20 George E. Mowry, The Era of Theodore Roosevelt, 1900–

1912 (New York, 1958), p. 267; Belle Case La Follette andFola La Follette, Robert M. La Follette, June 14, 1855–June 18,1925 (New York, 1953), 1:298–99.

21 Stoddard, p. 381.22 Elting E. Morison, et al., eds., The Letters of Theodore Roo-

sevelt (Cambridge, MA, 1954), 7:116, 140, 147; Henry F.Holthusen, James W. Wadsworth, Jr.: A Biographical Sketch(New York, 1926), pp. 64–65.

23 James Holt, Congressional Insurgents and the Party Sys-tem, 1910–1916 (Cambridge, MA, 1967), p. 44.

24 Holthusen, p. 80.25 New York Times, September 17, October 31, 1912.26 Memorial Services, p. 48.27 New York Times, October 31, 1912; Washington Post, Oc-

tober 31, 1912; Manners, p. 289.28 New York Times, November 3, 1912, January 5, 1913.29 Memorial Services, pp. 14, 19; Memorial Addresses, pp. 44,

54.30 E.L. Doctorow, Ragtime (New York, 1974), p. 159.

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Chapter 28

THOMAS R. MARSHALL1913–1921

THOMAS R. MARSHALL

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Chapter 28

THOMAS R. MARSHALL28th Vice President: 1913–1921

[I]t has not been the practice for Presidents to throw any of the burdens of their office upon theVice President. He rules the dignified and at times irascible Senate and reflects upon the inactive char-acter of his job. . . . He has an automobile provided for him . . . but has to buy his own tires, gasolineand supplies.

—WASHINGTON EVENING STAR, MARCH 2, 1913 1

Vice President Thomas R. Marshall, whoserved two terms with President Woodrow Wil-son from 1913 to 1921, claimed that most of the‘‘nameless, unremembered’’ jobs assigned to himhad been concocted essentially to keep vicepresidents from doing any harm to their admin-istrations. One of these chores, according to Mar-shall, was that of regent of the Smithsonian Insti-tution. The vice president recalled that at his firstboard meeting the other regents, including thechief justice of the United States and the inventorAlexander Graham Bell, discussed funding anexpedition to Guatemala to excavate for traces ofprehistoric man. With the breezy manner of aself-described ‘‘light-hearted Hoosier,’’ Marshallasked if the Smithsonian had ever considered ex-cavating in Washington, D.C. Judging from thespecimens walking about on the street, he said,they would not have to dig far below the capitalto discover prehistoric man. ‘‘And then the utteruselessness and frivolity of the vice-presidencywas disclosed,’’ Marshall confessed, ‘‘for not aman smiled. It was a year before I had courageto open my mouth again.’’ 2

This typically self-deprecating story revealedmuch about Marshall’s lamentable vice-presi-dency. His feelings of inadequacy in both himselfand the position he held were reflected again inhis reaction to an invitation from President Wil-son to attend cabinet meetings. Vice President

Marshall stopped going after a single session.When asked why, he replied that he realized ‘‘hewould not be listened to and hence would be un-able to make any contribution.’’ Marshall simi-larly attended only one meeting of the SenateDemocratic Caucus. ‘‘I do not blame proud par-ents for wishing that their sons might be Presi-dent of the United States,’’ he later said. ‘‘But ifI sought a blessing for a boy I would not praythat he become Vice-President.’’ 3

Woodrow Wilson, a supremely self-confidentintellectual, regarded Marshall as a ‘‘small-cali-ber man’’ and had not wanted him on his ticketin 1912.4 During their eight years together, Wil-son undoubtedly made Marshall feel uncomfort-able. The editor William Allen White once de-scribed presenting a proposal to Wilson at theWhite House. Wilson ‘‘parried and counteredquickly, as one who had heard the argument Iwould present and was punctiliously impatient.He presented another aspect of the case andouttalked me, agreeing in nothing. I could nottell how much he assimilated.’’ 5 For a more inse-cure man like Marshall, such a response musthave been excruciating. Convinced that thepresident and other high-ranking officials didnot take him seriously enough to listen to him,Marshall learned not to speak, not to attendmeetings, and not to offer suggestions. He be-came the epitome of the vice president as non-

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entity. But this condition moved from comedy totragedy when President Wilson suffered a para-lytic stroke in 1919. Faced with the crisis of hav-ing to determine whether the president was ableto fulfill the duties of his office, Marshall failedmiserably.

A Man of Contradictions

Thomas Riley Marshall had been little knownoutside his home town of Columbia City, Indi-ana, before he was elected governor in 1908. Bornin Indiana on March 14, 1854, he was the onlychild of a country doctor and his sickly wife.After moving to Illinois and Kansas for Mrs.Marshall’s health, the family returned to Indianawhere Thomas attended Wabash College. Fromhis youth he intended to become a lawyer andspent many of his Saturdays in the courtroom lis-tening to such prominent Indiana lawyer-politi-cians as Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Hendricks,and Daniel Voorhees—who became president,vice president, and senator, respectively. Mar-shall read law and went into practice in Colum-bia City. In his early years he was a hard-drink-ing man, who ‘‘wanted a barrel, not a drink.’’ Hisintemperance persisted for years, and he oftenappeared hung over in court. A seemingly con-firmed bachelor, he lived with his mother untilher death. Shortly thereafter, however, at the ageof forty-one, he married Lois Kimsey, a deputyin the office of her father, the county clerk innearby Angola, Indiana. After several difficultyears, his wife persuaded him to stop drinking,and after 1898 he never touched another alco-holic beverage.6

Marshall’s biographer, Charles M. Thomas,summarized the contradictions of his subject’spersonality:

He was prior to 1898, a most pronounced drinkerand at the same time a leader in the church anda temperance lecturer. He was inconsistent, yethe was trusted. He was a fundamentalist in reli-gion, yet not sectarian [that is, not intolerant]. Hewas enjoyed as the biggest wit in town, yet hisjudgment was respected by those who knew him,and his leadership was accepted. His later politi-cal career proves that, despite his conflictingtraits, there was something in his character whichmade men like him.7

An Indiana Democrat

Marshall came from a traditionally Democraticfamily who traced their political roots back to theage of Andrew Jackson. Marshall himself was al-ways a regular party man. In 1876 he became sec-retary of the Democratic County Convention andspoke for many Democratic candidates. In 1880he lost an election for prosecuting attorney. Foryears that defeat dissuaded him from campaign-ing for office. Although he became a member ofthe Democratic State Central Committee, he didnot run again until 1908, when he sought theDemocratic nomination for governor. When thefrontrunning candidates eliminated each otherfrom the race, Marshall won the nomination. Hecampaigned against Republican RepresentativeJames ‘‘Sunny Jim’’ Watson, who would later be-come Senate majority leader. Marshall was elect-ed governor that year, even though in the presi-dential election Republican William HowardTaft carried Indiana against William JenningsBryan, whose vice-presidential candidate, JohnW. Kern, was a Hoosier. It was the first time thatIndiana Democrats had won the governorshipsince 1896.8

The ‘‘boss’’ of the Indiana Democratic party atthat time was the Irish-born Thomas Taggart,owner of a nationally famous hotel, health resort,and gambling casino at French Lick, Indiana.9After William Jennings Bryan’s two unsuccessfulcampaigns for president in 1896 and 1900, TomTaggart had helped the anti-Bryan Democratsand regular machine organizations to nominatethe more conservative Judge Alton B. Parker forpresident in 1904. Taggart managed Parker’scampaign as Democratic party nationalchairman.

Bryan recaptured the Democratic nominationin 1908, but Taggart, a national committeeman,had enough influence in the party to ensure thechoice of Indiana’s John Worth Kern for vicepresident. In 1912 Taggart went to the Demo-cratic convention with similar plans to recognizeIndiana Democrats by winning the second spotfor the governor, who could not succeed himselfin the statehouse. A conventional, middle-of-the-road politician, Marshall as governor had beenneither in Taggart’s pocket nor much identified

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with his party’s more progressive wing. But Indi-ana was a pivotal state, carried by every winningpresidential candidate since 1880. Moreover,having Marshall on the national ticket wouldhelp state Democrats elect the machine’s newcandidate for governor.

Tom Taggart disliked New Jersey GovernorWoodrow Wilson, whom progressive Democratswere supporting. Instead Taggart hoped for thenomination of House Speaker Champ Clark. Butthe party boss was shrewd enough to keep Indi-ana’s 29 votes united for Marshall as their ‘‘fa-vorite son,’’ until he could determine how to usethem to the best advantage. The Democratic con-vention required a two-thirds vote to nominatea presidential candidate. On the first ballot, Clarkhad 440 delegates to Wilson’s 324. Despite hismajority of votes, Clark peaked on the tenth bal-lot. On the fourteenth ballot, William JenningsBryan endorsed Wilson. Sensing the way thewind was blowing, Taggart on the twenty-eighthballot gave all of Marshall’s delegates to Wilson,who went on to win the nomination on the forty-sixth ballot. Wilson would have preferred Ala-bama Representative Oscar W. Underwood forvice president, but when Underwood declined,Taggart clinched the nomination for GovernorMarshall. As for Marshall, he had hoped that thefrontrunning Wilson and Clark would eliminateeach other, giving him the presidential nomina-tion as the darkhorse candidate. When awardedthe vice-presidential nomination instead, Mar-shall’s first inclination was to decline on theground that the job did not pay enough. But Mrs.Marshall had always wanted to go to Washing-ton, and her tears of disappointment convincedhim to change his mind and accept. In a multi-candidate race, the Democratic ticket won with435 electoral votes to 88 for Theodore Roosevelt’s‘‘Bull Moose’’ ticket and only a meager 8 for Re-publican William Howard Taft.10

Vice President

Thomas R. Marshall went to Washington‘‘with the feeling that the American people mighthave made a mistake in setting me down in thecompany of all the wise men in the land.’’ Hisjob as vice president required him to presideover the Senate, but other than delivering his gu-

bernatorial messages to the Indiana legislature,Marshall had no legislative experience. He as-sumed that as presiding officer of the Senate hehad some authority, but it did not take him longto discover ‘‘that the Senate was not only a self-governing body but that it was a quite willful setof men, who had not the slightest hesitancy inoverruling a presiding officer.’’ Marshall and hiswife also found that they were invited every-where to social functions in Washington. Aftera while, however, he decided that these invita-tions were less out of respect for him and his of-fice, than Washington’s efforts to ‘‘size up’’ anew man under the microscope. With whateverillusions he might have had about his officequickly dispelled, Marshall came to agree withthe early senator who had suggested that VicePresident John Adams be titled ‘‘His SuperfluousExcellency.’’ 11

A slight, bespectacled man, with his hatpushed back on his head, a pipe or cigar alwaysready in his hand, Marshall knew that he ‘‘wastoo small to look dignified in a Prince Albertcoat,’’ and so he continued his ordinary mannerof dress. ‘‘He is calm and serene and small; mild,quiet, simple and old-fashioned,’’ as one Indianawriter described him. ‘‘His hair is gray and sois his mustache. His clothes are gray and so ishis tie. He has a cigar tucked beneath the mus-tache and his gray fedora hat shades his grayeyes.’’ Another observer characterized Mar-shall’s voice as ‘‘musical, pleasant in tone, and. . . sufficient for stump-speaking out of doors,altho you wouldn’t think it to hear its soft notesin conversation.’’ 12

In later years, President Franklin D. Rooseveltloved to tell the story of Vice President Mar-shall’s arrival aboard the cruiser San Diego, an-chored off the Panama-Pacific Industrial Expo-sition, that took place in 1915 in San Francisco.As assistant secretary of the navy, FDR had de-signed the first vice-presidential flag, which wasflown when Marshall came on board. Appar-ently, the vice president had not been instructedabout naval etiquette. He came up the gangplankin the formal attire that the occasion required:silk hat, frock coat, gloves, and cane, and hisever-present cigar. When the band struck up the‘‘Star Spangled Banner,’’ the vice president ‘‘real-

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ized his predicament,’’ shifted the cane fromright hand to left, took the cigar out of his mouth,got the hat off his head and saluted. But whenthe first gun went off: ‘‘the whole works wenttwo feet into the air.’’ After the hat, gloves, caneand cigar were retrieved, Marshall tried to shakehands with the first saluting sailor he ap-proached. ‘‘By that time,’’ Roosevelt recalled,‘‘the Admiral and I had sprinted across the deckand rescued the Vice President.’’ Later at the ex-position, Roosevelt and Marshall watched a mo-tion picture that included the scene aboard thecruiser. ‘‘My God,’’ said Marshall, ‘‘if I lookedlike that I will never go on board another shipas long as I live!’’ 13

Witty but Overshadowed

From these descriptions, it is not surprisingthat Vice President Marshall gained a reputationas a rustic provincial. He also won notice for hisfolksy stories and down-home wit. In those daysthe Capitol guides escorted visitors through thecorridor behind the Senate chamber. Wheneverthe vice president left the door to his office open,he could hear the guides pointing him out as ifhe were a curiosity. One day he went to the doorand said, ‘‘If you look on me as a wild animal,be kind enough to throw peanuts at me.’’ Seek-ing more space and more privacy, Marshall re-quested and received an office in the recentlyopened Senate Office Building, where he could‘‘put his feet on the desk and smoke.’’ 14

Compared with the president, or even theSpeaker of the House, Vice President Marshallcould boast few perquisites of office. He had toshare his small quarters in the Capitol with a sec-retary and stenographer. His $12,000 annual sal-ary compared poorly with the president’s$75,000 stipend, and he lacked travel and hous-ing allowances. Awarded an automobile and a$1,000-per-year chauffeur, Marshall had to fi-nance auto repairs from his personal resources.Each of the recent vice presidents had acceptedfrom the Senate a solid silver inkstand as a me-mento of their office, but Vice President JamesSherman had declined the honor, leaving Mar-shall to wrestle with the inevitable questions ofpropriety.15

Serving under a vigorous and innovativepresident, Marshall had difficulty determininghis own role. Woodrow Wilson broke traditionin April 1913 by personally coming to the Capitolto address a joint session one day and the nextby visiting the President’s Room outside the Sen-ate chamber to lobby senators in support of histariff proposals. It was clear that the presidentintended to be his own lobbyist on Capitol Hilland had no particular use for his vice president.Marshall quickly ascertained that he was ‘‘of noimportance to the administration beyond theduty of being loyal to it and ready, at any time,to act as a sort of pinch hitter; that is, when ev-erybody else on the team had failed, I was to begiven a chance.’’ Marshall was probably alsoaware of Wilson’s belittling comments about thevice-presidency in his 1885 book CongressionalGovernment. The position, Wilson the scholar ofgovernment declared, ‘‘is one of anomalous in-significance and curious uncertainty,’’ whosechief importance ‘‘consists in the fact that he maycease to be Vice President.’’ 16

Although both men had served as Democraticgovernors and both were Calvinist Pres-byterians, Wilson and Marshall in fact had littlein common. Marshall had considered himself aprogressive governor of his state, but the presi-dent and his closest advisers looked upon himas a conservative. The White House rarely con-sulted him, and many months often elapsed be-tween meetings of the president and vice presi-dent. Marshall loyally supported Wilson’s pro-gram but was by nature too iconoclastic to em-brace wholeheartedly Wilson’s idealism. For in-stance, the vice president never reconciled him-self to child labor laws or woman suffrage. Cer-tainly Marshall lacked Wilson’s imagination anddetermination, two qualities that the vice presi-dent admired greatly in his chief executive.‘‘Whether you may like Woodrow Wilson, ornot, is beside the point,’’ Marshall wrote, ‘‘thisone thing you will be compelled to accord him:he had ideas and he had the courage to expressthem. He desired things done, and he had thenerve to insist on their being done.’’ 17

Even in the Senate, Marshall was over-shadowed by his two fellow Indianans, both pro-gressive Democrats. Indiana’s senior senator was

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Benjamin Shively, whom Marshall described as‘‘one of the finest specimens of physical man-hood in the Senate—tall, commanding, of strik-ing appearance, and his brain was as large as hisbody.’’ Shively was also ‘‘a great orator, and agreat logician, and when he spoke his wordscommanded careful consideration.’’ The juniorsenator from Indiana was John Worth Kern,chairman of the Democratic caucus and floorleader for Wilson’s New Freedom program. Kernwas ‘‘strong in debate, gentle as a woman in hisrelations with his fellow-men, full of good waysand good works.’’ The majority leader had ‘‘aweakness for the telling of stories, and he toldthem in an inimitable way.’’ 18

Correspondent Louis Ludlow, who coveredWashington for various Indiana newspapers,rated Marshall highly for his irrepressible wit.Marshall’s funny remarks ‘‘at the expense of theSenate’s dignity’’ had at first shocked the olderand more staid senators, ‘‘but out in the cloak-room they would laugh over his sayings untiltheir sides ached.’’ Marshall described the Senateas ‘‘the Cave of Winds’’ and used humor to belit-tle ‘‘the idols of clay’’ that populated it.19 Presi-dent Wilson apparently enjoyed hearing Mar-shall’s stories and often repeated them at cabinetmeetings and dinner parties. But Wilson’s closeconfidant, Colonel Edward House, believed thatMarshall’s wit diminished his standing as a seri-ous statesman and made him appear just a jester.‘‘An unfriendly fairy godmother presented himwith a keen sense of humor,’’ House commented.‘‘Nothing is more fatal in politics.’’ 20

Ironically, Vice President Marshall did not de-serve authorship of his most famous quip about‘‘a good five-cent cigar.’’ Although there aremany versions of this story, the most often re-peated alleges that Kansas Senator JosephBristow had been making a long-winded speechwith the repeated refrain ‘‘What this countryneeds—’’ causing the vice president to lean overand whisper to one of the Senate clerks: ‘‘Bristowhasn’t hit it yet. What this country needs is agood five-cent cigar.’’ Newspapers repeated thequote and cigar makers gratefully showered thevice president with their products. Immortalizedin every dictionary of quotations, the ‘‘five-centcigar’’ quote remains just about the only thing

for which Thomas R. Marshall is rememberedtoday. But historian John E. Brown has traced thequotation back to the Indiana newspaper car-toonist Kin Hubbard, who put the words in themouth of his popular character ‘‘Abe Martin.’’As a fan of the cartoon strip, Marshall simplypicked up the phrase, repeated it, and becameits surrogate father.21

In 1916, the Democratic Convention renomi-nated Wilson and Marshall. Wilson gave little in-dication whether he wanted to retain or replaceMarshall. In late 1915, Arizona Senator Henry F.Ashurst had learned of a plan to ‘‘ditch’’ Mar-shall from the ticket and had called on the presi-dent to endorse Marshall for a second term, butWilson simply replied: ‘‘I have a very high re-gard for Vice-President Marshall and I wish youwould tell him so.’’ When the senator pressedharder, asking if he could say that President Wil-son was for Marshall’s renomination, Wilson‘‘gurgled out’’ a positive response. Nevertheless,Secretary of War Newton Baker had the strongimpression that the president would have pre-ferred him for a running mate. Meanwhile, Mar-shall had increased his income by giving numer-ous after-dinner talks on the lecture circuitwhenever Congress was not in session and hadmade himself a nationally popular figure. Witha difficult reelection campaign ahead, the Demo-crats hesitated to drop the well-liked (if not nec-essarily well-respected) vice president from theticket. In November, Wilson and Marshall wona narrow victory over the Republican ticket ofCharles Evans Hughes and Charles Fairbanks(also from Indiana—which went Republican inthe election). Marshall became the first vicepresident since John C. Calhoun, almost a cen-tury earlier, to be reelected to a second term.22

A Stressful Second Term

Marshall’s second term proved difficult andstressful. In April 1917, the United States enteredthe First World War, joining the allied forcesagainst Germany. Marshall spent much of thewar speaking at rallies to sell Liberty bonds. Vic-tory on the battlefield then thrust the UnitedStates into the negotiations to end the war anddetermine the future of Europe and the world.On December 4, 1918, President Wilson sailed for

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France to negotiate the peace treaty. Except forthe few days between February 24 and March 5,1919, Wilson remained out of the country untilJuly, after the Treaty of Versailles had beensigned. During Wilson’s unprecedented long ab-sences from the United States, he designatedVice President Marshall to preside over cabinetmeetings in his place. The request startled Mar-shall, but he complied gamely. On December 10,1918, he presided over the cabinet for the firsttime, and Navy Secretary Josephus Daniels re-corded in his diary that Marshall ‘‘was bright &full of jest.’’ However, a photograph taken of himpresiding showed a man trying to look resolutebut appearing decidedly uncomfortable. AsLouis Ludlow noted: ‘‘This was the first instancein history when a President showed an inclina-tion to make a real use of his spare tire.’’ 23

Marshall presided only briefly over the cabi-net, withdrawing after a few sessions on thegrounds that the vice president could not main-tain a confidential relationship with both the ex-ecutive and legislative branches. Still, he had es-tablished the precedent of presiding over thecabinet during the president’s absence, makingit particularly difficult to understand why hefailed to carry out that same duty in October1919, after Wilson suffered a paralytic stroke. Ini-tially, Wilson’s wife Edith, his personal physi-cian Admiral Cary Grayson, and his secretary JoeTumulty, kept the vice president, the cabinet,and the nation in the dark over the severity ofWilson’s illness. Noting with understatementthat the eighteen months of Wilson’s illness were‘‘not pleasant’’ for him, Marshall recalled that thestanding joke of the country was that ‘‘the onlybusiness of the vice-president is to ring the WhiteHouse bell every morning and ask what is thestate of health of the president.’’ In fact, Marshallwas admittedly afraid to ask about Wilson’shealth, for fear that people would accuse him of‘‘longing for his place.’’ 24

Secretary of Agriculture David Houston metMarshall while lunching at the Shoreham Hotel,and recorded in his memoirs:

The Vice President was evidently much dis-turbed and expressed regret that he was beingkept in the dark about the President’s condition.

He asked me if I could give him the real facts,which I was unable to do. . . . The Vice Presidentexpressed the view that he ought immediately tobe informed; that it would be a tragedy for himto assume the duties of President, at best; andthat it would be equally a tragedy for the people;that he knew many men who knew more aboutthe affairs of the government than he did; andthat it would be especially trying for him if hehad to assume the duty without warning.25

Tumulty eventually sent word to Marshallthrough a friendly intermediary, Baltimore Suncorrespondent J. Fred Essary, that the president’scondition was so grave that he might die at anytime. A stunned Marshall sat absolutely speech-less. ‘‘It was the first great shock of my life,’’ helater told Essary. Still, he could not bring himselfto act, or to do anything that might seem ambi-tious or disloyal to his president. It was Secretaryof State Robert Lansing rather than Vice Presi-dent Marshall who determined to call cabinetmeetings in the president’s absence. Without theparticipation of either the president or vice presi-dent, the cabinet met regularly between October1919 and February 1920, presided over by Sec-retary of State Lansing, or in his absence, Sec-retary of the Treasury Carter Glass. When Wil-son recovered sufficiently, he fired Lansing forattempting to ‘‘oust’’ him from office by callingthese meetings. Wilson, who was never himselfafter his stroke, argued that these meetings heldno purpose since no cabinet decisions could bemade without the president. Yet Wilson himselfhad sanctioned the cabinet meetings over whichMarshall had presided a year earlier. If nothingelse, for the cabinet to hold regular meetings atleast assured the American public that their gov-ernment continued to function.26

The Constitution declares that the vice presi-dent could assume the duties of president in caseof the president’s ‘‘Inability to discharge thePowers and Duties of the said Office,’’ but untilthe Twenty-fifth Amendment was adopted in1967, the Constitution said absolutely nothingabout how he should do it.27 Marshall was clear-ly in a difficult situation. As editor Henry L.Stoddard observed, ‘‘Wilson’s resentment ofLansing’s activities is proof that Vice PresidentMarshall would have had to lay siege to the

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White House, had he assumed the Presi-dency.’’ 28 The eminent historian of American di-plomacy Thomas A. Bailey noted that PresidentWilson ‘‘clung to his office, without the powerto lead actively and sure-footedly, but withunimpaired power to obstruct.’’ In his classicstudy of Wilson’s handling of the Treaty of Ver-sailles, Bailey speculated that if Wilson had diedrather than been incapacitated by his stroke, theresults would have been far more positive, andthat Wilson’s historical reputation would haveeclipsed even Abraham Lincoln as a martyr. HadWilson died, the Senate might well have beenshamed into action on the League of Nations.‘‘Much of the partisanship would have faded, be-cause Wilson as a third-term threat would begone, and Vice President Marshall, a small-boredHoosier, was not to be feared,’’ wrote Bailey:

Marshall of course would have been Presidentfor seventeen months. Having presided over theSenate for more than six years, and knowing thetemper of that body, he probably would have rec-ognized the need for compromise, and probablywould have worked for some reconciliation ofthe Democratic and Republicans points of view.In these circumstances it seems altogether rea-sonable to suppose that the Senate would haveapproved the treaty with a few relatively minorreservations.29

Indeed, Marshall presided over the Senate dur-ing the ‘‘long and weary months’’ of debate onthe Treaty of Versailles. Although he stood loy-ally with the president, he believed that somecompromise would be necessary and tried un-successfully to make the White House under-stand. ‘‘I have sometimes thought that great menare the bane of civilization,’’ Marshall later wrotein his memoirs, in a passage about the clash be-tween Woodrow Wilson and Senator HenryCabot Lodge: ‘‘[T]hey are the real cause of all thebitterness and contention which amounts to any-thing in the world. Pride of opinion and author-ship, and jealousy of the opinion and authorshipof others wreck many a fair hope.’’ 30

Despite assurances from members of both par-ties in Congress that they would support him

should he assert his claim to the presidency,Thomas R. Marshall never sought to fill Wood-row Wilson’s place. His years in Washington hadconvinced him that he desired the good will ofothers rather than the ‘‘pomp or power’’ of thepresidency. Rather than act as president, or evenpreside over cabinet meetings, Marshall con-tented himself with replacing Wilson as ‘‘officialhost’’ for the many visiting European royaltyand other dignitaries who came to Washingtonto offer thanks for American assistance duringthe First World War.31 By shrinking from a dis-tasteful duty, Marshall gave himself peace ofmind but deprived the nation of whatever lead-ership he might have offered in trying times.

Marshall himself told the story of riding on atrain behind a man and a woman who were dis-cussing the news that President Wilson had re-moved Secretary of State Lansing for holdingcabinet meetings. ‘‘Why what else could Mr.Lansing have done?’’ the woman asked. ‘‘Herethe President was sick. A lot of big questions hadto be talked over and there was the Vice Presi-dent, who doesn’t amount to anything. The onlything Mr. Lansing could do, I tell you, was tocall these Cabinet meetings, and I think he didthe right thing.’’ Said Marshall, ‘‘There you haveit in a nutshell. The woman was right. I don’tamount to anything.’’ 32

Although Thomas Marshall publicly hintedthat he would accept the Democratic nominationfor president in 1920, few delegates outside of In-diana cast any votes for him. Instead, Democratsnominated James M. Cox and Franklin D. Roo-sevelt, who lost overwhelmingly to the Repub-lican ticket of Warren G. Harding and CalvinCoolidge. Marshall left office as vice president inMarch 1921 and returned to Indiana. He diedwhile visiting Washington on June 1, 1925, at ageseventy-one. In 1922 President Harding had ap-pointed him to serve on the Federal Coal Com-mission to settle labor troubles in the coal mines,but otherwise Marshall insisted he had retired.‘‘I don’t want to work,’’ he said. ‘‘[But] Iwouldn’t mind being Vice President again.’’ 33

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NOTES1 ‘‘Vice President Marshall Has Fallen Into a Big Job With

Little Work, Many Peculiar Customs and Much SocialStrain,’’ Washington Evening Star, March 2, 1913, part 4, p.6.

2 Thomas R. Marshall, Recollections of Thomas R. Marshall,Vice-President and Hoosier Philosopher: A Hoosier Salad (Indi-anapolis, 1925), pp. 16–18.

3 Ray Stannard Baker, Woodrow Wilson, Life and Letters(Garden City, N.Y., 1931), 4:104–9; and Daniel C. Roper,Fifty Years of Public Life (Durham, NC, 1941); John E. Brown,‘‘Woodrow Wilson’s Vice President: Thomas R. Marshalland the Wilson Administration, 1913–1921’’ (Ph.D. disserta-tion, Ball State University, 1970), p. 216.

4 Charles M. Thomas, Thomas Riley Marshall, HoosierStatesman (Oxford, OH, 1939), p. 129.

5 William Allen White, The Autobiography of William AllenWhite (New York, 1946), pp. 615–16.

6 Thomas, pp. 27–28; Marshall, p. 96.7 Thomas, p. 35.8 Ibid., pp. 40–55.9 Indianapolis News, March 6, 1929.10 Josephus Daniels, The Wilson Era: Years of Peace, 1910–

1917 (Chapel Hill, NC, 1944), p. 550; Thomas, pp. 112–39;Brown, p. 146; Congressional Quarterly’s Guide to U.S. Elec-tions, 3d ed. (Washington, DC, 1994), p. 390. The 1912 elec-tion is also discussed in Chapter 25 of this volume, ‘‘Theo-dore Roosevelt,’’, p. 306, and Chapter 27, ‘‘James SchoolcraftSherman,’’ pp. 330–31.

11 Marshall, pp. 221–25, 229.12 Ibid., p. 233; Brown, pp. 50–51.13 Brown, pp. 250–51.14 Marshall, p. 230; Thomas, p. 141; Washington Evening

Star, March 2, 1913, part 4, p. 6; March 4, 1913, p. 1; andMarch 6, 1913, ‘‘Senate takes day off.’’

15 Washington Evening Star, March 2, 1913, part 4, p. 6.

16 Marshall, p. 233; Woodrow Wilson, Congressional Gov-ernment: A Study in American Politics (Baltimore, 1981; re-print of 1885 edition), p. 162.

17 Brown, pp. 157–59, 171; Daniels, pp. 552–53; Thomas,pp. 142–44; Marshall, p. 241.

18 Marshall, pp. 292–93.19 Louis Ludlow, From Cornfield to Press Gallery; Adven-

tures and Reminiscences of a Veteran Washington Correspondent(Washington, DC, 1924), pp. 311–15.

20 Thomas, p. 153.21 Ludlow, pp. 313–14; Brown, pp. 188–93.22 George F. Sparks, A Many-Colored Toga: The Diary of

Henry Fountain Ashurst (Tucson, AZ, 1962), pp. 42–43;Thomas, pp. 234–36.

23 E. David Cronon, ed., The Cabinet Diaries of JosephusDaniels, 1913–1921 (Lincoln, NE, 1963), p. 354; Ludlow, p.301.

24 Daniels, p. 558; Marshall, p. 368.25 David F. Houston, Eight Years With Wilson’s Cabinet,

1913 to 1920 (Garden City, NY, 1926), pp. 36–38.26 Thomas, p. 207; see also Herbert Hoover, The Ordeal of

Woodrow Wilson (Baltimore, 1992; reprint of 1958 edition),pp. 270–78; Robert H. Farrell, Ill-Advised: Presidential Healthand Public Trust (Columbia, MO, 1992), p. 16.

27 See Birch Bayh, One Heartbeat Away: Presidential Disabil-ity and Succession (Indianapolis, 1968).

28 Henry L. Stoddard, As I Knew Them: Presidents and Poli-tics from Grant to Coolidge (New York, 1927), pp. 539–47.

29 Thomas A. Bailey, Woodrow Wilson and the Great Betrayal(New York, 1945), pp. 137–38.

30 Marshall, pp. 363–64.31 Ibid., p. 368.32 Brown, pp. 418–19.33 Ludlow, p. 312.

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Chapter 29

CALVIN COOLIDGE1921–1923

CALVIN COOLIDGE

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Chapter 29

CALVIN COOLIDGE29th Vice President: 1921–1923

If the Vice-President is a man of discretion and character so that he can be relied upon to act asa subordinate in that position, he should be invited to sit with the Cabinet, although some of the Senators,wishing to be the only advisers of the President, do not look on that proposal with favor.

—CALVIN COOLIDGE

Calvin Coolidge came to the vice-presidencyfrom the governorship of Massachusetts, but hewas at heart a Vermonter. Born in Vermont onthe Fourth of July 1872, he died in Vermont sixty-one years later, on January 5, 1933. During theyears between, he lived most of his adult life inMassachusetts and worked out of the statehousein Boston but never identified with Back Bay so-ciety. ‘‘I come from Boston,’’ a lady once identi-fied herself to him when he was president. ‘‘Yes,and you’ll never get over it,’’ Coolidge replieddryly. One of Coolidge’s first biographers,Claude Fuess, identified him as the archetypicalYankee, ‘‘with his wiry, nervous body, his la-conic speech, his thrift, his industry, his conserv-ative distrust of foreigners and innovations, andhis native dignity.’’ This dour, taciturn manserved eight years as vice president and presi-dent during the ‘‘Roaring Twenties,’’ an era re-membered for its speakeasies, flappers, and any-thing-goes attitudes. Calvin Coolidge, as journal-ist William Allen White aptly recorded, was ‘‘APuritan in Babylon.’’ 1

Youth

Calvin Coolidge grew up in the bucolic settingof rural Vermont in the late nineteenth century.He was a slight, red-headed, blue-eyed boywhose decided nasal twang was made worse bynumerous childhood allergies until it gave hisvoice a quacking sound. His invalid mother died

when he was just twelve years old, and he wasraised by his father, Colonel John Coolidge, a tal-ented jack-of-all-trades, who ran a general storeand farmed, as well as serving as justice of thepeace and a member of the state legislature. Forall these accomplishments, Colonel Coolidgewas not a man who could express his emotionsopenly, and one senses from reading Calvin Coo-lidge’s Autobiography that he spent much of hislife trying to earn his father’s respect and ap-proval. As Coolidge later noted, ‘‘A lot of peoplein Plymouth can’t understand how I got to bePresident, least of all my father!’’ 2

A Shy Politician

A painfully shy boy, Coolidge would go intoa panic at the sound of a stranger’s voice in thehouse. Writing in a letter to a friend years later,he recalled that when visitors would sit with hisparents in the kitchen, he found it difficult to goin and greet them. ‘‘I was almost ten before I re-alized I couldn’t go on that way. And by fightinghard I used to manage to get through that door.I’m all right with old friends, but every time Imeet a stranger, I’ve got to get through the oldkitchen door, back home, and it’s not easy.’’ 3

Shortly after his mother died, Coolidge es-caped from the drudgery of farm work to attendthe Black River Academy in Ludlow, Vermont,his ‘‘first great adventure,’’ which he describedas ‘‘a complete break with the past.’’ His parents

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and a grandmother had attended the schoolbriefly, but Coolidge embraced schoolwork morethoroughly, going on to Amherst as the firstmember of his family to attend college. He didwell enough to be chosen one of the three com-mencement speakers at his graduation, assignedto deliver the ‘‘grove oration,’’ which was to de-scribe the class members in a witty and humor-ous manner. Coolidge later related that helearned from the experience ‘‘that making fun ofpeople in a public way was not a good methodto secure friends, or likely to lead to muchadvancement.’’ 4

After college he read law with the firm ofHammond and Field in Northampton, Massa-chusetts, before joining the bar in 1897. Politi-cally a conservative Republican, Coolidge hadmarched in a torchlight parade for BenjaminHarrison’s unsuccessful reelection campaign in1892 and wrote letters to the local papers in sup-port of William McKinley’s election in 1896. InDecember 1898 he won his first election to theNorthampton city council, an unsalaried job thathe saw primarily as a means of making usefulcontacts for his law practice. He was then electedcity solicitor, a post that paid six hundred dollarsannually, which he believed would make him abetter lawyer. Next came election to the Massa-chusetts house of representatives, and appoint-ment to its judiciary committee, which he againconsidered more in terms of promoting himselfas a lawyer than as a politician. He ran for mayorof Northampton, ‘‘thinking the honor would beone that would please my father, advance me inmy profession, and enable me to be of some pub-lic service.’’ As a local office, it would not ‘‘inter-fere seriously with my work.’’ 5

Coolidge always insisted that he neverplanned his political career. He meant only ‘‘tobe ready to take advantage of opportunities.’’ 6

In 1911 he ran for the state senate and soon be-came its president, a role that took him fromlocal to statewide office. Coolidge summed uphis philosophy as a legislator in a letter to his fa-ther upon the elder Coolidge’s election to theVermont Senate:

It is much more important to kill bad bills thanto pass good ones, and better to spend your time

on your own committee work than to be bother-ing with any bills of your own. . . . See that thebills you recommend from your committee are soworded that they will do just what they intendand not a great deal more that is undesirable.Most bills can’t stand that kind of test.7

A Return to Conservatism

Coolidge began his ascendancy in statewidepolitics at a time when the Massachusetts Repub-lican party was still divided between conserv-atives and progressives. In 1912, Theodore Roo-sevelt had walked out of the Republican partyand campaigned for president on the ticket of theProgressive (‘‘Bull Moose’’) party. In that elec-tion, the Republican nominee, William HowardTaft, had come in a distant third behind the moreprogressive candidacies of Roosevelt and Wood-row Wilson. Coolidge was far from comfortablewith the reform politicians and muckrakingmagazines of the era. ‘‘It appeared to me in Janu-ary, 1914, that a spirit of radicalism prevailedwhich unless checked was likely to prove verydestructive,’’ he later wrote. ‘‘It consisted of theclaim in general that in some way the govern-ment was to be blamed because everybody wasnot prosperous.’’ He believed that progressivereforms and ‘‘unsound legislative proposals’’would destroy business and that the countryneeded ‘‘a restoration of confidence in our insti-tutions and in each other, on which economicprogress might rest.’’ Fittingly, Coolidge’s firstaddress as president of the state senate appealed‘‘to the conservative spirit of the people.’’ 8

Coolidge correctly anticipated the shift in pub-lic opinion. Even before the First World War, aconservative reaction to the progressive era wasapparent as voters grew tired of political cru-sades. In 1914, an economic recession that wasespecially severe on the East Coast also hurt pro-gressive candidates. Conservative challengers ar-gued that more laws and more regulationswould only mean more taxes. In one sign of thechanging atmosphere, when the first direct elec-tions for U.S. senators were held in 1914, pro-gressive candidates went down to defeat. Con-servative Republicans swept the field in manystates, reducing the Democratic majorities inboth the Senate and House. Most symbolically,

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the staunchly conservative Senator Boies Penroseof Pennsylvania beat one of the nation’s mostprominent progressives, Gifford Pinchot. ‘‘Themost curious part,’’ Pinchot confessed, ‘‘is thatno one seemed to know in advance that we wereto be beaten and certainly no one thought the de-feat would be so complete.’’ 9

Calvin Coolidge’s fortunes rose as those of theprogressives fell. In 1915 he was elected lieuten-ant governor, and on January 1, 1919, he was in-augurated as governor of Massachusetts. Beforethat year was out, unexpected events had madehim one of the most famous and admired menin the country. ‘‘No doubt it was the police strikeof Boston that brought me into national promi-nence. That furnished the occasion and I took ad-vantage of the opportunity,’’ Coolidge wrotewith characteristic understatement in hisAutobiography.10

Boston’s police force was badly underpaid andoverworked. As a legislator, Coolidge hadachieved a reasonably favorable record towardlabor, and as governor he tried unsuccessfully topersuade the legislature to improve the police-men’s lot. The police then organized the BostonSocial Club and sought to affiliate with theAmerican Federation of Labor, but Boston PoliceCommissioner Edwin Curtis had no intention ofdealing with a police union, and he suspendedthe police union organizers from the force.Angry police voted to go out on strike, throwingthe city into a panic. There was an increase inlooting and robberies, and volunteers turned outto police the streets. Governor Coolidge ignoredall appeals to intervene, and his inactivity un-doubtedly allowed the situation to worsen. Fi-nally, after much confusion and delay, Coolidgesided with the hard-line Police CommissionerCurtis, who had announced that the striking po-lice would not be reinstated. More than for hisactions, ‘‘Silent Cal’’ became famous for hiswords. In a telegram to AFL President SamuelGompers, who had sought his support for thepolice, Coolidge asserted, ‘‘There is no right tostrike against the public safety by anybody, any-where, any time.’’ At a time when the nation wasrocked by a series of often violent postwar labordisputes, many citizens welcomed this message.Coolidge became the ‘‘law and order’’ governor.

His photograph appeared on the front pages ofnewspapers nationwide, and thousands of tele-grams and letters poured in to congratulate him.There was talk of running Calvin Coolidge forpresident in 1920.11

The Coolidge Phenomenon

New York Times correspondent Charles WillisThompson was among the many journalists curi-ous about this new phenomenon. Thompsonnoted that Coolidge began making politicalspeeches outside of Massachusetts but not insuch likely places as Chicago and New York. In-stead, Coolidge went to Oregon and to the RockyMountain states, and his speeches were alwayson nonpolitical themes. ‘‘Each one of these non-political speeches had in it that quality of arrest;there was something in it, unpretentious as itwas as a whole, that made you stop and think,’’Thompson observed. ‘‘There was nothing spec-tacular about him yet, or ever.’’ The 1920 Repub-lican convention opened in Chicago with manycandidates and no clear frontrunner. The realstory was not in the primaries or in the main con-vention hall, but in the back rooms, which be-came immortalized as the ‘‘smoke-filled room’’where decisions were made by a coterie of Re-publican senators. When the convention becamedeadlocked between General Leonard Wood andIllinois Governor Frank Lowden, the senatorsmet privately to pick a candidate and prevent arift in the party. They were determined to namesomeone who would reduce the powers of thepresidency, which they believed had expandeddisproportionately during the administrations ofTheodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. Tothis end, they chose one of their most pliable col-leagues, Ohio Senator Warren G. Harding, as theRepublican presidential nominee.12

Harding had been far from a leading contenderamong the delegates, who nominated him with-out much enthusiasm. Seeking to balance theconservative Harding, and hoping to make it anall-senatorial ticket, the senators first offered thevice-presidential nomination to California Sen-ator Hiram Johnson, who turned it down. Theynext went to progressive Senator Irvine Lenrootof Wisconsin. When Illinois Senator MedillMcCormick stepped to the podium to nominate

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Lenroot, a delegate from Portland, Oregon,former Judge Wallace McCamant, called outloudly, ‘‘Coolidge! Coolidge!’’ Other delegatestook up the cry. When Senator McCormick fin-ished his address, McCamant leaped on a chairamong the Oregon delegation and nominatedGovernor Calvin Coolidge of Massachusetts forvice president. Showing enthusiasm for the firsttime, the delegates demonstrated spontaneouslyin Coolidge’s behalf. Lenroot would be ‘‘just onetoo many Senators on the presidential ticket,’’ areporter observed. Delegates for other can-didates who felt they had been denied theirchoice for the top spot were determined to havea voice in the second place. They voted 674 forCoolidge to 146 for Lenroot.13

Coolidge himself was back in Boston, in thehotel where he lived as governor, nursing hisdisappointment that all of his quiet campaigninghad seemingly made no impact on the presi-dential race. That evening as he and Mrs. Coo-lidge were preparing to go down to dinner, hereceived news about McCamant’s surprisingspeech and the demonstration that followed. Thephone rang again, and Coolidge turned to hiswife to utter a single word: ‘‘Nominated.’’

‘‘You aren’t going to take it are you?’’ askedMrs. Coolidge.

‘‘Well—I suppose I’ll have to.’’ said Coo-lidge.14

It had been perhaps the most unusual andindependent vice-presidential nomination inAmerican political history. Where parties nor-mally balance, both Harding and Coolidge wereunabashed conservatives and comprised themost conservative ticket since the party had gonedown to disastrous defeat in 1912. But in 1920that proved to be exactly what the nation want-ed, and in November the Harding-Coolidge tick-et overwhelmed the Democratic ticket of JamesM. Cox and Franklin D. Roosevelt. At his inau-guration as vice president, Calvin Coolidge tooksatisfaction that ‘‘the same thing for which I hadworked in Massachusetts had been accom-plished in the nation. The radicalism which hadtinged our whole political and economic lifefrom soon after 1900 to the World War periodwas passed.’’ 15

An Impassive Senate President

‘‘More hotel life, I suppose,’’ Grace Coolidgecommented on their move to Washington, D.C.The U.S. vice president still had no official placeof residence, and Coolidge was not prepared tospend his $12,000 a year salary on purchasing ahouse commensurate with his position. ‘‘Thereis no dignity quite so impressive, and no inde-pendence quite so important, as living withinyour means,’’ he observed. The Coolidgesmoved into the suite of rooms at the WillardHotel being vacated by Vice President and Mrs.Thomas R. Marshall, for which they paid eightdollars a day. As vice president, he occupied anoffice in the Capitol and another in the Senateoffice building. His staff consisted of a secretary,a clerk, an assistant clerk, and a chauffeur. Heinherited Vice President Marshall’s Cadillac.16

‘‘Presiding over the Senate was fascinating tome,’’ Coolidge later wrote. Although the Senate’smethods at first seemed peculiar, he soon be-came familiar with them and suggested that theywere ‘‘the best method of conducting its busi-ness. It may seem that debate is endless, butthere is scarcely a time when it is not informing,and, after all, the power to compel due consider-ation is the distinguishing mark of a deliberativebody.’’ However, as Coolidge tried to master theSenate rules, he soon discovered that there wasbut one fixed rule: ‘‘that the Senate would doanything it wanted to do whenever it wanted todo it. When I had learned that, I did not wastemuch time on the other rules, because they soseldom applied.’’ 17

Vice President Coolidge presided in a remark-ably impassive manner. Once James A. Reed, aMissouri Democrat, and Porter J. McCumber, aNorth Dakota Republican, engaged in a shoutingmatch on the Senate floor. Other senators and thegalleries joined in the uproar, while Coolidgesimply watched the commotion. When the par-liamentarian begged him to use his gavel to re-store order, the vice president replied, ‘‘Yes Ishall if they get excited.’’ 18

Doomed to be an Outsider

Coolidge’s most controversial moment as vicepresident came in July 1921. Midwestern pro-gressive Republicans were seeking federal relief

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for farmers, whose sales and purchasing powerhad collapsed after the war. Senator George Nor-ris of Nebraska introduced a bill that wouldmake it easier to market American farm productsoverseas. The Harding administration counteredwith a bill sponsored by Minnesota SenatorFrank Kellogg to make domestic marketing offarm goods easier. Norris had asked Coolidge,as presiding officer, to recognize Senator JosephE. Ransdell, a Louisiana Democrat, first. Coo-lidge had agreed, but then he left the chair andasked Charles Curtis of Kansas, a tough-mindedpartisan senator, to preside in his place. WhenRansdell stood and sought recognition, Curtis ig-nored him and instead called upon Kellogg, whoin fact was still in his seat and had not even risento seek recognition. After the ensuing hubbub,as Kellogg claimed the floor, Coolidge reenteredthe chamber and once again presided. Progres-sive Republicans and Democrats long remem-bered this maneuver and never fully trustedCoolidge again. His biographer, Donald McCoy,concluded, ‘‘The episode may have doomedCoolidge to be an outsider for the rest of his timeas Vice President and even have contributed tohis troubles with Congress while he was Presi-dent. He was now distrusted by the progressivesand perhaps even disliked by the regulars forviolating one of the unwritten rules of the Sen-ate.’’ He had gone back on his word.19

Coolidge lacked either the jovial good humorof his predecessor Thomas Marshall or the typeof personality that would attract senators to him.In the Senate restaurant, Coolidge ate alone, ina corner, facing the wall. ‘‘Is that how you treatyour presiding officer?’’ someone asked SenatorEdwin Ladd of North Dakota. ‘‘Nobody has any-thing to do with him,’’ said the Senator. ‘‘Afterthis, of course, he’s through.’’ Coolidge cast notie-breaking votes and spoke only as required—and as briefly as possible. Biographer DonaldMcCoy noted that, while Coolidge had been asuccess as presiding officer in Massachusetts, inthe U.S. Senate he was ‘‘almost a nonentity.’’ 20

Largely overlooked in the Senate, Coolidgewon more notice for all of the ‘‘dining out’’ thathe and his wife did. ‘‘As the President is notavailable for social dinners of course the next of-ficer in rank is much sought after for such occa-

sions,’’ he noted. On an average they ate outthree times a week during the congressional sea-son. At first the Coolidges enjoyed these socialdinners, since as the ranking guests they wereable to arrive last and leave first. He consideredit an opportunity to become acquainted with offi-cial Washington. But Washington proved a cruelatmosphere for the Yankee Coolidge. Storiesspread through the city that the new vice presi-dent was either very dumb or very shy. Coo-lidge’s table manners were peculiar to say theleast. He sat quietly, nibbling nuts and crackersand saying next to nothing to those around him.Soon it became a Washington parlor game totease the vice president into talking. One famousstory had a Washington socialite telling him thatshe had bet her friends she could get him to saythree words. ‘‘You lose,’’ Coolidge replied.‘‘They provoked him to Yankee aphorisms andhe knew what they were up to,’’ wrote WilliamAllen White. ‘‘So he clowned a little for his owndelight, played the dumb man, impersonated theyokel and probably despised his tormenters inhis heart.’’ New Hampshire Senator GeorgeMoses told of a stag party where Coolidge wasa guest, when several senators spiked thepunch—this during Prohibition—to loosen upthe vice president, but the more Coolidge drank,the quieter he became. The longer he stayed inWashington, the more suspicious he grew of ev-eryone he met. When an old friend warned thatthis was an unhealthy state of mind, Coolidge re-plied: ‘‘I do not think you have any comprehen-sion of what people do to me. Even small thingsbother me.’’ Later, when he was president, Coo-lidge declined an invitation to a fashionableWashington home. ‘‘When I lived at the Willardand was vice president they didn’t know I wasin town,’’ Coolidge exploded. ‘‘Now that I amPresident they want to drag me up to their housefor one of their suppers and show me off to alot of people, and I’m not going. . . . I’m notgoing, and I’m not going to let that wife of minego.’’ 21

Coolidge was blessed with a wife, Grace Good-hue Coolidge, whose warmth and charm morethan made up for his aloofness and eccentricities.However, Coolidge tightly restricted her activi-

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ties, forbidding her to drive, ride horseback, orfly, from wearing slacks, bobbing her hair, or ex-pressing her opinion on any political issue. In theage of the liberated woman of the 1920s, he want-ed Grace to be the model of old-fashioned wom-anhood. As if this were not enough, he also madeher the target for his pent-up anger and unhappi-ness. Always a quiet man in public, Coolidgewould explode in private by throwing tempertantrums. Historian Donald McCoy has notedthat ‘‘the reserved and unathletic NewEnglander could not release his frustrations in ahealthy way. Whatever release he got came in theform of tantrums, the brunt of which his wifebore. Anything that was unexpected could leadhim to prolonged moods of sulking and even tofits of yelling.’’ Most likely, Coolidge’s privateoutbursts resulted from his disappointment inthe vice-presidency, which left him in the shad-ows, powerless.22

Sitting with the Cabinet

A major exception to Coolidge’s isolation dur-ing this period was President Harding’s invita-tion to him to sit with the cabinet. This was prob-ably a response to the unhappy situation in thelast years of the Wilson administration, whenVice President Marshall had declined to presideover the cabinet during the president’s illness,and Secretary of State Robert Lansing had beenfired by Wilson for holding cabinet meetingswithout his authorization. Harding had madethe offer first to Irvine Lenroot, when he wasconsidered for the vice-presidency, and then toCoolidge.23 When they met after the convention,Harding told the press:

I think the vice president should be more thana mere substitute in waiting. In reestablishing co-ordination between the Executive Office and theSenate, the vice president can and ought to playa big part, and I have been telling Governor Coo-lidge how much I wish him to be not only a par-ticipant in the campaign, but how much I wishhim to be a helpful part of a Republican adminis-tration.24

Coolidge joined the cabinet meetings, becom-ing the first vice president to do so on a regularbasis. He sat at the farthest end of the table fromHarding, listening to what was said and saying

almost nothing himself. In his Autobiography,Coolidge wrote, ‘‘If the Vice-President is a manof discretion and character so that he can be re-lied upon to act as a subordinate in that position,he should be invited to sit with the Cabinet, al-though some of the Senators, wishing to be theonly advisers of the President, do not look onthat proposal with favor.’’ Coolidge believedthat, although the vice president could probablyoffer little insight about the Senate, and virtuallynothing about the House, a vice president need-ed to be fully informed of what was going onin case he should become president. ‘‘My experi-ence in the Cabinet,’’ he concluded, ‘‘was of su-preme value to me when I became President.’’By contrast, Coolidge’s own vice president,Charles Dawes, disagreed and let it be knownpublicly that he did not consider it wise for vicepresidents to be invited to cabinet meetings be-cause of the separation of powers between thebranches.25

The Harding administration meanwhile hadbecome mired in scandal. The Senate hadlaunched an investigation of improper leasing ofnaval oil reserves at Teapot Dome in Wyoming.There were also indications of scandals brewingin the Veterans Administration and the Depart-ment of Justice. Whether Harding would be re-elected, whether he would keep Coolidge on theticket, and whether the ticket could be reelectedin the face of these scandals were all unanswer-able questions in the summer of 1923, when adispirited Harding traveled to Alaska and thePacific Coast. Vice President Coolidge was on va-cation at his father’s home in Plymouth, Ver-mont, when on the night of August 2, 1923, hewas awakened by his father calling his name. ‘‘Inoticed that his voice trembled. As the only timesI had ever observed that before were when deathhad visited our family, I knew that something ofthe gravest nature had occurred,’’ Coolidge re-corded. Colonel John Coolidge informed his sonthat a telegram had arrived announcing thatPresident Harding had died in San Francisco. AsCalvin Coolidge noted, his father ‘‘was the firstto address me as President of the United States.It was the culmination of the lifelong desire ofa father for the success of his son.’’ Coolidge

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quickly dressed, and in a downstairs parlor, litby a flickering kerosene lantern, his father as anotary public administered to him the oath of of-fice as president. Arizona Senator Henry Foun-tain Ashurst, a Democrat, observed that ‘‘thesimplicity of this episode fired the public imagi-nation.’’ Harding’s death and ‘‘the sportsman-ship of the American people,’’ Ashurst believed,built public support for Coolidge’s presidencyand revived Republican spirits.26

A Surprisingly Popular President

After his unsatisfying years as vice president,Coolidge became a surprisingly popular presi-dent, easily winning reelection in 1924. Cor-respondent Charles Willis Thompson, a keen ob-server of presidents during the first decades ofthis century, believed that the nation found psy-chological relief in Coolidge after the high-mind-ed oratory of Wilson and the bombast of Har-ding. Recognizing that he did not have the voiceof an orator, Coolidge ‘‘never wasted time tryingto acquire it.’’ His message was straightforward,with ‘‘no purple . . . no argument, no stock offi-cial phrases. He told Congress what he thoughtwould be for the good of the country and toldit as briefly as he could.’’ Thompson concludedthat Coolidge was as good as elected the day hesent his first message to Congress in 1923. ‘‘Con-gress, with its historic political wisdom, bangedhim around the Capitol walls by the hair of hishead,’’ but the people loved him, and decided to‘‘Keep Cool With Coolidge.’’ 27

Coolidge had the advantage of being every-thing that Harding was not—which providedhim some comfortable distance as the news ofthe Harding administration’s scandals broke.Harding was tall and handsome. Coolidge wassmaller, five feet nine inches tall, and weighedperhaps a hundred and fifty pounds. Hardinghad a famous smile. Coolidge’s skin was smooth,one biographer noted, ‘‘because of lack of exer-cise in either frowning or smiling.’’ Harding wasgregarious. Coolidge was aloof. Harding toler-ated his friends, even the most corrupt of them.Coolidge preached thrift and honesty. Duringthe 1924 campaign, the Democratic and Progres-sive candidates tried to tar Coolidge with the

Teapot Dome scandal but not a trace stuck tohim.28

The press, which had belittled Coolidge duringhis vice-presidency, now helped build up hispublic image. Coolidge said very little, but news-paper reporters must have news. ‘‘So we graspedat little incidents to build up human interest sto-ries,’’ explained correspondent Thomas L.Stokes. At first the press pictured Coolidge as a‘‘strong, silent man,’’ so much so that the Balti-more Sun’s veteran Washington correspondentFrank R. Kent accused his press corps colleaguesof inflating Coolidge to make him look good.Kent compared Coolidge’s ‘‘weak and watery ut-terances’’ at his press conferences with the‘‘forceful and vigorous’’ dispatches that report-ers produced. He charged reporters with turninga passive, indecisive chief executive into ‘‘a red-blooded, resolute, two-fisted, fighting executive,thoroughly aroused and determined.’’ Thismythical presidential image served reporters’ in-terests by appealing to the illusions of their read-ers and their editors. But as time passed and itbecame clear that Coolidge was neither strongnor silent, newspapers shifted their emphasis tohis dry wit and created a national character:‘‘Cal.’’ ‘‘Everyone spoke of him fondly as ’Cal.’He was one of us,’’ observed correspondentStokes. ‘‘He was the ordinary man incarnate.’’Another veteran correspondent, Delbert Clark,speculated that the press enjoyed writing, andeven manufacturing, homey little stories aboutCoolidge because ‘‘the mounting evidence hegave of being a very small, very solemn man ina very big job, intrigued them by reason of thecontradictions involved.’’ 29

The presidency was far more gratifying forCoolidge than the vice-presidential years hadbeen. He claimed to maintain as much simplicityin life as possible, clearly disliking most formalceremonies. Yet he also enjoyed the pomp andcircumstance of office, and he could not hide thepleasure on his face when the band played ‘‘Hailto the Chief.’’ But the presidency was not alwaysa happy time for Calvin Coolidge. In July 1924,he was devastated by the death of his son, Cal-vin, Jr. In playing lawn tennis on the WhiteHouse South Grounds, the boy had raised a blis-ter on his toe which resulted in blood poisoning.

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‘‘In his suffering he was asking me to make himwell. I could not,’’ Coolidge remarked. ‘‘Whenhe went the power and the glory of the Presi-dency went with him.’’ 30

Coolidge was never an innovative or activepresident. He was largely uninterested in foreignpolicy. Embracing a laissez-faire philosophy op-posed to government intervention, he had nobold domestic programs but carried on the poli-cies begun under Harding. As he had through-out his political life, he felt more comfortableblocking legislation that he opposed than he didin proposing new measures. Thus, he vetoedsuch legislation as the soldiers’ bonus, theMcNary-Haugen farm bills, and Senator Norris’efforts to develop water power in the TennesseeRiver Valley. He believed in reducing govern-ment regulation, cutting taxes, and allowingbusiness to operate with as little restraint as pos-sible. His presidency coincided with a period oftremendous economic prosperity, for which hereaped full credit. The stock market soared, al-though an investigation by the Senate Bankingand Currency Committee a few years later con-cluded that fully half of the fifty billion dollars

worth of stocks sold during the 1920s had been‘‘undesirable or worthless.’’ His secretary ofcommerce, Herbert Hoover, repeatedly urgedCoolidge to increase federal controls on privatebanking and stock trading practices. (Coolidgecould barely hide his distaste for his active, ener-getic commerce secretary, whom he mocked as‘‘The Wonder Boy.’’) But the government contin-ued its ‘‘hands-off policies’’ under Coolidge’sdictum that ‘‘the business of America is busi-ness.’’ Coolidge left the presidency in March of1929. By November the stock market hadcrashed, taking the Coolidge prosperity with it.By the time he died in January 1933, the nationwas paralyzed in the worst depression of its his-tory. Although his successor Herbert Hooverbore the weight of blame for that depression, his-torians have found Calvin Coolidge culpable ofcontributory neglect.31

Calvin Coolidge never made any pretensionsto greatness. ‘‘It is a great advantage to a Presi-dent and a major source of safety to the country,for him to know that he is not a great man,’’ herecorded in his Autobiography. That seems themost fitting epitaph for the man.32

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NOTES1 Claude M. Fuess, Calvin Coolidge: The Man from Vermont

(Boston, 1940), p. 5; William Allen White, A Puritan in Bab-ylon: The Story of Calvin Coolidge (New York, 1938).

2 Calvin Coolidge, The Autobiography of Calvin Coolidge(New York, 1929), pp. 99, 174; White, p. vii.

3 Donald R. McCoy, Calvin Coolidge, The Quiet President(Lawrence, KS, 1988), p. 8.

4 Coolidge, p. 71.5 Ibid., pp. 83–99.6 Ibid., p. 99.7 Fuess, pp. 107–8.8 Coolidge, p. 107.9 Gifford Pinchot to Lady Jonstone, November 9, 1914,

Gifford Pinchot Papers, Library of Congress.10 Coolidge, p. 141.11 McCoy, pp. 83–94.12 Charles Willis Thompson, Some Presidents I Have Known

and Two Near Presidents (Indianapolis, 1929), pp. 327–29, 361;Coolidge, p. 148; Andrew Sinclair, The Available Man: TheLife Behind the Masks of Warren Gamaliel Harding (New York,1965), pp. 142–49.

13 Thompson, pp. 362–64; Fuess, pp. 234–67; Herbert F.Margulies, ‘‘Irvine L. Lenroot and the Republican Vice-Pres-idential Nomination of 1920,’’ Wisconsin Magazine of History61 (Autumn 1977): 21–31.

14 White, p. 214.15 Coolidge, p. 158.16 Fuess, p. 287; McCoy, p. 134.17 Coolidge, pp. 161–62.18 Irving G. Williams, The Rise of the Vice Presidency (Wash-

ington, 1956), p. 124.19 McCoy, p. 136.20 Ibid., pp. 134–35, 145.21 Ibid., p. 162; Coolidge, pp. 160, 173; White, p. 222;

Fuess, p. 303.22 McCoy, p. 145; White House Chief Usher Ike Hoover

later wrote: ‘‘Those who saw Coolidge in a rage were sim-

ply startled. The older employees about the White Housewho had known [Theodore] Roosevelt used to think heraved at times, but in his worst temper he was calm com-pared with Coolidge.’’ Relating the tempers of various otherpresidents, Hoover concluded, ‘‘It remained for Coolidge,the one who from his reputation would be least suspected,to startle the household with sparks from his anger. Manytimes, too, the cause was of but trifling importance. Hewould just work himself up to a real explosion.’’ IrwinHood (Ike) Hoover, Forty-Two Years in the White House (Bos-ton, 1934), p. 233.

23 Margulies, p. 25. See Chapter 28 of this volume,‘‘Thomas R. Marshall,’’ p. 342.

24 McCoy, p. 123.25 Coolidge, pp. 163–64; George H. Haynes, The Senate of

the United States: Its History and Practice (Boston, 1938), 1:225,228–29.

26 Coolidge, pp. 174–75; George F. Sparks, ed., A Many-Colored Toga: The Diary of Henry Fountain Ashurst (Tucson,AZ, 1962), pp. 211, 223.

27 Thompson, pp. 354–55.28 McCoy, p. xv; John D. Hicks, The Republican Ascendancy,

1921–1933 (New York, 1960), p. 81.29 Thomas L. Stokes, Chip Off My Shoulder (Princeton, NJ,

1940), pp. 135–41; Donald A. Ritchie, Press Gallery: Congressand the Washington Correspondents (Cambridge,, MA, 1991),p. 210; Delbert Clark, Washington Dateline (New York, 1941),pp. 62–66.

30 White, p. 413; Coolidge, p. 190.31 Stokes, p. 138; Donald A. Ritchie, ‘‘The Pecora Wall

Street Expose,’’ in Congress Investigates: A Documented His-tory, 1792–1974, ed. Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., and RogerBruns, (New York, 1975), pp. 2555–56; David Burner, Her-bert Hoover: A Public Life (New York, 1979), pp. 244–45; Wil-liam E. Leuchtenburg, The Perils of Prosperity, 1914–32 (Chi-cago, 1958), p. 246.

32 Coolidge, p. 173.

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Chapter 30

CHARLES G. DAWES1925–1929

CHARLES G. DAWES

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Chapter 30

CHARLES G. DAWES30th Vice President: 1925–1929

I should hate to think that the Senate was as tired of me at the beginning of my service as I amof the Senate at the end.

—CHARLES G. DAWES

It is ironic that ‘‘Silent Cal’’ Coolidge shouldhave a vice president as garrulous as CharlesGates Dawes. A man of action as well as of bluntwords, ‘‘Hell’n Maria’’ Dawes (the favorite ex-pression by which he was known) was in somany ways the opposite of President Coolidgethat the two men were never able to establish aworking relationship. The president probablynever forgave his vice president for stealing at-tention from him at their inaugural ceremonies,nor did he ever forget that Dawes was respon-sible for one of his most embarrassing defeats inthe Senate. As a result, although Dawes was oneof the most notable and able men to occupy thevice-presidency, his tenure was not a satisfyingor productive one, nor did it stand as a modelfor others to follow.

Charles Dawes was not Calvin Coolidge’schoice for a running mate. It would have takena far more self-confident president to want a vicepresident with a longer and more distinguishedcareer than his own. Dawes had been a promi-nent official in the McKinley administrationwhen Coolidge was still a city council memberin Northampton, Massachusetts. Dawes becamea highly decorated military officer during theFirst World War, was the president of a pres-tigious financial institution, was the first directorof the Bureau of the Budget, and devised the‘‘Dawes Plan’’ to salvage Europe’s postwar econ-omy, for which he received the Nobel PeacePrize. Dawes had a keen concern for foreign af-

fairs, in which Coolidge showed little interest. Asan activist in domestic policy, Dawes convincedthe Senate to pass the McNary-Haugen farm re-lief bill; Coolidge vetoed the bill. Dawes was aproblem solver, Coolidge a problem avoider. The1920s might have been a very different decadeif the Republican ticket in 1924 had been Dawes-Coolidge rather than Coolidge-Dawes.

Banking, Business and Politics

Born in Marietta, Ohio, on August 27, 1865,Charles Dawes was the great-great grandson ofWilliam Dawes, who had ridden with Paul Re-vere to warn the colonists that the Redcoats werecoming. Dawes’ father, Rufus Dawes, was a CivilWar veteran and lumber merchant who servedas a Republican for one term in the U.S. Houseof Representatives. Young Charlie, who even asa boy had a reputation for ‘‘flying off the handle’’when something angered him, attended theMarietta Academy in Ohio and graduated fromMarietta College in 1884. Two years later he re-ceived his law degree from the Cincinnati LawSchool. While in law school he worked duringthe summers as a civil engineer for the Marietta,Columbus & Northern Ohio Railway Company.1

In 1887, former Ohio Governor Rufus Waltonhired Dawes to go to Lincoln, Nebraska, andlook after his real estate holdings. Dawes was ad-mitted to the bar in Nebraska and opened thelaw office of Dawes, Coffroth & Cunningham.He established a reputation for handling railroad

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rate cases under the Interstate Commerce Act of1887 and as a ‘‘people’s advocate against the rail-road lobby.’’ The same year that Dawes openedhis law office, William Jennings Bryan started hislaw practice in the same building in Lincoln.Dawes, who was then twenty-two, and Bryan,who was twenty-seven, attended Sunday serv-ices and Wednesday night prayer meetings at thesame Presbyterian church and even lived twohouses apart on the same street. As a con-sequence, the two men, from different partiesand with very different views on the issues, hadmany opportunities to meet and debate politics.(In 1924, Dawes would run for vice presidentagainst Bryan’s brother Charles, the Democraticvice-presidential candidate.) Dawes became di-rector of the American Exchange National Bank,a small bank in Lincoln, which he and other di-rectors fought hard to save during the panic of1893. As a bank director, he strongly disagreedwith Bryan’s advocacy of free silver to stimulateinflation and help the indebted farmers. Dawesbecame so engrossed in the currency issue thathe published his first book, The Banking Systemof the United States and Its Relation to the Moneyand Business of the Country, in 1894.2

‘‘I struck Lincoln right at the top of a boom,’’Dawes noted, ‘‘then it started sliding.’’ The panicof 1893 had undermined his business and bank-ing career in Lincoln, sending him in search ofnew business ventures elsewhere. Attracted bythe utilities industry, he bought control of the LaCrosse, Wisconsin, Gas Light & Coke Company,and became president of the People’s Gas Light& Coke Company of Chicago. In January 1895,he moved his family to Chicago to make that citythe center of his business interests. But withintwo weeks he met the Cleveland industrialistMarcus A. Hanna, who was promoting the presi-dential aspirations of Ohio Governor WilliamMcKinley. Writing in his diary that ‘‘McKinleyseems to be the coming man,’’ Dawes was bittenby the political bug. He managed McKinley’spreconvention campaign in Illinois, winning thatstate’s delegates away from the erstwhile ‘‘favor-ite son’’ candidate, Senator Shelby M. Cullom.Not only did McKinley win the Republican nom-ination, but Dawes’ old friend William Jennings

Bryan won the Democratic nomination. WhileDawes disagreed profoundly with the logic offree silver, he listened to Bryan’s ‘‘Cross of Gold’’speech with a feeling of great pride ‘‘for the bril-liant young man whose life for so many yearslay parallel to mine, and with whom the futureyears may yet bring me into conflict as in thepast.’’ 3

Comptroller of the Currency

Mark Hanna put Dawes in charge of the Chi-cago headquarters, which largely ran the McKin-ley campaign. Dawes also served on the Repub-lican National Executive Committee asMcKinley’s ‘‘special representative.’’ McKinley’svictory led to Dawes’ appointment as comptrol-ler of the currency, a post in which he sought toreform banking practices that had led to the de-pression of the 1890s. McKinley treated Dawes‘‘as a father would a son.’’ Dawes frequently hadlunch at the White House with McKinley and hisinvalid wife Ida and returned for an evening ofcards or of playing the piano for the McKinleys’entertainment. (A self-taught pianist, Daweslater wrote a popular piano piece, ‘‘Melody in AMajor,’’ and when lyrics were added in 1951 itbecame the well-known song ‘‘It’s All in theName of the Game.’’) More than a companion tothe president, Dawes was a trusted adviser. In1900 when Mark Hanna tried to block the vice-presidential nomination of New York GovernorTheodore Roosevelt, it was Dawes who inter-vened with McKinley on Roosevelt’s behalf.4

In June 1901, Dawes decided to resign ascomptroller of the currency to return to Illinoisand run for the Senate. He was assured ofMcKinley’s endorsement, but his resignation didnot take place until October, a month afterMcKinley’s assassination. Dawes’ political ambi-tions were thwarted by new President TheodoreRoosevelt, who endorsed another candidate, andby the ‘‘blond boss’’ of the Illinois Republicanparty, William Lorimer. Running for vice presi-dent in 1924 and reflecting on his only other runfor elected office in 1901, Dawes remarked: ‘‘Idon’t know anything about politics. I thought Iknew something about politics once. I was takenup on the top of a twenty story building and

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showed the promised land—and then I waskicked off.’’ 5

A day after losing the Senate nomination, thethirty-six-year-old Dawes began to organize theCentral Trust Company of Illinois. He became itspresident and devoted his attentions to bankingand to family life until the First World War.Dawes had married Caro Blymyer in 1889. Theyhad two children and later adopted two more.In the late summer of 1912, Dawes suffered thegreatest tragedy of his life when his only sondrowned at Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, while ona brief vacation before returning to PrincetonUniversity. Deeply saddened, Dawes and hiswife withdrew from most social life and turnedto philanthropy. In memory of their son, theyfounded the Rufus Fearing Dawes Hotel for Des-titute Men in Chicago and Boston, and later es-tablished the Mary Dawes Hotel for Women inhonor of Dawes’ mother.6

Supplying the War in Europe

When the United States entered the FirstWorld War in 1917, Dawes received a telegramfrom Herbert Hoover, who had organized Amer-ican relief efforts in Europe and was now servingas Food Administrator. Searching for talentedadministrators, Hoover wanted Dawes to takecharge of grain prices. But instead of a desk jobin Washington, Dawes longed to be in uniform.Hoover considered that a mistake. ‘‘I can find ahundred men who will make better lieutenantcolonels of engineers, and I want you right here,’’he argued. ‘‘No, Mr. Hoover, I don’t want to con-sider it,’’ Dawes replied. A few days later, Dawesat age fifty-two received his commission as amajor in the 17th Railway Engineers, bound forFrance, and, just as Hoover predicted, he wassoon a lieutenant colonel.7

The American Expeditionary Force (AEF) wascommanded by General John J. Pershing, whohad known Dawes since the 1890s when Per-shing was a military instructor at the Universityof Nebraska in Lincoln. In August 1917, Pershingsummoned Dawes to Paris and made him chiefof supply procurement for the American forcesin Europe, assigning him to head the board thatcollected supplies and to coordinate purchases tohold down inflation and duplication of orders.

Dawes rose to the rank of brigadier general.When the Allied command was unified, GeneralDawes became the U.S. member of the MilitaryBoard of Allied Supply. While representing theUnited States Army in conferences with other Al-lied armies and governments, Dawes particu-larly admired men of action rather than thosewho simply talked. ‘‘Action, then, is every-thing—words nothing except as they lead imme-diately to it,’’ he commented, adding, ‘‘I cameout of the war a postgraduate in emergency con-ferences.’’ 8 After the Armistice in 1918, he re-mained in Europe to oversee the disposition ofsurplus military property. In 1919 he resignedhis commission and returned to the UnitedStates. His wartime experiences in negotiatingand coordinating efforts with his Allied counter-parts left him an internationalist in outlook, ad-vocating ratification of the Treaty of Versaillesand United States membership in the League ofNations. After the war, everyone called him‘‘General Dawes,’’ despite his protests to thecontrary.9

In 1920 Dawes supported his good friend, Illi-nois Governor Frank Lowden, for the Republicanpresidential nomination, but that prize went toOhio’s Warren G. Harding. In February 1921,however, an event occurred that brought Dawesto the attention not only of president-elect Har-ding but of the entire nation. A House of Rep-resentatives committee to investigate war ex-penditures called Dawes to testify. Repub-licans—who held the majority—were clearlyeager to uncover any information about ‘‘ex-travagant purchases’’ in the AEF that might tar-nish the outgoing administration of WoodrowWilson. Journalist Bascom Timmons recordedthat Dawes, a busy man, had resented beingcalled by the committee. On the morning that hewas due to testify, he walked around the Capitolwaiting for the committee to assemble, gettingangrier all the time. It took only a spark to sethim off. In the course of the interrogation, Rep-resentative Oscar Bland, an Indiana Republican,pressed Dawes on how much the American armyhad paid for French horses.10

‘‘Hell’n Maria!’’ Dawes exclaimed, jumping upfrom his seat and striding to the mahogany tablewhere the committee sat. ‘‘I will tell you this, that

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we would have paid horse prices for sheep, ifthey could have hauled artillery!’’ Peppering hisremarks with profanity, Dawes lectured the com-mittee on the urgency of getting supplies to sol-diers who were being shot at. He recounted howhe had cut through the red tape and ‘‘had to con-nive with the smuggling of horses over there,’’but he got the horses to drag the cannon to thefront. Turning the fire on ‘‘pinhead’’ politicians,Dawes roared: ‘‘Your committee can not put afly speck on the American Army. . . . I am againstthat peanut politics. This was not a Republicanwar, nor was it a Democratic war. It was anAmerican war.’’ 11

Afterwards, Dawes explained that he had‘‘suddenly decided that so far as I could bringit about either the Committee or I would go outof business.’’ His ‘‘Hell ’n Maria’’ testimony tookup seven hours for three sessions of the commit-tee, with the official stenographers complainingthat he often spoke too rapidly. Dawes’ defenseof the AEF won great praise from both parties.The newspapers, and especially the editorial car-toonists, loved Dawes’ indignant outburst andquaint expletive. His published testimony, evenwith the expletives deleted, became a Govern-ment Printing Office best seller. The incidentmade him a national figure, and in July 1921,when Congress created the Bureau of the Budg-et, Harding appointed Dawes as its first director.Adding to his colorful personality, Dawes at thistime adopted his trademark pipe. For years hehad smoked as many as twenty cigars a day, butduring the war a British officer had given hima pipe. Soon after his appointment to the Bureauof the Budget, a newspaper photograph showedhim smoking his pipe on the Treasury Depart-ment steps. A Chicago pipe manufacturer senthim a new, strangely shaped pipe with most ofits bowl below rather than above the stem.Dawes tried it, liked it, and ordered a grossmore. From then on, he was rarely seen withoutthis distinctive pipe, which together with hiswing-tip collars and hair parted down the mid-dle, reinforced his individualistic, iconoclastic,and idiosyncratic public image.12

The Nobel Peace Prize

After spending a year setting up the first fed-eral budget under the new act, Dawes returnedto Illinois, concerned about graft and politicalcorruption, especially in Chicago. He organized‘‘The Minute Men of the Constitution,’’ to watchelections and prevent vote fraud. The group op-posed the political activities of the Ku Klux Klan,and it also assailed what it considered to be un-fair labor union practices. Dawes insisted that hisgroup was not anti-union, but that it opposed theclosed union shop. At one point the ‘‘MinuteMen’’ had a membership of 25,000, but after hiselection as vice president the group disbanded.

In 1923, the economy of Germany had deterio-rated drastically. Since Germany was unable torepay its war debts, France sent troops to occupythe industrial Ruhr valley. President Harding ap-pointed Dawes to head a commission to studyand solve the German financial problem. The‘‘Dawes Plan’’ offered ways to stabilize the Ger-man currency, balance its budget, and reorganizeits Reichbank, but the plan postponed action onthe most difficult issue of delaying and reducingthe German war reparations. Nevertheless, the‘‘Dawes Plan’’ was recognized as a significantenough contribution to world peace to winDawes the 1925 Nobel Peace Prize, which heshared with his British counterpart, Sir AustenChamberlain. Dawes donated his share of theprize money to the Walter Hines Page School ofInternational Relations at Johns HopkinsUniversity.

The Second Choice for the Second Spot

At the Republican convention in 1924, CalvinCoolidge was nominated without significant op-position, but the front-running candidate for vicepresident, Governor Lowden, had let it beknown that he did not want the second spot onthe ticket. Nor did the popular Idaho SenatorWilliam E. Borah want to be the number twoman. A story at the time recorded that PresidentCoolidge had offered Borah a place on the ticket.‘‘For which position?’’ Borah had supposedly re-plied. On the second ballot, the delegates nomi-nated Lowden, but he declined to run, as threat-ened. Republican National Chairman William

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Butler promoted Commerce Secretary HerbertHoover, but Hoover remained too unpopularwith the farm states for his price fixing as foodcommissioner during the war, and the delegateson the third ballot chose Charles G. Dawes forvice president. President Coolidge, who had al-ready sent a congratulatory note to FrankLowden, accepted Dawes as someone whowould add strength to the campaign and who heexpected would remain personally loyal tohim.13

When the unexpected news came over theradio, Dawes was back at his birthplace of Mari-etta, Ohio, delivering the commencement ad-dress to his alma mater. ‘‘There is one recollec-tion I shall always treasure,’’ he later wrote. ‘‘Itis of the gathering of thousands of the people ofthe town, the next day, to hear me speak brieflyfrom the front porch of the old family home; andthe church bells of the town were rung in honorof the occasion. Some people may claim that thevice-presidency does not amount to much, butjust then it seemed to me the greatest office inthe world.’’ 14

During the campaign, Coolidge maintained hisstance of speaking infrequently and keeping hisremarks as bland and inoffensive as possible. Heleft it to Dawes to attack the Democratic can-didate, John W. Davis, and the Progressive can-didate, Wisconsin Senator Robert M. La Follette.Dawes entertained his audiences with the typeof ‘‘Hell’n Maria’’ speeches they expected, shak-ing his fist and denouncing La Follette—whoseplatform among other things advocated allowingCongress to overturn Supreme Court decisions—as a demagogue and dangerous radical ‘‘ani-mated by the vicious purpose of underminingthe constitutional foundation of the Republic.’’Dawes went so far as to suggest that La Follettewas a Bolshevik, although La Follette had pub-licly rejected Communist support and had beenattacked by them.15

Coolidge and Dawes were overwhelminglyelected in 1924, winning more votes than theDemocratic and Progressive candidates com-bined. ‘‘When Coolidge was elected Presidentthe world desired tranquility,’’ Dawes noted inhis journal, ‘‘—a reaction of its peoples from the

excesses of war.’’ 16 But tranquility was notCharles Dawes’ style.

An Assault on the Rules of the Senate

At his swearing-in in the Senate chamber inMarch 1925, Dawes was called upon to delivera brief inaugural address, a tradition that datedback to John Adams in 1789. What the audienceheard, however, was far from traditional. As theSenate’s new presiding officer, Dawes addressedhimself to ‘‘methods of effective procedure,’’rather than any particular policies or programs.He then launched into an attack on the Senaterules, ‘‘which, in their present form, place powerin the hands of individuals to an extent, at times,subversive of the fundamental principles of freerepresentative government.’’ The rules of theSenate, he declared, ran contrary to the prin-ciples of constitutional government, and underthese rules ‘‘the rights of the Nation and of theAmerican people have been overlooked.’’ 17

Dawes focused his attack on filibusters, whichat that time were being carried out most fre-quently by the small band of progressive Repub-licans, such as Robert La Follette, Sr., and GeorgeNorris, who held the balance of power in theSenate. Dawes declared that Rule 22, which re-quired a two-thirds majority of those present andvoting to shut off debate, ‘‘at times enables Sen-ators to consume in oratory those last preciousminutes of a session needed for momentous deci-sions,’’ thus placing great power in the hands ofa minority of senators. ‘‘Who would dare opposechanges in the rules necessary to insure that thebusiness of the United States should always beconducted in the interests of the Nation andnever be in danger of encountering a situationwhere one man or a minority of men might de-mand unreasonable concessions under threat ofblocking the business of the Government?’’ heasked. Unless the rules were reformed, theywould ‘‘lessen the effectiveness, prestige, anddignity of the United States Senate.’’ He insistedthat ‘‘reform in the present rules of the Senateis demanded not only by American public opin-ion, but I venture to say in the individual con-sciences of a majority of the Members of the Sen-ate itself.’’ He concluded by appealing to sen-

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ators’ consciences and patriotism in correctingthese defects in their rules.18

Since Dawes had not given advance copies ofthe speech to the press or anyone else, no onehad anticipated his diatribe. In the audience,President Calvin Coolidge attempted indiffer-ence, but could not hide his discomfort. Daweshad managed to upstage the president’s own in-augural address, which was to follow at cere-monies outside on the Capitol’s east front. As thesenators proceeded to the inaugural platform,they talked of nothing else but their anger overDawes’ effrontery, making Coolidge’s addressanticlimactic. After the ceremony, Dawescompounded the ill will when he joined thepresident to ride back to the White House, in-stead of returning to the chamber to adjourn theSenate. In the Senate chamber, there was consid-erable confusion. Senator James A. Reed of Mis-souri noted that the Senate did not adjourn, nordid it recess. ‘‘It simply broke up.’’ 19

Most senators were less than receptive toDawes’ advice. ‘‘Dawes showed as little knowl-edge of the Senate’s rules as he did good taste,’’snapped Democratic minority leader Joseph T.Robinson. ‘‘It was exactly what should not havebeen said,’’ added Robinson’s colleague from Ar-kansas, Thaddeus Caraway. ‘‘I regret that suchoccasion was perverted into a farce,’’ complainedSenator Claude Swanson of Virginia. ‘‘I have anopinion of the spectacle but do not care to ex-press it,’’ was George Norris’ response, and Re-publican majority leader Charles Curtis declinedto make any public comment on the vice presi-dent’s remarks. But while the senators dis-approved, columnist Mark Sullivan observedthat the public was delighted. Sullivan describedDawes as a hero who had finally made a dent‘‘in that fine old encrusted Senatorial tradition,buttressed by antique rules and practices, andsolemnly defended by conservative and radicalSenators alike.’’ 20

An Irritated President

After upstaging the president on inauguralday, Dawes compounded his error by writing toinform Coolidge that he did not think the vicepresident should attend cabinet meetings. Presi-dent Harding had invited Coolidge to cabinet

meetings on a regular basis, but Dawes did notbelieve that Harding’s action should necessarilyset a precedent for future presidents. He took theinitiative by declining even before Coolidge hadoffered him an invitation. ‘‘This was done to re-lieve him—if he shared my views—of any em-barrassment, if he desired to carry them out,’’Dawes later explained, ‘‘notwithstanding the factthat he had accepted Harding’s invitation.’’Dawes dismissed suggestions by the ‘‘busy-bodies and mischievemakers’’ in Washington,who imagined ‘‘unpleasant relations betweenCoolidge and myself.’’ What Coolidge thoughtis less certain. In his Autobiography, Coolidgecounted his experiences in the cabinet as being‘‘of supreme value’’ to him when he becamepresident and suggested that the vice presidentshould be invited to sit with the cabinet, if he was‘‘a man of discretion and character so that he canbe relied upon to act as a subordinate in that po-sition.’’ The implication was that Dawes did notfit that description. In addition, Coolidge nevermentioned Dawes by name in his memoirs.21

Coolidge also felt irritated over an incidentthat occurred on March 10, only days afterDawes started presiding over the Senate. Up fordebate was the president’s nomination ofCharles Warren to be attorney general. In thewake of Teapot Dome and other business-relatedscandals, Democrats and Progressive Repub-licans objected to the nomination because ofWarren’s close association with the ‘‘SugarTrust.’’ At midday, six speakers were scheduledto address Warren’s nomination. Desiring to re-turn to his room at the Willard Hotel for a nap,Dawes consulted the majority and minority lead-ers, who assured him that no vote would betaken that afternoon. After Dawes left the Senate,however, all but one of the scheduled speakersdecided against making formal remarks, and avote was taken. When it became apparent thatthe vote would be tied, Republican leaders hast-ily called Dawes at the Willard. The roused vicepresident jumped in a taxi and sped toward theCapitol. But enough time intervened to persuadethe only Democratic senator who had voted forWarren to switch his vote against him. By thetime Dawes arrived there was no longer a tie to

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break, and the nomination had failed by a singlevote—the first such rejection in nearly sixtyyears. President Coolidge angrily held Dawes re-sponsible for his most embarrassing legislativedefeat, and the rest of Washington could not re-sist teasing the vice president over the incident.The Gridiron Club presented him with a four-foot high alarm clock. And Senator Norris reada parody of ‘‘Sheridan’s Ride’’ on the Senatefloor:

Hurrah, Hurrah for Dawes!Hurrah! hurrah for this high-minded man!

And when his statue is placed on high,Under the dome of the Capitol sky,

The great senatorial temple of fame—There with the glorious General’s name

Be it said, in letters both bold and bright,‘‘Oh, Hell an’ Maria, he has lost us the

fight.’’ 22

Stimulating a National Debate

Dawes bore the criticism surprisingly well. Hewas never a man to shy away from controversy,and he enjoyed being at the center of attention.He also enjoyed occupying the Vice President’sRoom behind the Senate chamber, which hefound impressive, with its tall mahogany cabi-net, Dolly Madison mirror, Rembrandt Pealeportrait of Washington, and chandelier that oncehung in the White House. When the Senate wasnot in session, large delegations of visitors wouldtour the corridor outside his office, and since thedoor was generally kept open for better ventila-tion they would always ‘‘stop and peek in.’’ Thesenators, too, would stop and talk with the vicepresident who took such an active interest intheir rules and proceedings. But Dawes found itcurious that conversation always seemed to getaround to whether ‘‘this or that Senator will bewilling to concede the right-of-way to this or thatpiece of general legislation as a measure of sur-passing public importance.’’ He remained con-vinced that, by allowing unlimited debate, theSenate rules granted an intolerable power to theminority.23

Rather than cease his criticism, Dawes contin-ued to seek public forums to denounce the Sen-ate filibuster. During the summer recess in 1925,he toured the country addressing public meet-ings on the subject. He pointed out that filibus-

ters flourished during the short sessions of Con-gress, held between December and March fol-lowing each congressional election, and thatthese protracted debates tied up critical appro-priations bills until the majority would agree tofund some individual senator’s pet project. Hefrequently cited a filibuster by Senator BenjaminTillman that brought a $600,000 appropriation toSouth Carolina. Dawes praised the work of Sen-ators Francis Warren, chairman of the Appro-priations Committee, and Reed Smoot, chairmanof Finance. ‘‘It is they and their like who performmost of the difficult, disagreeable and necessarywork, speaking only when they have somethingto say and accomplish.’’ By contrast to such‘‘constructive’’ senators, he had no use for legis-lative showmen, radicals, and filibusterers.24

Dawes’ campaign stimulated a national debateon the Senate rules. A significant rebuttal to hisassertions came from the political scientist Lind-say Rogers, who argued that filibusters serveda useful purpose. Too much legislation was ham-mered out in committees that met in secret,where powerful corporate interests held sway,and where progressive reformers had little influ-ence. Rogers pointed out that ‘‘the powers ofdelay given individual Senators force into pend-ing bills some amendments that the Senate lead-ers would not accept were they free to act as theydesired.’’ He also pointed out that despite the fil-ibuster, the Senate got a ‘‘creditable amount ofbusiness’’ done each session. Changing the ruleswould be inadvisable, since it would silence theminority and allow the majority to actunimpeded.25

Although the Senate did not change its rulesduring his vice-presidency, Dawes noted withsatisfaction that it invoked cloture more fre-quently than ever before. After 1917, when thecloture rule was first adopted, the Senate hadvoted to cut off debate on the Versailles Treatyin 1919 but failed to invoke cloture on tariff legis-lation in 1921 and 1922. During the Sixty-ninthCongress, which ran from 1925 to 1927, the Sen-ate cast seven votes on cloture, and three timesgained the two-thirds majority sufficient to cutoff filbusters. Not until the Ninety-third Con-gress, from 1973 to 1975, after a rules change hadreduced the majority needed to vote cloture from

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two-thirds to three-fifths of the members, did theSenate equal and surpass that number of success-ful cloture votes.

Farm Relief and Banking Reform

Dawes also personally intervened in other at-tempts to cut off debate, and his efforts led tothe Senate’s passage of bills that extended theFederal Reserve banks and would have providedfarm relief. Agitation for farm relief became apressing issue during the 1920s, when Americanfarmers were shut out of the general prosperityof the era. After the First World War, farm priceshad fallen and never recovered. Members ofCongress from midwestern and plains statestherefore formed the Farm Bloc, consisting ofsome twenty-five senators and one hundred rep-resentatives. Holding the balance of power inCongress, they promoted legislation to solve theproblem of distributing surplus farm produce.Each year between 1924 and 1928, SenatorCharles McNary of Oregon and RepresentativeGilbert Haugen of Iowa, both Republicans, spon-sored the McNary-Haugen bill to permit the fed-eral government to buy crop surpluses and sellthem abroad while at the same time maintaininga high tariff on the importation of farm goods.The result would have raised prices in the UnitedStates.

Robert M. La Follette, Jr., who had succeededhis late father in the Senate, led a filibusteragainst the McFadden-Pepper bill to extend thecharters of the Federal Reserve Banks. By hold-ing up passage of the bank bill, La Follettesought to pressure the Senate to vote on theMcNary-Haugen bill. The only way to break thislogjam, as far as Dawes could see, was to forma coalition ‘‘between the conservatives favoringthe bank bill and certain radicals favoring thefarm bill.’’ The vice president intervened, callingrepresentatives of both groups to a meeting inhis room. One of the participants, PennsylvaniaSenator George Wharton Pepper, commentedthat ‘‘by sheer force of his personality, [Dawes]forced an agreement that both measures shouldbe voted upon. This agreement was carried out.Both bills passed.’’ Pepper gave Dawes the chiefcredit for enacting these bills, as did SenatorJames E. Watson, the Indiana Republican who

would soon become majority leader. In thecourse of a speech on equalization fees, Watsonnoted, ‘‘This explanation of the equalization feewas prepared by the Vice President, who is asupporter of the McNary-Haugen bill.’’ Al-though Watson deleted this indiscretion from theCongressional Record, alert reporters in the pressgallery had already publicized the statement.Dawes’ interest in this legislation did not furtherendear him to President Coolidge, who twice ve-toed the McNary-Haugen bills that his vice presi-dent had helped the Senate pass. Coolidge com-plained that ‘‘the McNary-Haugen people havetheir headquarters in [Dawes’] chambers.’’ 26

An Irksome Job for a Man of Action

As a man of action, Charles Dawes found thejob of presiding over Senate debates ‘‘at timesrather irksome.’’ He felt more comfortable in ex-ecutive and administrative positions with ‘‘spe-cific objectives and well-defined authority andresponsibilities.’’ He preferred clear statementsof fact to speeches that appealed to prejudice oremotion. As presiding officer, he enjoyed makingdecisions about rulings from the chair and tooksome pride in the fact that the Senate had neveroverturned one of his decisions, but he attributedmuch of his success to the Senate’s young journalclerk, Charles Watkins. Watkins had studied therules and compiled the Senate Precedents, makinghimself ‘‘the actual parliamentarian’’ of the Sen-ate. ‘‘Senate precedents are almost always con-flicting, and when Charley Watkins gives me achoice of precedents to follow, I sometimes makemy own decision. But it is chiefly upon his ad-vice that I act.’’ A decade later, Watkins becamethe Senate’s first official parliamentarian, a posthe held until his retirement in 1964.27

Dawes similarly bristled over the social re-quirements of the vice-presidency, and as oneWashington hostess recorded, ‘‘his social tactics,no less than his insubordination to the Senate,brought down blame upon him in Washington.’’Although he frequently dined out and enter-tained generously, it was always on his ownterms. He would arrive late, leave early, andsmoke his pipe at the dinner table. Caro Dawesalso disappointed Washington’s social set. Lack-ing the stamina that Mrs. Thomas Marshall and

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Mrs. Calvin Coolidge had shown for attendinga continuous procession of luncheons and recep-tions, Mrs. Dawes declined many invitations. Shenever seemed to enjoy ‘‘presiding over the La-dies of the Senate,’’ and looked visibly relievedwhen her guests departed. Yet even her criticsconceded that her ‘‘manner was sweet andgentle, her conversation cultured, and her dig-nity unimpeachable,’’ providing a gentle coun-terpart to her ‘‘Hell ’n Maria’’ husband. The vicepresident’s estrangement from the president fur-ther shaded his social standing. As one Senatewife later confided, ‘‘I have always had a feelingwhich many share, that a slightly different atti-tude on the part of the Coolidges might havedone much to relieve the strain so far as theDawes were concerned.’’ 28

In 1927, President Coolidge stunned the nationwith his announcement that he did not chooseto run for reelection the following year. Al-though pundits debated whether Coolidge want-ed to accept a draft, his announcement openeda spirited campaign for the Republican presi-dential nomination. Although Dawes was fre-quently mentioned for the presidency, he an-nounced that he was not a candidate and insteadfavored his longtime friend, Illinois GovernorFrank Lowden. The nomination went instead toCommerce Secretary Herbert Hoover, whosesupporters considered putting Dawes on theirticket as vice president. But President Coolidgelet it be known that he would consider Dawes’nomination as a personal affront. Instead, thenod went to Senate Majority Leader Charles Cur-tis of Kansas. For the third straight time, the Re-publican ticket swept the national election.29

A Travesty Upon Good Government

As Dawes’ term of office approached its end,a senator told him how much the members of theSenate thought of him, adding ‘‘but the Senategot very tired of you at the beginning of yourservice.’’ Dawes replied, ‘‘I should hate to thinkthat the Senate was as tired of me at the begin-ning of my service as I am of the Senate at theend.’’ 30

At about this time, Dawes attended the annualGridiron Dinner. He and his successor, CharlesCurtis, were ordered to stand while the ‘‘Dawes

Decalogue, or the Letter of a Self-made Has-Beento His Successor’’ was read, listing several com-mandments drawn from ‘‘the depths of myexperience’’:

Don’t steal the first page on Inauguration Day,and you may be invited to sit in the Cabinet.

Don’t be afraid to criticize the Senate. Youknow how much it needs it. The public likes itand the Senate thrives on it. . . .

Don’t try to change the Senate Rules.Don’t buck the President if you want to stay

more than four years.Don’t do your sleeping in the day time.31

Ironically, Dawes spent his last days in theSenate watching another filibuster, napping onthe couch in his office and responding when thequorum bells rang. When the Senate dispatchedits sergeant at arms to ‘‘arrest’’ absent senators,Dawes considered listening to the profanity ofthe arrested senators as they were brought in‘‘one of the few pleasant incidents of such pro-ceedings.’’ He noted with some dismay that thegalleries were filled to watch the filibuster andgrumbled that ‘‘a travesty upon good govern-ment in the Senate is regarded as an amusementrivaling a picture show.’’ In his farewell speechto the Senate on March 4, 1929, Dawes reiteratedhis objections to the Senate rules, saying, ‘‘I takeback nothing.’’ 32

Dawes had resigned as chairman of the boardof the Central Trust Company of Illinois whenhe was elected vice president. After his term inWashington, he returned as honorary chairman,when it merged to become the Central RepublicBank & Trust Co. He became chairman of a fi-nancial commission to the Dominican Republic,and chairman of a committee to finance the expo-sition ‘‘A Century of Progress, Chicago, 1933.’’In April 1929, President Hoover appointedDawes U.S. ambassador to Great Britain, a posthe held until 1932. He was scheduled to head theAmerican delegation to the World DisarmamentConference in Geneva, Switzerland, when Presi-dent Hoover persuaded him to take charge of theReconstruction Finance Corporation, which Con-gress had just created to assist corporations andbanks in need of relief from the Great Depres-sion. Dawes’ national standing rose so high that

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some Republicans talked of dumping Vice Presi-dent Curtis from the ticket in favor of Dawes asa ‘‘rip-snorting, hell-raising’’ candidate to boostHoover’s chances of reelection. Then in June1932, Dawes abruptly resigned as chairman ofthe RFC. His own financial base, the Central Re-public Bank of Chicago was near collapse and re-quired a ninety million dollar loan from the RFCto keep it alive and to keep the entire Chicagobanking structure from collapsing. Dawes had toresign to avoid a conflict of interest.33

Dawes, whose early career was shaken by thepanic of 1893, was now confronted by an evengreater financial crisis, one that shook his naturalself-confidence and ended whatever remainingpolitical chances he might have had. ReporterThomas L. Stokes met Dawes shortly after hisresignation from the RFC and found him ‘‘a de-jected, dispirited man.’’ Dawes was distributinga typewritten statement to the press predictingbusiness improvement. ‘‘That’s all he had tosay,’’ wrote Stokes. ‘‘He was manifestly uneasyand nervous, not the hail fellow, the ’Hell andMaria’ I had known about Washington for sev-eral years. I wondered at the time what was

wrong.’’ Several days later Stokes heard rumorsabout the shaky banking situation in Chicagoand then about the RFC loan. Eventually theCentral Republic Bank was placed in receiver-ship and liquidated. Dawes reorganized it as theCity National Bank & Trust Company of Chicagoand paid back the RFC loans. He remained asso-ciated with the bank until he died at the age ofeighty-five, on April 23, 1951.34

Historians have concluded that if Dawes wasnot really a leader, he acted like one. As vicepresident, he would not accept direction fromthe president, and whenever his views did coin-cide with Coolidge’s his lobbying on behalf ofadministration measures was more likely to hurtrather than help. Dawes’ forthrightness and tact-lessness incurred the anger of many senators. Al-though his ‘‘bull-like integrity’’ won Dawes rec-ognition as an outstanding vice president, thatquality antagonized the Coolidge Administra-tion more than aiding it. As for Dawes, he be-lieved that the vice-presidency ‘‘is largely whatthe man in it makes it.’’ And for his part, hemade the most of it.35

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NOTES1 Paul R. Leach, That Man Dawes (Chicago, 1930), p. 32.2 Ibid., pp. 40–48; Bascom N. Timmons, Portrait of an

American: Charles G. Dawes (New York, 1953), p. 26; CharlesG. Dawes, A Journal of the McKinley Years (Chicago, 1950),pp. vii-viii; Dawes was also the author of Essays and Speeches(1915), A Journal of the Great War (1921), The First Year of theBudget of the United States (1923), Notes as Vice President(1935), How Long Prosperity? (1937), A Journal of Reparations(1939), A Journal as Ambassador to Great Britain (1939), andA Journal of the McKinley Years (1950).

3 Timmons, p. 18; Dawes, A Journal of the McKinley Years,pp. 51, 89.

4 Charles G. Dawes, Notes as Vice President, 1928–1929(Boston, 1935), p. 49; National Cyclopedia of American Biog-raphy (New York, 1958), p. 7; Dawes, A Journal of the McKin-ley Years, pp. 232–33.

5 Leach, p. 102.6 Dawes, A Journal of the McKinley Years, pp. 443–49.7 Leach, p. 149.8 Dawes, Notes as Vice President, p. 10.9 Leach, p. 167.10 Timmons, pp. 194–95.11 The ‘‘Hell ’n Maria’’ reference does not appear in the

hearing transcripts. As the subcommittee chairman ex-plained: ‘‘Objection has been made by members of the com-mittee to the fact that at the request of the witness, Mr.Dawes, the many fluent expressions of profanity were omit-ted from the transcript.’’ U.S. Congress, House of Rep-resentatives, Select Committee on Expenditures in the WarDepartment, War Expenditures, 66th Cong., 2d sess (Wash-ington, 1921), pp. 4427, 4492, 4515; Timmons, pp. 195–98;Leach, pp. 175–78.

12 Dawes, Notes as Vice President, pp. 10–12; Leach, pp.186–88.

13 Claude M. Fuess, Calvin Coolidge: The Man From Ver-mont (Boston, 1940), pp. 345–46.

14 Dawes, Notes as Vice President, p. 18.

15 Donald R. McCoy, Calvin Coolidge: The Quiet President(Lawrence, KS, 1988), pp. 254–59; William Leuchtenburg,The Perils of Prosperity, 1914–32 (Chicago, 1958), p. 134.

16 Dawes, Notes as Vice President, p. 32.17 McCoy, pp. 264–65; U.S., Congress, Senate, Congres-

sional Record, 69th Cong., special sess., p. 3.18 Ibid., pp. 3–4.19 Ibid., p. 8; Fuess, p. 361.20 Leach, pp. 249–50; Mark Sullivan, Our Times: The United

States, 1900–1925 (New York, 1935), 6:634–36.21 Dawes, Notes as Vice President, pp. 33–34; Calvin Coo-

lidge, The Autobiography of Calvin Coolidge (New York, 1929),pp. 163–64.

22 Richard Lowitt, George W. Norris: The Persistence of aProgressive, 1913–1933 (Urbana, IL, 1971), pp. 279–80.

23 Dawes, Notes as Vice President, pp. 154, 169.24 McCoy, pp. 268–69; Dawes, Notes as Vice President, pp.

110, 288.25 Lindsay Rogers, The American Senate (New York, 1926),

pp. 188–90.26 Dawes, Notes as a Vice President, pp. 62–70; McCoy, p.

323; Leach, p. 273; see also George Wharton Pepper, In TheSenate (Philadelphia, 1930).

27 Dawes, Notes as Vice President, pp. 107, 179–80.28 Frances Parkinson Keyes, Capital Kaleidoscope: The Story

of a Washington Hostess (New York, 1937), pp. 140–43.29 ‘‘Heap Big Chief,’’ American Mercury 17 (August 1929):

404.30 Dawes, Notes as Vice President, p. 255.31 Ibid., pp. 183–84.32 Ibid., pp. 299, 304, 316.33 David Burner, Herbert Hoover, A Public Life (New York,

1979), p. 275.34 Thomas L. Stokes, Chip Off My Shoulder (Princeton, NJ,

1940), pp. 329–30.35 McCoy, p. 247; Dawes, Notes as Vice President, p. 4.

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Chapter 31

CHARLES CURTIS1929–1933

CHARLES CURTIS

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Chapter 31

CHARLES CURTIS31st Vice President: 1929–1933

His politics were always purely personal. Issues never bothered him.—WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE

In the spring of 1932, George and IraGershwin’s Broadway musical, ‘‘Of Thee I Sing,’’spoofed Washington politics, including a vicepresident named Alexander Throttlebottom,who could get inside the White House only onpublic tours. The tour guide, who failed to recog-nize Throttlebottom, at one point engaged himin a discussion of the vice-presidency:

Guide: Well, how did he come to be Vice Presi-dent?

Throttlebottom: Well, they put a lot of namesin a hat, and he lost.

Guide: What does he do all the time?Throttlebottom: Well, he sits in the park and

feeds the peanuts to the pigeons and the squir-rels, and then he takes walks, and goes to themovies. Last week, he tried to join the library, buthe needed two references, so he couldn’t get in.1

Audiences laughed heartily at these lines, inpart because they could easily identify the hap-less Throttlebottom with the incumbent vicepresident, Charles Curtis. Curtis was never closeto President Herbert Hoover and played no sig-nificant role in his administration. Despite Cur-tis’ many years of experience as a member of theHouse and Senate and as Senate majority leader,his counsel was rarely sought on legislative mat-ters. His chief notoriety as vice president cameas a result of a messy social squabble over proto-col, which only made him appear ridiculous.Many Republicans hoped to dump Curtis fromthe ticket when Hoover ran for reelection. GivenCurtis’ Horatio Alger-style rise in life, and his

long and successful career in Congress, how didhe become such a Throttlebottom as vicepresident?

Formative Years on the Reservation

Although colorful in itself, Charles Curtis’ ac-tual life story often became obscured by its politi-cal mythology.2 He began life in 1860 in NorthTopeka, Kansas, where he spent his earliest yearspartly in the white and partly in the NativeAmerican community. The son of Orren Curtis,a white man, and Ellen Pappan, who was one-quarter Kaw Indian, Charles Curtis on his moth-er’s side was the great-great grandson of WhitePlume, a Kansa-Kaw chief who had offered as-sistance to the Lewis and Clark expedition in1804. White Plume’s daughter married LouisGonville, a French-Canadian fur trader, and theirdaughter, Julie Gonville, married Louis Pappan.As a result of the Kansa-Kaw treaty of 1825, thetribe relinquished its claims to its traditionallands in Missouri and Kansas. A two-million-acre reservation was established west of Topekafor full-blooded Indians, while a series of fee-simple land grants along the Kansas river wereset aside for ‘‘half-breeds’’—those who had inter-married with whites. Curtis’ grandmother JulieGonville Pappan received ‘‘Half-Breed Reserva-tion No. Four,’’ directly across the river from theKansas capital, where she and her husband rana profitable ferry business.

Reflecting his mother’s heritage, Charles Cur-tis spoke French and Kansa before he learned

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English. His mother died in 1863, about the timethat his father left to fight in the Civil War. Soonthereafter, Orren Curtis remarried, divorced, re-married again, and was dishonorably dischargedfrom the Union army. At the end of the war, Cur-tis was court martialled for having hanged threeprisoners in his custody—or as the charges readfor ‘‘executing the bushwakers.’’ Sentenced to ayear’s hard labor at the Missouri State Peniten-tiary, he was pardoned a month later and re-turned to Kansas. Given Orren’s unstable cir-cumstances and roving nature, young Charleyremained in the custody of his paternal grand-parents. In 1865, his maternal grandparents,Louis and Julie Pappan Gonville, left North To-peka to return to the Kaw reservation at CouncilGrove, concerned that otherwise they might beexcluded from future land settlements and com-pensation. The next year, young Charley went tolive with them on the reservation.3

Since Charley could speak the Kaw language,he fit comfortably into the tribe. ‘‘I had my bowsand arrows,’’ he later recalled, ‘‘and joined theother boys in shooting arrows at nickles, dimes,and quarters which visitors would place in splitsticks.’’ In those still-frontier days, the Kaw res-ervation was frequently raided by nomadicCheyenne Indians, and during one attack Char-ley was sent on a mission to inform Topeka. ‘‘Ivolunteered to make the trip,’’ he later told audi-ences. ‘‘When we heard the Cheyennes werecoming, the horses and ponies were driven topasture, some distance from my grandpa’shome, so there was no horse or pony to ride. Itherefore, started out on foot, traveling duringthe night.’’ The next day, he arrived in Topeka,some sixty miles away. Curtis’ ‘‘cross-countryrun’’ made him a celebrity in North Topeka, butthe incident also convinced his paternal grand-parents, William and Permelia Curtis, that theirgrandson should be raised in the more ‘‘civ-ilized’’ atmosphere of Topeka rather than returnto the reservation.4

Curtis had learned to ride Indian ponies bare-back and won a reputation as a ‘‘good and fear-less rider.’’ Back in North Topeka, his grand-father William Curtis had built a race track, andin 1869 Charles Curtis rode in his first race. Hesoon became a full-fledged jockey and continued

to ride until 1876. A fellow jockey described Cur-tis as ‘‘rather short and wiry’’ and ‘‘just anotherbrush boy jockey,’’ explaining that eastern riders‘‘called us brush boys because we rode in whatwould be called the sticks.’’ As a winning jockey,Curtis was known throughout Kansas as ‘‘TheIndian Boy.’’ His mounts made a lot of moneyfor the local gamblers and prostitutes who beton him, and he recalled that after one race amadam bought him ‘‘a new suit of clothes, boots,hat and all,’’ and had a new jockey suit madefor him; others bought him candy and presents.‘‘I had never been so petted in my life and I likedit,’’ Curtis reminisced.5

His family, however, had greater ambitions forthe boy than horse racing. In 1871, grandfatherWilliam Curtis brought suit on behalf of Charleyand his sister Elizabeth to establish their claim,over that of their father, for title to their mother’sshare of the Half-Breed Lands in North Topeka.When Curtis’ father lost this suit, he left Topekafor good. Grandfather Curtis wanted Charley tostop racing and go back to school, but after hisgrandfather’s death in 1873, the boy set out tojoin his other grandparents Louis and JuliePappan, who were traveling with the Kaw Tribefrom Kansas to the Indian Territory of Okla-homa. Still on the tribal roll, and ‘‘longing for theold life,’’ he wanted to live on the reservation.Grandmother Julie talked him out of it. She in-vited him to her wagon and asked why he want-ed to go to the Indian Territory. While she wouldhave liked nothing better than to have him livewith her, she told him that on the reservation hewould end up ‘‘like most of the men on it,’’ with-out an education or future prospects. If Charleyexpected to make something of himself, heshould return to Topeka and attend school. ‘‘Itook her splendid advice and the next morningas the wagons pulled out for the south, boundfor Indian Territory, I mounted my pony andwith my belongings in a flour sack, returned toTopeka and school,’’ Curtis recounted. ‘‘No manor boy ever received better advice, it was theturning point in my life.’’ 6

A Passion for Politics

In Topeka, Curtis lived with grandmotherPermelia Hubbard Curtis, a decidedly strong-

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minded woman. ‘‘She brooked no opposition,’’recalled Charley’s half-sister, Dolly. ‘‘I think sheregarded being both a Methodist and a Repub-lican as essential for anyone who expected to goto heaven.’’ When Charley was offered a contractto race at the Philadelphia Centennial in 1876,Permelia Curtis put her foot down. Instead, heretired as a jockey and went to high school. Aftergraduating, he studied law, supporting himselfby working as a custodian in a law firm and bydriving a hack. When he had no customers, hewould stop under street lamps to read his lawbooks. In 1881, at the age of twenty-one, CharlesCurtis was admitted to the Kansas bar. Althoughhis life appeared to be a rags-to-riches story, Cur-tis had in fact a considerable inheritance in landin North Topeka. The young lawyer plungedinto real estate, selling lots and building houses.He also opened his own firm and practicedcriminal law. In 1884, Charles Curtis marriedAnna Baird. They had three children and alsotook in his half-sister Dolly when her motherdied.7

As a young man, Curtis showed a passion forpolitics. In 1880, during James Garfield’s cam-paign for president, Curtis donned an oilclothcap and carried a torch in a Republican paradethrough Topeka. It was only a matter of time be-fore the popular ‘‘Indian jockey’’ ran for officehimself. In 1884, after shaking every hand in thedistrict, Curtis won election as Shawnee countyattorney. Since both his father and grandfatherCurtis had operated saloons in North Topeka, hewas supported by the liquor interests, which hadalso retained his law firm. But once elected, Cur-tis insisted on enforcing the state’s prohibitionlaws and closed down all of the saloons in thecounty. He won attention not only as a ‘‘dry,’’but as a law-and-order prosecutor.8

By a single vote in 1889, Curtis lost the nomi-nation to fill a vacancy in the U.S. House of Rep-resentatives. It was a time of agrarian depression,when voters in the West were turning away fromconservatives like Curtis in favor of the moreradical solutions put forward by the Farmers’ Al-liance and its political offspring, the Populistparty. In 1891, William Allen White, editor of theEmporia Gazette, first met the ‘‘young prince,’’

Charles Curtis, and later provided this descrip-tion:

He came down from Topeka to campaign thecounty, sent by the Republican state central com-mittee. His job was to fight the Farmers’ Alliance.He had a rabble-rousing speech with a good dealof Civil War in it, a lot of protective tariff, anda very carefully poised straddle on the currencyquestion (which, I was satisfied then—and stillthink—that he knew little about, and cared noth-ing for). For his politics were always purely per-sonal. Issues never bothered him. He was a hand-some fellow, five feet ten, straight as his Kaw In-dian grandfather must have been, with an oliveskin that looked like old ivory, a silky, flowing,handlebar mustache, dark shoe-button eyes,beady, and in those days always gay, a mop ofcrow’s wing hair, a gentle ingratiating voice, andwhat a smile! 9

For three days, White and Curtis toured thecounty together, with White making the intro-ductions and Curtis making the speeches. Neverhad White met anyone who could charm a hos-tile audience as effectively as did Curtis, whosepersonality could overshadow whatever he wasspeaking about. This trait helped Curtis defeatthe Populist and Democratic fusion candidate fora seat in the House in 1892—the same electionthat saw Kansas vote for the Populist presi-dential candidate and elect a Populist governor.Curtis’ upset victory brought him to the atten-tion of prominent easterners, such as House Re-publican leader Thomas B. Reed, who were de-lighted that someone who thought the way theydid on tariff, railroad, and currency issues couldwin election in so Populist a state as Kansas.Reed took a particular liking to ‘‘the Indian,’’ ashe called Curtis, and made him one of hislieutenants.10

‘‘Our Charley’’

When Curtis first came to Washington, Demo-crats firmly controlled the federal government.Grover Cleveland had just been elected to hissecond term as president, and in the HouseDemocrats held 218 seats, Republicans 124, andthe Populists 14. Then in 1893 a severe economicdepression dramatically reversed party fortunes.Campaigning against the Democrats as the party

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of the ‘‘empty dinner pail,’’ Republicans won 254seats in the next Congress, leaving the Democratswith 93 and the Populists with 10. Tom Reed,who had resumed the speakership with the re-turn of a Republican majority, trusted Curtis’ po-litical judgment. According to an often-repeatedstory, Curtis once entered Speaker Reed’s officeand found a group of Republicans discussing therestoration of the gold standard. ‘‘Indian, whatwould you do about this?’’ Reed asked. Curtissuggested taking the matter out of the hands ofthe standing committees that had been dealingwith it, since it was apparent they would neveragree. Instead, he recommended appointing aspecial committee to write a new bill. Reed likedthe idea so much that he appointed Curtis as amember of the special committee that drafted theGold Standard Act of 1900.11

Curtis devoted most of his attention to hisservice on the Committee on Indian Affairs,where he drafted the ‘‘Curtis Act’’ in 1898. Enti-tled ‘‘An Act for the Protection of the People ofthe Indian Territory and for Other Purposes,’’ theCurtis Act actually overturned many treatyrights by allocating federal lands, abolishing trib-al courts, and giving the Interior Departmentcontrol over mineral leases on Indian lands. Hav-ing reinstated his name on the Kaw tribal rollsin 1889, Curtis was able, through his position onthe House Indian Affairs Committee, to calculatethe benefits he might receive from governmentallotments to his tribe. In 1902, he drafted theKaw Allotment Act under which he and his chil-dren received fee simple title to Kaw land inOklahoma.12

Congressman Curtis, hailed throughout Kan-sas as ‘‘Our Charley,’’ assiduously built his polit-ical base in the state. William Allen White re-called that Curtis carried with him little bookscontaining the names of all the Republicans ineach township and used to mumble these names‘‘like a pious worshiper out of a prayer book’’to commit them to memory. When Curtis greeteda voter, he could recall the man’s name and askabout his wife, children, and business. He leftvoters convinced that they were intimates. In1903, Curtis made a bid for a Senate seat, com-peting against fellow Republican RepresentativeChester Long. Both men had strong support

from the railroads, Long being allied with the J.P. Morgan interests and Curtis identified withthe Jay Gould railroads. Editor William AllenWhite grumbled that the money and influence inthe election came from the railroads and ‘‘thepeople had nothing to do with it.’’ 13

When the Republicans deadlocked, Long andCurtis reached an agreement that Long wouldgain the nomination in 1903 and would then sup-port Curtis for the next Senate opening—whichoccurred sooner than anyone anticipated. In1904, Kansas Senator Joseph R. Burton was in-dicted by a federal grand jury in St. Louis, Mis-souri, for representing clients for a fee before thePost Office in violation of federal statutes. Al-though the U.S. Supreme Court overturned thisconviction on the grounds that Missouri lackedjurisdiction, Burton was tried and convictedagain in 1905. In May 1906, the Supreme Courtupheld Burton’s second conviction, and as theSenate prepared to expel him, Burton resignedon June 4, 1906.

At that time, state legislatures still elected U.S.senators, but since the Kansas legislature was notin session, the governor appointed Alfred W.Benson to fill the vacancy. When the legislaturereconvened, Curtis and several other Repub-licans challenged Benson for the seat. Kansasprogressives promoted the candidacy of JosephL. Bristow, arguing that he would more faith-fully support the reform legislation of PresidentTheodore Roosevelt. Curtis turned for help toRoosevelt’s chief conservative opponent, RhodeIsland Senator Nelson W. Aldrich. As chairmanof the Senate Finance Committee, Aldrich han-dled all tariff legislation and was able to channelconsiderable amounts of money from businessinterests to pro-tariff politicians. Aldrich sup-plied Curtis with funds to purchase newspapersthat would support his senatorial candidacy.William Allen White, who supported Bristow,warned President Roosevelt that attorneys forevery railroad in the state were for Curtis. ‘‘Tworailroad attorneys when I asked them why theywere for Curtis, frankly told me in confidence offriendship that orders came from higher up tobe for Curtis and they are obeying orders,’’White wrote to the president. But Rooseveltseemed less concerned, assuring White that ‘‘so

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far my experience with Curtis has been rathermore pleasant than with the average of hiscolleagues.’’ 14

A High-Tariff Man

The state legislature elected Charles Curtissenator on January 23, 1907, and he took his seata week later. Just as he had worked closely withTom Reed in the House, Curtis became a chieflieutenant for Senator Aldrich. Then in his lastyears in the Senate, and having outlasted hismost powerful allies, Aldrich came to rely on agroup of younger, high-tariff colleagues, includ-ing Curtis, W. Murray Crane of Massachusetts,Eugene Hale of Maine, and Reed Smoot of Utah.In 1909, Curtis played an influential role in thepassage of the Payne-Aldrich Tariff, whichraised rates so high that it helped split the Re-publican party into warring conservative andprogressive factions. Two years later, that splitclaimed Curtis as a victim, when he was defeatedfor renomination by a progressive Republican—who in turn was defeated by a Democrat.15

As a result of the ratification of the Seven-teenth Amendment, the first direct popular elec-tions of senators were held in 1914. Progressiveswere confident that the people would supporttheir candidates, but with an economic recessionat home and war in Europe, voters nationwideinstead turned to conservative candidates. Afterdefeating the progressive incumbent JosephBristow for the Republican Senate nomination,Charles Curtis went on to defeat both a Demo-cratic and a Progressive party opponent thatNovember.16

Curtis returned to the Senate in 1915 as a sym-bol of the rewards of party regularity and the de-feat of insurgency. Following the pattern set bySenate Democrats, who had created the post ofparty whip in the previous Congress, Senate Re-publicans appointed New York Senator JamesWadsworth as both conference secretary andwhip. Then, within a week, the party decided tosplit these posts and elected Charles Curtis Re-publican whip. He served under the party lead-ership of New Hampshire Senator JacobGallinger from 1915 to 1918 and of Massachu-setts Senator Henry Cabot Lodge from 1918 to1924. In 1918, when Republicans won back the

majority in the Senate, Curtis’ role as whip ex-panded, as he led much of the Republican oppo-sition to the Wilson administration. ‘‘No oneever accused him of being a Progressive,’’ wroteone Washington correspondent, ‘‘but the femi-nists nevertheless called him friend, and it is oneof the proudest of his claims that he led the floorfight for the Nineteenth Amendment,’’ grantingwomen the right to vote.17

Senator Curtis went to the 1920 Republicanconvention in Chicago as head of the Kansas del-egation. When the convention reached a stale-mate between the presidential candidacies ofGeneral Leonard Wood and Illinois GovernorFrank Lowden, Curtis was one of the senatorswho gathered in the famous ‘‘smoke-filledroom’’ and anointed their colleague, Ohio Sen-ator Warren G. Harding, as the party’s nominee.Curtis then returned to the Kansas delegationand told them frankly, as William Allen Whiterecalled, ‘‘that it had been decided (the phrasewas his) to give Harding a play.’’ The hot andtired delegates were glad to take orders andbreak the deadlock. Kansas switched from Woodto Harding, whose bandwagon began its roll to-ward the White House.18

Harding’s election took Curtis into the innercircle of Washington power, where he remaineda poker-playing adviser to Harding throughoutthat ill-fated presidency. In 1923, as Harding con-sidered running for a second term, Curtis in-quired about his intentions of keeping Vice Presi-dent Calvin Coolidge on the ticket, perhaps hop-ing for the job himself. ‘‘We are not worryingabout that little fellow in Massachusetts,’’ Har-ding supposedly told him. ‘‘Charlie Dawes is theman!’’ Harding’s sudden death elevated Coo-lidge to the presidency, and the following yearit was indeed Dawes, not Curtis, who won thenomination for vice president.19

Senate Majority Leader

In 1923, Curtis became chairman of the SenateRules Committee, and two years later he suc-ceeded Lodge as majority leader—becoming thefirst Republican to hold the official title of partyfloor leader. He did not occupy the front-rowdesk that was subsequently reserved for the par-ty’s leaders but instead led from the back-row

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seat on the center aisle. As floor leader, Curtislimited his role to that of a legislative tacticianwho tried to keep his party united. ‘‘You boystell me what you want, and I’ll get it through,’’Curtis promised. He was said to know ‘‘everysenator’s feelings on any pending legislation sothoroughly that he can tell in advance how thatsenator is going to vote.’’ Remarkably, Curtismaintained good relations with both the con-servative and progressive wings of his party. Theconservative Pennsylvania Senator GeorgeWharton Pepper recorded that Curtis as majorityleader ‘‘displayed a remarkable talent for accom-plishing good results for his party by what ininternational parlance are termed ‘conversations’with the other side. He was unusually adept atmaking deals.’’ The progressive Nebraska Sen-ator George Norris noted that, while he often dis-agreed with Curtis on legislative matters, henever knew Curtis to violate his word or fail tocarry out an agreement. Idaho Senator WilliamBorah acclaimed Curtis ‘‘a great reconciler, awalking political encyclopedia and one of thebest political poker players in America.’’ 20

Journalists described majority leader Curtis asone of the greatest ‘‘whisperers’’ in Congress.‘‘Whenever he took his favorite pose, with ashort fat arm coiled around another Senator’sshoulders, the Press Gallery got busy,’’ wroteone reporter. ‘‘It was a sure sign that somethingwas doing. . . .‘Talk, talk, talk,’ he would com-plain to the reporters about the endless Senatedeliberations.’’ Curtis believed ‘‘that everythingcan be fixed by friendly and confidential gettingtogether.’’ The press depicted Curtis as taciturn,not given to long speeches, and unhappy withthe Senate’s penchant for filibustering (Curtishad supported creating a cloture rule as early as1911). He had a ‘‘poker face’’ that masked hisfeelings, which some attributed to his Indianancestry.21

As majority leader, Curtis loyally supportedthe Coolidge administration, but as a farm-statesenator he strongly advocated the kind of federalfarm relief that the president opposed. He con-sistently voted for the McNary-Haugen bills thatCoolidge vetoed. In May 1928, however, he shift-ed his vote to sustain—by a one-vote margin—Coolidge’s veto. He explained that, regardless of

his belief in the issue, he felt it was his duty asleader to stand by the president. This was not aneasy vote for Curtis, who at the time was an an-nounced candidate to succeed Coolidge in thatyear’s presidential election, and who was count-ing on strong support from the farm states. Sig-nificantly, another senatorial candidate for thepresidency, Indiana’s ‘‘Sunny Jim’’ Watson (wholater followed Curtis as majority leader), votedto override the veto.22

Presidential Candidate

Curtis had harbored presidential ambitions forsome time. In 1924 he had been widely men-tioned as a vice-presidential candidate, but hiswife, Anna, was seriously ill at the time. His sis-ter Dolly volunteered to stay with her, so thatCurtis could attend the convention and improvehis chances for the vice-presidential nomination.‘‘Dolly,’’ he replied, ‘‘I would not leave Annanow to be President of the United States, and cer-tainly not for the Vice Presidency.’’ (Anna Curtisdied on June 29, 1924.) In 1927 President Coo-lidge jolted the nation by announcing that he didnot choose to run in 1928. Potential candidatesand the press speculated endlessly about whatCoolidge meant—whether he expected the con-vention to deadlock and then draft him orwhether he would not run under any cir-cumstances. Curtis assumed that Coolidge wasout of the race and felt assured that Coolidge fa-vored him for president. Even Commerce Sec-retary Herbert Hoover privately conceded thatCurtis ‘‘was a natural selection for Mr. Coo-lidge’s type of mind.’’ 23

Hoover was the frontrunner, but the farmstates had remained strongly opposed to himever since his service as ‘‘Food Czar’’ during theFirst World War, as well as because he opposedthe McNary-Haugen bills. Curtis and Hooverhad never been close. Recalling that Hoover hadcampaigned for Democratic candidates in 1918,Curtis had tried to prevent President Hardingfrom appointing Hoover to the cabinet. Hooversaw Curtis as one of a half-dozen senators whowere trying to stop his nomination by heapingattacks on him. ‘‘Their favorite name for me was‘Sir Herbert,’ a reference to my periodic resi-

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dence in England,’’ Hoover recalled with someindignation.24

After announcing for president, Curtis madeno speeches and continued to devote his atten-tion to his functions as Senate majority leader.The New York Times called his campaign ‘‘quieterthan gumshoes.’’ This was how Curtis wantedit. Serving as his own campaign manager, heplanned to work the back rooms as he alwayshad, hoping that if the convention frontrunnersdeadlocked, he would emerge as the com-promise candidate—in the way the delegateshad turned to Warren Harding in 1920. Aboutthe only publicity his campaign received oc-curred when a Senate page stamped the words‘‘Curtis for President’’ in the snow around theCapitol. Not until Curtis reached the conventionin Kansas City did he speak out against Hoover.He warned that the Republicans could not affordto nominate a candidate who would place theparty ‘‘on the defensive from the day he isnamed.’’ Despite caravans of farmers who pro-tested against Hoover, the commerce secretaryeasily won the Republican nomination on thefirst ballot.25

Eating Bitter Words

To balance the ticket, Republicans sought afarm-state man for vice president and choseCharles Curtis of Kansas. Insisting that he hadnever sought the vice-presidency, Curtis agreedto run because of his loyalty to the party. Report-ers viewed the choice of Curtis as ‘‘the perfecttouch of irony’’ for the convention, given his ear-lier opposition to Hoover. ‘‘I can see him yet ashe stood before the convention gulping at hispride under the klieg lights,’’ recalled reporterThomas L. Stokes:

He had eaten his bitter words, but he was suffer-ing from indigestion, you could see. His baldhead gleamed, as if still feverish under the indig-nity of second place on the ticket. His mustachetwitched in pain, as he tried to smile. It was onlya contorted grin that creased his swarthy face. Inthe press section we nudged each other andchuckled cruelly.26

During the campaign, Curtis visited the in-cumbent vice president, Charles Dawes. Sympa-

thetically, Dawes noted that Curtis looked prettyworn out, his hand was in a sling because a cardoor had slammed on his fingers, and he had notmuch voice left. Later, however, listening to Cur-tis speak on the radio, Dawes bristled when Cur-tis referred to the vice-presidency as amountingto nothing. Although he recognized that the re-mark was intended to sound modest and wasmade in jest, Dawes recorded in his journal, ‘‘Butwhen I find him tired, with a husky voice andbandaged arm, resting after a five thousand-miletrip and preparing to start on ten thousand milesmore, I am inclined to think that he places quitea high value on the office.’’ 27

The Hoover-Curtis ticket rode to victory thatNovember over the Democratic ticket of AlfredSmith and Joseph T. Robinson. Each of the vice-presidential candidates served as his party’sfloor leader in the Senate, and, despite their polit-ical differences, the two were known as‘‘chums.’’ Curtis was celebrated as a ‘‘stand pat-ter,’’ the most regular of Republicans, and yet aman who could always bargain with his party’sprogressives and with senators from across thecenter aisle. Newspapers claimed that Curtisknew the Senate rules better than any other sen-ator and declared him ‘‘the most competent manin Congress to look after the legislative programof the administration.’’ 28

This was not to be. Hoover and Curtis re-mained alienated after the strains of campaign-ing against each other for the nomination. Sincetheir ticket had been a marriage of convenience,there was little love to lose over the next fouryears. Neither man mentioned the other in hisinaugural address, and except for formal occa-sions they seem to have had as little to do witheach other as possible. A politico not identifiedwith issues or ideas, Curtis could never measureup to Hoover’s standards and never became aninside player. Although Curtis attended somecabinet meetings, his advice was neither soughtnor followed. He spent his vice-presidency pre-siding over the Senate, and on a few occasionscasting tie-breaking votes. Sixty-nine years oldwhen he took office, Curtis was no longer thevigorous politician of his youth.29

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A Subtle Transformation

Curtis enjoyed the status of the vice-presi-dency and made much of his rise ‘‘from Kawtepee to Capitol.’’ As the first American of Indianancestry to reach high office, he decorated his of-fice with Native American artifacts and posed forpictures wearing Indian headdresses. But thepress who covered him noted that Charles Curtishad changed in many ways, both subtle and con-spicuous. As a senator, he had always been a‘‘placid, humble, unchanging, decent fellow,’’but when he began to harbor presidential ambi-tions ‘‘his humility turned inside out.’’ Curtisgrew pompous, demanding that past intimatesaddress him as the vice president of the UnitedStates and giving the impression that he felt thathe, rather than Herbert Hoover, should be occu-pying the White House. Perhaps sensing that re-sentment, the Hoover White House never trustedCurtis as a legislative lieutenant. Reporters whowatched him believed that the frustrated Curtis,having been so busy and influential as majorityleader, ‘‘just had to have something to do’’ asvice president. He found his outlet as ‘‘a sternand unbending disciplinarian in the Senate anda defiant defender of vice presidential rank andprecedent there and elsewhere, particularly atdinner tables.’’ Or, as one Washington hostessnoted archly, ‘‘Mr. Curtis openly exulted in theephemeral effulgence of the limelight whichshone upon him.’’ 30

Curtis’ search for status revived the issue of anofficial vice-presidential residence. The wealthywidow of Missouri Senator John B. Hendersonlived in a brownstone castle on 16th Street, ona hillside several blocks north of the WhiteHouse. For years Mrs. Henderson had lobbied torechristen 16th Street as the Avenue of the Presi-dents and had persuaded many embassies to lo-cate along the street—by selling them inexpen-sive parcels of land. Mrs. Henderson becameconvinced that the street would be the perfect lo-cation for a permanent vice-presidential dwell-ing, suitable for entertaining, and she offered togive the government a house overlooking Merid-ian Hill Park, whose land she had also contrib-uted to the city. Earlier, Vice President CalvinCoolidge had declined a similar offer, but Curtis

was much more receptive, and sent his sisterDolly Curtis Gann out to inspect the property.She pronounced the house ‘‘lovely’’ and appro-priate for its purposes, arguing that a vice presi-dent ‘‘should not have the social duties now in-cumbent upon him unless he is to be in a positionto fulfill them properly and comfortably.’’ But amember of the Henderson family objected to theelderly Mrs. Henderson’s penchant for givingaway her property, and the deal fell through.Not for another half century would vice presi-dents have an official residence.31

A Tempest in a Teapot

When the stock market crashed in 1929, the na-tion began to slip into the worst economic de-pression in its history. At a moment when peoplewanted positive action from their political lead-ers, poor Curtis became embarrassingly em-broiled in a ‘‘tempest in a teapot.’’ His sisterDolly openly feuded with Alice Roosevelt Long-worth, the daughter of Theodore Roosevelt andwife of House Speaker Nicholas Longworth,over their relative positions in protocol. ‘‘Prin-cess Alice’’ admitted making a ‘‘little mischief’’over the affair. After Curtis’ wife died, Dolly hadinvited him to live at her Washington home andhad acted as his official hostess. Dolly Gann as-serted that as hostess for the vice president sheshould be seated ahead of the congressional anddiplomatic wives at Washington dinners. ‘‘Atthat there was a cackle of excited discussionabout the propriety of designating any one nota wife to hold the rank of one,’’ observed AliceLongworth. Alice raised the issue with her hus-band Nick, who disapproved of Dolly Gann’spretensions and used the controversy as an ex-cuse to avoid going to Prohibition-era ‘‘dry’’ din-ner parties that he hated to attend. All thiscaused a ‘‘torrent of newspaper publicity,’’ pre-dominantly negative. William Allen White’s Em-poria Gazette proclaimed:

If Washington does not do right by our Dolly,there will be a terrible ruckus in Kansas. We willbe satisfied with nothing less than that she beborne into the dinner on the shoulders of Mrs.Nick Longworth, seated in the center of the tableas an ornament with a candelabra in each hand

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and fed her soup with a long-handled spoon bythe wife of the Secretary of State.32

Bad press dogged Curtis and he assumed thepublic image of a Throttlebottom, especially asa result of his panicky response to the bonusmarchers in 1932. World War I veterans hadmarched on Washington to demand that Con-gress pass legislation enabling them to receiveearly payment of their promised bonus for war-time service. As a senator, Curtis had sponsoredan earlier bonus bill and, although he himselfhad never served in the military, he frequentlycited his father’s Civil War service in seeking vet-erans’ support for his campaigns. But when themarchers camped around Washington and pa-raded to the Capitol, Curtis urged PresidentHoover to call out the troops. The president,however, tried to keep calm and maintain thepeace.33

The Depression Sinks the Ticket

In July 1932, some four hundred men marchedto the Capitol grounds. When the architect of theCapitol had the lawn sprinklers turned on, themarchers gave up their idea of camping on thegrounds and instead began a single-file marcharound the Capitol Building. A nervous VicePresident Curtis announced that ‘‘Neither Speak-er [John Nance] Garner nor I issued any permitsto parade inside Capitol Grounds, and for thisreason I believe they should be kept off.’’ Thevice president had a ‘‘stormy session’’ with theDistrict of Columbia’s police chief, PelhamGlassford, who informed him that only the presi-dent could call out the army. Curtis then con-tacted the U.S. Marines to have them stand readyfor an emergency. But the marines took the vicepresident too literally and sent two companieswearing trench helmets to the Capitol, riding onthe city trollies. Curtis claimed to have been mis-

understood, but his calling out the marines madehim even more the subject of national jokes.34

As the depression worsened and the presi-dential election approached, many Republicanstalked of dumping Curtis from the ticket in favorof a stronger candidate who might help Hoover’schance of reelection. Curtis himself recognizedhis vulnerability and talked of running for theSenate seat from Kansas instead. But with his sis-ter Dolly rallying support among the delegates,Curtis was renominated on the Hoover ticket toface Franklin D. Roosevelt and John Nance Gar-ner. In the depth of the depression, the Hoover-Curtis campaign never stood a chance. Hecklerschallenged Curtis when he spoke. Why had henot fed the veterans in Washington? they yelledat one stop. ‘‘I’ve fed more than you have, youdirty cowards!’’ Curtis shouted back at thecrowd. ‘‘I’m not afraid of you!’’ The crowdchanted ‘‘Hurrah for Roosevelt!’’ 35

A landslide defeat in November 1932 retiredCharles Curtis from a political career that hadbegun almost fifty years earlier when he ran forShawnee County district attorney. Now, to thesurprise of many Kansans, Curtis seemed to have‘‘lost interest in Kansas.’’ Having spent so muchof his life in the nation’s capital, he remained inWashington, where he practiced law and talkedpolitics. In 1935 he became chairman of the Re-publican senatorial campaign committee, hopingthe party could win back the Senate majority thenext year, but he died in February 1936 at his sis-ter Dolly’s home. A party regular—‘‘one-eighthKaw Indian and a one-hundred per cent Repub-lican’’ as he liked to tell audiences—he had beenyoked to one of the most intellectual and leastpolitical of all American presidents, and the in-compatibility of the team made his vice-presi-dency a dismal failure.36

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NOTES1 Quoted in Chalmers Roberts, First Rough Draft: A Jour-

nalist’s Journal of Our Times (New York, 1973), p. 268.2 For an especially egregious example, see Don C. Seitz,

From Kaw Teepee to Capitol: The Life Story of Charles Curtis,Indian, Who Has Risen to High Estate (New York, 1928).

3 William E. Unrau, ‘‘The Mixed-Blood Connection:Charles Curtis and Kaw Detribalization,’’ in Kansas and theWest: Bicentennial Essays in Honor of Nyle H. Miller, ed. For-rest R. Blackburn, et al. (Topeka, KS, 1976), pp. 151–61; Wil-liam E. Unrau, Mixed-Bloods and Tribal Dissolution: CharlesCurtis and the Quest for Indian Identity (Lawrence, KS, 1989),pp. 9–10, 58, 64–65; Marvin Ewy, ‘‘Charles Curtis of Kansas:Vice President of the United States, 1929–1933,’’ EmporiaState Research Studies 10 (December 1961): 6–9.

4 Unrau, Mixed-Bloods and Tribal Dissolution, pp. 70–75.5 Ibid., pp. 61–62, 81–82; New York Times, June 17, 1928;

Seitz, p. 128.6 Unrau, Mixed Bloods and Tribal Dissolution, pp. 92–93;

Ewy, p. 11.7 Dolly Gann, Dolly Gann’s Book (Garden City, NY, 1933),

pp. 1, 4–5; Unrau, Mixed Bloods and Tribal Dissolution, pp.97–98.

8 Unrau, Mixed Bloods and Tribal Dissolution, pp. 99–101;Ewy, pp. 15–17.

9 William Allen White, The Autobiography of William AllenWhite (New York, 1946), p. 196.

10 Ibid., pp. 196–97.11 Seitz, pp. 161–62; Ewy, p. 23.12 Unrau, Mixed-Bloods and Tribal Dissolution, pp. 119–23;

Unrau, ‘‘The Mixed-Blood Connection,’’ p. 159.13 White, pp. 304, 352, 366.14 Horace Samuel Merrill and Marion Galbraith Merrill,

The Republican Command, 1897–1913 (Lexington, KY, 1971),pp. 26, 288.

15 Ibid., pp. 27, 295.16 Ewy, pp. 27–29.17 Ibid., pp. 30–31; ‘‘Heap Big Chief,’’ American Mercury

17 (August 1929): 401.18 Andrew Sinclair, The Available Man: The Life Behind the

Masks of Warren Gamaliel Harding (New York, 1965), pp. 143–49; White, p. 546.

19 Curtis served as an honorary pallbearer at Harding’sfuneral, and was later active in the effort to suppress newsof Harding’s illegitimate child by Nan Britton. Francis Rus-sell, The Shadow of Blooming Grove: Warren G. Harding in HisTimes (New York, 1968), pp. 571, 597, 626.

20 Irving G. Williams, The Rise of the Vice Presidency (Wash-ington, D.C., 1956), p. 144; Seitz, pp. 172, 178; George Whar-ton Pepper, In The Senate (Philadelphia, 1930), p. 35: NewYork Times, June 19, 1928; Washington Evening Star, Feb-ruary 8, 1936.

21 ‘‘Heap Big Chief,’’ p. 410; Seitz, pp. 172–73.22 New York Times, May 26, 1928.23 Gann, p. 74; Herbert Hoover, The Memoirs of Herbert

Hoover: The Cabinet and the Presidency, 1920–1933 (New York,1952), p. 194.

24 John D. Hicks, Republican Ascendancy, 1921–1933 (NewYork, 1960), p. 201; Sinclair, p. 184; Russell, p. 433; Hoover,p. 192.

25 New York Times, February 3, April 26, June 11–15, 1928;Ewy, pp. 38–39.

26 Thomas L. Stokes, Chip Off My Shoulder (Princeton, NJ,1940), pp. 230–31.

27 Charles G. Dawes, Notes as Vice President, 1928–1929(Boston, 1935), p. 123.

28 New York Times, September 2, November 11, 1928.29 Williams, p. 146; Ewy, p. 43.30 ‘‘Heap Big Chief,’’ pp. 401–6, 411; Gene Smith, The Shat-

tered Dream: Herbert Hoover and the Great Depression. (NewYork, 1970), p. 185; Frances Parkinson Keyes, Capital Kaleido-scope: The Story of a Washington Hostess (New York, 1937),p. 245.

31 Gann, pp. 191–92.32 Alice Roosevelt Longworth, Crowded Hours (New York,

1933) pp. 73, 330–33; David Burner, Herbert Hoover: A PublicLife (New York, 1979), p. 291.

33 Daniel J. Lisio, The President and Protest: Hoover, Conspir-acy, and The Bonus Riot (Columbia, MO, 1974), p. 218.

34 Fleta Campbell Springe, ‘‘Glassford and the Siege ofWashington,’’ Harpers 165 (November 1932): 649–51; Smith,p. 149.

35 Williams, p. 147; Ewy, pp. 51–52; Lisio, p. 244.36 Unrau, Mixed-Bloods and Tribal Dissolution, p. 112.

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Chapter 32

JOHN NANCE GARNER1933–1941

JOHN NANCE GARNER

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Chapter 32

JOHN NANCE GARNER32nd Vice President: 1933–1941

My belief has always been in Executive leadership, not Executive rulership.—JOHN NANCE GARNER

‘‘There is hardly any limitation upon the waysin which the Vice President might be of serviceto the President,’’ wrote Franklin Delano Roo-sevelt in a 1920 issue of the Saturday Evening Postwhen he was the Democratic vice-presidentialcandidate. The vice president, Roosevelt sug-gested, should be entrusted with ‘‘carrying thelarge burden of interpreting administration poli-cies to Congress and to the public.’’ Like the vicepresident in a modern corporation, he should bea ‘‘super handy man,’’ handling various mattersof detail and ‘‘leaving the president free to dealmainly with matters of policy.’’ 1

Upon becoming president a dozen years later,however, Roosevelt had adjusted his image ofthe vice-presidency to more closely match thepredispositions of the man that the DemocraticNational Convention nominated to be his run-ning mate, John Nance Garner. As vice presi-dent, Garner would indeed work extensively at‘‘interpreting administration policies to Con-gress,’’ as the White House’s chief liaison to Cap-itol Hill, but he did little to communicate thesepolicies to the public because he refused to bea spokesman or campaigner. He did provide theadministration with expertise on ‘‘matters of de-tail’’ but limited this advice mostly to the intrica-cies of maneuvering legislation throughCongress.

Garner’s long career in the House of Rep-resentatives had prepared him for the vice-presi-dency. He had rarely originated innovative ideasto answer the problems of the country, yet once

someone else conceived an idea for legislation,Garner was often called upon to serve as a par-liamentary midwife. He would expertly guidethe plan through the House, from negotiationsin smoky back rooms to a debate and vote onthe floor.

On the surface, there appears to be little mys-tery about John Nance Garner. Plainspoken andrefreshingly unpretentious, ‘‘Cactus Jack’’ fromthe tiny back-country town of Uvalde, Texas,was by all accounts a man of common words,simple tastes, a frugal lifestyle, and an unswerv-ing pragmatism that prompted Roosevelt to dubhim ‘‘Mr. Common Sense.’’ Yet, for all his un-complicated personality, Garner remains anenigmatic presence in history. For thirty-eightyears in Washington, from 1903 to 1941, Garnercontinued to be a secretive back-room operator.Because nearly all of his most important politicalactivities took place out of the public eye and offthe record, his personal motivations or convic-tions remain unclear. It is particularly difficult togauge the degree to which, in his role as vicepresident, Garner should be credited for the leg-islative successes of the first Roosevelt adminis-tration or be blamed for the failures of thesecond.2

Youth

Garner was born on November 22, 1868, in RedRiver County, Texas. Although political promot-ers later romanticized his modest upbringing ina mud-chinked log cabin, his mother, Rebecca

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Walpole Garner, was the daughter of the townbanker and a descendent of English aristocracy.At age eighteen, young Garner set off to enrollat the University of Tennessee, the state in whichboth sides of his family had roots. Finding him-self handicapped by an insufficient preparatoryeducation and various respiratory problems,however, the young man soon returned homeand found work in a law office. By studying inhis spare time, Garner gained entrance to the barin 1890. He then failed in his first bid for politicaloffice as a twenty-one-year-old candidate for cityattorney.

A Back-Room Politician

Garner moved to Uvalde, Texas, for the healthbenefits of its dry climate. During his successfulcampaign for judge of Uvalde County, he metEttie Rheiner, who soon became his cherishedpartner as both beloved wife and career-longpersonal secretary.3 Garner served as countyjudge from 1893 to 1896, followed by a tenurein the Texas state legislature from 1898 to 1902.When Texas gained an additional congressionalseat after the 1900 census, Garner managed to se-cure the chairmanship of a special redistrictingcommittee. He used this position to carve out anadvantageous congressional district, from whichhe ran successfully in 1902 for the U.S. House ofRepresentatives.

During his first several years in the House,Garner was a silent backbencher who ingratiatedhimself with his colleagues by cultivating friend-ships and by his record of party loyalty. He waseventually rewarded with coveted committeeappointments, and by the 1920s his seniority hadmade him the ranking Democrat on the Waysand Means Committee and chairman of theDemocrats’ Committee on Committees, whichchose that party’s members for all House com-mittees. His vociferous attacks on Treasury Sec-retary Andrew Mellon’s economic programsearned him a national reputation as ‘‘a Jefferson/Jackson Democrat—egalitarian, rural, states’rights oriented, and populist.’’ 4

In 1929, Garner was elected the floor leader ofa House Democratic party whose morale andrepresentation had suffered a crushing blow inthe 1928 elections. As minority leader, Garner re-

lied upon informal methods to strengthen theparty’s influence. He enjoyed a close rapportwith Republican Speaker Nicholas Longworth,his debonair alter ego. Said Garner, ‘‘I was theheathen and Nick was the aristocrat.’’ This con-gressional odd couple cohosted a daily biparti-san gathering of lawmakers in a small room,deep in the bowels of the Capitol, which becameknown as the ‘‘Bureau of Education.’’ Like TheBoar’s Head Club, the site of Speaker Joe Can-non’s drinking and gambling congregations thatGarner had attended decades earlier, the bureauprovided a place for politicians to relax and getto know one another over a cordial drink, ignor-ing the Eighteenth Amendment’s ban on alco-holic beverages. The bureau also served as an in-formal forum for constructive, off-the-recordcommunications and negotiations between thetwo parties. In this setting, Longworth said thatGarner operated as ‘‘a one man cabal’’ 5

Garner presented only four major bills to Con-gress under his own name in his entire three dec-ades in the House, a fact a longtime House col-league, James F. Byrnes of South Carolina, attrib-uted to Garner’s collaborative parliamentarystyle: ‘‘It was his policy, whenever he had anidea . . . to induce a prospective opponent or adoubtful supporter to sponsor the legislation.When he achieved that, he knew his purpose wasaccomplished.’’ As a result, Byrnes noted, ‘‘TheCongressional Record will not show the remark-able influence he exercised upon the members ofthe House and Senate during his long service.’’Garner himself later asserted that he had ‘‘nomore useful years than those in the ranks of oras the leader of the opposition to the majority.’’ 6

Between the 1930 congressional elections andthe opening of the Seventy-second Congress onDecember 7, 1931, fourteen members-elect, in-cluding Longworth, died.7 After special electionswere held to replace the deceased, the Democratsemerged with a 219 to 214 advantage, enablingGarner to become Speaker and the titular headof his party as its highest national officeholder.Garner did not share the same close personalfriendship with the new Republican minorityleader, New York’s Bertrand Small, that he hadenjoyed with Longworth. The two parties werebecoming increasingly polarized in their ap-

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proaches to solving the crisis that gripped the na-tional economy. In addition, a decade in the mi-nority had permitted many House Democrats tolapse into habits of frequent absenteeism andmaverick voting patterns, which the party withits slim majority could now ill afford.

The new Speaker enforced party disciplinewith a severity that inspired Sam Rayburn to callhim, ‘‘a terrible, table-thumping Democrat.’’Under the slogan ‘‘You’ve got to bloody yourknuckles!’’ Garner regularly summoned HouseDemocrats to caucus or bureau meetings, wherethey wrangled out consensus policies to whichhe would then ‘‘bind’’ all of their votes. ‘‘Andif they didn’t stay bound,’’ he recalled, ‘‘I’d put’em down in my book and they’d never getthrough paying for it.’’ Of his overriding concernfor party solidarity, Garner once declared, ‘‘Ihave always done what I thought was best formy country, never varying unless I was advisedthat two-thirds of the Democrats were for a billand then I voted for it.’’ 8

In his response to the Great Depression, thisdedication to maintaining a governing consensuseventually outweighed Garner’s normally con-servative principles, and he grew increasinglysupportive of federal intervention in economicaffairs. At first, the Speaker attempted to forgebipartisan cooperation in support of HerbertHoover’s economic programs, such as the Recon-struction Finance Corporation and the Glass-Steagall banking bills. This conciliatory approachmeant reversing his previous opposition to suchmeasures as a manufacturers’ sales tax designedto increase government revenue in the face ofmounting deficits—favored by business groupsfor more than a decade—and establishment of amoratorium on foreign debts in order to relievesome of the financial burden on the nation’s Eu-ropean trading partners.9

By 1932, however, the overwhelming consen-sus among congressional Democrats and thepublic against the sales tax and in favor of addi-tional relief measures convinced Garner to repu-diate Hoover’s program. He proposed his ownfederal relief spending bill through a massivepublic works program. This action was highlyuncharacteristic, given his reluctance to offer hisown proposals and his long record of opposition

to increased government spending. Hoover ve-toed the bill, condemning it as ‘‘the most giganticpork barrel raid ever proposed to an AmericanCongress!’’ Relations between the two mennever recovered.10

The Election of 1932

A ‘‘Garner for President’’ movement emergedin January 1932. Instigated by an editorial cam-paign in the newspapers of William RandolphHearst, it was independent of any initiative orencouragement by Garner. Over such other pro-spective nominees as Franklin Roosevelt, AlSmith, and former Secretary of War NewtonBaker, Hearst endorsed Garner as the candidatehe considered most likely to adhere to his ownagenda, which included instituting a nationalsales tax and keeping the United States out of theLeague of Nations.11 The Garner bandwagon in-cluded many conservative southern and westernpoliticians who felt ideologically and personallycomfortable with Garner. A contemporary jour-nalist attributed the attraction of the Garner can-didacy to the desire of ‘‘the rank and file Demo-crats to get away from everything the East im-plies and to find a good, safe politician with aninnocuous record, what they want is a Demo-cratic Coolidge.’’ Others supported Garner onlyas a stalking-horse for another candidate or asone of a variety of candidates whose delegatescould collectively block Roosevelt.12

Garner himself was less interested in becomingpresident than in ensuring his tenure as Speakerby nominating a candidate who could capturethe White House with long enough coattails tosolidify the party’s majority in Congress. Roo-sevelt’s candidacy, he concluded, was the bestbet to unite and strengthen the party enough toachieve this goal. Garner therefore ignored theefforts of his promoters and refused to proclaimhimself a candidate, although he never actuallyordered them to desist. As a consequence, Gar-ner found himself holding a tiger by the tail atthe Democratic National Convention in Chicago,where he placed third on the first ballot behindRoosevelt and Smith. After three ballots, duringwhich Garner’s numbers increased marginally,Roosevelt’s strategists realized that without Gar-ner’s support they would never achieve the nec-

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essary two-thirds vote that the party’s century-old rule mandated for nomination. They fearedthey were about to lose the Mississippi delega-tion, which operated under a rule that gave alltwenty of its votes to the candidate favored bya simple majority of its members. To break theimpasse, Roosevelt campaign manager JamesFarley called Garner’s campaign manager, Rep-resentative Sam Rayburn, to a meeting in Mis-sissippi Senator Pat Harrison’s hotel room. Theyagreed to ask Garner to transfer his delegates toRoosevelt in return for the vice-presidentialnomination. Garner reluctantly agreed in orderto avoid the type of deadlocked convention thatin 1924 had produced the unsatisfying com-promise candidacy of John W. Davis and his los-ing campaign. Garner consoled himself with thethought that the apparently less demanding of-fice ‘‘might be a nice way for me to taper off mycareer.’’ 13

Roosevelt wanted to use Garner’s homespunappeal in extensive campaigning as a sort of‘‘Texas Al Smith.’’ But Garner refused, believingthat such efforts would be irrelevant, since he re-garded elections as merely a referendum on theincumbent’s performance. He made only twospeeches and was briefly employed as Roo-sevelt’s peacemaking mediator to Smith beforebeing dismissed to go home to Uvalde. There hewas reelected to his House seat on the same dayhe was elected vice president of the UnitedStates.14

Between the November 1932 election and theMarch 1933 inauguration, Roosevelt frequentlyphoned Garner in Uvalde to solicit his opinionsabout proposals for legislation and organizingthe new government. Although Garner offeredrelatively few legislative proposals, he did advo-cate government guarantees of banking deposits,an idea he promoted in Congress despite the ob-jections of the president-elect. Eventually, thegroundswell of congressional support for theplan won Roosevelt over, and he endorsed theVandenberg Amendment to the Glass-SteagallBanking Act, creating the Federal Deposit Insur-ance Corporation. In this case, Garner appearedto be ahead of the ‘‘New Deal’’ curve, belyinghis later reputation as an inflexible reactionary.

Inauguration Day in 1933 marked a ceremonialdemonstration of mutual affection and gratitudebetween the outgoing Speaker and his Housecolleagues as the procession of 400 House mem-bers and another 150 members-elect escortedGarner through the Capitol to the Senate cham-ber, where he thanked them with an emotionalfarewell speech in which he grieved, ‘‘my heartwill always be in the House.’’ 15

First Term—Supporting the President’s Program

In many respects, Garner’s new job was a stepdown. He called the vice-presidency ‘‘the sparetire on the automobile of government,’’ ‘‘a noman’s land somewhere between the legislativeand the executive branch,’’ and ‘‘not worth abucket of warm spit.’’ He bemoaned the fact thatthe vice president had ‘‘no arsenal from whichto draw power,’’ believing that only when men‘‘have friendship for him and faith in and respectfor his judgement can he be influential.’’ 16

In the Senate, the new vice president renewedpolitical alliances with over twenty of his formercolleagues who had moved there from theHouse, including such influential Democraticsenators as Arkansas’ Joe Robinson, Mis-sissippi’s Pat Harrison, Kentucky’s Alben Bar-kley, Virginia’s Carter Glass, South Carolina’sJames Byrnes, Texas’ Morris Sheppard, andMaryland’s Millard Tydings. These men wereproducts of the Wilsonian progressive New Free-dom movement, but by the 1930s some of themhad become the leaders of the party’s conserv-ative wing of southern and western Democrats,who held the key committee chairmanships. Gar-ner’s vice-presidency enhanced the influence ofthese men because he often sympathized withthem in their efforts to limit the liberalism of theNew Deal.17

Garner’s familiarity with the mechanics andpersonalities of Congress initially proved invalu-able to the new Roosevelt administration. Beforecommitting himself to the innovative experi-ments of his ‘‘Brains Trust,’’ Roosevelt asked forGarner’s realistic assessment of congressional re-action. After observing Garner in cabinet meet-ings, Roosevelt’s Postmaster General James Far-ley came ‘‘to look upon him as one of the trulygreat public men of this generation’’ because of

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Garner’s mastery of ‘‘such intricate problems asgovernment financing, taxation, tariffs, and reve-nue bills.’’ Once Roosevelt decided on a new pro-posal, Garner acted as his political general, per-sonally leading the White House troops as theystormed Capitol Hill.18

Most of Garner’s political generalship was ofthe guerrilla variety. He continued to host regu-lar Bureau of Education meetings in a room nearthe Senate floor. Darrell St. Claire, assistant sec-retary of the Senate, remembered that ‘‘the whis-key vapor would come flowing into the chamberfrom the formal office, along with the laughter.’’Garner would lure guests there from both thelegislative and the executive branches, ambush-ing them with bombardments of reason and liq-uor designed to ‘‘hypnotize, mesmerize and oth-erwise to get our friends to approve matters ina helpful way.’’ 19

Garner did not always agree with Roosevelt’spolicies during the ‘‘First One Hundred Days’’of the new administration, but he encouragedother reluctant lawmakers to follow him in sup-porting the president because it was ‘‘good poli-tics and good patriotism.’’ ‘‘Sometimes condi-tions in a country justify temporary violations ofdeep principles of government,’’ he reasoned toone congressman, ‘‘if ever there was such a timeit is now.’’ To another Democrat who was skep-tical of Roosevelt, ‘‘It doesn’t matter what kindof a fool you think he is; he’s your fool just aslong as he’s President and the leader of yourparty.’’ In a letter responding to criticism of theadministration from a Texas lumberman friendnamed John Henry Kirby he admitted, ‘‘Youcan’t do everything you want to and I can’t dohalf of what I would like to do. You can’t controleverybody you would like to and I am in a simi-lar fix.’’ 20

One historian of the vice-presidency rated Gar-ner as ‘‘a combination presiding officer, Cabinetofficer, personal counselor, legislative tactician,Cassandra and sounding board’’ for the adminis-tration and ‘‘undoubtedly one of the most pow-erful of the twentieth century Vice-Presi-dents.’’ 21 However, there were some tasks thatGarner stubbornly avoided, especially those thatwould involve publicity, which he felt was inap-propriate for a vice president. He refused to act

as a spokesman for the administration because,he told Roosevelt, ‘‘Any speech or statement Imade would be searched to find a difference be-tween you and me.’’ Instead, when the pressbegged him for comments, he declared, ‘‘I’m amember of a firm—the junior member. Go toheadquarters for the news.’’ Just as he had in1932, he begged out of campaigning publicly forhis party in the national and statewide elections.He also declined a radio station’s offer to giveweekly fifteen-minute addresses at $1,500 each,which he thought would be exploitative of hisoffice.22

Garner further absolved himself of the tradi-tional vice-presidential obligations to representthe administration at a variety of ceremonial andgala affairs. He adamantly protected his privacyand his personal time with his wife, refusingeven the accompaniment of the Secret Service. ‘‘Idon’t want those constables protecting me. Thereis not anybody crazy enough to shoot a Vice-President,’’ he declared.23

Thanks to the large Democratic majorities,Garner needed to cast a tie-breaking vote in theSenate on only two minor matters, but he stillmade his presence felt as presiding officer. Oneof the cagey veteran’s favorite parliamentarytricks was to ‘‘buggy-whip’’ bills through debatewith an unexpected staccato call of ‘‘There-being-no-objections-the-bill-is-passed’’ and asudden rap of the gavel. He also descended fre-quently from the dais to lobby the senators inattendance.24

The cantankerous Garner had little patiencewith the flamboyant senator from Louisiana,Huey Long. Long once asked Garner to requireall of his colleagues to stay and listen to his fili-buster on the National Recovery Act, to whichGarner retorted: ‘‘In the first place the Senatorfrom Louisiana should not ask that. In the secondplace, it would be cruel and unusual punish-ment.’’ Another time he remarked to humoristWill Rogers before the convening of a session,‘‘Will, sometimes I think the hearing in my rightear and the vision in my right eye isn’t as goodas it used to be. Long sits on my right. . . . I maynot be able to hear or see Huey this morning.’’ 25

Long antagonized Garner on another occasionby drawling: ‘‘Mr. President, I rise to make a par-

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liamentary inquiry. How should a Senator whois half in favor of this bill and half against it casthis vote?’’ Snapped an exasperated Garner: ‘‘Geta saw and saw yourself in two. That’s what youought to do anyway!’’ 26

Roosevelt’s first term was not without a fewpoints of contention between the president andhis vice president, foreshadowing their laterproblems. Garner had grave misgivings aboutthe National Recovery Act, diplomatic recogni-tion of Russia, and the embargo clause in theNeutrality Act. Roosevelt was somewhat dissat-isfied with Garner’s choices when the Senate au-thorized him to select one member to the LondonEconomic Conference in 1933 and three to theNye munitions industry investigation commit-tee. The president also suspected that Garner hadbotched his plan to slip the soldier’s bonus billof 1935 through Congress by leaking the strategyto his congressional friends.27

At the 1936 Democratic National Conventionin Pittsburgh, the cumbersome 1832 rule requir-ing that two-thirds of all delegates approve boththe presidential and vice-presidential nomina-tions was overturned in favor of a simple major-ity. The rules change enabled future Democraticpresidential nominees to choose their own run-ning mates, rather than accept the consensus ofthe convention. Initiated by Roosevelt, this re-form was passed largely in deference to his per-sonal prestige. Yet Garner’s presence on the tick-et also must have made the delegates feel com-fortable in doing so. It is difficult to imagine thesame rule passing in 1940, when Roosevelt of-fered as his running mate Henry Wallace, a lesspopular man within the party, who would notlikely have been approved under the formerrules.

Second Term—An Obstacle to Roosevelt

The second term of the Roosevelt-Garner ad-ministration saw the breakdown of the workingrelationship between the president and vicepresident. Garner objected to Roosevelt’s deter-mination to escalate the New Deal’s centralizingof the federal government, expanding govern-ment regulation and spending programs, and‘‘revolutionizing’’ the Democratic party.

The first issue over which the two men had atruly acrimonious dispute was Roosevelt’s laboragenda. Garner objected to such New Deal pro-labor legislation as the Wagner-Connery Act of1935 and the Black-Connery bill of 1937. Hefiercely opposed organized labor’s 1936 sit-downstrikes, considering them a violation of businessowners’ property rights. When the presidentproved reluctant to repudiate these tactics, Gar-ner secretly lobbied Congress in support of ef-forts by Texas Representative Martin Dies, Jr.,and South Carolina Senator James Byrnes to passcongressional resolutions condemning thestrikes. When Republican Senator Arthur Van-denberg of Michigan gave a ringing speech onthe floor of the Senate in support of Byrnes’amendment, Garner jumped down from his pre-siding seat to offer his congratulations.28

On February 5, 1937, Roosevelt called Garnerand a handful of Democratic congressional lead-ers to a meeting at the White House, where hestunned them with an audacious plan to reorga-nize the Supreme Court. Up to six new justiceswould be chosen by the president in an attemptto ensure many years of judicial approval for hisliberal legislative agenda.

Garner himself was not among those criticswho considered the proposal to be a threat to thejudiciary’s independence, believing that ‘‘noPresident can control that court.’’ However, hewas deeply concerned about the threat to partyunity posed by Roosevelt’s somewhat recklessmethod of handling such a controversial pro-posal. Garner complained that the president sentthe plan to Congress, ‘‘without notice after say-ing he had no legislative program other than out-lined . . . it was not in the party platform norwas it taken after consultation with Congres-sional leaders who would have to put it through.Party policy is not made by one man withoutconsultation with elected officials from anotherbranch of government.’’ 29

While never issuing a public statement againstthe bill, Garner demonstrated his disapprovalwith two symbolic gestures. First, he held hisnose and gave an emphatic ‘‘thumbs-down’’ signas the bill was introduced on the floor of the Sen-ate. Then, during the subsequent congressionaldebate, Garner suddenly departed from the cap-

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ital in June to return to Texas. It was the first timehe had left Washington while Congress was insession. Roosevelt was furious. ‘‘Why in hell didJack have to leave at this time for?’’ he fumed,‘‘This is a fine time to jump ship.’’ In responseto widespread speculation in the press about arift between the president and himself, Garner is-sued a public statement from Texas declaringthat his departure was in no way meant as a pro-test. ‘‘I asked the Boss,’’ he claimed, ‘‘and he toldme it was all right for me to go fishing.’’ Garnereventually returned to Washington, but thedeath of Senate Democratic Majority Leader Jo-seph Robinson in July 1937 mortally woundedRoosevelt’s court proposal. The faithful Robin-son had tenaciously led the fight for the bill onthe president’s behalf. After his passing, Roo-sevelt assigned that task to the unenthusiasticGarner. Meanwhile, Roosevelt’s intervention tohelp loyal New Dealer Alben Barkley succeedRobinson as majority leader provoked resent-ment from many senators, as well as the vicepresident. When the Judiciary Committee re-duced Roosevelt’s Court packing plan to thepoint where it became unrecognizable, Rooseveltwas convinced that Garner had collaboratedwith the opposition. For his part, Garner blamedRoosevelt for antagonizing the Senate by inter-fering in its internal affairs. Neither man com-pletely trusted the other again. 30

Roosevelt and Garner had fundamentally dif-ferent styles and philosophies of governing. Gar-ner was a strict traditionalist in his attitudes to-ward party affairs and a strict and unbendingconstructionist in his literal interpretations of theconstitutional doctrine of separation of powers.He was a staunch defender of the sovereignty ofthe legislature from undue interference by theexecutive. Citing the low-key approach of CalvinCoolidge as a model, he once stated ‘‘My beliefhas always been in Executive leadership, not Ex-ecutive rulership.’’ 31

Roosevelt, in contrast, used the powers of thepresidency to set the agenda of his party and thetone of the legislative debate. Under Roosevelt,the White House increasingly issued preemptivepublic announcements to marshal public supportto gain political leverage. Garner objected toRoosevelt that this threatened to ‘‘jeopardize the

legislative program by giving out premature in-formation.’’ He complained privately that Roo-sevelt wanted too much power. ‘‘He has changedin office. He does not delegate. His nature is [to]want to do everything himself.’’ 32

Purging the Party

By 1938, the president was sufficiently frus-trated by the conservative Democrats in Con-gress to attempt a ‘‘purge’’ of the party. He em-barked on a campaign through southern andwestern states to endorse liberal candidates inprimary challenges to such conservative incum-bents as Senators Millard Tydings of Maryland,Walter George of Georgia, and Guy Gillette ofIowa. Garner argued to Roosevelt that his inter-vention in local elections was an unfair invasionof a local politician’s ‘‘own constituency and hisown orbit’’ and could only provoke resentmentfrom voters who would regard it as ‘‘Presidentialarrogance.’’ He warned Roosevelt, ‘‘You can’tdefeat the Southern Democrats and if you defeatthe Democrats in the North you will get Repub-licans instead.’’ 33

This prediction proved true, as the Novemberelections resulted in the Republicans gainingeighty-one House and eight Senate seats. Al-though only one of Roosevelt’s primary electiontargets (Representative John J. O’Connor of NewYork City) lost, several of Garner’s close friendsin the Senate, including Connecticut’s AugustineLonergan, New Hampshire’s Fred Brown, andWisconsin’s Francis Duffey, were among theDemocratic casualties in the general elections.Roosevelt then further insulted conservatives byappointing to key administrative posts severalNew Dealers who had been defeated in the elec-tions. Garner lamented to Postmaster GeneralJames Farley that Roosevelt had ‘‘stirred up ahornet’s nest’’ by entering into the primaryfights. ‘‘There are now twenty men—Demo-crats—in the Senate who will vote against any-thing he wants.’’ 34 In 1939, Congress denied vir-tually everything Roosevelt requested, includingan undistributed profits tax, government reorga-nization, increased funding for the WorksProgress Administration, and revision of theneutrality laws. Convinced that the crisis of thedepression was essentially over and that contin-

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ued relief programs threatened to create a com-placently dependent lower class, Garner consid-ered it time to roll back some of the regulatorylegislation and ‘‘pump-priming’’ expendituresthat had been passed for emergency relief duringthe first term.35

Privately, Garner confided his suspicions ofseveral ardent New Dealers in the Roosevelt‘‘Brains Trust.’’ ‘‘I am not worried about theBoss. It’s the people around him. I have no con-fidence in them.’’ Another time Garner claimed,‘‘I have more honest affection for him [Roo-sevelt] in my little finger that they have in theirwhole bodies.’’ This hostility was mutual. TheNew Dealers were contemptuous of Garner’sconservatism and his occasionally coarse behav-ior and disdained his somewhat shady style ofold-fashioned, back-room horse trading. Identi-fying Garner as a convenient scapegoat for Roo-sevelt’s frustrations in guiding his agendathrough Congress, liberals within the adminis-tration launched assaults to discredit his char-acter. Harold Ickes, writing in a June 1939 issueof Look magazine, accused Garner of ‘‘a traitor-ous knifing in the back of the commander inchief.’’ 36

The coming 1940 presidential election sparkedthe final break. Garner claimed that at the inau-guration ceremony in 1937 he and the presidenthad taken a mutual pledge to retire at the endof that term. As tumultuous events unfoldedabroad, however, it became increasingly appar-ent that Roosevelt intended to run for an unprec-edented third term, arguing that the volatility ofthe international situation made his presenceindispensable.37

In December of 1939, Garner announced that,while he would not actively campaign, he wouldnot reject the presidential nomination if he wereoffered it at the 1940 convention, regardless ofwhether Roosevelt chose to retire or run again.He thus became the first vice president of themodern era to challenge his own chief executivefor the office. Garner admitted that his passivecandidacy was hopeless if Roosevelt really want-ed to be reelected and that he would be happyto retire to Uvalde. But his opposition to a thirdterm motivated him to join the ‘‘Stop Roosevelt’’movement. He considered himself the only can-

didate with a chance of attracting enough sup-port to convince the president to retire.

During the last two years of Roosevelt’s secondterm, Garner was the consistent frontrunneramong the possible successors to Roosevelt inpublic opinion polls. Although the public rarelygot to observe Jack Garner’s actions directly,what they did know about him—or at least whatthey thought they knew—captured their imagi-nation. His wheeler-dealer image, self-madewealth, and free-market convictions made him asymbol of the emerging business age. At thesame time, as a rugged, individualistic frontiers-man, he was a nostalgic throwback to a vanish-ing age, a reassuringly simple figure in an in-creasingly complex world. It was obvious to allthat ‘‘Cactus Jack’’ had earned his nickname be-cause he was a hardy survivor with a tough hide,stumpy stature, prickly disposition, and deepTexas roots.

Conservative congressmen praised Garner totheir favorite reporters. The press, in turn, wasusually eager to carry ‘‘good copy’’ about thelegendary cowboy vice president who rode herdon Washington and plotted in the cloakrooms.Complained one contemporary critic, ‘‘the news-paper men have never lost an opportunity toapotheosize his mediocrity.’’ Despite this build-up, Roosevelt correctly doubted that Garner pos-sessed enough ambition or standing to mount aserious challenge in 1940. Yet Garner believedRoosevelt resented the press attention that wasoften lavished on his vice president. PostmasterGeneral James Farley noted that Roosevelt some-times seemed quick to blame Garner for the ad-ministration’s legislative failures and that thepresident ‘‘did not like to see the trees grow tootall around him.’’ 38

Hitler’s offensive across Western Europe in1940 and the patriotic rallying around the presi-dent that the crisis inspired effectively precludedany challenge to Roosevelt’s nomination. He wasrenominated on the first ballot at the DemocraticNational Convention in Chicago with the votesof 946 delegates. Farley and Garner were far be-hind with 72 and 61 votes, respectively. Not onlydid Garner not campaign for Roosevelt, he couldnot even bring himself to vote in the 1940 elec-tion. He went home to Uvalde, where he lived

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in retirement until his death at the age of ninety-eight twenty-seven years later.

Conclusion

Years after his retirement from politics, Garnermused that the country might have benefitedmore had he retained the speakership and usedit to check the growth of Franklin Roosevelt’sambitions and powers in much the way SpeakerCannon had restrained Theodore Roosevelt. ‘‘Ithink I could have talked him out of a lot ofthings. That could have been my contribution. Iwould have had no desire to dictate his deci-sions,’’ Garner told Bascom Timmons, his news-paper correspondent biographer, ‘‘but therewould have been times when I would have toldhim what he could not do.’’ 39 In a 1957 inter-view, Garner lamented, ‘‘If I hadn’t been nomi-nated for Vice President, I might still be speakertoday.’’ This claim does not seem farfetched,given Garner’s relish for the position, his robusthealth, and the preservation of a Democratic ma-jority in the House for all but two congressesduring the rest of his long life.40

The memory of his sour second term with Gar-ner encouraged Roosevelt to redefine drasticallywhat he was looking for in a vice president in1940. Henry Agard Wallace was in many waysthe antithesis of Garner. As vice president, Wal-lace was without either the inclination or accessto make his own clandestine alliances and dealsthat might undermine the president’s authority.While Garner was a parochial thinker with isola-tionist convictions, Wallace was fascinated withforeign affairs and peoples and entertained ideasabout how Americans could help solve their

problems. An administrator rather than a politi-cian like Garner, Wallace lacked legislative expe-rience and extensive party ties. To some degree,Wallace resembled the corporate vice presidentthat Roosevelt had advocated in 1920, who couldhandle ‘‘matters of detail.’’ 41

The vice-presidency of John Nance Garnerstands as a watershed in the evolution of the of-fice. His first term marked the apex of the par-liamentarian as vice president; his second termrepresented its nadir. Perhaps no other vicepresident had as much impact, both positive andnegative, on the legislative efforts of his adminis-tration. Garner was a specialist in an office thatwould soon require generalists. He was the lastvice president whose duties were primarily leg-islative. Garner was also the last of the largelysilent, Washington-based vice presidents beforethe coming age of modern telecommunicationsand travel enabled future vice presidents to as-sume higher profiles as representatives of theiradministrations, as wide-ranging campaigners,public spokesmen, and foreign emissaries.42

During his first term, Garner may have madea more valuable and positive contribution to hisadministration than any of his predecessors, buthis actions in the second term did more to under-mine the administration than those of any vicepresident since John C. Calhoun. Chosen to bal-ance the ticket in 1932, Garner felt obligated touse all of the formal and informal powers of hisoffice to protect the interests of the party’s con-servative wing that had, against his betterjudgment, moved him from Speaker to vicepresident.

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NOTES1 Franklin D. Roosevelt, ‘‘Can the Vice President Be Use-

ful?’’ Saturday Evening Post 193 (October 16, 1920): 8. Roo-sevelt also wrote that the very ambiguity of the office placedits occupant in a unique position to serve as an ‘‘additionalset of eyes and ears’’ and as ‘‘a kind of roving commission’’to study the fundamental structural problems in govern-ment, ‘‘especially where the jurisdiction or control does notrest in one department but partly in one and partly in oth-ers.’’ By the time Roosevelt finally attempted to realize hislongtime ambition to radically reorganize the federal gov-ernment in 1937, however, he chose a commission of acad-emicians rather than his vice president to study the matterand make recommendations. See Richard Polenberg, Reor-ganizing Roosevelt’s Government, 1936–1939 (Cambridge,MA, 1966).

2 Attempts to solve the mysteries of Garner’s career arenot helped by the fact that he burned all of his personalpapers soon after retiring from Washington. ‘‘I didn’t wantto go through the files myself,’’ he explained. ‘‘I needed allmy own energies for present activities.’’ Bascom N.Timmons, Garner of Texas: A Personal History (New York,1948), p. 286. An excellent bibliography of sources on Gar-ner can be found in Donald R. Kennon, The Speakers of theU.S. House of Representatives: A Bibliography, 1789–1984 (Bal-timore, 1986), pp. 226–36.

3 See Mrs. John N. [Marietta] Garner, ‘‘30 Years of Dicta-tion,’’ Good Housekeeping 94 (May 1932): 28.

4 For an account of Garner’s maneuvers for position andinfluence within his party, see Alex Arnett, ‘‘Garner versusKitchin: A Study of Craft and Statecraft’’ in Vera Largent,ed., The Walter Clinton Jackson Essays in the Social Sciences(Chapel Hill, NC, 1942), pp. 133–45; Ronald M. Peters, Jr.,The American Speakership: The Office in Historical Perspective(Baltimore, 1990), p. 111.

5 D. B. Hardeman and Donald C. Bacon, Rayburn: A Biog-raphy (Austin, TX, 1987), pp. 114, 303; Timmons, p. 122.

6 Timmons, pp. 110, 293.7 The 14 House members who died between the Novem-

ber 4, 1930, elections and the December 7, 1931, conveningof the 72nd Congress were Ernest Ackerman (R-NJ), JamesAswell (D-LA), Henry Cooper (R-WI), Charles Edwards (D-GA), Fletcher Hale (R-NH), George Graham (R-PA), Nich-olas Longworth (R-OH), Samuel Major (D-MO), CharlesMooney (D-OH), David O’Connell (D-NY), MatthewO’Malley (D-NY), John Quayle (D-NY), Bird Vincent (R-MI), and Harry Wurzbach (R-TX).

8 Hardeman and Bacon, pp. 116, 346; Allan AndrewMichie, Dixie Demagogues (New York, 1939), p. 25.

9 For highly critical views of Garner’s speakership seeGeorge Milburn, ‘‘The Statesmanship of Mr. Garner,’’ Harp-er’s Magazine (November 1932), pp. 669–82; Jordan A.Schwarz, ‘‘John Nance Garner and the Sales Tax Rebellion

of 1932,’’ Journal of Southern History 30 (May 1964): 162–80;and Jordan A. Schwarz, The Interregnum of Despair: Hoover,Congress and the Depression (Urbana, IL, 1970), chapter 5.

10 Milburn, p. 679.11 Roosevelt waited until February 2, 1932, to announce

his own repudiation of the League of Nations, after Hearsthad endorsed Garner. Irving G. Williams, The Rise of the VicePresidency (Washington, DC, 1956), p. 150.

12 Schwarz, ‘‘John Nance Garner and the Sales Tax Rebel-lion of 1932,’’ p. 165; Douglas Craig, After Wilson: The Strug-gle for the Democratic Party, 1920–1934 (Chapel Hill, NC,1992), p. 244.

13 Hardeman and Bacon, pp. 137–38; David Robertson, Slyand Able: A Political Biography of James F. Byrnes (New York,1994), pp. 138–40.

14 Williams, p. 152.15 Timmons, p. 174.16 Jules Witcover, Crapshoot: Rolling the Dice on the Vice

Presidency (New York, 1992), p. 400; Timmons, pp. 176, 178.17 See James Patterson, Congressional Conservatism and the

New Deal (Lexington, KY, 1967).18 James A. Farley, Jim Farley’s Story: The Roosevelt Years

(New York, 1948) pp. 91, 163; James A. Farley, Behind theBallots: The Personal History of a Politician (New York, 1973).

19 Darrell St. Claire, Assistant Secretary of the Senate, OralHistory Interviews, December 1976-April 1978 (U.S. SenateHistorical Office, Washington, DC); John Michael Romano,‘‘The Emergence of John Nance Garner as a Figure in Amer-ican National Politics, 1924–1941,’’ (Ph.D. dissertation, St.John’s University, 1974), p. 231.

20 Timmons, pp. 182, 183; Patterson, p. 40; Michie, p. 39.21 Williams, pp. 159, 175.22 Timmons, pp. 140, 202; U.S. News and World Report, No-

vember 21, 1958, p. 107.23 Timmons, p. 208.24 Besides presiding regularly over the Senate, he also fre-

quented the Senate Democrats’ party conferences. See Ro-mano, pp. 185, 212.

25 Timmons, p. 186. In fact, Garner admitted in an inter-view in U.S. News and World Report, November 21, 1958, pp.101–2, that he had been diagnosed as permanently hard ofhearing in his left ear sometime during the Taft administra-tion but had managed to keep the fact a secret throughouthis career.

26 Paul Boller, Congressional Anecdotes (New York, 1991),p. 255.

27 Romano, pp. 219, 268; Farley, Jim Farley’s Story, p. 54.28 Patterson, p. 137.29 Timmons, pp. 219, 225.30 Farley, Jim Farley’s Story, p. 84; Henry M. Hyde, ‘‘White

House No-Man,’’ Saturday Evening Post 25 (June 25, 1938):23.

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31 Timmons, pp. 291–92.32 Ibid., pp. 228, 255.33 Ibid., pp. 234–35.34 Farley, p. 137.35 Romano, p. 291; Timmons, pp. 291–92.36 Farley, Jim Farley’s Story, p. 206; Ickes quoted in Ro-

mano, p. 99.37 See Bernard Donahoe, Private Plans and Public Dangers

(South Bend, IN, 1965).38 Milburn, p. 669; Farley, Jim Farley’s Story, pp. 230, 168,

172, 70.39 Timmons, p. 279.40 U.S. News and World Report, March 8, 1957, p. 68. See

also U.S. News and World Report, November, 21, 1958, pp.98–105, and January 16, 1967, pp. 44–45. Garner’s greatestcontribution to the office of the Speaker may have occurred

during his vice-presidency, when in 1936 he endorsed hislongtime apprentice Sam Rayburn for House majority lead-er, the stepping stone to his speakership.

41 Garner had a low opinion of his successor, whom heconsidered ‘‘a dangerous character . . . not because he’s badat heart, but because he doesn’t know where he’s going.’’Farley, Jim Farley’s Story, p. 205.

42 Ironically, the parochial Garner became the first vicepresident to be sent abroad. In 1935, he led a delegation tothe Far East, although he merely silently attended cere-monies as an official representative while Secretary of WarGeorge H. Dern spoke for the president. Later that year,Garner went to Mexico as part of the ‘‘Good Neighbor’’ pol-icy and gave a speech on the Laredo Bridge. Williams, p.162.

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Chapter 33

HENRY AGARD WALLACE1941–1945

HENRY A. WALLACE

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Chapter 33

HENRY AGARD WALLACE33d Vice President: 1941–1945

No matter what he does, it is always going to seem faintly ridiculous, and no matter how he acts,it is always going to seem faintly pathetic—at least to the cold-eyed judgments of the Hill.

—ALLEN DRURY

Prefaced by the stormy Democratic nominat-ing convention of 1940, the vice-presidency ofHenry A. Wallace concluded with the equallytempestuous 1944 convention. In 1940, whenVice President John Nance Garner broke withPresident Franklin D. Roosevelt and withdrew toTexas, Roosevelt designated Wallace as his run-ning mate over the considerable objection ofmany convention delegates. Four years later, in1944, Roosevelt jettisoned Wallace in favor ofHarry S. Truman, who then succeeded to thepresidency following Roosevelt’s death. Duringhis single term, Henry Wallace became more in-volved in administrative and foreign policy mat-ters than any of his predecessors. Althoughwidely judged a failure as vice president, Wal-lace was in many ways a forerunner of the mod-ern vice presidents, who often serve as executiveassistant and international emissary for thepresident.

As Roosevelt planned to run for a third termin 1940, he wanted to revolutionize the role ofthe vice president and make the office into an‘‘additional set of eyes and ears.’’ He soughtsomeone who could handle administrative ques-tions and large national policies without beinga member of the cabinet. As an active secretaryof agriculture and a committed New Dealer,Henry Wallace seemed the ideal person for thejob. But Wallace’s visionary social liberalism, hismysticism, his curiously shy and introspectivepersonal demeanor, and his political insensitiv-

ity, all prevented him from gathering the supportfrom congressional leaders that would have en-abled him to sustain a successful political careerin Washington. Because few senators came toknow Wallace personally, they often judged hischaracter on the basis of his poorly deliveredspeeches and unusual appearance. JournalistAllen Drury, who observed the vice presidentoften from the Senate press gallery, describedWallace as follows: ‘‘A shock of silver-grayinghair sweeps over to the right of his head in agreat shaggy arc. He looks like a hayseed, talkslike a prophet, and acts like an embarassedschoolboy.’’ Drury recorded sympathetically inhis diary that he found it difficult to ‘‘put intoexact words the combination of feelings hearouses. The man’s integrity and his idealismand his sainted other-worldliness are never inquestion; it’s just the problem of translating theminto everyday language and making them jibewith his shy, embarrassed, uncomfortable good-fellowship that is so difficult.’’ Drury consideredHenry Wallace doomed by fate. ‘‘No matterwhat he does, it is always going to seem faintlyridiculous, and no matter how he acts, it is al-ways going to seem faintly pathetic—at least tothe cold-eyed judgments of the Hill.’’ 1

Youth

Henry A. Wallace was born on October 7, 1888,near the town of Orient, Iowa, an oddly appro-priate location for someone who would become

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so fascinated with oriental philosophy. Wallacewas also deeply influenced by Iowa’s rural cul-ture. The agrarian lifestyle and communal soci-ety of turn-of-the-century Iowa formed his val-ues, especially the idealism for which he is re-membered. As a student at Iowa State Collegehe studied plant genetics and crossbreeding. Hediscovered and patented a successful strain ofcorn that produced a greater yield while resistingdisease better than normal corn. This triumph al-lowed the young Wallace to found his own busi-ness to manufacture and distribute the plants, aventure that gave him valuable experience forhis later career in public service.

The future vice president was actually thethird Henry Wallace. The first, his grandfather,had been a Presbyterian preacher turned farmer,who became editor of the Iowa Homestead andpublisher of Wallace’s Farmer. These heavily readagricultural journals spread the Wallace nameover the Iowa countryside and throughout therural Midwest. The vice president’s father,Henry Cantwell Wallace, served as secretary ofagriculture in the administrations of presidentsWarren G. Harding and Calvin Coolidge from1921 until his death in 1924. Henry Agard Wal-lace took over as publisher of the family journalwhen his father went to Washington, continuingin that role until he himself moved to Washing-ton as secretary of agriculture in 1933.2

The Wallaces had traditionally been a Repub-lican family, but the shock of the Great Depres-sion and its impact on rural America forcedHenry A. Wallace to reevaluate his political af-filiations. Disgruntled by the Coolidge and Hoo-ver agricultural policies, Wallace threw his sup-port to the Democrats. In 1932, Wallace sup-ported Franklin Roosevelt, who in turn selectedWallace as his secretary of agriculture.

Secretary of Agriculture

An active secretary of agriculture, Wallacetook to heart the needs and fears of his agricul-tural constituents. In addition to helping Amer-ican farmers sustain themselves during the eco-nomic downturn, his Department of Agricultureoversaw the creation and development of thefood stamp and school lunch programs thatgreatly aided urban America. In 1934, Wallace

published a book about the economic turbulenceof the depression and its repercussions on farm-ers, which he titled New Frontiers. In it Wallaceoutlined the visionary politics that he employedin his subsequent writings and speeches. Laterobservers would compare both the title and thethemes of this book with the ideas espoused byJohn F. Kennedy.3

Drastic times called for drastic measures. Afirm supporter of government economic inter-vention, Wallace vigorously implemented thecontroversial measures of the Agricultural Ad-justment Act of 1933. Never before in peacetime,had the federal government sought to regulateproduction in American farming, with govern-ment planning designed to battle overproduc-tion and low prices. Additionally, Wallace of-fered hog and cotton farmers a single oppor-tunity to improve their stagnating markets byploughing under ten million acres of cotton andslaughtering six million pigs. For these losses,the government would issue relief checks total-ling millions of dollars. Although it earned himthe nickname ‘‘The Greatest Butcher in Christen-dom,’’ the program essentially worked, and themarket experienced a 50-percent rise in prices.Wallace scorned those who ridiculed his planswithout considering the logic behind them, ob-serving, ‘‘Perhaps they think that farmers shouldrun a sort of old-folks home for hogs.’’ 4

Having proved himself an effective, energeticcabinet member, Wallace remained in officethrough Roosevelt’s first two terms. By 1940,with Europe plunged into war, there was talk ofan unprecedented third term, and Wallace wasamong those who endorsed the president’s re-election. Because Vice President John Nance Gar-ner, who aspired to the presidency himself,strongly opposed a third term, Roosevelt soughta new running mate for the 1940 election oncehe made the decision to run. FDR’s choice ofWallace marked a turning point in the history ofthe vice-presidency. Never before had the presi-dent so openly made the selection. In the past,the main function of a vice president was usuallyto balance the ticket, to unite the party, and topull in voters not normally drawn by the presi-dential candidate himself, with comparativelylittle attention paid to the compatibility of the

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two men. Presidential candidates generally ac-ceded to the wishes of their party conventionsin completing the ticket.

The 1940 Election

The Republicans in 1940 had chosen a dynamicdarkhorse candidate for president, Wendell Will-kie, and to balance the ticket the convention hadselected the Republican Senate minority leader,Charles McNary of Oregon. During the 1920s,McNary had chaired the Senate AgricultureCommittee and had won national attention, par-ticularly in agricultural areas, for his sponsorshipof the McNary-Haugen bills. Vetoed by presi-dents Coolidge and Hoover, these bills wereforerunners of the New Deal’s agricultural pro-gram. Seeking to neutralize McNary’s popularityin the farm belt, FDR decided to make his sec-retary of agriculture his vice president. Rooseveltalso felt confident that, if anything happened tohim, Wallace would vigorously pursue the lib-eral objectives of the New Deal. Democratic con-vention delegates were furious, however, sincethey considered the former Republican Wallaceas an outsider, lacking any of the qualities of atypical politician. When warned that the dele-gates might revolt, Roosevelt made it clear that‘‘they will go for Wallace or I won’t run, and youcan jolly well tell them so.’’ Party leaders reluc-tantly capitulated to the president’s demand andnominated Wallace, but the convention’s moodwas so sour that Wallace decided not to makean acceptance speech.5

Shortly after Wallace became the vice-presi-dential candidate, stories circulated about his re-ligious beliefs. Having abandoned the Calvinismof his youth, he had studied Catholicism, Juda-ism, Buddhism, Islam, Zoroastrianism, andChristian Science, finally settling into the Epis-copal Church in Washington. But Wallace hadalso fallen under the influence of a Russian-born‘‘guru’’ named Nicholas Roerich. During the1930s, Wallace had written a series of letters toone of Roerich’s associates, detailing his spiritualbeliefs and his candid observations about con-temporary political leaders. These so-called‘‘guru letters’’ fell into the hands of Republicans,who considered releasing them to embarrassWallace during the campaign. Democrats coun-

tered with evidence that presidential candidateWillkie had carried on an extramarital affair. Al-though the two parties eventually agreed to aquid pro quo that suppressed both the ‘‘guru let-ters’’ and the Willkie affair, the news shook someof Roosevelt’s confidence in his running mate.Nonetheless, the Democratic team swept theelection.6

Wartime Vice President

When he first took office, Wallace found thejob of vice president untaxing. During the earlymonths of his tenure, he had more time for tennisthan ever before, but as the United States movedcloser to war the vice president began to assumeunprecedented duties, being assigned executivetasks to allow Roosevelt more freedom to dealwith international affairs. One of Wallace’s biog-raphers, Richard Walton, has asserted that‘‘never before, nor since, has a Vice Presidenthad so much direct executive authority.’’ Othersreferred to him as the first ‘‘working’’ vice presi-dent. Named a member of FDR’s secret ‘‘warcabinet,’’ Wallace chaired the Economic DefenseBoard, the Supply Priorities and AllocationsBoard, and the Board of Economic Warfare. Jour-nalists began to refer to him as ‘‘Mr. AssistantPresident.’’ 7

Divided into an Office of Imports, Office of Ex-ports, and Office of War Analysis, the Board ofEconomic Warfare (BEW) supported the Alliedwar effort through procurement of strategic re-sources. As chairman, Wallace freed himself todeal with long-term policy matters by delegatingthe day-to-day management of the BEW to MiloPerkins, an associate from the Agriculture De-partment. Like many special boards created byPresident Roosevelt, the BEW came in for itsshare of interdepartmental bickering, rivalries,and conflicts of authority. Although Rooseveltexpressly forbade federal government agenciesto publicly criticize each other during the war,Wallace, after eight years of fighting within thecabinet, failed to recognize that the presidentwas serious about this order.8 Wallace’s diarytraces his fight to gain greater autonomy for theBEW and his many clashes with cabinet officerslike Secretary of State Cordell Hull and Secretaryof Commerce Jesse Jones. These established bu-

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reaucrats did not relish the thought of an activistvice president assuming responsibilities thattheir departments normally held. Wallace be-lieved that the wartime emergency requireddrastic action to deal with problems like rubbershortages, while Jones and Hull believed that ex-isting mechanisms could solve even wartime de-mands. Wallace’s assertion of his authority topurchase materiel vital to the war effort spawnedconspicuous political battles.9

When Roosevelt signed an executive order inApril 1942 allowing the BEW to negotiate con-tracts with foreign governments, Secretary Hullsaw it as an attempt to create a second Depart-ment of State. Wallace’s goals for social justiceran against the grain of Hull’s State Departmentpolicies. For instance, Wallace was firmly con-vinced that the Latin American rubber supplycould be increased dramatically if the livingstandards of that region’s rubber workers wereraised to reduce the incidence of chronic mal-nutrition and malaria. He attempted to force ne-gotiated contracts to provide for socially bene-ficial improvements to the Latin American infra-structure, with the United States funding half thecost of these programs. Wallace’s acquisition ofexecutive authority had been unpopular with therank and file in Congress, and most memberssupported Hull, a former senator, in his attackson the BEW and its chairman. A growing consen-sus that Wallace had pushed a too active pro-gram in Latin America caused Roosevelt to issueanother executive order, which preserved theState Department’s monopoly on negotiationswith foreign governments, a blow aimed directlyat Wallace’s authority.10

The BEW controversy climaxed in February1943, when Wallace tried to place the purchasingauthority of the Reconstruction Finance Corpora-tion (RFC) under the BEW’s jurisdiction. An in-furiated Commerce Secretary Jesse Jones roundlydenounced what he considered Wallace’s arro-gant action. When Wallace retaliated by accusingJones of delaying shipments of quinine to ma-rines dying of malaria, the imbroglio became toohot for Roosevelt to ignore. The embattled vicepresident wrote to the president, asking for ei-ther complete vindication for his actions in thematter or relief of his duties as chairman of the

BEW. Roosevelt responded on July 15, 1943, bydissolving the BEW and reconstituting its func-tion under a new Foreign Economic Administra-tion, headed by Leo Crowley, a known supporterof Jones. By revealing the strained relations be-tween the president and vice president, the ordersubstantially weakened Wallace’s position inWashington politics. Until then, Wallace hadbeen ‘‘the ideal and inspiration of every littleworld-planner in Washington,’’ wrote the com-mentator Raymond Moley. ‘‘After Rooseveltabolished the BEW . . . it was clear to them thatthey must forsake their high priest and followthe president.’’ 11

As Senate President

In spite of his earlier success as agriculture sec-retary, Wallace demonstrated acute political in-sensitivity in his failure at BEW. ‘‘I did not lookon myself as very much of a politician,’’ he said,revealingly. Wallace disliked the formalities andsuperficialities of the political world, particularlyas practiced on Capitol Hill, and he lacked thesmall-talk abilities critical in a system so depend-ent on unofficial meetings and social politics.Senate staff member Richard Riedel judged Wal-lace ‘‘the least congressional of all the Vice Presi-dents’’ and recorded that he possessed ‘‘none ofthe political talents that enable public figures tomingle with and influence each other.’’ 12

Wallace never fit into the Senate’s club-like at-mosphere, in part because he refused to join theclub. One of his first acts as president of the Sen-ate was to close down the private bar that ‘‘Cac-tus Jack’’ Garner had maintained to entertainsenators in his office—Wallace himself neitherdrank nor smoked. Later, when Wallace hit ahome run during a congressional baseball game,a senator observed that it clearly ‘‘furnishedmore pleasure [for him] than any political con-test.’’ The Spartan, health-conscious Wallacechose to demonstrate his physical prowess overthe men who held him at a political arm’s length.During a friendly boxing match, he knocked outLouisiana Senator Allen Ellender, who had beenless than supportive of Wallace’s vice-presidency.13

As the Senate’s presiding officer, Wallacefound his duties monotonous and boring. He

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disdained the senators’ right of unlimited debateand slumped down ‘‘unceremoniously’’ in thepresiding officer’s chair during the proceedings.When he tried to intervene in debate, the sen-ators slapped him down. Wallace once sufferedan embarrassing browbeating from Tennessee’scrusty Kenneth McKellar, who had been arguingover the rules of the Senate for several hours.When Wallace, from the chair, declared this ti-rade a ‘‘parliamentary trick,’’ McKellar launchedinto an attack on the presiding officer and ulti-mately forced Wallace to apologize for his im-petuous insult. Left only with his constitutionalrole of breaking tie votes, Wallace was able tocast only four votes—the most satisfying beingto prevent the Senate from terminating the Civil-ian Conservation Corps.14

A Roving Vice President

It soon became clear that Wallace’s aspirationslay beyond the Senate chamber. More interestedin the issues of the world, he became the first vicepresident to take an active role in foreign policy,serving as the president’s personal ambassador.Wallace made his first trip in late 1940, whenRoosevelt sent him to the inauguration of Mexi-can President Camacho, whose disputed electionthreatened Mexican political stability and U.S.access to Mexican trade. Having studied the lan-guage, Wallace eagerly delivered a speech inSpanish to the crowd gathered at the Mexicancapital—an effort that won him thunderous ap-plause. In 1943 Wallace made an official tour ofCosta Rica, Panama, Chile, Bolivia, Peru, Ecua-dor, and Colombia. At every stop he took painsto meet the common people and converse withthem in their native tongue. He traveled withouta large entourage and refused to accept costlyceremonial gifts. The images of bitter sufferingand poverty that he encountered in these under-developed countries convinced Wallace of theneed for U.S. humanitarian aid and strengthenedhis resolve to struggle for a lasting postwarpeace.15

In 1944 the president asked Wallace to makean even more ambitious and dangerous trip toChina and the Soviet Union. Historians continueto speculate on whether Roosevelt expected Wal-lace to accomplish anything diplomatically or

simply wanted the vice president out of thecountry while preparing to dump him from theDemocratic ticket. Whatever was at stake, Wal-lace felt exuberant and optimistic about the pos-sibilities of his venture. FDR asked him to fostergreater cooperation between Chiang Kai-shekand the Communist forces in China and to prodthe Nationalists into stepping up their campaignagainst the Japanese.16

Arriving in Siberia, Wallace tried again to meetthe indigenous population as he had in LatinAmerica. Even though he spoke little Russianand had to use an interpreter, he insisted on de-livering an address in Russian at Irkutsk. He vis-ited the collective farms in several Siberian vil-lages and seemed most impressed with their pro-ductivity. These observations planted the seedsof Wallace’s respectful impression of the SovietUnion. Later analysis revealed that his visit hadbeen considerably more orchestrated by the So-viets than Wallace or the rest of his party hadrealized. Wallace saw the famous Soviet Acad-emy of Science but not the advanced atomic ex-periments being conducted there. Similarly, hewas never taken to visit the nearby forced-laborcamps and consequently gained a distorted viewof Soviet life.17

After touring Russia, Wallace’s modest entou-rage of diplomats arrived in Chungking to begintheir most difficult and least successful task—trying to solve China’s major wartime problems.Unprepared for the sad state of Chiang Kai-shek’s regime, Wallace concluded that coopera-tion between the Nationalists and Communistswould be nearly impossible. Nevertheless, hemanaged to negotiate an agreement by whichU.S. forces were to enter northern China to setup weather stations to aid in bombing raidsagainst the Japanese. Although the publicityfrom Wallace’s first two goodwill tours had beenhighly positive and had helped him to redefinethe vice president’s role in foreign relations, hisfinal journey gravely damaged his political ca-reer.18

Wallace’s favorable view of the Soviet Unionbecame increasingly pronounced and morewidely discussed. Shortly before his marathontour of Russia and China, Wallace wrote an arti-cle for the New York Times, called ‘‘The Dangers

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of American Fascism,’’ in which he condemnedthe rising tide of anti-Soviet propaganda. Seek-ing to break down the wall of ignorance betweenthe Russian and American cultures, he antici-pated that the two peoples would eventuallyfind they shared the same hopes and fears andcould live together in friendship. His visit to Rus-sia, and the warm welcome he received there,further softened his views. Wallace comparedthe Soviet citizens he visited in Siberia with thefarm families of the Midwest whom he hadknown as a boy. His warm regard for the SovietUnion earned him a liberal identity during thewar and a heretical image during the cold warthat followed.19

Wallace’s Idealism

Wallace envisioned a postwar era governed byan international peacekeeping force and an inter-national court, rather than through balance-of-power politics. His plan also called for an endto European imperialism in Asia and Africa. Inan address to the Free World Association on May8, 1942, Wallace outlined his ‘‘Century of theCommon Man,’’ in which he endorsed federalsupport for education and collective health carefor workers. These proposals would have re-quired continuing the initiatives of the New Dealera that Wallace so admired, but the administra-tion lacked sufficient political capital to promotean expanded program of domestic social welfare,because of the enhanced executive war powersadopted by the president. More than the NewDeal inspired Henry Wallace. Christian moralityand the social gospel formed the fundamental in-spiration behind his speeches. As a product ofProtestant liberalism, he adhered to the prin-ciples of the Sermon on the Mount and saw him-self as bound to accomplish the work of theLord.20

President Roosevelt admired and sought toharness his vice president’s idealistic liberalism,while at the same time trying to teach him howthe political machinery of Washington really op-erated. Roosevelt thought that Wallace was a fewyears ahead of his time and expected that hisideas would eventually be realized. Yet Wal-lace’s inability to grasp Washington politics ledto a marked decline in the vice president’s stat-

ure on Capitol Hill in the final year of his tenure.Growing hostility between the executive branchand the conservatively oriented Congress finallyconvinced FDR that Wallace had become an ex-pensive political liability.

The 1944 Election

As the 1944 elections approached, four influen-tial Democrats decided to ensure that Wallacewas not nominated in the next Democratic con-vention. Terming themselves the ‘‘Conspiracy ofthe Pure in Heart,’’ the four consisted of Demo-cratic party chairman Robert Hannegan, Post-master General Frank Walker, New York Demo-cratic party chief Ed Flynn, and Democratic partytreasurer Edwin Pauley. The Democratic leader-ship had unsuccessfully opposed Wallace in the1940 nomination convention, but this time theyhad the advantage of Roosevelt’s declininghealth and his increasing preoccupation withwartime diplomacy.21

Roosevelt himself appears to have grown dis-satisfied with the vice president’s record. Wal-lace had not proved himself to be the politicalpartner Roosevelt had hoped he would become.The president’s motivation in sending Wallaceoverseas at a critical political time at home maytherefore have been devious. The Asian journeyallowed Wallace no time to campaign and madehim vulnerable to political attack. When Wallacereturned to Washington’s National Airport, hefaced reporters who asked if he planned to with-draw from the race. The vice president replied,‘‘I am seeing the president at 4:30. I have a reportto make on a mission to China. I do not wantto talk politics.’’

But Wallace did try to make a compelling casethat he should continue as FDR’s running mate,indicating that he had the support of labor lead-ers and rank and file Democrats.22 In that con-versation on July 11, Roosevelt appeared sympa-thetic to keeping Wallace on the team. Wallaceasked the president to communicate his supportin writing to the Democratic leadership, assum-ing that the endorsement of the terribly popularchief executive would resolve the matter as ithad four years earlier. Roosevelt’s letter, how-ever, emphasized that he had no desire to dictateto the convention. This approach left the door

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open to the ‘‘Conspiracy of the Pure in Heart’’to find a replacement for Wallace. These partyleaders first considered the director of the Officeof War Mobilization, James F. Byrnes of SouthCarolina, a former senator and Supreme Courtjustice, before finally settling on Senator HarryTruman of Missouri. In effect, FDR had astutelyremoved his hand from the process, knowing fullwell what would happen to Wallace without hisactive support.23

Nonetheless, at the 1944 Democratic conven-tion in Chicago, Wallace showed surprising pop-ularity among the delegates, threatening to ruinthe Democratic leadership’s carefully orches-trated plan to dump him. After his rousingspeech, cheering delegates began to shout for‘‘Wallace in ’44.’’ The convention chairman, Indi-ana Senator Samuel D. Jackson, noted thecrowd’s enthusiasm and feared that Wallacemight win on the first ballot. He therefore calledfor an adjournment until the next day, blamingfire code infractions due to the more than capac-ity crowd at the convention center. Although thenays drowned out the ayes on the motion, thechairman declared the session adjourned. Dur-ing the night, Roosevelt’s ambiguous letter ofsupport circulated among the delegates and un-dermined Wallace’s position. The next day, thedelegates selected Senator Truman for vice presi-dent. Jubilant Democratic leaders later boasted oftheir role in the affair. Party chairman Hannegantold friends that his epitaph should read, ‘‘Herelies the man who kept Henry Wallace from beingPresident of the United States.’’ 24

Commerce Secretary

Although defeated for renomination, Wallacedid not retire from politics. His active campaign-ing for FDR’s fourth term led the president to re-ward his loyalty with appointment as secretaryof commerce. Some have suggested that Roo-sevelt believed the Senate would never confirmWallace. In his letter firing Jesse Jones as com-merce secretary, FDR admitted that Wallace’sappointment was a repayment for his ‘‘utmostdevotion to our cause.’’ This letter caused astorm of debate in Congress and the press. Mem-bers of Congress expressed serious doubt aboutWallace’s abilities and were particularly dis-

turbed at the prospect that he would take chargeof the billions of dollars of loans made by the Re-construction Finance Corporation (RFC). As acompromise, senators who wished to let thepresident have his appointment yet shudderedat giving their former presiding officer power,voted to transfer the money-lending responsibil-ities of the RFC out of the Commerce Depart-ment’s jurisdiction. Stripped of his economic in-fluence, Wallace was confirmed.25

Wallace’s short career directing the CommerceDepartment was racked with controversy.Eighty-two days after Wallace left office as vicepresident, Franklin Roosevelt died, makingHarry Truman president. Truman’s administra-tion took a decidedly hard-line turn against theSoviet Union, a policy that, coupled with the in-creasing influence of conservatives in Truman’scabinet, confounded and alienated Wallace. Ex-pressing his disapproval of Truman’s foreignpolicy, Wallace wrote a twelve-page letter urgingthe United States to exercise caution in abandon-ing its powerful wartime ally. Wallace firmly be-lieved that the only way to end the spread ofcommunism was to raise the world’s standardsof living. In a speech at Madison Square Gardenin September 1946, Wallace warned that Amer-ican foreign policy towards Russia could lead toa third world war. Although Wallace had pre-viously cleared his remarks with Truman, hisspeech occurred at the very time Secretary ofState James Byrnes was negotiating with Sovietauthorities in Paris. Byrnes charged that Wal-lace’s speech had undermined U.S. policy andsuggested damaging disunity within the admin-istration. Shortly thereafter, Truman fired Wal-lace as secretary of commerce.26

Later Years

Wallace’s final public action was a failed bidfor the presidency in 1948. Still commanding amodest following from left-wing groups, he ranon the Progressive ticket, campaigning againstTruman, the Republican candidate Thomas E.Dewey, and the Dixiecrat candidate Strom Thur-mond. Support from the Communist party dam-aged Wallace’s campaign by alienating many lib-erals and other voters. The aggressive actions ofthe Soviets in Berlin and Czechoslovakia also

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turned voters against Wallace. The former vicepresident had little impact on the election, exceptby capturing enough votes in New York to throwthat state to Dewey. Rather than present himselfas the liberal, internationalist alternative to thecold warriors, Wallace had bolted to a thirdparty. This action, combined with the walkout ofconservative southern Democrats over the issueof civil rights, made Truman appear to be thecentrist candidate carrying on the traditions ofRoosevelt and the New Deal, thus enabling himto win the upset victory of the century.

Following his defeat in 1948, Henry Wallaceretired from official political life. He still believedin his concept of world peace and worked for so-cial justice in Latin America, travelling there onnumerous occasions and persuading founda-tions to support the region’s developing nations.In retirement, Wallace continued his genetic ex-perimentation on various strains of corn andother crops, a scientific inquiry that providedhim with the satisfaction his political career hadlacked. At the end of his life, as he suffered fromLou Gehrig’s Disease, Wallace continued to re-

flect on international issues and worried aboutthe United States’ deepening involvement inVietnam. He traced the origins of that war backto the beginning of the cold war, ‘‘when I wasgetting the hell kicked out of me for suggestingthat we were taking on more than we couldchew.’’ Wallace died on November 18, 1965, inDanbury, Connecticut.27

Henry Wallace will be remembered as an un-usual vice president because of the cir-cumstances of his rise and fall from power andbecause of his unprecedented executive respon-sibilities. His foreign travels also forged new po-litical paths that later vice presidents would fol-low. Clearly Wallace’s personal eccentricitiescontributed to his political failure in Washingtonpolitics. Yet, viewed in retrospect from after theend of the cold war, his visionary social liberal-ism—so radically different from the politics ofHarry Truman—raises the question of howworld events might have been different had thevote for vice president at the 1944 Democraticconvention not been delayed overnight.

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NOTES1 Jules Witcover, Crapshoot: Rolling the Dice on the Vice

Presidency (New York, 1992), pp. 405–6; Allen Drury, A Sen-ate Journal, 1943–1945 (New York, 1963), pp. 137–38.

2 J. Samuel Walker, Henry A. Wallace and American ForeignPolicy (Westport, CT, 1976.), pp. 3–8.

3 Witcover, pp. 77–78.4 Norman D. Markowitz, The Rise and Fall of the People’s

Century: Henry A. Wallace and American Liberalism, 1941–1948(New York, 1973), pp. 15–27; Witcover, p. 77.

5 Markowitz, pp. 28–31; Doris Kearns Goodwin, No Ordi-nary Time: Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt: The Home Front inWorld War II (New York, 1994), pp. 128–33.

6 Walker, pp. 50–60; Charles J. Errico and J. Samuel Walk-er, ‘‘The New Deal and the Guru,’’ American Heritage (March1989), pp. 92–99.

7 John Morton Blum, ed., The Price of Vision: The Diary ofHenry A. Wallace, 1942–1946 (Boston, 1973), pp. 23–24; Rich-ard J. Walton, Henry Wallace, Harry Truman, and the Cold War(New York, 1976), p. 8; Edward L. and Frederick H.Schapsmeier, Prophet in Politics: Henry A. Wallace and the WarYears, 1940–1965 (Ames, IA, 1970), p. 22.

8 Walton, pp. 8–10; Schapsmeier and Schapsmeier, pp. 50–71.

9 Blum, pp. 53–229.10 Schapsmeier and Schapsmeier, p. 20; Markowitz, pp.

65–70.11 Markowitz, pp. 70–73; Moley quoted in Donald Young,

American Roulette: The History and Dilemma of the Vice Presi-dency (New York, 1972), p. 194.

12 Blum, p. 22; Schapsmeier and Schapsmeier, p. 7; Rich-ard Langham Riedel, Halls of the Mighty: My 47 Years at theSenate (Washington, 1969), p. 193.

13 Blum, pp. 22–23; Riedel, p. 193.14 Drury, p. 121.15 Schapsmeier and Schapsmeier, pp. 38–49; Drury, pp.

137–38.16 Walton, pp. 15–16; Schapsmeier and Schapsmeier, p. 91.17 Blum, pp. 335–48; Schapsmeier and Schapsmeier, pp.

85–91.18 Blum, pp. 349–60; Schapsmeier and Schapsmeier, pp.

91–98.19 Witcover, p. 82.20 Walker, pp. 83–97; Schapsmeier and Schapsmeier, pp.

30–37; Blum, pp. 13–15.21 Walton, pp. 22–23; Witcover, pp. 84–87.22 Blum, pp. 361–62.23 Witcover, pp. 84–87; Schapsmeier and Schapsmeier, pp.

102–3.24 Schapsmeier and Schapsmeier, pp. 104–9; Markowitz,

p. 91; David McCullough, Truman (New York, 1992), pp.292–323.

25 Schapsmeier and Schapsmeier, pp. 114–19; Drury, pp.345–55; U.S., Congress, Senate, Congressional Record, 79thCong., 1st sess., pp. 694–95, 1163–67.

26 Walker, pp. 133–63; McCullough, pp. 513–18.27 Schapsmeier and Schapsmeier, pp. 224–39; Walker, p.

212.

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Chapter 34

HARRY S. TRUMAN1945

HARRY S. TRUMAN

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Chapter 34

HARRY S. TRUMAN34th Vice President: 1945

I enjoyed my new position as Vice-President, but it took me a while to get used to the fact thatI no longer had the voting privileges I had enjoyed for ten years as a senator.

—HARRY S. TRUMAN

When Democratic party leaders determined todump Vice President Henry Wallace from theticket in 1944, they looked for a suitable replace-ment. They considered Wallace too unpredict-able to serve another term under Roosevelt,whose health had visibly declined during theSecond World War. There was no shortage ofcandidates: Majority Leader Alben Barkley, pres-idential assistant James F. Byrnes, SupremeCourt Justice William O. Douglas, and others ad-vertised their availability. But the nominationwent to someone who did not want it. MissouriSenator Harry S. Truman had committed himselfto nominating Byrnes. When a reporter askedwhy he did not become a candidate himself, con-sidering that the next vice president might likely‘‘succeed to the throne,’’ Truman shook his headand replied, ‘‘Hell, I don’t want to be President.’’Harry Truman felt content to stay in the Senate,where he had spent ten happy years.1

A Farm Boy at Heart

Despite a long record of public service, the al-ways underestimated Truman made an unlikelycandidate for national office. He was at heart afarm boy, born in the rural village of Lamar, Mis-souri, on May 8, 1884. His father, John Truman,was a farmer and livestock dealer. For much oftheir childhood, Harry and his brother and sisterlived on their grandmother’s six hundred-acrefarm near Grandview, Missouri. Poor eyesightcorrected by thick glasses kept him from playing

sports but failed to hamper his love of books.When the children were old enough for school-ing, the Truman family moved to Independence.Then, in 1903, after John Truman went bankruptspeculating in grain futures, the family movedto Kansas City, where John Truman took a jobas night watchman at a grain elevator. Harry ap-plied to West Point but was rejected because ofhis poor eyesight. Instead of attending college,he worked as a timekeeper on a railroad con-struction crew, a newspaper wrapper, and abank teller. In 1905 the parents returned to theGrandview farm, and Harry and his brother fol-lowed the next year. After John Truman died in1914, Harry Truman assumed the supervision ofthe farm, plowing, sowing, harvesting, and re-pairing equipment himself. For the rest of his life,Truman always enjoyed returning to the family’sfarm (now subdivided into suburban housing,although the farmhouse stands as part of theHarry S. Truman National Historical Site). Aspresident, he later asserted: ‘‘I always give myoccupation as farmer. I spent the best years ofmy life trying to run a 600-acre farm successfully,and I know what the problems are.’’ 2

Farming meant hard work and isolation. Nordid it produce sufficient income for Harry tomarry his childhood sweetheart Elizabeth (Bess)Wallace. Truman proposed in 1911, but Bessturned him down. Undaunted, he pursued thecourtship for another eight years. After longdays on the farm, Harry devoted his evenings to

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practicing the piano and reading history. He hadother dreams as well: as a boy, he and his fatherhad attended the Democratic National Conven-tion in Kansas City in 1900 and watched WilliamJennings Bryan be nominated a second time forpresident. The ‘‘Great Commoner’’ always re-mained one of his heroes. Truman’s father lovedpolitics. ‘‘Politics is all he ever advises me to ne-glect the farm for,’’ Harry wrote to Bess.3

The United States entered the First World Warin 1917. At thirty-three, Truman was two yearsover the age limit for the draft and would alsohave been exempted as a farmer. But he turnedthe farm over to his mother and sister and en-listed, overcoming his poor eyesight by memo-rizing the eye chart. Having served in the Na-tional Guard, Truman helped organize a regi-ment from a National Guard company in KansasCity and was elected first lieutenant. When the129th Field Artillery went overseas, he was pro-moted to captain and placed in command of Bat-tery D. The ‘‘Dizzy D’’ had a wild and unrulyreputation, but Captain Harry whipped theminto line. They encountered heavy fighting in theMeuse-Argonne offensive, from which Trumanemerged with the undying respect of his troopsand increased confidence in his own abilities. Hisexploits also lifted him in the eyes of Bess Wal-lace, who at last married him after the war, inJune 1919.4

Machine Politics

Truman temporarily moved into his in-laws’house in Independence, Missouri, an arrange-ment that lasted for the rest of his life. Insteadof returning to the farm, he started a haber-dasher’s shop in Kansas City with his Battery Dsergeant, Eddie Jacobson. When Truman &Jacobson failed during the recession of 1922,bankruptcy turned Harry Truman from businessto politics. Another army buddy, JimmyPendergast, introduced Truman to his uncleThomas Pendergast, the Democratic politicalboss of Kansas City. In 1922 the Pendergast ma-chine endorsed Truman for county judge in Jack-son County, which was an administrative ratherthan a judicial function. After narrowly winningthe primary, he sailed easily to election as theDemocratic candidate that fall. In this and all fu-

ture elections, Truman could count on the loyalsupport of the veterans of the 129th, most ofwhom lived in the Kansas City vicinity. In 1924,the year his only daughter, Margaret, was born,Truman lost his bid for reelection when the anti-Pendergast faction of the Democratic party splitaway and swung its support to the Republicans.He then sold memberships in the Kansas CityAutomobile Club until he won reelection in 1926.During the next twenty-six years of uninter-rupted public service, he never lost another elec-tion—to the surprise of everyone except HarryTruman.5

Like most political machines, the Pendergastorganization depended upon patronage andgovernment contracts. Pendergast owned theReady-Mix Concrete Company and held inter-ests in a variety of construction, paving, pipe,and oil companies that built roads, courthouses,and other public works in and around KansasCity. As an activist administrator, Trumansought to build roads and public buildings, buthe held out against funneling county projects tocorrupt contractors. Pendergast’s interests gotcounty contracts only when they were the lowestbidders. ‘‘Three things ruin a man,’’ Trumanlater said. ‘‘Power, money, and women. I neverwanted power. I never had any money, and theonly woman in my life is up at the house rightnow.’’ Once, when Truman discovered that anassociate had taken money to cut a deal with aroad builder, he kept silent to ensure that theconstruction went forward. In frustration, Tru-man poured out his feelings privately on paper:

I had to compromise in order to get the votedroad system carried out . . . I had to let a formersaloonkeeper and murderer, a friend of theBoss’s, steal about $10,000 from the general reve-nues of the county to satisfy my ideal associateand keep the crooks from getting a million ormore out of the bond issue. Was I right or didI compound a felony? I don’t know.6

Despite his machine connections, Truman de-veloped a progressive reputation as countyjudge. In 1934 he wanted to run for the U.S.House of Representatives, but Pendergast had al-ready picked another candidate. Instead, to Tru-man’s astonishment, the boss wanted him to run

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for the Senate. In fact, Pendergast’s first fourchoices had turned him down. Few gave Trumanmuch of a chance. Missouri’s anti-PendergastSenator Bennett Champ Clark mocked Truman’sassertion that if elected he would not attempt toboss or dictate to anyone. ‘‘Why, bless Harry’sgood kind heart—no one has ever accused himof being a boss or wanting to be a boss and no-body will ever suspect him of trying to dictateto anybody in his own right as long as a certaineminent citizen of Jackson County remainsalive.’’ But, in the Democratic primary, Trumanwaged a vigorous campaign over the entire stateand won the three-way race by a wide margin.Since Missouri was a Democratic state, hecoasted to victory in November. As Truman leftfor Washington, Tom Pendergast gave him someparting advice: ‘‘Work hard, keep your mouthshut, and answer your mail.’’ 7

A Workhorse in the Senate

Reversing historical trends, the Democratsgained ten Senate seats during the congressionalmidterm elections of 1934. The new class ofDemocrats included James Murray of Montana,Joseph Guffey of Pennsylvania, Francis Maloneyof Connecticut, Sherman Minton of Indiana, andLewis Schwellenbach of Washington. In contrastto these liberal Democrats, Harry Truman wasmore conservative and less known. ‘‘I was astimid as a country boy arriving on the campusof a great university for his first year,’’ he lateradmitted. Following Pendergast’s advice, hekept his mouth shut and his eye on his new col-leagues. Before long he had separated out the‘‘workhorses’’ from the ‘‘showhorses’’ and con-cluded that the real business of the Senate wasconducted by conscientious senators who usu-ally attracted the least publicity. Having also dis-covered that ‘‘the real work’’ of the Senate tookplace in committee rooms rather than on thefloor, he devoted himself to committee work,through research, correspondence, and hearings.He made it his business ‘‘to master all of the de-tails’’ of the legislation that came before his com-mittees. ‘‘My ten years in the Senate had nowbegun,’’ he wrote two decades later, ‘‘—yearswhich were to be filled with hard work butwhich were also to be the happiest ten years of

my life.’’ The only painful memories were of thescorn that some journalists continued to heap onhim as Pendergast’s errand boy.8

As a new senator, Truman relied on the vet-eran Democratic secretary, Leslie Biffle, to coun-sel him on how to act, when to speak, what com-mittees to request, and other practical advice.Truman’s down-home, poker-playing style soonwon him friendships with many senators as wellas with Vice President John Nance Garner—whoinvited Truman to join those who met at the‘‘doghouse,’’ his hideaway office, to ‘‘strike ablow for liberty’’ with shots of bourbon. Accept-ed as an insider, Truman had nothing but con-tempt for the Senate’s most famous outsider,Huey Long. The Louisiana senator’s flamboyantstyle and long-winded filibusters represented theentirely opposite route from the one Trumantook in the Senate.9

Appointed to the Interstate Commerce Com-mittee, Truman and its chairman, Montana Sen-ator Burton K. Wheeler, began a long, detailedinvestigation of the nation’s transportation sys-tem. Their efforts resulted in the Wheeler-Tru-man Transportation Act of 1940, which estab-lished new standards of federal regulation forthe nation’s railroad, trucking and shipping in-dustries. It was the signal accomplishment of hisfirst term. Most Washington observers doubtedthat Truman would have a second term. The U.S.district attorney in Kansas City, Maurice Milli-gan, was prosecuting Tom Pendergast for votefraud and income tax evasion. Loyally standingby the boss, Truman delivered a blistering attackin the Senate chamber accusing the president,Milligan, and the federal courts of playing poli-tics with Pendergast. But Pendergast was con-victed and sent to the federal penitentiary in1939. Seeing Truman as just an extension of themachine, Milligan then ran for the Democraticnomination for the Senate in 1940, as did Mis-souri Governor Lloyd Stark, who previously hadsought Pendergast’s endorsement but now pre-sented himself as a reformer. President Rooseveltleaned toward Stark, and Truman seemeddoomed to defeat, but Milligan and Stark splitthe anti-Pendergast vote, enabling Truman tosqueak through to a victory in the Democratic

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primary, which ‘‘virtually guaranteed’’ his re-election in November.10

The Truman Committee

Returning to Washington his own man, Tru-man moved for the creation of a special commit-tee to investigate the national defense prepara-tions on the eve of World War II. He had heardof waste and extravagance and contractors over-charging the government at Missouri militarybases, and he believed that a watchdog commit-tee would be essential as the governmentpumped massive amounts of money into its de-fense industries. With the help of party secretaryLes Biffle, Truman was appointed chair of theSpecial Committee to Investigate the NationalDefense Program, which became nationallyknown as the Truman Committee. As an avidstudent of history, Truman knew what havoc theJoint Committee on the Conduct of the War hadcreated for President Abraham Lincoln, and hewas determined to assist rather than to combatPresident Roosevelt. The Truman Committee in-vestigated business, labor, and governmentagencies, seeking ways to make all three cooper-ate. Whenever the Truman Committee con-cluded that reforms were needed in war agen-cies, Truman took care to inform the presidentfirst, before he talked to the press, giving Roo-sevelt the chance to institute the necessarychanges before being pressured by negativepublicity.11

Harry Truman was fifty-seven when he as-sumed the chairmanship of the special commit-tee and rose to national prominence. Of averageheight and appearance, speaking with a mid-western twang, and earthy in his expressions, hewas known in Washington as diligent andunprepossessing. Over time, his voting recordhad increasingly conformed to Roosevelt admin-istration policies, and he remained a loyal Demo-crat, more likely to complain in private than inpublic about any differences with the New Deal.The Truman Committee won its chairman favor-able press notices for saving the taxpayers mil-lions of dollars and the Roosevelt administrationmuch potential embarrassment. ‘‘I have had con-siderable experience in letting public contracts,’’Truman said, recalling his Jackson County days,

‘‘and I have never yet found a contractor who,if not watched, would not leave the Governmentholding the bag.’’ The public agreed. As Harper’sMagazine concluded in June 1945, before the warTruman had been ‘‘just another obscure juniorSenator,’’ but three years later ‘‘he had madehimself known, and respected, as the chairmanof a special committee investigating war produc-tion and, in consequence, the almost inevitablechoice of his party as a compromise candidatefor the Vice Presidency.’’ 12

Choosing Truman for Vice President

While it later seemed inevitable, there wasnothing predictable about Truman’s selection forvice president in 1944. Vice President HenryWallace’s unpopularity among party leaders hadset off a monumental contest for the second spotat the Chicago convention. Senator Alben Bar-kley wanted the job, but his hot-tempered res-ignation and swift reelection as majority leaderin protest over President Roosevelt’s veto of arevenue bill in February 1944 eliminated him asan acceptable choice to the president. Barkleyand ‘‘Assistant President’’ James Byrnes—aformer senator and former Supreme Court Jus-tice—each asked Truman to nominate him at theconvention. Byrnes asked first, and Trumanreadily agreed. Senator Truman consistently toldeveryone—even his daughter Margaret—that hewas not a candidate himself. The only race in hismind was for his reelection to the Senate in1946.13

The pivotal person at the convention was BobHannegan, a St. Louis political leader serving ascommissioner of internal revenue and tapped asthe next Democratic National Committee chair-man. During the heated Senate campaign of1940, Hannegan had switched his support fromGovernor Stark to Truman as the better man, andhe delivered enough St. Louis votes to help Tru-man win. Hannegan, Bronx boss Ed Flynn, Chi-cago mayor Ed Kelly, key labor leaders, andother party movers and shakers viewed Wallaceas a liability for his leftist leanings. Byrnes wasequally vulnerable for his segregationist recordand his conversion from Catholicism. Whenthese party leaders expressed their opposition toWallace and Byrnes, Roosevelt suggested Su-

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preme Court Justice William O. Douglas. Thegroup then countered with Harry Truman,whom Roosevelt agreed had been loyal and‘‘wise to the ways of politics.’’ After much dis-cussion, Roosevelt turned to Hannegan and con-ceded, ‘‘Bob, I think you and everyone else herewant Truman.’’ 14

Hating to disappoint and alienate any of thepotential candidates, Roosevelt kept them allguessing. At lunch with Vice President Wallace,Roosevelt informed him that the professionalpoliticians preferred Truman as ‘‘the only onewho had no enemies and might add a little inde-pendent strength to the ticket.’’ Roosevelt prom-ised Wallace that he would not endorse anothercandidate, but would notify the convention thatif he were a delegate he would vote for Wallace.At the same time, the president held out hopeto Byrnes that he was ‘‘the best qualified man inthe whole outfit,’’ and urged him to stay in therace. ‘‘After all, Jimmy,’’ you’re close to me per-sonally,‘‘ Roosevelt said. ’’I hardly know Tru-man.’’ (Roosevelt, whose own health was grow-ing precarious, did not even know Truman’sage—which was sixty.) Despite encouragingWallace and Byrnes, the president had written aletter for Hannegan to carry to the convention:

Dear Bob: You have written me about Harry Tru-man and Bill Douglas. I should, of course, be veryglad to run with either of them and believe thateither one of them would bring real strength tothe ticket.15

Meanwhile, Senator Truman continued todeny any interest in the vice-presidency. In anoff-the-record interview, he explained to a re-porter that if he ran for vice president the Repub-licans would raise charges of bossism againsthim. He did not want to subject his family to theattacks and negative publicity of a national cam-paign. Bess Truman was against it, and so wasTruman’s ninety-one-year-old mother, who toldhim to stay in the Senate. ‘‘The Vice Presidentsimply presides over the Senate and sits aroundhoping for a funeral,’’ Truman protested. ‘‘It isa very high office which consists entirely ofhonor and I don’t have any ambition to hold anoffice like that.’’ His secret ambition, admitted ona visit to the Senate chamber twenty years later,

was to occupy the front row seat of the majorityleader.16

In an overheated hotel room, the politiciansleaned heavily on Truman to run. They placeda call to Roosevelt, and as Truman sat nearby,Hannegan held the phone so that he could hear.‘‘Bob, have you got that fellow lined up yet?’’Roosevelt asked. ‘‘No. He is the contrariest Mis-souri mule I’ve ever dealt with,’’ Hannegan re-plied. ‘‘Well, you tell him that if he wants tobreak up the Democratic party in the middle ofthe war, that’s his responsibility,’’ Roosevelt de-clared and hung up the phone. Stunned, Trumanagreed to run, but added: ‘‘why the hell didn’the tell me in the first place?’’ 17

Henry Wallace appeared personally at the con-vention to seek renomination, stimulating an en-thusiastic reception from the galleries. On thefirst ballot, Wallace led Truman 429 to 319. Butthe party’s leaders swung their delegations andput Truman over the top on the second ballot.In a speech that lasted less than a minute, Tru-man accepted the nomination. Democratic lib-erals bemoaned the choice, while Republicansmocked the ‘‘little man from Missouri.’’ News-papers charged him with being a member of theKu Klux Klan, when in fact he had vigorouslyfought the Klan in Jackson County. Critics alsonoted that Truman had placed his wife on hisSenate payroll, but Truman rejoined that hiringher had been legal and that she had earned everypenny. (Truman’s sister Mary Jane had also beenon his Senate payroll since 1943.) None of thesecontroversies mattered much. On election day, amajority of voters did not want to change leadersin wartime and cast their ballots for Rooseveltregardless of who ran with him. Eleanor Roo-sevelt, who had preferred Wallace and dis-trusted Byrnes, reflected the prevailing senti-ment that the vice-presidential candidate hadbeen a safe choice. She wrote that while she didnot know Truman, ‘‘from all I hear, he is a goodman.’’ 18

Roosevelt and Truman

After his nomination, Truman had gone to theWhite House for lunch with Roosevelt and hadbeen shocked at the president’s gaunt appear-ance and trembling hands. Only to his most inti-

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mate friends did Truman confide his fears thatRoosevelt would never survive his fourth term.On a cold January 20, 1945, Truman stood withRoosevelt on the South Portico of the WhiteHouse to take the oath as vice president. Theceremonies had been moved from their tradi-tional location at the Capitol as a concession tothe war and Roosevelt’s health. After the post-inaugural luncheon, the new vice presidentslipped away and telephoned his mother whohad heard the inauguration over the radio atGrandview. ‘‘Now you behave yourself,’’ sheinstructed.19

Truman’s vice-presidency was practically acontinuation of his years in the Senate. The Tru-mans kept their same apartment at 4701 Con-necticut Avenue, and he retained the same officein Room 240 of the Senate office building. Hespent most of his time presiding over the Senate,whose rules and procedures he had already mas-tered, and whose members he already knew. ‘‘Ienjoyed my new position as Vice-President,’’ helate wrote, ‘‘but it took me a while to get usedto the fact that I no longer had the voting privi-leges I had enjoyed for ten years as a senator.’’During his eighty-two days as vice president,Truman had only one opportunity to vote, on anamendment to limit the extension of Lend-Lease.The vice president voted against the amendment.As the United Press reporter Allen Drury ob-served: ‘‘Harry Truman, with all the brisk eager-ness of someone who is bored to death, seizedhis first chance to vote in the Senate today andmade the most of it. The vote wasn’t necessary,for under the rules a tie kills a proposal, but hecast it anyway, with obvious satisfaction.’’ 20

During Truman’s vice-presidency, critical deci-sions were being made regarding ending the warand planning for the future peace, but the presi-dent neither advised nor consulted him. Roo-sevelt left Washington for his long journey toYalta two days after the inauguration and didnot return for almost a month. Even then, he sawthe vice president only twice more, on March 8and March 19, before he left for a rest at the ‘‘Lit-tle White House’’ in Warm Springs, Georgia.Roosevelt assumed there would be time to edu-cate his vice president later.21

Truman’s major assignment was to help hispredecessor, Henry Wallace, win confirmation assecretary of commerce. Roosevelt had appointedWallace as a gesture of consolation to his formervice president, and enlisted Truman to win sup-port from recalcitrant senators. To pacify Wal-lace’s critics, the Democratic leadership cut adeal to remove the Federal Loan Agency fromthe Commerce Department. The House passedthe measure first, and when it reached the Sen-ate, Majority Leader Barkley planned to call it upfor immediate consideration, to clear the way forWallace’s confirmation. Barkley, however, wasnot paying attention when Ohio Republican Sen-ator Robert Taft sought recognition to move Wal-lace’s confirmation vote first. Truman looked tothe majority leader. ‘‘Finally, Barkley woke upand I recognized him,’’ Truman commented, be-lieving that his action saved Wallace from defeat.Ironically, as president, Truman would fireHenry Wallace from his own cabinet a yearlater.22

As vice president, Truman aspired to mendfences between Congress and the Roosevelt ad-ministration. During the depression, Roosevelthad ridden Congress like a rodeo cowboy, buthe had been badly bucked during the ‘‘Courtpacking’’ fight in 1937. Despite large Democraticmajorities, Congress not only rejected Roo-sevelt’s efforts to add several new liberal justicesto the Supreme Court, but also turned down hisrequests to reorganize the executive branch andto expand New Deal economic programs. Thelegislative and executive branches finally rec-onciled on the eve of the Second World War,when the president and Congress joined togetherto suspend American neutrality and aid the Al-lies. The war relegated Congress to a back seatbehind the president as commander in chief,causing resentment, suspicion, and hostility to-ward the administration to simmer on CapitolHill. During the war, a coalition of Republicansand conservative southern Democrats prunedmany New Deal programs. Truman thought thathe could help reestablish some common ground.Although recognizing that a vice president couldnever exert open influence in the Senate, Trumanbelieved that ‘‘if he is respected personally and

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if he maintains good relations with the membersof the Senate, he can have considerable powerbehind the scenes.’’ 23

A week after the January 1945 inauguration,Truman’s political mentor, Tom Pendergast,died in Kansas City. Released from prison,Pendergast had spent his last years estrangedfrom his family and old friends. Truman had notseen the boss in years, but he determined to goto Pendergast’s funeral. He owed his rise in poli-tics to Pendergast, who, he insisted, ‘‘neverasked me to do a dishonest deed. He knew Iwouldn’t do it if he asked me. He was alwayshonest with me, and when he made a promisehe kept it.’’ Although Truman meant this as anact of friendship and loyalty, many consideredit disgraceful for a vice president to pay homageto a convicted criminal and interpreted the inci-dent as evidence that Truman remained a paro-chial machine politician. The vice presidentearned more bad publicity a few weeks laterwhen he played the piano at the WashingtonPress Club’s canteen for servicemen. As Trumanplayed, the movie actress Lauren Bacall posedseductively atop the piano, allowing photog-raphers to snap some decidedly undignifiedpictures.24

The vice president spent most of his timearound the Senate chamber, talking with sen-ators and listening to tedious speeches as he pre-sided. Watching him from the press gallery onApril 12, 1945, Associated Press reporter TonyVaccaro commented, ‘‘You know, Roosevelt hasan awfully good man in that Truman when itcomes to dealing with the Senate if he’ll onlymake use of him.’’ Then he added, ‘‘He doesn’tmake use of him though. Truman doesn’t knowwhat’s going on. Roosevelt won’t tell him any-thing.’’ That day, Truman used his time whilepresiding to keep in contact with his mother andsister in Missouri. ‘‘I am trying to write you aletter today from the desk of the President of theSenate,’’ he wrote, ‘‘while a windy Senator fromWisconsin [Alexander Wiley] is making a speechon a subject with which he is in no way familiar.’’He reminded them to turn on their radios thenext evening to hear him make a Jefferson Dayspeech to the nation and to introduce the presi-dent. While Truman was presiding that after-

noon, Roosevelt collapsed and died of a cerebralhemorrhage in Warm Springs.25

Unaware of his impending fate, Truman re-cessed the Senate at five that afternoon andstrolled through the Capitol, without his SecretService agent. He was the first vice president tobe assigned a regular Secret Service agent, afterhis military aide, Harry Vaughn, pointed out toTreasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau how oddit was to have scores of agents guarding thepresident and no one protecting the vice presi-dent. But the protection was somewhat erratic,enabling Truman to saunter unaccompaniedthrough the Capitol to House Speaker SamRayburn’s hideaway office, the ‘‘Board of Edu-cation.’’ There he planned to mix a drink andspend some time talking politics with the Speak-er and a handful of congressional cronies. WhenTruman arrived, Rayburn relayed a message thatthe president’s press secretary wanted him to callright away. Truman called and was told to cometo the White House as ‘‘quickly and quietly’’ aspossible. ‘‘Holy General Jackson!’’ he exclaimed,the color drained from his face. Still not knowingexactly what had happened, Truman hurriedback the length of the Capitol, still alone. At hisoffice he grabbed his hat and his driver. Theyheaded straight to the North Portico of the WhiteHouse, where Truman was ushered up to thefamily quarters. There Eleanor Roosevelt toldhim that the president was dead.26

President Truman

That evening, Harry Truman took the oath aspresident in a somber ceremony in the CabinetRoom. He placed his first call from the Oval Of-fice to Secretary of the Senate Leslie Biffle, askinghim to arrange for the congressional leadershipto attend the ceremony and to set up a luncheonat the Senate the next day. As Republican SenatorArthur Vandenberg noted in his diary:

Truman came back to the Senate this noon forlunch with a few of us. It shattered all tradition.But it was both wise and smart. It means that thedays of executive contempt for Congress areended; that we are returning to a government inwhich Congress will take its rightful place.

After Roosevelt’s funeral, Truman returned toaddress a joint session of Congress. ‘‘Now

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Harry—Mr. President—we are going to stand byyou,’’ Speaker Rayburn assured him. ‘‘I thinkyou will,’’ Truman replied. Majority LeaderAlben Barkley further urged Truman to haveconfidence in himself. ‘‘If you do not, the peoplewill lose confidence in you.’’ 27

Three months in the vice-presidency had givenTruman no preparation for the nation’s highestpost. He was thrust into the role of commanderin chief while war was still underway in Europeand the Pacific. He knew little about the develop-ment of the atomic bomb, yet within months hewould be called upon to decide whether to usethis weapon against Japan. Nor did he knowmuch about the agreements Roosevelt hadreached with the Russians and British at Yalta.Truman talked with everyone who had accom-panied Roosevelt to learn as much as possibleabout what Roosevelt had agreed to and whathe intended to do in foreign policy. Truman’s in-experience in international matters contrastedsharply with his abundant knowledge of domes-tic affairs, gained from ten years in local govern-ment and another ten in the Senate.28

Truman’s assets were his firm personal prin-ciples, his honesty, humility, and homespun

character, and his ability to speak plain truths.Regardless of his lack of preparation, these quali-ties enabled him to face the challenges of the coldwar, make portentous decisions, and retain therespect of the electorate, who accepted him asone of them. He could be magnanimous, as inhis gesture of consulting with former PresidentHerbert Hoover, long barred from the RooseveltWhite House. He could be intrepid, as in his de-termination to remove General Douglas Mac-Arthur from command in Korea, in order to pre-serve the superiority of the civilian governmentover the military. In 1948 Truman won the mostunexpected election upset of the century. Al-though he left the presidency in 1953 at a lowebb in his popularity, his standing rose againover the years. After his death on December 26,1972, he achieved the status of folk hero. Songsproclaimed: ‘‘America Needs You Harry Tru-man.’’ A Broadway play, ‘‘Give ’Em Hell,Harry,’’ was based on his life story, and biog-raphies of him became best sellers. Presidentialcandidates from both parties claimed Trumanrather than Roosevelt as their model. In retro-spect, his selection for vice president had beena wise move by the party leaders.29

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NOTES1 Edward A. Harris, ‘‘Harry S. Truman: ‘I Don’t Want to

be President,’’’ in J.T. Salter, ed., Public Men: In and Out ofOffice (Chapel Hill, NC, 1946), pp. 4–5; Robert H. Ferrell,Choosing Truman: The Democratic Convention of 1944 (Colum-bia, MO, 1994), pp. 1–34.

2 Robert H. Ferrell, ed., The Autobiography of Harry S. Tru-man (Boulder, CO, 1980), pp. 17–20; Margaret Truman,Harry S. Truman (New York, 1973), p. 47; U.S., Congress,House, Congressional Record, 103d Cong., 1st sess., pp.H10918–20.

3 David McCullough, Truman (New York, 1992), pp. 63,88–90.

4 Ibid., pp. 102–44; Richard Lawrence Miller, Truman: TheRise to Power (New York, 1986), pp. 103–48; Jhan Robbins,Bess & Harry: An American Love Story (New York, 1980), pp.23–37.

5 Margaret Truman, pp. 59–82; Ferrell, ed., The Autobiog-raphy of Harry S. Truman, pp. 81–84.

6 Robert H. Ferrell, Harry S. Truman: A Life (Columbia,MO, 1994), pp. 91–116; McCullough, pp. 181–86.

7 Margaret Truman, pp. 83–89; Ferrell, Truman: A Life, pp.124–32; McCullough, pp. 202–13.

8 Harry S. Truman, Memoirs by Harry S. Truman, vol. 1,Year of Decisions (Garden City, NY, 1955), pp. 142–43, 149;Alonzo L. Hamby, Man of the People: A Life of Harry S. Tru-man (New York, 1995) pp. 200–212; Harris, p. 9; MargaretTruman, p. 91.

9 Ernest Barcella, ‘‘They Call Him Mr. Baffle,’’ Colliers(January 29, 1949), pp. 27, 61–62; Margaret Truman, pp. 100–102.

10 Truman, Memoirs, 1:159–63; McCullough, pp. 234–52;Hamby, pp. 213–47.

11 Ferrell, Truman: A Life, pp. 153–61.12 Theodore Wilson, ‘‘The Truman Committee, 1941,’’ in

Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., and Roger Bruns, eds., CongressInvestigates: A Documented History, 1792–1974 (New York,1975), 4:3115–3262; Hamby, pp. 248–60.

13 Margaret Truman, p. 167; Miller, pp. 381–85.14 McCullough, pp. 292–301; Ferrell, Choosing Truman, pp.

35–50.15 McCullough, pp. 299–306; David Robertson, Sly and

Able: A Political Biography of James F. Byrnes (New York,

1994), pp. 8–9; Robert H. Ferrell, Ill-Advised: PresidentialHealth and Public Trust (Columbia, MO, 1992), p. 44.

16 McCullough, pp. 298–99, 317–318; Harris, pp. 4–5; Re-marks by Former President Harry S. Truman and Responses byMembers of the Senate Thereto in the United States Senate onMay 8, 1964 (Washington, 1964), p. 3.

17 Truman, Memoirs, 1:192–93; Hamby, pp. 274–84.18 Miller, pp. 381–87; McCullough, pp. 324–33; Ferrell,

Choosing Truman, pp. 57–61; Harris, pp. 5–6; Doris KearnsGoodwin, No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt:The Home Front in World War II (New York, 1994), p. 530.

19 Jonathan Daniels, The Man of Independence (Port Wash-ington, NY, 1971; reprint of 1950 edition), p. 255; Truman,Memoirs, 1:1–4, 194–95.

20 Truman, Memoirs, 1:195–96; Allen Drury, A Senate Jour-nal, 1943–1945 (New York, 1963), p. 409.

21 Margaret Truman, pp. 203–5.22 Truman, Memoirs, 1:195; Daniels, p. 257.23 Truman, Memoirs, 1:196–97; McCullough, pp. 335–36;

see also James T. Patterson, Congressional Conservatism andthe New Deal: The Growth of the Conservative Coalition in Con-gress, 1933–1939 (Lexington, KY, 1967).

24 Harris, p. 18; McCullough, pp. 336–37.25 Drury, p. 410; McCullough, p. 340.26 Margaret Truman, pp. 201–3; McCullough, pp. 335–42;

Ferrell, Truman: A Life, pp. 174–76. Others have reportedTruman’s April 12, 1945, exclamation as ‘‘Jesus Christ andGeneral Jackson!’’ (McCullough, p. 341; Robert J. Donovan,Conflict and Crisis: The Presidency of Harry S. Truman, 1945–1948 (New York, 1977), p. 4.

27 Arthur H. Vandenberg, Jr., ed., The Private Papers ofSenate Vandenberg (Boston, 1952), p. 167; H.G. Dulaney, Ed-ward Hake Phillips, and MacPhelan Reese, eds., Speak Mr.Speaker (Bonham, TX, 1978), p. 120; McCullough, p. 356.

28 Marie D. Natoli, ‘‘Harry S. Truman and the Contem-porary Vice Presidency,’’ Presidential Studies Quarterly 14(Winter 1988): 81–84.

29 Ferrell, Choosing Truman, pp. 89–95. On Truman’s presi-dency see Robert J. Donovan, Conflict and Crisis: The Presi-dency of Harry S. Truman, 1945–1948 (New York, 1977), andTumultuous Years: The Presidency of Harry S. Truman, 1949–1953 (New York, 1977).

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Chapter 35

ALBEN W. BARKLEY1949–1953

ALBEN W. BARKLEY

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Chapter 35

ALBEN W. BARKLEY35th Vice President: 1949–1953

Barkley, as Vice President, was in a class by himself. He had the complete confidence of both thePresident and the Senate.

—HARRY S. TRUMAN

Alben W. Barkley, who served as vice presi-dent of the United States from 1949 to 1953, waspopularly known as the ‘‘Veep.’’ His younggrandson had suggested this abbreviated alter-native to the cumbersome ‘‘Mr. Vice President.’’When Barkley told the story at a press con-ference, the newspapers printed it, and the titlestuck. Barkley’s successor as vice president,Richard Nixon, declined to continue the nick-name, saying that it had been bestowed on Bar-kley affectionately and belonged to him. Whilecommentators may occasionally use ‘‘veep’’ as ageneric term for vice presidents, historically theterm is Barkley’s alone.1

A storyteller of great repute, Alben Barkley fre-quently poked fun at himself and his office. Hewas especially fond of telling about the motherwho had two sons. One went to sea; the otherbecame vice president; and neither was heardfrom again. In Barkley’s case, the story was notat all true. He made sure that the public heardfrom him, and about him, as often as possible.And what the public heard, they liked, for AlbenBarkley performed admirably as vice presidentof the United States.

Seventy years old when he was sworn in asvice president, Alben Barkley was a genialgrandfatherly figure—but with enough life leftin him to court and marry a widow half his ageand to captivate national attention with theirMay-December romance. In many ways, Barkleywas the last of the old-time vice presidents, the

last to preside regularly over the Senate, the lastnot to have an office in or near the White House,the last to identify more with the legislative thanthe executive branch. He was an old warhorse,the veteran of many political battles, the perpet-ual keynote speaker of his party who could rousedelegates from their lethargy to shout and cheerfor the party’s leaders and platform. His stump-speaker’s lungs enabled him to bellow out aspeech without need for a microphone. He waspartisan to the marrow, but with a sense ofhumor and a gift of storytelling that defused par-tisan and personal animosities.2

Campaigning on Horseback

Ever the politician, Alben Barkley loved topoint out that he had been born in a log house,in Graves County, Kentucky, on November 24,1877. The baby was named Willie Alben, a namethat always embarrassed him, and as soon as hewas old enough to have a say about it, he re-versed the order and formalized the name toAlben William. ‘‘Just imagine the tribulations Iwould have had,’’ he later commented, ‘‘a ro-bust, active boy, going through a Kentuckychildhood with the name of ’Willie,’ and latertrying to get into politics!’’ 3

Barkley worked his way through Marvin Col-lege, a Methodist institution in Clinton, Ken-tucky. He also briefly attended Emory Collegeand the University of Virginia law school. As didmost lawyers in those days, he learned his trade

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mainly by ‘‘reading’’ law, in a Paducah law of-fice, before hanging out his own shingle. In 1903he married and began to raise a family. Twoyears later, Alben Barkley ran for prosecuting at-torney of McCracken County. Later he woulddeny the stories that he campaigned on a mule.‘‘This story is a base canard, and, here and now,I wish to spike it for all time,’’ he wrote in hismemoirs, That Reminds Me. ‘‘It was not a mule—it was a horse.’’ 4

From prosecuting attorney, Barkley ran forcounty judge, and in 1912, at the age of thirty-five, he won a seat in the U.S. House of Rep-resentatives. His victory began a forty-two-yearcareer in national politics that would take himfrom the House to the Senate to the vice-presi-dency. Barkley entered politics as a Democrat inthe mold of Jefferson, Jackson, and William Jen-nings Bryan, but in Congress he came under thepowerful influence of President Woodrow Wil-son. As a Wilsonian, Barkley came to define flexi-bility of government and a willingness to experi-ment with social and economic programs as thepolicies of ‘‘a true Liberal.’’ Although he waslater closely identified with the New Deal, Bar-kley asserted: ‘‘I was a liberal and a progressivelong before I ever heard of Franklin D.Roosevelt.’’ 5

In 1923, Representative Barkley made an un-successful run for the Democratic nomination asgovernor of Kentucky. That sole electoral defeatactually helped propel him into the Senate, be-cause the race gave him name recognitionthroughout Kentucky and won him the title‘‘iron man,’’ for his ability to give as many as six-teen speeches a day on the campaign trail. In1926 Barkley won the nomination for the UnitedStates Senate and defeated an incumbent Repub-lican to win the seat. By the 1930s he had movedinto the Senate Democratic leadership as an as-sistant to Majority Leader Joseph T. Robinson.He also received national attention as the key-note speaker at the 1932 Democratic conventionthat first nominated Franklin D. Roosevelt forpresident.6

The Struggle for the Majority Leadership

During the early New Deal, Barkley servedshoulder to shoulder with Majority Leader Rob-

inson. Rarely were two leaders so starkly dif-ferent in nature, which perhaps explains the ef-fectiveness of their combined efforts. Joe Robin-son of Arkansas, who had led the Democratic mi-nority in the 1920s and became majority leaderin 1933, gave the impression ‘‘of brute, animalstrength, and a willingness to use it.’’ He ran theSenate by a mix of threats, favors, and par-liamentary skill. Robinson had no patience to ca-jole, and left such tasks to trusted aides like Bar-kley, South Carolina’s James F. Byrnes, and Mis-sissippi’s Pat Harrison. ‘‘Scrappy Joe’’ could an-nihilate an opponent in debate, but for the mostpart he preferred to leave the oratory to Barkley,who could talk on any subject for any amountof time. Unlike Robinson, Barkley had no abilitywhen it came to threatening and domineering.He succeeded through the art of compromise,and through his convivial personality and gift ofstorytelling.7

When Robinson died during the fierce legisla-tive battle to enact President Roosevelt’s ‘‘Courtpacking’’ plan in 1937, a contest developed be-tween Senators Barkley and Harrison to becomemajority leader. Pat Harrison was chairman ofthe influential Finance Committee, and a belovedfigure in the Senate who held the loyalty of manymembers. It appeared that Harrison would winthe race—much to President Roosevelt’s dismay.Although Harrison had worked for enactment ofmuch New Deal legislation, he was too conserv-ative and too independent for Roosevelt’s taste.Moreover, most of the opponents of Roosevelt’sCourt plan stood with Harrison, who had re-frained from speaking out on that controversialissue. Although professing neutrality, Rooseveltprivately threw his support behind Barkley,pressing state Democratic leaders to lobby theirsenators in Barkley’s behalf. Roosevelt also ad-dressed a public letter to ‘‘My dear Alben,’’ im-plying his endorsement of the Kentucky senator.When Barkley won the majority leadership by asingle vote, many senators—including his ownsupporters—interpreted his election as a victoryfor the president rather than for Barkley. Formany years thereafter his colleagues assumedthat he spoke primarily for the White House to

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the Senate, rather than for the Senate to theWhite House.8

After the forceful leadership of Joe Robinson,any successor would suffer by comparison, andthe press soon began to taunt ‘‘bumbling Bar-kley.’’ On paper he led an enormous majority of76 Democrats against 16 Republicans and ahandful of independents. But in fact the Demo-cratic party was seriously divided between itsliberal and conservative wings, and Barkleycould not guarantee a majority behind any of theadministration’s domestic programs. Not untilWorld War II forged a new cohesiveness in theSenate did Barkley truly have a majority behindhim. Without question, he grew in office, gainingrespect from both senators and journalists for hisdogged hard work and persistent good nature.

The Majority Leader Resigns

Senator Barkley was part of the ‘‘Big Four’’that included Vice President Henry Wallace,House Speaker Sam Rayburn, and House Major-ity Leader John McCormack. The Big Four metregularly with President Roosevelt to map theadministration’s legislative strategy. Barkley sawhimself as the leader of the president’s forces, outto enact the president’s program. But in 1944even Barkley’s loyalty was stretched to thebreaking point. Relations between the adminis-tration and Congress had grown strained duringthe war, as the chief executive was preoccupiedby military and diplomatic affairs. In February1944, Roosevelt became the first president to vetoa revenue bill, rejecting a two-billion-dollar taxincrease as insufficient and declaring it a reliefmeasure ‘‘not for the needy but for the greedy.’’Senator Barkley, who had worked out the com-promises within the Senate Finance Committee,of which he was a member, and who believedit was the best bill he could get passed, felt in-censed over the president’s accusations. He rosein the Senate to urge his colleagues to overridethe president’s veto. Then he resigned as major-ity leader.9

The next day, the Senate Democrats unani-mously reelected Barkley as their leader, andfrom then on it was clear that Barkley spoke forthe Senate to the White House. The dramatic res-ignation and reelection elevated Barkley’s re-

spect and standing as a leader but also damp-ened his relations with President Roosevelt. Thatsummer, when the Democratic convention metand it became clear that the unpopular HenryWallace would need to be replaced as vice presi-dent, the mood of the convention favored Bar-kley for the job, but Roosevelt would not tolerateone who had so recently rebelled against him. In-stead he chose the less-known Missouri SenatorHarry Truman. The Roosevelt-Truman ticketwon election in the fall, and in April 1945 it wasVice President Truman, not Alben Barkley, whoinherited the presidency upon Roosevelt’sdeath.10

Whatever bitterness Barkley might have felt heput aside, transferring his loyalty completely toTruman. During Truman’s short vice-presi-dency, they enjoyed what Barkley called a‘‘catcher-pitcher’’ relationship, with the majorityleader calling the signals. They continued towork together closely after Truman moved to theWhite House. These were rough years for theDemocrats. In the 1946 elections voters sent Re-publican majorities to the Senate and House forthe first time since the Great Depression. Barkleybecame minority leader during the EightiethCongress in 1947 and 1948. It was a foregoneconclusion that the Republicans would also winthe presidency in 1948, and the smart money wason New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey to be-come the next president.

A Remarkable Upset

A dispirited Democratic convention met inPhiladelphia in 1948. Yet, once again, Alben Bar-kley was able to lift his party’s spirits and getthe delegates cheering with an old-fashioned,rip-roaring, Republican-bashing keynote ad-dress. The demonstration that followed hisspeech was so long and so enthusiastic that Bar-kley became the obvious choice for vice presi-dent. President Truman, suspicious that Barkley,who had mentioned him only once in the hour-long speech, was trying to replace him at the topof the ticket, was not eager to have the senatoras his running mate. ‘‘Old man Barkley,’’ as Tru-man called him, was seventy years old, and theirneighboring states were too similar to balancethe ticket regionally. But since others—like Su-

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preme Court Justice William O. Douglas—hadturned him down, Truman agreed to accept Bar-kley for his running mate if the delegates wantedhim. ‘‘It will have to come quick,’’ Barkley saidof his selection. ‘‘I don’t want it passed along solong it is like a cold biscuit.’’ When offered thesecond place on the ticket, Barkley, so often thebridesmaid in the past, accepted with pleasureand set out on a grueling speaking tour thatshowed he was still an ‘‘iron man’’ at ageseventy.11

While the president whistle-stopped by train,Barkley made the first ‘‘prop stop’’ campaign byair. He had come a long way since the days whenhe first campaigned for office on horseback. Insix weeks he toured thirty-six states and gavemore than 250 speeches. He spoke to so manysmall audiences that the press dubbed him ‘‘thepoor man’s candidate.’’ But his strength andstamina refuted the charges that he had been tooold to run.12

The election of 1948 proved to be the most dra-matic upset of all time. It is doubtful whetherthere is a single American history textbook in theschools today that fails to include the famouspicture of a smiling Harry Truman holding upthe Chicago Tribune’s erroneous headline:‘‘Dewey Defeats Truman.’’ So in January 1949Alben Barkley stepped down again as SenateDemocratic leader, this time to become presidentof the Senate. As vice president, Barkley buriedwhatever differences he had with Truman andthe two men got along well, although some mu-tual suspicions lingered on. For years in the Sen-ate it had been Truman who called Barkley‘‘boss.’’ And Barkley must surely have thoughtof President Truman: ‘‘There but for the spite ofFranklin Roosevelt, go I.’’ Yet in every respect,politically, ideologically, and socially, the twomen were remarkably alike and worked togetherharmoniously.

The Delicate Nature of the Vice-Presidency

Having served in the job, even if briefly, HarryTruman understood the delicate nature of thevice-presidency, which he noted fell between thelegislative and executive branches without beingresponsible to either. ‘‘The Vice-President cannotbecome completely acquainted with the policies

of the President, while the senators, for theirpart, look on him as a presiding officer only, whois outside the pale as far as the senatorial clubis concerned.’’ Despite being presiding officer,the vice president was ‘‘hardly ever’’ consultedabout legislative matters. Although he couldlobby for the president’s legislation, he had noth-ing to trade for votes. Truman noted that the sta-tus of John Nance Garner had rested more on hisposition within the Democratic party than on thevice-presidency, while Henry Wallace was aparty outsider who had little influence within theSenate. Alben Barkley, by contrast, ‘‘was in aclass by himself,’’ declared Truman. ‘‘He had thecomplete confidence of both the President andthe Senate.’’ 13

Although new in the job, Barkley had long ex-perience in dealing with vice presidents. He re-called how as a freshman senator in 1927 he hadgone to the rostrum in the Senate chamber tochat with Vice President Charles Dawes, whosaid, ‘‘Barkley, this is a helluva job I have as Vice-President.’’ ‘‘What is the matter with it?’’ Barkleyasked, to which Dawes replied: ‘‘I can do onlytwo things here. One of them is to sit up hereon this rostrum and listen to you birds talk with-out the ability to reply. The other is to look atthe newspapers every morning to see how thePresident’s health is.’’ 14

As party leader in the Senate, Alben Barkleyhad assessed the influence of several vice presi-dents over legislation and decided that the de-gree of influence depended on the person whoheld the office. Vice presidents with experiencein the House or Senate could occasionally exer-cise some leverage on legislation. As an example,Barkley cited former House Speaker John NanceGarner as the vice president who ‘‘exercised larg-er influence in the passage of legislation than anyother occupant of the Office.’’ Garner assisted thepassage of early New Deal legislation ‘‘in an in-formal and entirely proper way,’’ helping tospeed emergency bills through the Senate. Bar-kley therefore declared that ‘‘a Vice-Presidentwho is well liked by members of the Senate andby the corresponding members of the House incharge of legislation can exercise considerablepower in the shaping of the program of legisla-tion which every administration seeks to enact.’’

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Unlike some of his predecessors, Barkley wasdetermined not to enter into a ‘‘four-year periodof silence.’’ He accepted hundreds of invitationsto speak at meetings, conventions, banquets, andother partisan and nonpartisan programs. ‘‘I liketo do it,’’ he explained. ‘‘I like people and I enjoythe thrill of crowds. I have always believed it tobe the duty of those who are elected to high of-fice by the people to take government to themwhenever and by whatever legitimate meanspossible.’’ Traveling almost exclusively by air,Barkley claimed to have spent more time in theair than all his predecessors combined. Havingserved twenty-two years as a member of theHouse and Senate, and the past twelve as Demo-cratic leader, he missed taking an active part inthe debates and piloting legislation through topassage. He found that the office did notconsume all his energies. Barkley constantlysought other activities to occupy his time, attend-ing meetings of the Senate Democratic PolicyCommittee, legislative conferences with thepresident, and cabinet meetings. He was the firstvice president to become a member of the Na-tional Security Council, as provided by the Na-tional Security Act of 1947. ‘‘All these con-ferences I attend regularly,’’ he said in 1952, not-ing that he enjoyed them and engaged freely inthe discussions.15

Proud to be the Presiding Officer

Nevertheless, Alben Barkley was also the lastvice president to preside regularly over the Sen-ate. Senate Parliamentarian Floyd Riddick esti-mated that Barkley presided between 50 and 75percent of the time, a figure that seems incrediblyhigh today, but which reflected the traditionalconcept of the vice president’s constitutional re-sponsibility. As one who presided routinely, Bar-kley also used the Vice President’s Room, out-side the chamber, as his working office. He wasproud to occupy that historic room, and liked tokeep a wood fire burning in its fireplace, thesmell of wood smoke reminding him of the openhearth in his childhood home. He also tookpleasure in the furnishings and art works of theroom that were associated with famous namesfrom the past.16

In the Eighty-first Congress, which began inJanuary 1949, the Democrats enjoyed a 54-to-42majority in the Senate. By the Eighty-secondCongress, their margin had shrunk to 49 to 47.But in both of those congresses the real majoritybelonged to a coalition of conservative Demo-crats and Republicans. This conservative coali-tion had emerged out of the opposition to FDR’sCourt packing plan in 1937 and predominated inthe Senate at least until the liberal Democraticsweep of Senate elections in 1958. During theSecond World War and throughout the Trumanadministration, this conservative coalition fre-quently frustrated administration efforts to enactdomestic reform legislation.17

President Truman had proposed an ambitiousFair Deal program to deal with national healthinsurance, farm supports, labor-management re-lations, and civil rights, but the conservative coa-lition repeatedly derailed his legislative initia-tives, often through the use of filibusters. In thefield of civil rights, for instance, the president de-segregated the armed forces through executiveorder but had no luck in winning congressionalapproval of bills to outlaw the poll tax, makelynching a federal crime, or prohibit segregationand discrimination in interstate commerce. Moretypical of congressional attitudes at the time wasthe passage of a bill to authorize segregatedschools on federal property—a bill which Presi-dent Truman vetoed. ‘‘Step by step we are dis-carding old discriminations;’’ he declared, ‘‘wemust not adopt new ones.’’ 18

The Senate overturned some of Vice PresidentBarkley’s rulings. Charles Watkins, who servedas parliamentarian during Barkley’s vice-presi-dency, observed that, while Barkley was well ac-quainted with the Senate’s rules, he would some-times get them mixed up or become obstinateabout how a rule should be applied. On a fewoccasions, Barkley persisted in his own interpre-tations of the rules in spite of Watkins’ advice,only to have the Senate reverse his rulings—which dealt with efforts to enact civil rights legis-lation. Early in 1949, Barkley’s successor as ma-jority leader, Senator Scott Lucas of Illinois, at-tempted to amend the rules to make cloture easi-er to obtain as a way of ending a filibuster. Geor-gia Senator Richard Russell led the opposition to

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any rules changes that might favor civil rightslegislation. In a procedural move—and againstthe parliamentarian’s advice—Barkley ruledagainst Russell’s point of order, but the Senate,by a vote of 41 yeas to 46 nays, failed to sustainthe chair’s ruling. Barkley was apparently will-ing to take the risk of defeat both because of hissupport for the administration’s civil rights pro-gram and because of his own frustration at theSenate’s inability to invoke cloture and end de-bate during his years as majority leader.19

As vice president, Barkley did what he couldto help his successors as majority leader, ScottLucas (who served from 1949 to 1951) and ErnestMcFarland (who held the leadership from 1951to 1953). Barkley continued to interpret the rela-tionship between the vice president and the floorleader as that of catcher and pitcher. With the di-visions inside the ranks of the Democratic party,however, as well as the rapidly diminishing pop-ularity of the Truman administration, Barkleyoften watched his successors’ pitches go wild.Lucas and McFarland were more legislative me-chanics than floor leaders, and neither achievedBarkley’s status or prestige in the post. As onejournalist observed, they made the job of major-ity leader ‘‘misery without splendor.’’ Despitetheir leadership roles, Lucas and McFarlandwere each in turn defeated when they ran for re-election. Perhaps the sight of their increasing dis-comfort and distress may have added toBarkley’s own comfort and pleasure in his posi-tion as presiding officer rather than floorleader.20

An Activist Vice President

As vice president, Alben Barkley tried to be asmuch of an activist as his office would allow. Hewas assisted by a sympathetic president, whonot only had held the job, but was a student ofAmerican government and history and thoughtseriously about how to enhance the vice-presi-dency. By executive order, President Trumanproclaimed a new coat of arms, seal, and flag forthe vice president. ‘‘You can make ’em step asidenow,’’ Truman assured Barkley when the newsymbols of office were unveiled. Truman alsosupported a raise in the vice president’s salaryand expenses.21 When Barkley celebrated his

thirty-eighth anniversary of service in the legisla-tive branch, President Truman paid a surprisevisit to the Senate chamber to present to the vicepresident a gavel made from timber taken fromthe White House during its reconstruction. Bar-kley was deeply touched by the gesture. In ac-cepting the gift, Barkley noted that PresidentTruman frequently said that no president andvice president got along together as well as theydid. ‘‘The reason for this,’’ Barkley told the Sen-ate, ‘‘is that I have let him have his way abouteverything.’’ 22

During the 1950 congressional campaign,which occurred after the United States had en-tered the Korean War, President Truman left thejob of campaigning for Democratic candidates toVice President Barkley, who barnstormed the na-tion. Although Barkley’s party suffered losses,the Democrats retained their majorities in bothhouses of Congress.23 Yet, despite his vigorouscampaigning, it became evident that age was be-ginning to catch up with Alben Barkley. In 1950,the columnist Drew Pearson attended a dinnerfor the vice president, at which the president,chief justice, and Speaker of the House werepresent. Barkley gave a brief speech and‘‘seemed a little old and tired,’’ Pearson recordedin his private diary. ‘‘It was about the first timethat his speech wasn’t all it usually is.’’ 24

Even though he was exempted from the Twen-ty-second Amendment to the Constitution, rati-fied in 1951, that limited future presidents to twoterms, Truman announced his decision not toseek a third term. Vice President Barkley thensought the Democratic nomination for president,but his age and failing eyesight defeated his can-didacy. Organized labor, which exerted great in-fluence within the Democratic party organiza-tion, openly opposed his nomination because hewas too old. Although deeply hurt, Barkley ac-cepted the decision and withdrew from the race.He was invited to deliver a farewell address tothe convention and did so with characteristicgrace and style, celebrating the Democratic ‘‘cru-sade’’ that he had helped to lead to ensure a‘‘happier and fuller life to all mankind in theyears that lie before us.’’ When he bid the con-vention good-by, the delegates awarded him aforty-five-minute ovation, demonstrating the

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enormous affection that the party felt for him,even as they denied him his heart’s desire.25

Return from Retirement

Alben Barkley retired to Kentucky but couldnot stay retired for long. In 1954 he ran onceagain for a seat in the Senate against the incum-bent Republican Senator John Sherman Cooper.Campaigning always seemed to invigorate him,and he swept back into office by a comfortablemargin. His victory helped return the SenateDemocrats to a one-vote majority and made Lyn-don Johnson majority leader. Two years later, in1956, students at Washington and Lee Universityinvited Senator Alben Barkley to deliver the key-note address at their mock convention. He ac-cepted and gave one of his classic rip-snorting,Republican-bashing, Democratic-praising ora-tions. At its conclusion he reminded his audiencethat after all of his years in national politics hehad become a freshman once again, but that hehad declined an offer of a front row seat withother senior senators. ‘‘I’m glad to sit on the backrow,’’ he declared, ‘‘for I would rather be a serv-ant in the House of the Lord than to sit in theseats of the mighty.’’ Then, with the applause ofthe crowd in his ears, Alben Barkley collapsedand died from a massive heart attack. For an old-fashioned orator, there could have been no moreappropriate final exit from the stage.26

Clearly, Alben Barkley enjoyed being vicepresident of the United States. Although hemissed the opportunity to speak out, maneuver,and vote on bills as he had as senator andmajority leader, he enjoyed promoting the presi-dent’s legislative program. He also savored thethrill of the crowds that a vice president can at-tract, relished performing the ceremonial duties,and delighted in the prestige of national office.‘‘I hope the Vice-Presidency continues to holdthe respect of the American people,’’ he said.‘‘The qualifications for it are the same as for thePresidency itself. They have to be; for he may be-come the President in case of a death or disabil-ity.’’ The best way for vice presidents to retainrespect, he concluded, was to deserve it. ‘‘I havealways felt that public officers should lean back-wards in the performance of their official dutiesbecause, to a larger extent than many people re-alize, they are looked upon as examples of pro-bity and propriety in dealing with public mat-ters. It will be a sad day for this country andits institutions if and when the people loseconfidence in their public servants.’’ For hispart, Alben Barkley retained public con-fidence—even public affection—throughout hislong career in the legislative branch and forfour years cast the vice presidency in a highlypositive light.

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NOTES1 Alben W. Barkley, That Reminds Me (Garden City, NY,

1954), pp. 21–22.2 For Barkley’s life and career, see James K. Libbey, Dear

Alben: Mr. Barkley of Kentucky (Lexington, KY, 1976), andPolly Ann Davis, Alben Barkley: Senate Majority Leader andVice President (New York, 1979).

3 Barkley, That Reminds Me, p. 27.4 Ibid., p. 77.5 Donald A. Ritchie, ‘‘Alben W. Barkley: The President’s

Man,’’ in Richard A. Baker and Roger H. Davidson, eds.,First Among Equals: Outstanding Senate Leaders of the Twenti-eth Century (Washington, 1991), pp. 130, 146.

6 Ibid., pp. 129–31.7 Donald C. Bacon, ‘‘Joseph Taylor Robinson: The Good

Soldier,’’ in Baker and Davidson, eds., First Among Equals,pp. 63–66.

8 Ritchie, pp. 127–29.9 The events surrounding Barkley’s resignation are dra-

matically recounted in Allen Drury’s A Senate Journal, 1943–1945 (New York, 1963), pp. 85–97.

10 Barkley, That Reminds Me, pp. 169–94.11 Alonzo L. Hamby, Man of the People: A Life of Harry S.

Truman (New York, 1995), pp. 448–51; Robert J. Donovan,Conflict and Crisis: The Presidency of Harry S Truman, 1945–1948 (New York, 1977), pp. 405–6; Margaret Truman, HarryS. Truman (New York, 1973), pp. 9–11; David McCullough,Truman (New York, 1992), pp. 637–38.

12 Barkley, That Reminds Me, pp. 195–204.

13 Harry S. Truman, Memoirs by Harry S. Truman, vol. 1,Year of Decisions (Garden City, NY, 1955), p. 57.

14 Alben W. Barkley, ‘‘The Vice-Presidency,’’ May 1952,pp. 7–8, Alben W. Barkley Papers, University of Kentucky.

15 Ibid., pp. 12–14.16 Floyd M. Riddick: Senate Parliamentarian, Oral History

Interviews, June 26, 1978 to February 15, 1979 (U.S. SenateHistorical Office, Washington, DC), p. 66; Barkley, That Re-minds Me, p. 210.

17 See James T. Patterson, Congressional Conservatism andthe New Deal: The Growth of the Conservative Coalition in Con-gress, 1933–1939 (Lexington, KY, 1967).

18 Harold F. Gosnell, Truman’s Crises: A Political Biographyof Harry S. Truman (Westport, CT, 1980), pp. 439–49, 481–90.

19 Floyd M. Riddick, pp. 67, 126–28, 144–46; U.S., Congress,Senate, Congressional Record, 81st Cong, 1st sess., p. 2274;Gilbert C. Fite, Richard B. Russell, Jr.: Senator From Georgia(Chapel Hill, NC, 1991), pp. 245–46.

20 Ritchie, pp. 156–57.21 Davis, pp. 280–81.22 Congressional Record, 82d Cong., 1st sess, p. 1710.23 Gosnell, pp. 453–54.24 Tyler Abell, ed., Drew Pearson, Diaries, 1949–1959 (New

York, 1974), pp. 128–29.25 Barkley, That Reminds Me, pp. 231–51.26 Ibid., pp. 312–14.

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Chapter 36

RICHARD MILHOUS NIXON1953–1961

RICHARD M. NIXON

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Chapter 36

RICHARD MILHOUS NIXON36th Vice President: 1953–1961

[I]t just is not possible in politics for a Vice President to ‘‘chart out his own course’’.—RICHARD M. NIXON 1

On the morning of April 16, 1956, Vice Presi-dent Richard Nixon served notice that the vice-presidency had finally become an office to besought after by ambitious politicians rather thana position in which to gain four years of rest.After weeks of speculation that Nixon would bedropped from the Republican ticket in the com-ing presidential race, fueled by President DwightEisenhower’s comment that the vice presidenthad to ‘‘chart his own course,’’ Nixon decidedto force Ike’s hand. The young politician walkedinto the Oval Office and said, ‘‘Mr. President, Iwould be honored to continue as Vice Presidentunder you.’’ 2 Eisenhower now had to either ac-cept his running mate or reject him openly. Notwilling to risk a party squabble during whatpromised to be a successful reelection bid, Eisen-hower told the press he was ‘‘delighted by thenews.’’ Richard Nixon had defied pressure toleave office voluntarily that came from withinthe White House, the press, and some segmentsof the party. In the process, he had been offereda major cabinet position and had been urged torun for a seat in the Senate. Instead, this ambi-tious young politician fought to remain in whathad once been considered a meaningless office.Over the previous four years, Nixon had notonly worked hard to promote the policies of theEisenhower administration but had used thevice-presidency to build a foundation of supportamong the regulars of the Republican party thatmade him the early favorite for the presidentialnomination in 1960. He had fought hard for the

office in 1952 and was not about to let anyonebut Eisenhower take it from him.

From Whittier to Congress

Richard Nixon’s career seems best described asa series of fierce political battles. Every campaignwas bruising, and he never occupied a ‘‘safe’’seat, perhaps only fitting for a man who hadcome so far, so fast. Born on January 9, 1913, toa Quaker family in Yorba Linda, California, Rich-ard Milhous Nixon spent his childhood readingand working in the various family enterprises.As a teenager in Whittier, California, he split histime between the family grocery store and thehigh school debating team, where he receivednumerous awards. He went on to Whittier Col-lege, a small Quaker school not far from home,and then received a scholarship to attend lawschool at Duke University. Nixon’s academicperformance was characterized by perseveranceand a determination to work harder than any ofhis classmates. That determination pushed himto finish third in his class at Duke in 1937 butdid not result in any job offers from well-knownfirms in New York City, as Nixon had hoped.Disappointed, he returned to Whittier, joined asmall firm, and began dabbling in local politics.In 1940 he married Thelma ‘‘Pat’’ Ryan, afterwooing her persistently for more than two years.

As was the case for so many men of his genera-tion, World War II interrupted Richard Nixon’splans. His Quaker background made Nixon re-luctant to volunteer for duty in the armed serv-

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ices, but in 1942, he obtained a job with the Officeof Price Administration in Washington that al-lowed him to contribute to the war effort andgain valuable government experience. Soon,however, the call to arms became too great to re-sist, and in August of 1942 he joined the navy.He served in the South Pacific Air TransportCommand, operating airfields during GeneralDouglas MacArthur’s island-hopping campaign.While the war unexpectedly altered Nixon’s ca-reer path, his service record made him an evenmore attractive political candidate than he hadbeen previously. Even before his discharge wasofficial, the Committee of 100, a group of south-ern California business and professional leaderslooking for a promising Republican candidate tosponsor against incumbent Democratic Rep-resentative Jerry Voorhis, asked if Nixon wasavailable as a congressional candidate. Afterbrief interviews to determine that this returningyoung veteran held acceptably Republicanviews, the group helped launch a career that wasmore promising than they could have foreseen.Despite this impressive backing, however, thecampaign against Voorhis was a hard-nosed af-fair that gained Nixon both ardent admirers andfierce enemies. Nothing ever came easily for DickNixon.3

That first campaign in 1946 gave RichardNixon the issue that would catapult him toprominence. He vigorously attacked Representa-tive Voorhis for being dominated by Com-munist-controlled labor unions. Like many Re-publican candidates across the country, Nixonaccused the Democrats of allowing Communiststo enter important positions in the federal gov-ernment, thus undermining American securityand threatening to ‘‘socialize’’ the United States.As the cold war began to heat up in Europe andAsia, the American public reacted positively toRepublican appeals to throw the Communistsout of government, as well as to calls for cuttingback on the New and Fair Deals. Republicansswept to victory in congressional elections acrossthe country, winning majorities in the House andSenate for the first time since 1928. Nixon rodethis wave of protest, receiving a whopping 57percent of the vote in his district. The

anticommunism that won him a seat in Congressbecame his trademark issue on Capitol Hill whenhe gained appointment to the House Committeeon Un-American Activities (HUAC).4

Formed in the 1930s to investigate the activitiesof Nazi and Communist organizations in theUnited States, HUAC had also served as a forumfor attacks on Jews, civil libertarians, and laborunion activists. By the late 1940s, the committeehad a tarnished reputation as an ineffective andirresponsible group that was more dedicated toattracting publicity than to preserving Americansecurity. But, with public anxiety on the rise,HUAC members had the opportunity to lead thefight against domestic communism. Nixon tooklittle part in the committee’s investigations ofHollywood during 1947, but he became the lead-ing figure in its highly publicized investigationof Alger Hiss.

In 1948, Whittaker Chambers, an editor forTime and a former Communist, testified thatHiss, a former State Department official and ad-viser to President Roosevelt at Yalta, had beena Communist agent. Hiss denied the charge, butover the next year and a half, the attempt to un-cover the real story thrust Richard Nixon into thespotlight. Nixon led the investigation that even-tually sent Hiss to prison for perjury. The casegave Nixon a national reputation as a diligenthunter of Communists and established him as arising, if controversial, young star in the GOP.5

Nixon was not content to remain in the Houseof Representatives. After only four years in theHouse, he set his sights on the Senate seat heldby Democrat Sheridan Downey. Facing a pri-mary challenge from Representative HelenGahagan Douglas, an aggressive opponent,Downey decided to retire and to endorse anotherDemocrat, Chester Boddy. While Douglas andBoddy engaged in a vicious primary battle,Nixon watched and waited. When Douglas, aformer actress, narrowly won the nomination,one of the nastier senatorial campaigns in U.S.history began. Nixon attacked Douglas for hav-ing voted against appropriations for HUAC andinsinuated that she was a Communist sym-pathizer, charges that Boddy had used duringthe primaries. The Nixon campaign distributedpink leaflets comparing Douglas’ House voting

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record with that of Labor party member VitoMarcantonio of New York, while the candidateand others referred to her as ‘‘the Pink Lady.’’Douglas fought just as hard, implying that Nixonhad fascist tendencies and was controlled by oilinterests. She even pinned on him the label thatwould haunt him for years, ‘‘Tricky Dick.’’ Whenthe smoke cleared, Nixon emerged with an over-whelming victory, garnering 59 percent of thevote. Nixon ran well throughout the state, exhib-iting an ability to win votes in traditional Demo-cratic areas and gaining continued attentionfrom Republican leaders nationwide. The cam-paign also brought harsh criticism. For yearsafterward, his opponents would point to the 1950race as an example of the mean streak they con-sidered so much a part of Richard Nixon’s char-acter. The victory brought him increased prestigewithin the Republican party and among conserv-atives generally, but it also formed the founda-tion for his reputation as an unscrupulouscampaigner.6

Even a seat in the United States Senate, how-ever, could not entirely satisfy the restless Cali-fornian. In 1951, he embarked on a nationalspeaking tour, delivering forty-nine speeches intwenty-two states. His travels boosted his al-ready rising popularity with Republicans, and hewas soon regarded as the party’s most popularspeaker.7 During these speeches, Nixon alsoshowed his dexterity at reaching out to the dif-ferent factions within the party. In the early1950s, Republicans were deeply divided betweenthe conservative party regulars, usually knownas the Old Guard and personified by Ohio Sen-ator Robert Taft, and the more liberal easternwing of the party, led by Thomas Dewey of NewYork. Nixon’s anticommunism appealed to con-servatives, but his firm internationalism andmoderate views on domestic policy also madehim popular with more liberal audiences. Thisability to appeal to the party as a whole wouldserve him well in the future. By 1952, peoplewere already thinking of him as a national can-didate. Any Republican presidential nomineewould be under tremendous pressure to ‘‘bal-ance’’ the ticket by finding a vice-presidentialcandidate who would be acceptable in both the

East and the Midwest. Richard Nixon’s consen-sus approach to Republican politics positionedhim to fill that role.

Campaigning for the Vice-Presidency

In 1952 the campaign for the Republican presi-dential nomination centered around Taft andGeneral Dwight D. Eisenhower. Senator Taft hadbeen an influential force in the party for morethan a decade, leading the opposition to Presi-dent Harry Truman’s ‘‘Fair Deal.’’ Eisenhower,the commander of Allied forces in Europe duringWorld War II, had been sought by both partiesas a nominee ever since the end of the war. In1952, he announced that he was a Republicanand that he was willing to run. Widely, thoughnot always accurately, considered more liberalthan Taft, Eisenhower was primarily concernedthat the Republicans were in danger of rejectinginternationalism. After failing to convince Taft tosupport an internationalist program, Ike threwhis hat in the ring.

The contest threatened to polarize the party,and a number of darkhorse candidates enteredthe Republican national convention hoping for adeadlock. The most prominent of these hopefulswas Governor Earl Warren of California. As amember of the California delegation, SenatorNixon was obligated to support Warren’s can-didacy until the governor gave up the race.Nixon, however, used the train ride to the con-vention in Chicago to lobby his fellow delegateson behalf of Eisenhower. He argued that, when(rather than if) Warren released his delegates,they should throw their support to Eisenhower,because Taft could not win the general election.Many Taft supporters later referred to Nixon’sefforts as ‘‘the Great Train Robbery,’’ claiming hesold out both Taft and Warren in exchange forthe vice-presidential nomination. Nixon’s sup-port for Eisenhower was sincere, but both Thom-as Dewey and Ike’s campaign manager, HenryCabot Lodge, Jr., had told Nixon weeks earlierthat he was the probable choice if Eisenhowershould win. These promises, coupled with Taft’spreference for Nixon’s California colleague Sen-ator William Knowland, undoubtedly spurredhis efforts. After Eisenhower won the nomina-tion, he put together a list of potential running

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mates with Senator Nixon’s name at the top.Party leaders had already decided that Nixonwas their man.8

Richard Nixon was, in many ways, the idealrunning mate for Dwight Eisenhower. The gen-eral indicated that he wanted someone ‘‘whowas young, vigorous, ready to learn, and of goodreputation.’’ 9 Only on the last of these criteriawas Nixon suspect, and the most outspoken crit-ics of Nixon’s tactics were liberal Democrats whoprobably would not have voted for the Repub-lican ticket in any event. Aside from providinga youthful counter to the sixty-two-year-old Ei-senhower, Nixon balanced the ticket geographi-cally, since Eisenhower’s campaign relied heav-ily on New Yorkers. His nomination also indi-cated that California was becoming increasinglyvital in presidential politics. Perhaps most im-portant, Nixon was one of only a very few Re-publicans of national stature acceptable to boththe Eisenhower camp and the Old Guard.10 Hisselection was intended to foster unity within theparty and to calm the strife that could lead to an-other electoral disaster like that of 1948. Calm,however, was seldom to be associated with Rich-ard Nixon.

On September 18, 1952, barely two monthsafter the Republican convention and just as thecampaign was beginning to heat up, the frontpage of the New York Post ran the headline, ‘‘Se-cret Nixon Fund!’’ The story reported that Nixonhad established a ‘‘millionaire’s club’’ to helppay his political expenses. About seventy Cali-fornia businessmen contributed $100 to $500each to pay the senator’s travel and postage billsand prepare for future campaigns. Unconcernedby the article at first, Nixon argued that the fundwas hardly secret and was intended as a meansof saving public funds that would otherwisehave been applied to his Senate expense account.He apparently forgot that such uses of his ac-count would have been illegal. The Truman ad-ministration had been rocked by a series of scan-dals over the previous two years, and one of thekeys to the Republican campaign was Eisen-hower’s pledge to clean the ‘‘crooks and cronies’’out of Washington. The Democrats charged theRepublicans with hypocritically attacking the ad-ministration when the GOP’s vice-presidential

nominee was taking money from business inter-ests. Democratic leaders called on Nixon to re-sign, and public pressure began to build for theRepublicans to come clean about the ‘‘secretfund.’’ The Washington Post and New York HeraldTribune joined the call for Nixon’s resignation.His candidacy was in jeopardy before it couldeven get started.11

Eisenhower, meanwhile, remained cautious.He asserted his belief that his running mate wasan honest man and that the facts would vindicatehim. But Ike did not dismiss the possibility ofNixon’s resignation, saying only that he wouldtalk with Nixon about the situation as soon aspossible. When Eisenhower later told the pressthat the Republican campaign must be ‘‘clean asa hound’s tooth,’’ Nixon advisers took it as a signthat their man was in trouble with the boss. Rela-tions between the two camps had been strainedfrom the beginning. Some of Eisenhower’s advis-ers were uncomfortable with Nixon on the ticket,because they mistakenly viewed him as a tool ofthe Old Guard, and they would have been morethan happy to see him go. For their part, Nixon’ssupporters resented the disdain they felt comingfrom Eisenhower’s people and were angry thatIke was leaving Nixon to fend for himself.12 Fi-nally, Nixon decided to force a decision by ap-pearing on national television to explain his ac-tions. On September 23, just hours before hewent on the air, he received a call from TomDewey, who explained that Eisenhower’s ‘‘topadvisers’’ had decided that it would be best ifNixon ended his speech by offering his resigna-tion. Nixon was momentarily stunned, but whenDewey asked what he was going to do, he re-plied, ‘‘Just tell them I haven’t the slightest ideaas to what I am going to do and if they wantto find out they’d better listen to the broadcast.And tell them I know something about politicstoo!’’ 13

What Nixon did that night saved his can-didacy. From a studio in Los Angeles, Nixongave the nation a detailed report of his financialhistory, everything from the mortgage on hishouse to the one political gift he said he intendedto keep, a little dog his daughters named‘‘Checkers.’’ While this reference to his dog pro-vided the popular name for one of the twentieth

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century’s most significant political speeches,Nixon did much more than create a colorfulimage. He effectively refuted the ridiculouscharge that he used the fund to live a life of lux-ury, while deflecting the more fundamentalquestions involving the influence gained by itscontributors—questions that the Democratsseemed to lose sight of in their haste to sensa-tionalize the story. Nixon also challenged theother candidates to make a full disclosure of theirassets, knowing that Democratic presidentialnominee Adlai Stevenson had problems with afund of his own. Finally, he urged viewers towrite to the Republican National Committee tostate whether Nixon should leave or remain onthe ticket. He presented himself as a commonAmerican, struggling to pay the bills, doing hispart to clean up ‘‘the mess in Washington,’’ andsuffering the attacks of vicious foes.

Many observers found Nixon’s ‘‘Checkers’’speech repulsive. Journalist Walter Lippmanncalled it ‘‘the most demeaning experience mycountry has ever had to bear,’’ and Eisenhower’sclose friend, General Lucius Clay, thought it was‘‘corny.’’ But the speech seemed to touch a chordin what is often called ‘‘Middle America’’ thatelite observers failed to understand. HistorianHerbert Parmet has argued that the appeal waslike that of a Frank Capra movie, with Nixonplaying the role of ‘‘Mr. Smith.’’ Nearly sixty mil-lion people watched the telecast (a record audi-ence that would not be broken until Nixon de-bated John F. Kennedy in the 1960 presidentialrace), and the response was overwhelming. Over160,000 telegrams poured into Republican na-tional headquarters, and switchboards aroundthe country were jammed with calls to local andstate party officials urging Nixon to stay on theticket. There was little Eisenhower could do butconsent. In a bold stroke, Nixon had effectivelytaken the decision away from Eisenhower by ap-pealing to the party faithful. Nixon remained onthe ticket, and ‘‘Ike and Dick’’ cruised to a com-fortable victory in November.14

The Eisenhower Team

Over the next eight years, Richard Nixon ele-vated the office of vice president to a position ofimportance never before seen. No previous vice

president was ever as active within the adminis-tration or enjoyed as much responsibility, partlybecause of Nixon’s own energetic habits. He wasalways looking for something to do and took akeen interest in almost every aspect of govern-ment. Circumstances also played a part becauseof Eisenhower’s occasional health problems. Be-lieving that Franklin Roosevelt’s failure to keepVice President Harry S. Truman informed ofgovernment initiatives like the ManhattanProject had been dangerous, Eisenhower was de-termined that his own vice president would beas well informed as anyone in the administra-tion.15 But the primary reason for Nixon’s activ-ist status was that Eisenhower provided himwith unique opportunities. Apart from the vicepresident’s constitutional role as presiding offi-cer of the Senate, the occupant of that office canonly safely take up the activities that the presi-dent indicates are appropriate. Most presidentsmade little use of their vice presidents. Eisen-hower, however, with his military experienceconfirming the value of a well-trained subordi-nate officer, found that Nixon could be an impor-tant part of his ‘‘team’’ concept of presidentialadministration, especially since Nixon possessedmany of the political skills that were lacking insome of Eisenhower’s other key advisers. Also,unlike some other vice presidents, Nixon did notrepresent a former or potential challenger to Ei-senhower. Ike was, therefore, willing to use hisyouthful vice president for important tasks, andNixon was willing to be so used. When they dif-fered on questions of policy, there was never anyquestion that Nixon would follow the president’slead. Because Nixon could perform smoothly inthe several roles that Eisenhower needed filled,he was able to cultivate the image of an activeand important vice president.

Party Liaison

Nixon’s most important function in the admin-istration was to link Eisenhower with the partyleadership, especially in Congress. Nixon andHenry Cabot Lodge, Jr., were the only formercongressmen in the Eisenhower cabinet, and noone else had Nixon’s connections with the Sen-ate. Although the Republicans held a slim major-ity in Congress, it was not certain that the Old

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Guard, many of whom were influential commit-tee chairmen, would rally to Eisenhower’s legis-lative agenda. If the president was going to pushthrough his program of ‘‘modern Republican-ism’’ and stave off unwanted legislation, heneeded a former member who could ‘‘work theHill’’ on his behalf. Nixon advised Eisenhowerto go to Congress ‘‘only in dramatic cir-cumstances,’’ because ‘‘Truman came so oftenthere were occasions when he didn’t have a fullHouse,’’ but he need not have worried. Eisen-hower had no intention of trying to dominateCongress the way his predecessors had. Eisen-hower and Nixon held regular meetings with theRepublican congressional leadership, but thepresident had little contact with other GOPmembers of Congress, and he seldom tried toharness public pressure against Congress to sup-port his legislation. This approach suited Eisen-hower’s ‘‘hidden hand’’ style of leadership, butto be effective, someone had to serve as the ad-ministration’s political broker with the rest of theRepublicans. Nixon was the obvious candidate.16

One of the more immediate tasks for the newvice president was to help the administration de-feat the Bricker amendment. In 1951, RepublicanSenator John W. Bricker of Ohio had introduceda constitutional amendment that would havedrastically curtailed the ability of the presidentto obtain treaties and executive agreements withother nations. Bricker’s immediate purpose wasto prohibit President Truman from entering intoagreements such as the United Nations Conven-tion on the Prevention and Punishment of Geno-cide, for fear that it would compromise the sov-ereignty of the United States. More generally, theBricker amendment aimed to increase the influ-ence of Congress in making foreign policy. Evenwith a Republican in the White House, Brickerrefused to back away from his amendment, offer-ing it as the first order of business in the newCongress, with the support of almost every Re-publican senator. Eisenhower, however, believedthe amendment would severely restrict the nec-essary powers of the president and make the na-tion ‘‘helpless in world affairs.’’ Rather thanconfront his own party leadership, he hoped todelay action on the measure in order to gradually

chip away at its support. He sent Nixon and oth-ers to work with Bricker on compromises andsuggested a ‘‘study committee,’’ with Bricker asits chair, to come up with an agreeable alter-native.17 Bricker, however, would not yield onthe substance of his amendment. Finally, in 1954,after much wrangling, the administration con-vinced Democrat Walter George of Georgia tooffer a much less stringent substitute. On the cru-cial roll call, the substitute received a vote of 60to 31, falling one short of the two-thirds majoritynecessary for passage of a constitutional amend-ment. Bricker tried to revive his amendment, buttoo many Republicans had changed sides.18 VicePresident Nixon had been one of the administra-tion’s most active lobbyists in defeating theamendment without splitting the party. Hisother primary assignment as party intermediaryproved more demanding.

Senator Joseph R. McCarthy (R-WI) shot tofame in 1950 by brazenly claiming that the StateDepartment was full of ‘‘known Communists.’’Over the next two years, he waged a runningbattle with the Truman administration over itsconduct of foreign policy and the loyalty of itsappointees. Many Republicans and some con-servative Democrats joined in thisanticommunist ‘‘crusade.’’ They averred that thenation had been betrayed at Yalta and that Tru-man had ‘‘lost China.’’ McCarthy promised toclean the Communists out of government and toend ‘‘twenty years of treason.’’

When Dwight Eisenhower entered the WhiteHouse, he and his advisers hoped that VicePresident Nixon could keep McCarthy in line ifthe senator continued his attacks. The results ofthis strategy were mixed. Nixon was certainlythe right man for the job. As historian DavidOshinsky writes, ‘‘Only Taft and Nixon seemedable to reach him [McCarthy], and Taft was nowtoo sick to try.’’ 19 Nixon was also one of the fewpeople in the nation who could safely deal withthe ‘‘McCarthy problem,’’ because, as Eisen-hower put it, ‘‘Anybody who takes it on runs therisk of being called a pink. Dick has had experi-ence in the communist field, and therefore hewould not be subject to criticism.’’ 20 Nixon suc-ceeded in convincing McCarthy not to pursue aninvestigation of the CIA, but the senator was

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soon talking about ‘‘twenty-one years of trea-son,’’ implying that Eisenhower had notstemmed the tide. Neither Nixon nor anyone elsecould convince McCarthy not to investigate theU.S. Army. As chairman of the Committee onGovernment Operations’ Permanent Investiga-tions Subcommittee, McCarthy had wide discre-tion to conduct investigations, but Eisenhowerpublicly claimed that he would not allow mem-bers of the executive branch to testify about pri-vate conversations. He also supported army offi-cers who refused to appear before the sub-committee. As the president did what he couldto divert the hearings, he had Nixon make a na-tional speech emphasizing the need to be ‘‘fair’’in the pursuit of Communists. In the end, McCar-thy went too far. The televised Army-McCarthyhearings revealed to the public a bellicose sen-ator viciously attacking the army and the admin-istration. As the president refused to give execu-tive information to the committee, and asMcCarthy’s public support waned, his Senatecolleagues finally decided they had seen enough.On December 2, 1954, with Vice President Nixonpresiding, the Senate voted 67 to 22 to condemnMcCarthy’s behavior. Republicans split 22 to 22on the vote, with Democrats unanimously infavor. Thus, after Eisenhower’s attempt to useNixon to contain McCarthy failed, the adminis-tration had resorted instead to quiet resistance,allowing McCarthy himself to bring about hisown downfall.21

Adviser and Campaigner

Apart from his specific assignments, Nixonalso served as the administration’s general politi-cal expert. No one in the administration had amore thorough knowledge of the way Congressworked and how to get legislation passed. He al-ways attended cabinet meetings and contributedhis insight by pointing out the political implica-tions of any decision. He urged cabinet membersto get to know the chairmen of the committeesthat had jurisdiction over their departments. Ei-senhower’s speech writer, Emmett Hughes, de-scribed Nixon as ‘‘crisp and practical and logical:never proposing major objectives, but quick andshrewd in suggesting or refining methods.’’ 22

Nixon also emphasized the need to sell ‘‘modern

Republicanism’’ to the public. Cabinet members,he said, should not be afraid to make partisanspeeches and should concentrate them in com-petitive congressional districts. He even sug-gested that they should welcome the chance toappear on such television interview shows asMeet the Press.23 Meanwhile, both Eisenhowerand Secretary of State John Foster Dulles usedNixon to publicly explore policy options andpropose ideas that they were wary of advocatingthemselves. As Ike put it, ‘‘He [Nixon] can some-times take positions which are more politicalthan it would be expected that I take.’’ 24

Nowhere was this approach more in evidencethan on the campaign trail. The Republican strat-egy in 1952 had been simple. While Eisenhowerran a positive campaign that emphasized his ap-peal to citizens of all parties, Nixon’s job was to‘‘hammer away at our opponents.’’ He quicklygained a reputation as the Republican ‘‘hatchetman,’’ an image that would be captured byWashington Post cartoonist ‘‘Herblock’s’’ por-trayal of him as a mud-slinging sewer dweller,an image that Nixon deeply resented. Nixon’scampaign was a hard-hitting anticommunist as-sault, charging that Truman’s secretary of state,Dean Acheson, ‘‘had lost China, much of EasternEurope, and had invited the Communists tobegin the Korean War,’’ and calling Democraticpresidential candidate Adlai Stevenson a grad-uate of Acheson’s ‘‘Cowardly College of Com-munist Containment.’’ 25 But Nixon’s campaign-ing was hardly over after 1952. In fact, it seemedas though he were campaigning throughout hisvice-presidency. In 1954 he hit the campaign trailonce more on behalf of congressionalRepublicans.

In many ways, Nixon emerged as the party’sspokesman during these years because Eisen-hower was unwilling to take on that role. Eisen-hower was determined to be president of ‘‘all thepeople,’’ and did not ‘‘intend to make of thepresidency an agency to use in partisan elec-tions.’’ 26 Apparently, he had no such qualmsabout the vice-presidency, and who better torally the party faithful than Nixon, the man acontemporary observer called the ‘‘scientificpitchman of politics.’’ 27 While Eisenhowerwould not go after the Democrats, he was quite

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willing to let Nixon do so. According to WhiteHouse Chief of Staff Sherman Adams, ‘‘[Ike] toldNixon and others, including myself, that he waswell aware that somebody had to do the hard-hitting infighting, and he had no objection to itas long as no one expected him to do it.’’ 28 Nixontherefore conducted another aggressive cam-paign for the midterm election, covering nearly26,000 miles to ninety-five cities in thirty stateson behalf of Republican candidates. The outcomewas not favorable for the GOP, which lost twoSenate seats and sixteen House seats, and Nixonreceived little public credit for his efforts.29

Eisenhower’s ambivalence about Nixon’s at-tacking campaign style emerged forcefully twoyears later in their 1956 reelection campaign. Ei-senhower told Nixon that he should try to ele-vate the level of his speeches and that he shouldavoid ‘‘the exaggerations of partisan politicaltalk.’’ Unlike Harry Truman’s ‘‘give ’em hell’’campaign of 1948, Ike wanted Nixon to ‘‘give’em heaven.’’ This more dignified campaignstyle led to discussions of a ‘‘new Nixon.’’ Hetalked about ‘‘Republican prosperity’’ and Eisen-hower’s positive accomplishments as president.It seemed that Nixon had finally decided to putaway his rhetorical boxing gloves. But it was afalse impression. Nixon was uncomfortable withthis approach. Republican crowds did not reactwith the same vigor as when he ripped into theDemocrats, and he found it hard to suppress his‘‘normal partisan instincts,’’ and to ‘‘campaignwith one arm tied behind [his] back.’’ 30 Yet thiswas not entirely his campaign, and he had toabide by Eisenhower’s wishes. Ike, however,soon remembered why he had chosen Nixon inthe first place. As the campaign intensified andStevenson (running once more) and the Demo-crats stepped up their attacks on the administra-tion, Eisenhower decided to give his aggressivevice president a bit more rope. He told him,‘‘Look, Dick, we’ve agreed that your speechesgenerally in this campaign ought to be on a high-er level than in the past. Still I think it’s perfectlyall right for you to pick up on some of these wildcharges and throw them back at the other fel-low.’’ 31 Eisenhower, of course, did not intend tofollow this course himself. So, while Eisen-

hower’s staff privately worried about Nixon‘‘running loose through the country,’’ the ‘‘oldNixon’’ reemerged with Eisenhower’s blessingand once more provided Democrats with theirfavorite target.

Two years later, many of Nixon’s friends ad-vised him to stay away from the 1958 congres-sional elections. Despite Eisenhower’s continuedpopularity and his comfortable victory in 1956,Republicans had lost ground in Congress in 1954and again in 1956. Most observers predicted fur-ther losses in 1958. Many of Nixon’s friends inthe party, anticipating that he would run forpresident in 1960, thought that being associatedwith the certain disaster of 1958 would only getin the way. As Tom Dewey told him, ‘‘I knowthat all those party wheelhorses will tell you sto-ries that will pluck your heartstrings, but you’retoying with your chance to be President. Don’tdo it, Dick. You’ve already done enough, and1960 is what counts now.’’ 32

If Nixon did not carry the banner for the party,who would? Eisenhower was not willing to doso, and no one else could. In the end, Nixoncould not resist, and he took to the campaigntrail once more. He was more disenchanted withthe party’s organization than ever, and the re-sults of the elections confirmed his pessimism.(He reported to the cabinet, ‘‘There were just toomany turkeys running on the Republican tick-et.’’) 33 The GOP lost 13 seats in the Senate and47 in the House while losing 13 of 21 guber-natorial races. The only really impressive vic-tories for the Republicans were for governorsNelson Rockefeller in New York and Mark Hat-field in Oregon, and Senator Barry Goldwater inArizona. The press proclaimed that the big win-ner was Rockefeller, while the big loser wasNixon. Years later, Nixon would lament, ‘‘Per-haps Dewey had been right: I should have satit out.’’ 34 Despite the immediate disaster, Eisen-hower was not the only beneficiary of Nixon’scampaigning. Rank-and-file Republicans did notforget that Nixon had tried to help, and partyleaders throughout the nation owed the vicepresident a significant political debt. He wouldcollect in 1960.

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Goodwill Ambassador

While Nixon’s roles as political adviser andcampaigner were the most important ones in de-fining his place in the administration, it was hisrole as international goodwill ambassador thatbrought him the most praise. Henry Wallace hadbeen the first vice president to travel abroad, butno one either before or since did so with greaterfanfare than Nixon. On most occasions his visitswere intended only as gestures of Americanfriendship. Nixon’s 1958 trip to Argentina for theinauguration of that nation’s first democraticallyelected leader was one such visit. Sometimes,however, the vice president’s travels had a moresubstantive purpose. On his first trip abroad, toAsia in 1953, Nixon took with him a note fromEisenhower to South Korean leader SyngmanRhee. The letter made it clear that the UnitedStates would not support a South Korean inva-sion of the North, and Nixon was sent to obtaina promise from Rhee that such an action wouldnot take place.35 Nixon visited a number of coun-tries in Asia from Japan to Pakistan, travelling38,000 miles. He established a practice of meetingwith students, workers, and opposition leadersas well as with government officials. His open-ness seemed popular in most of these nations,and he developed an abiding interest in the con-tinent and its politics. His travels gave him a rep-utation at home as an expert on Asian affairs thatwould remain with him throughout his life. Healso travelled to Austria in 1956 to meet withHungarian refugees and to Africa a year later.

But Nixon’s most famous trips were still tocome. When he set off for South America in 1958,he anticipated an uneventful tour that wouldmerely distract him from his attempts to talk theadministration into cutting taxes at home. Hewas unprepared for the vehemence of the anti-American demonstrations he would encounterfrom those opposing U.S. policy toward LatinAmerica. In Peru, Nixon was blocked from visit-ing San Marcos University by a crowd of dem-onstrators chanting ‘‘Go Home Nixon!’’ He wasmet in Venezuela by hostile crowds that spat athim as he left his plane. In the capital, Caracas,the scene turned violent. A mob surrounded hiscar and began rocking it back and forth, trying

to turn it over and chanting ‘‘Death to Nixon.’’Protected by only twelve Secret Service agents,the procession was forced to wait for the Ven-ezuelan military to clear a path of escape. But bythat time, the car had been nearly demolishedand the vice president had seen his fill of SouthAmerica. President Eisenhower sent a navalsquadron to the Venezuelan coast in case theyneeded to rescue the vice president, but Nixonquietly left the country the next day. He returnedto Washington to a hero’s welcome. Over 15,000people met him at the airport, including Presi-dent Eisenhower and the entire cabinet. Over thenext few days, politicians of both partiesthroughout the nation praised Nixon’s courage,and congratulations poured in by the thousands.It was Nixon’s shining moment, but the respectwas more the result of Americans rallying be-hind their vice president than any change in Nix-on’s standing.36

Nixon’s final trip abroad brought him more fa-vorable reviews. In 1959, he travelled to the So-viet Union to open the United States Exhibitionin Sokolniki Park in Moscow, part of a new cul-tural exchange program. As he and Soviet Pre-mier Nikita Khrushchev toured the exhibit, theyengaged in a lengthy and sometimes heated de-bate on the merits of capitalism versus com-munism. Much of this debate was captured byAmerican television, which transmitted animage of the nation’s vice president standing ina model American kitchen defending Americanprogress against a belligerent Khrushchev. Theencounter became known as ‘‘The Kitchen De-bate,’’ and the nation once more took pride inits feisty vice president. Nixon concluded his tripwith a thirty-minute speech on Soviet television,becoming the first American official to addressthe Soviet Union in a live broadcast. He stressed‘‘peaceful competition’’ between the East andWest and expressed hope that the ‘‘Spirit of Ge-neva’’ would include a freer exchange of infor-mation. On his return, Nixon stopped in War-saw, Poland, and was given a remarkable andtouching reception by the people of that city,who crowded the streets, throwing roses andshouting ‘‘Long Live Nixon.’’ While the trip con-tained little of real substance, it showed Ameri-

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cans an energetic young leader acting on theworld stage, an impressive image and one thatNixon would try to cultivate for the future. Inall, Nixon visited fifty-four countries and metforty-five heads of state during his eight yearsas vice president, setting a standard difficult forhis successors to match and his opponents todiscount.37

The vice president, of course, did not travelalone. Pat Nixon always accompanied her hus-band overseas and established her own role inspreading American ‘‘goodwill.’’ She had vigor-ously campaigned with him for Congress in 1946and 1950, but by 1952 she had grown weary ofpolitics. Still, when her husband received thevice-presidential nomination, she took up cam-paigning with him once again. She seemed re-signed to being married to a politician and con-centrated on raising their two daughters, Triciaand Julie, with minimal privacy at their home onTilden Street in Washington’s Spring Valley sec-tion. However, as Nixon biographer JonathanAitken puts it, ‘‘Pat longed for that peace whichthe world of politics cannot give.’’ She did, how-ever, enjoy travelling and developed a reputa-tion as an ambassador in her own right. Whilethe vice president met with political leaders, Mrs.Nixon visited hospitals and schools, mixing withpeople wherever she went. She gave the firstpress conference exclusively for women report-ers in Japan and dined in a previously all-maleclub in Kuala Lumpur. Everywhere she went,she was extremely popular and only added tothe positive image of her husband. If anyone de-served the title ‘‘goodwill ambassador,’’ it wasPat Nixon.38

Constitutional Roles

Apart from the jobs Eisenhower gave him,Nixon was also the presiding officer of the Sen-ate, as provided in the Constitution. Like manyof his predecessors, Nixon did not find this taskto be particularly interesting. He was too ener-getic and ambitious to sit and listen to Senatespeeches without being able either to vote or tointervene and was therefore seldom present inthe Senate chamber. After the 1952 elections, Re-publicans held a one-vote majority in the Senate,with 48 members; the Democrats had 47; and

Wayne Morse (OR) had just left the Republicanparty and intended to vote as an Independent.But when Senate Republican Leader Robert Taftdied in July 1953, Ohio’s governor replaced himwith a Democrat, Thomas A. Burke, shifting theone-vote majority to the Democrats. WayneMorse made it clear, however, that he wouldvote with his former Republican colleagues onorganizational matters, giving the Republicansexactly half the votes of the ninety-six-memberSenate, with Vice President Nixon available tobreak a tied vote in the Republicans’ favor. TheDemocrats therefore realized it would be futileto offer the resolutions necessary to give themcontrol of the Senate’s committee chairmanshipsand majority floor leadership offices. For the re-mainder of that Congress, Nixon occasionallyappeared if he thought it would be necessary tobreak a tie, but otherwise he customarily leftafter the opening prayer and majority leader’sannouncements, turning over the chair to a jun-ior member.39

As the Democratic majority grew during the1950s, Nixon spent even less time in the Senate.Because Nixon had never been known as a legis-lative tactician or parliamentarian, and his oneconstitutionally mandated job did not provideany real opportunities to use his political skills,he avoided his duties in the Senate wheneverpossible.

The vice president did try to take a more activerole in the Senate’s deliberations on one occasion,but his effort failed. In 1957, the Eisenhower ad-ministration decided to push for a civil rights billand anticipated that opponents of the bill woulduse a filibuster to kill it if necessary. Senate RuleXXII provided that cloture could not be invokedon a rules change, making it impossible to stopsuch a filibuster. At the opening of the first ses-sion of the Eighty-fifth Congress in 1957, SenatorClinton Anderson (D-NM), in a strategy in-tended to make cloture easier to obtain, movedthat the Senate consider new rules. Nixon—overthe objections of the Republican leadership,which supported the existing cloture provi-sions—stated that ‘‘in the opinion of the Chair,’’the membership after each election composed anew Senate rather than a continuing body. As aresult, he ruled, the Senate could change the

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rules at the beginning of each Congress by voteof a simple majority. The Senate, however, tabledAnderson’s motion the next day by a vote of 55to 38. Later that year, after repeated attempts tochange the cloture rule in order to pass the CivilRights Act of 1957, Senate Majority Leader Lyn-don Johnson engineered a compromise that ap-plied cloture to debate on motions for changesin rules, but declared that ‘‘the rules of the Senateshall continue from one Congress to the nextCongress unless they be changed as provided inthese rules.’’ 40

The other task that is inherent in the vice presi-dent’s job is, as Charles Dawes put it, ‘‘to checkthe morning’s newspaper as to the President’shealth.’’ 41 For Richard Nixon, that was not justan idle activity. On September 24, 1955, Nixonreceived a call informing him that the presidenthad suffered a coronary attack. Nixon wasplaced in a very delicate situation. While thepresident was ill, Nixon needed to show that thenation’s business was being handled effectivelyso as not to seem weak, but if he attempted totake too much control it would arouse fears ofa power grab by an overly ambitious under-study. He recognized that ‘‘even the slightestmisstep could be interpreted as an attempt to as-sume power.’’ 42 Nixon and other members ofthe cabinet decided to emphasize that Eisen-hower’s team concept would ensure the govern-ment could operate without difficulty until thepresident recovered. The vice president wouldpreside at cabinet and National Security Councilmeetings, just as he had done numerous timeswhen the president had been away. White HouseChief of Staff Sherman Adams flew to Denver,where Eisenhower was hospitalized, to assist thepresident, and when Ike was feeling better Nixonwas one of the first to visit him. Still, Nixon wascareful to observe proper protocol. He presidedover cabinet meetings from the vice president’schair and conducted business from his office inthe Capitol. He even made sure to visit cabinetmembers rather than having them come to seehim. As he put it, he had ‘‘to provide leadershipwithout appearing to lead.’’ 43 Nixon handledthis ambiguous situation with considerable skill,

leading Emmett Hughes, a frequent critic, to callit his ‘‘finest official hour.’’ 44

But while the vice president’s actions, and in-actions, brought widespread praise, they alsoraised fears that the Eisenhower administrationcould suddenly become the Nixon administra-tion, especially when the president underwentan operation for ileitis in June of 1956. Eisen-hower’s health would become a primary issue inthe 1956 election, as Democrats reminded votersthat a vote for Eisenhower was also a vote forNixon. Ike’s health would continue to be a sub-ject of concern during his second term, and afterEisenhower suffered a stroke in 1957 he decidedthat it was time to set out procedures for howNixon should proceed if the president were tobecome incapacitated. He drafted a letter statingthat, if he were unable to perform his duties,Nixon would serve as ‘‘acting president’’ untilhe recovered. Eisenhower would determinewhen he was sufficiently able to take controlonce more. The agreement was strictly betweenEisenhower and Nixon and therefore amountedonly to a shaky precedent (although Kennedyand Johnson copied it later).45 Not until passageof the Twenty-fifth Amendment in 1967 was theissue of presidential incapacity officially dealtwith.

Nixon and Eisenhower

In the end, Richard Nixon filled with consider-able skill the roles that President Eisenhowergave him. So why did Eisenhower come close todropping him from the ticket in 1956? Eisen-hower’s opinion of his vice president was mostambiguous. The president appreciated Nixon’sefforts in carrying out his assigned tasks. He toldassociates, ‘‘it would be difficult to find a betterVice President’’ and publicly repeated suchpraises on a regular basis. He also ‘‘believedNixon to be the best prepared man in govern-ment to take over [his] duties in any emer-gency.’’ 46 This was more than just public flatteryfor a subordinate. Because of his wide-ranginginterests and Eisenhower’s willingness, Nixonwas perhaps the most informed member of theadministration. Secretary of State John FosterDulles kept him briefed on State Department af-

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fairs, and even the CIA was willing to provideoutlines of its current activities.47

For Eisenhower, this faith in Nixon as vicepresident did not translate into confidence aboutNixon’s potential for the presidency. He sawNixon as a dedicated junior officer who per-formed his duties with skill but had not devel-oped into a true leader. He worried constantlythat his young vice president had not ‘‘ma-tured.’’ Eisenhower saw the presidency as the of-fice of a statesman rather than a partisan politi-cian. The 1960s image of Eisenhower as beingnaive or nonpolitical is inaccurate, but he did be-lieve that presidential politics was different fromcongressional or statewide politics. The office re-quired a person who could rise above unseemlypartisan bickering (at least in public) to representthe national interest, and he did not believe thatRichard Nixon had shown that kind of potential.This was partially an unfair assessment, sinceNixon’s public image as a fierce partisan wasmagnified by Eisenhower’s insistence on usinghim to conduct the president’s public politicalbattles. Still, Nixon’s ‘‘natural partisan instincts,’’as Nixon called them, were never far from thesurface, and they made Eisenhower uncomfort-able. In the end, Eisenhower decided that Nixonjust had not ‘‘grown,’’ and that he was not ‘‘pres-idential timber.’’ 48

When Eisenhower decided to run for reelec-tion in 1956, he also began to feel uneasy aboutnot having established a ‘‘logical successor.’’ 49

He would have liked to run with Robert Ander-son, his treasury secretary, but Anderson, aDemocrat, knew the GOP would never accepthim. The president hoped to find a way to getNixon off the ticket without seeming to ‘‘dump’’him. As a result, when he announced his owncandidacy and the press asked him about Nixon,he dodged by claiming it was ‘‘traditional . . .to wait and see who the Republican Conventionnominates.’’ 50 Since this was a ‘‘tradition’’ thathad been broken by Franklin Roosevelt and hadnot been observed by Eisenhower himself in1952, it was obvious that Eisenhower was beingdisingenuous. No one saw this more clearly thanRichard Nixon.

Eisenhower hoped to avoid a decision by con-vincing Nixon to leave the ticket voluntarily. He

offered to appoint Nixon secretary of defense ina new administration. He argued that Nixon’slow poll numbers might be a drag on the ticketand that Nixon needed to gain executive experi-ence in order to improve his future prospects.Nixon replied that he would do whatever Eisen-hower decided was best for the campaign, butthat was exactly the decision the president wastrying to avoid. He told the press that Nixonwould have ‘‘to chart out his own course.’’ Eisen-hower’s evasions infuriated Nixon, and afterdays of dangling on Ike’s hook, he decided toforce the issue by telling the president that hewanted to run again. Eisenhower, finally forcedto choose, relented.51

There was one more ‘‘dump Nixon’’ attemptin 1956, led by Harold Stassen, Eisenhower’s‘‘secretary of peace’’ and foreign policy adviser,after Eisenhower’s ileitis operation, but, by thattime, Nixon already had the support of the partyleadership and the convention delegates. SinceNixon had used the vice-presidency to build astrong base of support within the party and togain tremendous press coverage, the argumentthat he would be better off in the cabinet wassimply not credible. He realized that the rest ofthe nation would see it as a replay of the 1944‘‘demotion’’ of Henry Wallace rather than as amove into a more responsible position.52 Whileit was not wise to say so, he also realized thathe was only one uncertain heartbeat away fromthe presidency, and that was a chance worthtaking.

Nixon, however, would have to deal with Ei-senhower’s ambivalence again in 1960. Nixonwas clearly the favorite for the Republican presi-dential nomination that year, but he faced a sig-nificant challenge from New York Governor Nel-son Rockefeller. Eisenhower did not openly en-dorse Nixon even though he certainly preferredNixon and was furious with Rockefeller for at-tacks he had made on the administration. WhileNixon managed to hold off Rockefeller, the gov-ernor’s criticisms pointed out what would be-come an essential problem for Nixon during thegeneral election: while Eisenhower personallymaintained immense popularity, his administra-tion did not. Nixon’s campaign stressed his expe-rience. In contrast to his Democratic opponent,

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Massachusetts Senator John F. Kennedy, Nixonhad met with world leaders, led sessions of thecabinet, and had better presidential ‘‘creden-tials’’ than any man in America. But this ap-proach put Nixon in the difficult position of de-fending an administration for which he was notresponsible. For two years he had privatelyurged a tax cut to stimulate the economy, but Ikewould not unbalance the budget. Nixon had alsourged increases in defense expenditures and aninvasion of Cuba, but the president said theywere unnecessary. These criticisms would betaken up by the Democrats in 1960, and Nixonhad to defend the administration, even while pri-vately agreeing with the critics. He refused cam-paign help from the White House staff but couldnot assemble a full staff to generate innovativepolicy ideas for fear of offending Ike.53 It seemedhe was boxed in.

Eisenhower himself exacerbated the problem.While Nixon campaigned as an experiencedleader, the press asked Eisenhower what policysuggestions Nixon had made that had been im-plemented. Eisenhower replied, ‘‘If you give mea week, I might think of one.’’ 54 This was hardlythe sort of endorsement Nixon needed—and itwas not entirely fair. Elliot Richardson, whoserved during Eisenhower’s second term as anassistant secretary of the Department of Health,Education, and Welfare, tells the story of a 1959cabinet meeting at which Nixon stood against amajority opposed to a higher education subsidyproposal. This followed a typical pattern of cabi-net disinterest in the electoral value of its deci-sions. Richardson reported, ‘‘Time and again Iwould see Nixon get up from the table after Cab-inet meetings so tense that beads of sweat werestanding out on his brow.’’ At the 1959 meeting,Nixon realized that a record of support for thislegislation would be highly desirable in his 1960presidential campaign. Consequently, he struc-tured that day’s discussion so that the opponentshad to acknowledge that the bill would have lit-tle immediate budgetary impact, that it estab-lished no new precedent for federal support ofeducation, and that it indeed met an importantnational priority. Eisenhower reluctantly addedhis support.55

Eisenhower mostly stayed out of the campaignuntil the last weeks, when he made severalspeeches on Nixon’s behalf. His reluctance wasdue as much to Nixon’s determination to run hisown campaign as to Ike’s ill health or indiffer-ence. The race itself was one of the closest inAmerican history. It featured two bright youngcandidates who evinced an unbounded opti-mism about the nation’s future squaring off inthe historic television debates that captured theattention of the nation. In the end, Kennedy wonby the narrowest of margins, but Nixon had runa highly competent campaign in spite of thehandicaps of representing a minority party,being tied to an unpopular administration, andfacing a charismatic opponent. He also was at-tempting to become the first sitting vice presi-dent to be elected president since Martin VanBuren. In light of these obstacles, it is amazingthat he came as close as he did to winning, buthe had been campaigning almost continuouslysince 1946, developing an ability to discern vot-ers’ concerns. He also devised innovative cam-paign techniques, using television and advertis-ing, that allowed him to address those concerns.Only the magical charm of Jack Kennedy couldfinally defeat him.56

Most of Nixon’s opponents hoped that his ca-reer was over, but more perceptive observersknew better. As Republican Congressional Cam-paign Committee Chairman William Miller said,‘‘Any man who, at 47, comes within 300,000 [sic]votes of winning the presidency—for a party thatis greatly outnumbered—has to be reckonedwith. It’s far too early to bury Dick Nixon.’’ 57

Nixon, however, soon walked into another dis-aster. He returned to California and challengedDemocratic Governor Edmund G. (Pat) Brown inthe 1962 gubernatorial race. Amid speculationthat he only wanted the office as a step towardanother presidential race, Nixon was defeatedsoundly and responded with a vitriolic ‘‘last’’press conference in which he blamed the mediafor his defeat and declared, ‘‘You won’t haveNixon to kick around anymore.’’ But his retire-ment proved temporary, as he staged a remark-able comeback to gain the GOP nomination in1968 and to win the presidency amid the nationalturmoil over the Vietnam War. Nixon’s presi-

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dency would be marked by a new spirit of de-tente with the Soviet Union and by the establish-ment of diplomatic relations with the People’sRepublic of China, but all would be over-shadowed by the tragedy of Watergate.

President Nixon was accused of using his of-fice to cover up crimes in his reelection cam-paign, including a break-in at Democratic na-tional headquarters in the Watergate office build-ing, and misusing federal funds to influence gov-ernment witnesses. Under threat of impeach-ment, Richard Nixon, in 1974, became the onlypresident in American history to resign from of-fice. This time, his retirement was permanent,but he remained in the public eye as a prolificauthor and one of the nation’s most cogent com-mentators on international politics. He evenserved as an informal adviser to many of his suc-cessors. Richard Nixon died on April 22, 1994,at the age of 81.58

Nixon’s opinion of the vice-presidencychanged with his situation. Early on, he declared,‘‘I like it much better than service in the Houseor Senate. In the vice-presidency you have an op-portunity to see the whole operation of the gov-ernment and participate in its decisions.’’ 59 Butat other times he was frustrated about being Ei-senhower’s ‘‘hatchet man.’’ 60 Appropriately, hisopinion of his chief also fluctuated. Nixon ad-mired Eisenhower’s political savvy, calling hima ‘‘far more complex and devious man than mostpeople realize, and in the best sense of thosewords.’’ 61 But, Nixon was also deeply hurt byEisenhower’s unwillingness to come to his sup-port in the 1952 fund crisis, the ‘‘dump Nixon’’movement of 1956, or his own election bid in1960.62 As a Nixon aide put it, the vice presi-dent’s opinion of Eisenhower went from ‘‘heroworship, to resentment, to hero worship, todisenchantment.’’ 63

Yet Nixon’s fortunes were intimately tied to Ei-senhower’s coattails. Years later, in 1968, Nixonwould remind crowds that he ‘‘had a good teach-er,’’ and could still exhort crowds, ‘‘Let’s win thisone for Ike!’’ One of his first acts as president-elect would be a public visit to the dying gen-eral.64 But it was never a comfortable situation.When reporters in 1960 asked Nixon what presi-dent best fit his idea of being ‘‘good for the coun-

try,’’ Nixon praised Woodrow Wilson but settledon Theodore Roosevelt. Significantly, he did notmention Dwight D. Eisenhower.65

Franklin Roosevelt had briefly envisaged ex-panding the vice-presidency by making it a kindof ‘‘assistant presidency,’’ with greater executiveresponsibilities. This is not the role that Eisen-hower intended for Nixon. In fact, in 1959 Eisen-hower proposed to his cabinet that he rec-ommend legislation to create an office of assist-ant president. He envisioned perhaps two assist-ants, one dealing with foreign policy, the otherwith domestic matters. Nixon was horrified, ar-guing that the change would make the vice-pres-idency even more superfluous than it alreadywas. More important, Secretary of State Dulleswas equally mortified, and the plan was quicklydropped. Eisenhower’s suggestion revealed thathe never really considered Nixon a potential ex-ecutive assistant.66

Nixon did expand the visibility and duties ofthe vice-presidency as none of his predecessorshad, but those new duties were of a personal na-ture rather than an inherent part of the office, be-cause they resulted more from the particularneeds of President Eisenhower than from a re-constructed vision of the vice-presidency. As aresult, the changes in the office were limited andunique to the situation. Nixon’s new jobs wereoverwhelmingly political, as party liaison, cam-paigner, and goodwill ambassador, although hedid have a few executive functions. He estab-lished an important precedent by presiding overnineteen cabinet meetings and twenty-six meet-ings of the National Security Council.67 He alsochaired the President’s Committee on Govern-ment Contracts and the Cabinet Committee onPrice Stability, but these jobs were minor, be-cause it was Nixon’s political role that matteredto the president. Not many presidents wouldneed this kind of political troubleshooter, be-cause Eisenhower was unusual in his lack of con-nections with his own party. Only the role ofgoodwill ambassador was really the kind of taskfuture vice presidents could be expected to fillwith regularity. The vice-presidency had becomemore visible, but whether it would continue tobe more important would depend on the needsof future presidents.

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When Eisenhower hoped Nixon would take acabinet spot, he had worried that ‘‘Nixon can’talways be the understudy to the star.’’ 68 ButNixon was not even really the understudy. Hewas one part of Eisenhower’s ‘‘team.’’ His posi-tion on that team was one to which he was wellsuited, thus his determination to stay. He wasconstantly campaigning for Eisenhower and forother Republicans, but he realized that he was

also campaigning for Richard Nixon. He had dis-covered how to turn the vice-presidency into aplatform for greater ambitions, but he was al-ways dependent on Eisenhower’s needs. Nixonwas right that he could not truly chart hisown course. Luckily for him, the course laidout by Eisenhower was one Nixon wanted tofollow, because it pointed toward the WhiteHouse.

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NOTES1 Richard M. Nixon, RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon

(New York, 1978), p. 170.2 Ibid., p. 172.3 The two most comprehensive works on Nixon’s early

life and career are Roger Morris, Richard Milhous Nixon: TheRise of an American Politician (New York, 1990) and JonathanAitken, Nixon: A Life (Washington, DC, 1993).

4 Morris, pp. 257–337.5 For the history of HUAC, see Walter Goodman, The

Committee: The Extraordinary Career of the House Committeeon Un-American Activities (New York, 1968). The most thor-ough work on the Hiss case is Allen Weinstein, Perjury: TheHiss-Chambers Case (New York, 1978).

6 Morris, pp. 515–624.7 Ibid., pp. 628–29; Stephen E. Ambrose, Nixon: The Edu-

cation of a Politician, 1913–1962 (New York, 1987), p. 225;Aitken, pp. 193–94.

8 For the details on the 1952 race, see George H. Mayer,The Republican Party, 1854–1962 (New York, 1964), pp. 482–95; James T. Patterson, Mr. Republican: A Biography of RobertA. Taft (Boston, 1972), pp. 499–568; Stephen E. Ambrose, Ei-senhower: Soldier, General of the Army, President-Elect, 1890–1952 (New York, 1983), pp. 529–72. For Nixon’s selection,see Dwight D. Eisenhower, Mandate For Change, 1953–1956(New York, 1963), p. 46; Morris, pp. 625–736; and Aitken,pp.201–6.

9 Eisenhower, p. 46.10 Ambrose, Nixon, p. 262. On Nixon’s relationship with

the Old Guard, see David W. Reinhard, The Republican RightSince 1945 (Lexington, KY, 1983), pp. 131–32.

11 Richard Nixon, Six Crises (New York, 1962), pp. 78–88;Ambrose, Nixon, pp. 256–58; Morris, pp. 757–850.

12 Ambrose, Nixon, pp. 281–83. For his part, Eisenhowersaid privately that if he was still in the army and Nixonwas a junior officer, Nixon would have been dismissed im-mediately, but politics was run by different norms. SeeElmo Richardson, The Presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower(Lawrence, KS, 1979), p. 20; Aitken, pp. 208–13.

13 Nixon, Six Crises, p. 110.14 Herbert S. Parmet, Richard Nixon and His America (Bos-

ton, 1990), pp. 238, 248–49; Nixon, Six Crises, pp. 117–19.Nixon’s appeal to ‘‘Middle America’’ would continue to as-tound his critics in the future, see Nicol C. Rae, The Declineand Fall of the Liberal Republicans: From 1952 to the Present(New York, 1989), p. 41; Aitken, pp. 213–20.

15 Ambrose, Nixon, p. 309; Parmet, p. 316.16 Ambrose, Nixon, pp. 304–6, 309; Gary W. Reichard, The

Reaffirmation of Republicanism: Eisenhower and the Eighty-Third Congress (Knoxville, TN, 1975), p. 219. The seminalwork on Eisenhower’s leadership style is Fred I. Greenstein,The Hidden-Hand Presidency: Eisenhower as Leader (New York,1982).

17 Reichard, The Reaffirmation of Republicanism, p. 62.18 Duane Tananbaum, The Bricker Amendment Controversy:

A Test of Eisenhower’s Political Leadership (Ithaca, NY, 1988),pp. 72, 157–215.

19 David M. Oshinsky, A Conspiracy So Immense: The Worldof Joe McCarthy (New York, 1983), p. 317.

20 Nixon, RN, p. 144.21 Oshinsky, pp. 416–95; Gary W. Reichard, Politics as

Usual: The Age of Truman and Eisenhower (Arlington Heights,IL, 1988), pp. 98–109. For McCarthy and the Senate, see alsoRobert Griffith, The Politics of Fear: Joseph R. McCarthy andthe Senate (Lexington, KY, 1970).

22 Emmet John Hughes, The Ordeal of Power: A PoliticalMemoir of the Eisenhower Years (New York, 1962, 1963), p.117.

23 Ibid., p. 103; Ambrose, Nixon, p. 309; Irving G. Wil-liams, The Rise of the Vice Presidency (Washington, 1956), p.247.

24 Nixon, RN, p. 144. See also, Parmet, pp. 333–36.25 Nixon, Six Crises, p. 77; Nixon, RN, p. 110.26 Quoted in Jules Witcover, Crapshoot: Rolling the Dice on

the Vice Presidency (New York, 1992), p. 125.27 Philip Potter, ‘‘Political Pitchman—Richard M. Nixon,’’

in Eric Sevareid, ed., Candidates 1960: Behind the Headlinesin the Presidential Race (New York, 1959), p. 69.

28 Sherman Adams, Firsthand Report: The Story of the Eisen-hower Administration (New York, 1961), p. 167.

29 Nixon, RN, pp. 161–62.30 Ibid., pp. 177–78. For the ‘‘new Nixon,’’ see Witcover,

p. 133.31 Hughes, p. 161.32 Nixon, RN, p. 199.33 Ibid., p. 163.34 Ibid., p. 200; Nixon, Six Crises, pp. 233–34.35 Ambrose, Nixon, pp. 322–23.36 See Ambrose, Nixon, pp. 462–82; Nixon, RN, pp. 185–

93; and Aitken, pp. 250–54.37 Ambrose, Nixon, pp. 509–34, 569; Aitken, pp. 258–65.38 Ambrose, Nixon, pp. 326, 621; Aitken, p. 235.39 Ambrose, Nixon, p. 308.40 Jacob K. Javits with Rafael Steinberg, Javits: The Auto-

biography of a Public Man (Boston, 1981), pp. 256–59; U.S.,Congress, Senate, The Senate, 1789–1989: Addresses on theHistory of the United States Senate, by Robert C. Byrd, S. Doc.100–20, 100th Cong., 1st sess., vol. 2, 1991, p. 129; Ambrose,Nixon, p. 609.

41 Quoted in Nixon, Six Crises, p. 131.42 Ibid., p. 134.43 Ibid., pp. 144, 148.44 Hughes, p. 275.45 Nixon, Six Crises, pp. 177–79. For a provocative discus-

sion of Eisenhower’s health and of presidential health gen-

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RICHARD M. NIXON

erally, see Robert H. Ferrell, Ill-Advised: Presidential Healthand Public Trust (Columbia, MO, 1992).

46 Dwight D. Eisenhower, Waging Peace, 1956–1961 (NewYork, 1965), p. 8; Ambrose, Nixon, p. 387.

47 Parmet, pp. 316–25.48 Richardson, p. 35; Stephen E. Ambrose, Eisenhower: The

President (New York, 1984), pp. 319–20; Hughes, p. 152.49 Reichard, Politics as Usual, p. 120.50 Quoted in Ambrose, Eisenhower: The President, p. 296.51 Nixon, RN, pp. 166–73.52 Ambrose, Nixon, p. 381.53 Hughes, p. 277; Theodore H. White, The Making of the

President, 1960 (New York, 1961), p. 201. It is possible thatNixon would not have assembled such a group anyway.Even in Congress, Nixon did not have any legislative assist-ants, relying only on secretaries to deal with constituentservices and dealing with all policy matters himself. LenHall, his campaign manager in 1960, complained that Nixoninsisted on running even the most minute details of thecampaign himself. (See Garry Wills, Nixon Agonistes: TheCrisis of the Self-Made Man (Boston, 1970), p. 16.) This patternof personal control would persist even in his presidency.

54 Quoted in Aitken, p. 284.55 Aitken, pp. 265–66.56 For the election of 1960, see White, The Making of the

President, 1960.57 Quoted in Reichard, Politics as Usual, p. 166.

58 For Nixon’s later life and career, see Stephen E. Am-brose, Nixon: The Triumph of a Politician, 1962–1972 (NewYork, 1989) and Ambrose, Nixon: Ruin and Recovery, 1973–1990 (New York, 1991). For his presidency, see Joan Hoff,Nixon Reconsidered (New York, 1994) and Theodore H.White, Breach of Faith: The Fall of Richard Nixon (New York,1975).

59 Quoted in Donald Young, American Roulette: The Historyand Dilemma of the Vice Presidency (New York, 1965, 1972),p. 260.

60 Ambrose, Nixon, p. 360.61 Nixon, Six Crises, p. 161.62 See Ambrose, Nixon, pp. 618–20.63 Potter, p. 88.64 Wills, pp. 116, 138.65 Potter, pp. 77–78.66 See Ambrose, Nixon, pp. 511–13.67 Interestingly, one of the most fervent advocates of Nix-

on’s responsibility to preside in the president’s absence wasJohn Foster Dulles. As the nephew of Robert Lansing, Dul-les vividly remembered Wilson’s rage when Secretary ofState Lansing presided over the cabinet while the presidentwas disabled. Dulles wanted no confusion about where re-sponsibility resided. See Chapter 28 of this volume, ‘‘Thom-as R. Marshall,’’ p. 342.

68 Quoted in Ambrose, Nixon, p. 392.

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Chapter 37

LYNDON BAINES JOHNSON1961–1963

LYNDON B. JOHNSON

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Chapter 37

LYNDON BAINES JOHNSON37th Vice President: 1961–1963

I think a fair assessment would be that there was a big sigh of relief when Johnson departed theSenate. Not that they didn’t like Johnson . . . but he was so strong, and so difficult, and so tough, thatit was a relief to get him over to the vice president’s office.

—GEORGE A. SMATHERS

The only thing that astonished politicians andthe press more than John F. Kennedy’s offer ofthe vice-presidential nomination to Lyndon B.Johnson was Johnson’s acceptance. Neither manparticularly liked the other, and their styles con-trasted starkly. Kennedy cultivated a smooth, so-phisticated and self-deprecating image, whileJohnson often appeared boorish, bullying andboastful. In the U.S. Senate, Johnson, as majorityleader, for years had stood second only to thepresident of the United States in power and in-fluence, whereas Kennedy was an unimpressiveback bencher. Although Kennedy’s choice for thesecond spot on the ticket dismayed his liberalsupporters, the candidate recognized that John-son could help him carry Texas and the Southand that he would undoubtedly be easier to dealwith as vice president than as majority leader.Johnson’s reasons for accepting were more enig-matic, for he was trading a powerful job for apowerless one.

From Farm to Congress

Johnson reached the dubious pinnacle of thevice-presidency after a remarkable climb topower in Washington. It started on a farm nearStonewall, Texas, where he was born on August27, 1908, the son of the Texas politico, Sam EalyJohnson, and his refined and demanding wife,Rebecca Baines Johnson. Sam Ealy Johnsonserved six terms in the Texas House of Rep-

resentatives, faithfully supporting the interestsof his constituents, until his various real estate,insurance brokering, and ranching venturesbegan to drag him into debt. Throughout his life,Lyndon Johnson never forgot the impact his fa-ther’s economic disgrace had on his family.1

Graduating from high school in 1924, Johnsonescaped both his family and the rugged TexasHill Country by heading toward California insearch of work. When nothing but hard laborturned up, Johnson returned home a year laterand attended Southwest Texas State Teacher’sCollege in San Marcos. Depleted funds forcedhim to leave college and spend a year as prin-cipal and teacher at a Mexican-American schoolin Cotulla, Texas, near the Mexican border. Yearslater he asserted, ‘‘You never forget what pov-erty and hatred can do when you see its scarsin the face of a young child.’’ 2

When a candidate for governor failed to ap-pear at a rally in 1930, Johnson delivered an im-promptu campaign speech for him. This speechso impressed a candidate for the state senate,Welly Hopkins, that he recruited Johnson tomanage his own successful campaign. Later,while Johnson was teaching high school in Hous-ton, Hopkins recommended him to the newlyelected Representative Richard Kleberg. Hired asKleberg’s secretary, Johnson arrived in Washing-ton with a congressman more interested in golfthan in legislating, a situation that gave the

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young aide the opportunity to take charge andmake himself known. Directing Kleberg’s staff,Johnson learned how Washington worked andalso got himself elected Speaker of the Little Con-gress, an association of House staff members. In1934, after he courted and married Claudia Alta‘‘Lady Bird’’ Taylor, Johnson sought wider ca-reer horizons and was soon appointed Texasstate director of the National Youth Administra-tion, a New Deal agency designed to help stu-dents afford to stay in school. Success in that jobpropelled him into a special election for Con-gress in 1937, campaigning under banners thatproclaimed ‘‘Franklin D. and Lyndon B.’’ 3

A New Deal Congressman

Johnson’s victory began a thirty-two-year po-litical career that would end in the White House.After the election, President Franklin D. Roo-sevelt visited Galveston, Texas, and warmlygreeted the new congressman. FDR admiredJohnson’s vitality and predicted that someday hewould become the ‘‘first Southern President’’since the Civil War. Johnson had also become aprotege of his fellow Texan, Sam Rayburn, thefuture House Speaker, who guided much of hiscareer. An active congressman, Johnson used hisNew Deal connections to bring rural electrifica-tion and other federal projects into his district,then, ambitious and in a hurry, he ran in a specialelection for the U.S. Senate in 1941. On electionnight, Johnson held a lead but announced hisvote tallies too soon, allowing the opponent to‘‘find’’ enough votes to defeat him. When Amer-ica entered the Second World War, Johnsonbriefly served in uniform as a navy lieutenantcommander. He received a silver star from Gen-eral Douglas MacArthur for having flown as apassenger in a bomber that was attacked by Japa-nese planes (none of the others on board receiveda medal). When President Roosevelt called onmembers of Congress to choose between militaryand legislative service, Johnson returned to theHouse for the duration of the war. In 1948 heagain ran for the Senate and fought a celebratedcampaign for the Democratic nomination againstthe popular Governor Coke Stevenson. Havinglearned his lesson from the previous Senate race,Johnson held back on announcing his vote tallies

and with the help of some friendly political ma-chines eked out an 87-vote victory for which hewas dubbed ‘‘Landslide Lyndon.’’ 4

A Southern Moderate

Johnson rode into the Senate in 1949 on the po-litical wave that returned Harry Truman to theWhite House and Democratic majorities to bothhouses of Congress. His class of freshmen sen-ators included Democrats Hubert Humphrey ofMinnesota, Robert Kerr of Oklahoma, ClintonAnderson of New Mexico, Estes Kefauver ofTennessee, and Paul Douglas of Illinois. Seekingto establish himself quickly against this formida-ble competition, Senator-elect Johnson called inthe Senate’s twenty-year-old chief telephonepage, Bobby Baker, who had already gained areputation as a head counter. ‘‘Mr. Baker, I un-derstand you know where the bodies are buriedin the Senate,’’ he began their critical relationshipby remarking. ‘‘I gotta tell you, Mr. Baker, thatmy state is much more conservative than the na-tional Democratic party. I got elected by justeighty-seven votes and I ran against a cave-man.’’ 5

Johnson sought to move to a middle groundthat would enable him to rise in the nationalranks of his party without losing his base inTexas. Just as Sam Rayburn had promoted John-son’s career in the House, Georgia Senator Rich-ard Russell became the Senate mentor for theyoung Texan. Russell, a powerful, highly re-spected ‘‘senator’s senator,’’ might have servedas Democratic floor leader in the Senate, exceptthat he could not follow the Truman administra-tion’s lead on civil rights. He therefore preferredto exercise his influence as chairman of theArmed Services Committee and of the SouthernCaucus. Johnson won the affection of the bach-elor senator by adopting Russell as part of hisfamily, inviting the Georgian to his Washingtonhome on lonely Sundays and to Texas forThanksgiving. Russell not only placed Johnsonon the Armed Services Committee but made himchairman of its Preparedness Subcommittee. In1952 Russell formally entered the race for theDemocratic nomination for president, in part toprevent another ‘‘Dixiecrat’’ boycott of the partylike the one that had occurred in 1948. Russell’s

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defense of racial segregation, however, doomedhis nomination—and served as a vivid exampleto Johnson of the need to rise above the imageof a southern senator if he wished to realize hisnational ambitions.6

Turmoil in the Democratic ranks elevatedJohnson swiftly in the Senate. In 1950 the Demo-cratic majority leader and whip were both de-feated for reelection. Democrats then chose Ari-zona Senator Ernest McFarland for leader andthe freshman Johnson as their new whip. Twoyears later, MacFarland was himself defeated. Atfirst Johnson urged Russell to take the leader-ship, already knowing that the Georgia senatordid not want the job. When Russell declined,Johnson asked his support for his own bid, argu-ing that the prestige of the office would help hisreelection in Texas. Although a handful of liberalDemocrats backed Montana Senator James Mur-ray for the post, Johnson with Russell’s backingwas overwhelmingly elected Democratic floorleader. He was still serving in his first senatorialterm.7

Democratic Leader

Johnson led Senate Democrats during the en-tire eight years of the Republican Eisenhower ad-ministration, as minority leader for the first twoyears and as majority leader for the last six. Thetwo parties were so evenly balanced that duringJohnson’s minority leadership the death and re-placement of senators occasionally gave theDemocrats a majority of the senators. After the1954 election, the switch of Oregon SenatorWayne Morse from independent status helpedgive the Democrats a slim majority, but the partyfaced a deep internal division between southernconservatives, who opposed civil rights legisla-tion, and northern liberals, who advocated racialintegration. As Johnson moved to the center ofhis party, he worked to prevent an open split,commenting that his major concern was to keepSenator Russell and other southern conservatives‘‘from walking across the aisle and embracing[Republican leader] Everett Dirksen.’’ 8

As majority leader, Lyndon Johnson dem-onstrated unrelenting energy, ambition, atten-tion to detail, and an overwhelming personality.

His close aide John Connally described Johnsonas alternately

cruel and kind, generous and greedy, sensitiveand insensitive, crafty and naive, ruthless andthoughtful, simple in many ways yet extremelycomplex, caring and totally not caring; he couldoverwhelm people with kindness and turnaround and be cruel and petty towards thosesame people; he knew how to use people in poli-tics in the way nobody else could that I know of.

Above all, Johnson was a compromiser, abroker, and a master of the art of the deal. Hishands-on method of persuading other senators,with its sweet talk, threats, and exaggerated fa-cial expressions and body language, becamewidely known as ‘‘the treatment.’’ 9

Other politicians, regardless of party, admiredJohnson as a virtuoso at their craft. RepublicanRepresentative Gerald Ford met Johnson in 1957when they served on a bipartisan House-Senatecommittee to draft new legislation on space pol-icy. ‘‘Johnson elected himself chairman,’’ Fordrecalled, ‘‘and boy, did he operate.’’ The Senateleader did not twist arms, but ‘‘the pressure ofhis presence and the strength of his voice andthe movement of his body made it hard to sayno.’’ A keen judge of people, Johnson knew howfar to push and when to coax. ‘‘Any compromisethat Lyndon made,’’ Ford concluded, ‘‘he gotbetter than fifty percent.’’ Johnson insisted thathis only power as majority leader was the powerto persuade. But his friend George Smathers,senator from Florida, noted that ‘‘persuasion’’often meant doing favors: putting senators ondesired committees, sending them on trips, ar-ranging for campaign contributions, and evengetting them honorary college degrees. ‘‘He wasa consummate artist,’’ said Smathers. ‘‘How hedid it, a color here, a little red here, a little purplethere, beautiful.’’ 10

Senator Smathers was with Johnson on theweekend in 1955 when the majority leader suf-fered his first heart attack. When doctors advisedJohnson that it would take weeks of recuperationbefore he could return to the Senate, Johnson del-egated Smathers to stand in for him as floor lead-er. ‘‘We never saw Johnson again for some fortydays, although he began to call us on the tele-

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phone in about a week,’’ Smathers recalled. ‘‘Justran us crazy talking to him on the phone, gettingthings done. He was the most hard-driving guyI ever saw in my life.’’ The heart attack madeJohnson pace himself differently than before. Pe-riodically, he would leave Washington to spendtime on his ranch in the Texas Hill Country.Typically, however, Johnson could not relin-quish control and made the Senate adjust to hisschedule. Whenever Johnson was absent, littlecould take place. Although the Democratic whip,Montana Senator Mike Mansfield, tried to movelegislation along, Democratic Secretary BobbyBaker would circulate through the chamber ad-vising senators to stall because ‘‘Johnson wantsthis kept on the burner for a while.’’ When John-son returned he would insist on passing thingsin a rush: ‘‘We’ve got to get this damn thing donetonight!’’ By letting measures pile up, sufficientpressure would have built up to pass everythingin short order. ‘‘Who can remember,’’ asked onejournalist, ‘‘when one legislator so dominatedCongress?’’ 11

Civil Rights

The majority leader’s signal achievement wasthe passage in 1957 of the first civil rights billsince Reconstruction. It served as a large step inhis transformation from southerner to nationalfigure. His patron, Richard Russell, had givenJohnson ‘‘elbowroom’’ to move toward the cen-ter, protecting him from attack on the right andexempting him from signing ‘‘The SouthernManifesto’’ against the Supreme Court’s rulingin Brown v. Board of Education. Although John-son’s move may have had an element of cynicalmaneuvering, those closest to him believed thathe also felt genuine compassion for AfricanAmericans, for the poor, and for the disadvan-taged. He spoke often of the hardships of hisown childhood, and those memories seemed toinspire him to achieve something significantwith his life. ‘‘Nobody needed to talk to himabout why it’s important to get ahead,’’ GeorgeSmathers commented. ‘‘He was preaching thatall the time to everybody.’’ 12

Although the civil rights bill had been pro-posed by the Eisenhower administration andwas ostensibly managed by Republican leader

William Knowland, it was Lyndon Johnson whofashioned the compromises that led to its pas-sage. In return for significant modifications inthe bill, he persuaded southern conservatives notto filibuster, and he advised northern liberals toaccept his deal as the best they could get. Thefact that Congress passed any civil rights billheld symbolic significance, but angry liberals feltthat the watered-down bill simply elevated‘‘symbol over substance.’’ Liberals pointed outthat the bill provided southern blacks with littleprotection for either civil or voting rights. Criti-cism came from the right as well. One columnistin Dallas wrote that ‘‘Johnson did his party agreat favor by his engineering of the Civil RightsBill of 1957, but he did himself no good at allin Texas.’’ 13

During those congresses when the Senate wasalmost evenly divided, Johnson perfected hisrole as cautious broker. Then a severe economicrecession triggered a Democratic landslide in thecongressional elections of 1958. The SenateDemocratic majority of 49 to 47 in the Eighty-fifth Congress swelled to 65 to 35 in the Eighty-sixth Congress, with the added margin of fourDemocratic seats from the newly admitted statesof Alaska and Hawaii. Liberals who entered inthe new class quickly became impatient withJohnson’s moderate approach. While the major-ity leader sought to appease the newcomers withappointments to major committees, he foundhimself attacked as a dictator by mavericks likePennsylvania’s Joseph Clark and Wisconsin’sWilliam Proxmire. They demanded more meet-ings of the Democratic Conference so that othersenators could have a say in setting the party’sagenda. Johnson held his own, telling Proxmirethat ‘‘it does not take much courage, I may say,to make the leadership a punching bag.’’ But hefaced a quandary, as his aide Harry McPhersonnoted, since ‘‘he had enough Democrats behindhim to create major expectations, but not enoughto override the President’s vetoes.’’ 14

Johnson found it harder to control the largermajority but still retained his firm hand on theleadership and enjoyed the ‘‘perks’’ of office.When the New Senate Office Building (laternamed the Dirksen Building) opened in 1958, itallowed many committees to move out of the

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Capitol. Johnson took over the District of Colum-bia Committee’s two-room suite just outside theSenate chamber, turning it into his leadership of-fice. The larger of the two rooms—dubbed the‘‘Taj Mahal’’ by reporters—with its elegantfrescoed ceilings, crystal chandelier, and marblefireplace, symbolized the preeminence of the ma-jority leader. ‘‘Behind his desk in his imperialsuite,’’ wrote one journalist, ‘‘Johnson is thenerve center of the whole legislative process.’’ 15

(Later, during Johnson’s vice-presidency, theSenate named the room in his honor.)

As the election of 1960 approached, severalsenators jumped into the presidential race, butLyndon Johnson held back. Some joked that, asDemocratic leader under Eisenhower, Johnsonhad already served eight years as president andwas constitutionally ineligible to run. Despite thepower and prestige of his office, however, its du-ties kept him from stumping the country as didMassachusetts Senator John F. Kennedy. Ratherthan enter the primaries and challenge Kennedy(whom he privately derided as ‘‘Sonny Boy’’),Johnson chose to wage his presidential campaignthrough House Speaker Rayburn and other pow-erful congressional leaders, confident that theycould corral their state delegations at the Demo-cratic National Convention in support of his can-didacy. ‘‘He thought that national politics werethe same as Senate politics,’’ said HowardShuman, a Senate staff member who observedJohnson at the time. ‘‘He tried to get the nomina-tion by calling himself a Westerner and combin-ing the southern and mountain states to give himthe nomination. That is the way he dominatedthe Senate.’’ But Johnson was caught off-guardby Kennedy’s savvy and sophisticated cam-paign, with advanced polling techniques identi-fying those issues that would strengthen orweaken the candidate in every state. As Johnsonlater told Bobby Baker, if he learned anythingfrom the campaign it was ‘‘that Jack Kennedy’sa lot tougher, and maybe a lot smarter, than Ithought he was.’’ 16

Johnson waited until July 5, 1960, to announcehis formal candidacy and then fought a bitterfight against the front-running Kennedy. Whenthe two met at the convention on July 12 to ad-dress a joint session of the Texas and Minnesota

delegations, Johnson portrayed himself as thediligent legislator who had fought the goodfight, dutifully answering every quorum call onthe recent civil rights bill, in contrast to Kennedy,who had missed all of the quorum calls whileout campaigning. Kennedy refused to be baited.He wittily commended Johnson’s perfect recordon quorum calls and strongly endorsed him—formajority leader.17

The 1960 Election

The next day, Kennedy won the Democraticnomination on the first ballot and then had twen-ty-four hours to select a vice president. He hadgiven no indication of having made up his mindin advance. The party’s pragmatists urged Ken-nedy to choose Johnson in order to carry Texasand the South, but conservatives like RichardRussell urged Johnson to stay off the liberal-lean-ing ticket. Still recalling the bitter experience of‘‘Cactus Jack’’ Garner, who traded the Housespeakership for the vice-presidency with Frank-lin D. Roosevelt, Rayburn and the Texas delega-tion adamantly opposed the notion that Johnsonshould give up the majority leadership for thehollow status of being vice president. LiberalDemocrats reacted negatively to Johnson as awheeler-dealer, and Robert Kennedy, as the cam-paign manager, had given his word to laborleaders and civil rights groups that Johnsonwould never be the vice-presidential candidate.When John Kennedy reported that he wouldoffer the second spot to Johnson, his brother in-terpreted the move as only a token gesture ofparty solidarity, since Johnson had told peoplehe would never accept the second spot. ThenJohnson astonished both brothers by accepting.Considering the choice a terrible mistake, RobertKennedy was delegated to talk the Texan out ofrunning. Going to Johnson’s suite, he proposedthat the Texas become instead the Democraticparty’s national chairman. But a tearful Johnsondeclared, ‘‘I want to be Vice President, and, if thePresident will have me, I’ll join him in makinga fight for it.’’ John Kennedy chose to retain himon the ticket, but the animosity between Johnsonand Robert Kennedy never diminished.18

Pondering why Johnson had accepted, some ofhis aides thought that he saw no future in being

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Kennedy’s majority leader. If he succeeded in en-acting the party platform, the credit would havegone to the president. If he failed, the blamewould have been his. Since the Texas state legis-lature had passed a law permitting Johnson torun for reelection to the Senate at the same timethat he sought national office, Johnson may alsohave been gambling that Kennedy would lose toRichard Nixon, leaving Johnson as majority lead-er with a Republican in the White House. An-other factor, mentioned by Johnson’s friends,was that Lady Bird Johnson had influenced hisdecision by reasoning that, after his heart attack,the vice-presidency would be less strenuous thanthe majority leadership. Johnson offered his ownreason when he called Richard Russell and ex-plained that, if he had declined the vice-presi-dency, he would have been ‘‘left out’’ of partyaffairs in the future.19

Before the campaign could begin, the Ken-nedy-Johnson ticket had to return to Washingtonfor a post-convention session of the Senate. Onthe assumption that he would be the party’sstandard bearer, Johnson had devised this ses-sion to demonstrate his legislative prowess andlaunch his fall campaign. Instead, he found him-self playing second fiddle. Republican senatorsmocked the majority leader, asking if he hadcleared moves in advance with ‘‘your leader.’’When the Democratic Policy Committee met forits regular luncheon, everyone waited to seewhether Kennedy would bounce Johnson fromhis usual place at the head of the table. Kennedydodged the issue by not showing up. With theRepublican presidential candidate, RichardNixon, presiding over the Senate as vice presi-dent, Senate Republicans were not likely to handKennedy any victories. The session faileddismally.20

In the fall, Johnson campaigned intensely, con-ducting a memorable train ride through theSouth. He also pressed for a joint appearance ofthe Democratic candidates somewhere in Texas.They arranged the meeting at the airport in Ama-rillo, where campaign advance men stopped allair traffic during the brief ceremonies so that thecandidates could address the crowd. But theyhad not counted on the Republican-leaning air-line pilots, who deliberately ran the engines of

their planes in order to drown out the speakers.At the close of the ruined appearance, a photog-rapher snapped a concerned Kennedy placinghis hand on Johnson’s shoulder, trying to calmhis angry, gesticulating running mate. Then, justbefore the election, Lyndon and Lady Bird John-son were jeered and jostled by a hostile crowdof right-wingers in Dallas, Texas. Dismayed overthis event, Senator Richard Russell cut short atour of Europe and flew to Texas to campaignfor Johnson. News of Russell’s endorsement wascarried in newspapers throughout Dixie, helpingto solidify the Democratic ticket’s hold on the in-creasingly unsolid South.21

Vice President Johnson

Those who spent election night with Johnsonlater observed that he showed no signs of jubila-tion at the narrow victory over Richard Nixonand gave every impression of not wanting to be-come vice president. After the election, he usedhis influence to recommend candidates for cabi-net appointment—especially Arkansas Senator J.William Fulbright to be secretary of state, butFulbright withdrew his name from consider-ation. The chief of staff of the Senate Foreign Re-lations Committee, Carl Marcy, recalled an en-counter in the Democratic cloakroom whereJohnson grabbed him by the lapels, breathed inhis face and said: ‘‘What’s wrong with Bill Ful-bright? I had it set for him to be Secretary of Stateand he turned it down.’’ Johnson helped to as-sure Senate approval of Robert Kennedy’s nomi-nation for attorney general by persuading con-servative opponents to drop their request for arecorded vote, but when Johnson promoted hissupporter Sarah T. Hughes for federal judge,Robert Kennedy rejected the sixty-four-year oldDallas lawyer as too old. Later, when Johnsonwas out of the country, House Speaker Sam Ray-burn traded passage of an administration bill inreturn for Hughes’ appointment. It was an objectlesson in the power of the Speakership versus thepowerlessness of the vice-presidency.22

Not intending to become an inactive vice presi-dent, Johnson retained the ‘‘Taj Mahal’’ as his of-fice and anticipated keeping the rest of his au-thority as majority leader. He proposed that, asvice president, he continue to chair the meetings

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of the Democratic Conference. Although the newmajority leader, Montana Senator Mike Mans-field, did not object, other senators warned himthat the scheme would never work. As HubertHumphrey observed, Johnson ‘‘was not an easyman to tell that you can’t do something.’’ Whenthe Democratic Conference met on January 3,1961, senator after senator stood to denounce theproposal, including some whom Johnson hadconsidered his supporters. Although the con-ference voted 46 to 17 to permit the vice presi-dent to preside, it was clear that he could notplay the role of ‘‘super majority leader.’’ After-wards, Johnson pulled back and seemed reluc-tant to approach senators and lobby for theirvotes. ‘‘I think a fair assessment would be thatthere was a big sigh of relief when Johnson de-parted the Senate,’’ his friend George Smathersconcluded. ‘‘Not that they didn’t like Johnson. . . but he was so strong, and so difficult, andso tough, that it was a relief to get him over tothe vice president’s office.’’ The Senate nowshifted from ‘‘the benevolent dictatorship’’ ofLyndon Johnson to the more democratic leader-ship of Mike Mansfield. On the occasions whenJohnson presided over the Senate, he habituallyappeared bored.23

Facing constraints in his legislative role, John-son sought to expand his activities within the ex-ecutive branch. In addition to the Taj Mahal atthe Capitol, he occupied a large suite in the Exec-utive Office Building next to the White House.Johnson’s staff prepared a draft of an executiveorder making the vice president in effect a dep-uty president, giving him ‘‘general supervision’’over most space and defense programs. The pro-posal went to President Kennedy and never re-turned, although the president did appoint John-son to chair the Space Council and the WhiteHouse Committee on Equal Employment. Theseposts were not sufficient to halt the vice presi-dent’s shrinking status. When Johnson enteredthe Democratic cloakroom, senators treated himcourteously, but since he was no longer in a posi-tion to court their votes or distribute covetedcommittee assignments, he was no longer thecenter of their attention.24

Johnson grumbled in private but kept his si-lence in public and at White House meetings.

President Kennedy always treated his vice presi-dent cordially, but the president’s young aides,mostly ivy leaguers, snickered about ‘‘UncleCornpone.’’ Acutely aware of their contempt,Johnson attended National Security Council andother policy-making sessions but said nothingunless questioned directly. He felt insecure andignored and wore his feelings openly. ‘‘I cannotstand Johnson’s damn long face,’’ John Kennedyonce complained to George Smathers. ‘‘Hecomes in, sits at the cabinet meetings, with hisface all screwed up, never says anything. Helooks so sad.’’ 25

Seeking to boost the vice president’s spirits bygiving him some public exposure, Kennedy sentJohnson on a string of foreign missions andgoodwill tours. The elixir worked. Johnson at-tracted enthusiastic crowds and reveled in thepress attention. Traveling in Pakistan in 1961,Johnson repeated a line that he often used whilecampaigning: ‘‘You-all come to Washington andsee us sometime.’’ To his surprise, an impover-ished camel driver, Bashir Ahmed, took the invi-tation literally and set out for America. When thepress mocked the story, Johnson arranged for thePeople-to-People program to pay the camel driv-er’s costs, personally met him at the airport inNew York and flew him to his Texas ranch, turn-ing a potential joke into a public relations coup.On the negative side, Johnson’s taste for hyper-bole led him to proclaim South Vietnam’s ill-fated President Ngo Dinh Diem to be the ‘‘Win-ston Churchill of Asia.’’ These persistent jour-neys prompted The Reporter magazine to definethe vice president as someone ‘‘who chasesaround continents in search of the duties of hisoffice.’’ 26

The press attention garnered on foreign visitstended to evaporate as soon as Johnson returnedto the Capitol. One reporter who had covered hisyears as majority leader spent an hour in the vicepresident’s office and noticed a striking dif-ference: not one other visitor appeared and thephone rang only once. Late in the afternoons,Johnson’s aides would invite reporters from theSenate press gallery down for a drink with thevice president. ‘‘When a vice president calls hemight have something to say,’’ United Press re-porter Roy McGhee reasoned. ‘‘Generally, he

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didn’t, except blowing his own horn.’’ Little sub-stantive news ever came out of the meetings, andsometimes the press would leave with nothingto write about at all. The press considered John-son no longer a significant player in Washingtonevents. The television program ‘‘Candid Cam-era’’ exploited his growing obscurity by asking:who is Lyndon Johnson? People guessed a base-ball player, an astronaut, anything but vice presi-dent of the United States.27

Where Johnson most logically might haveplayed a constructive role in helping pass thepresident’s legislative agenda, he seemed to ab-dicate responsibility. John F. Kennedy had prom-ised a vigorous administration, but his proposalson issues from Medicare to civil rights hadstalled in Congress. The power of conservativesouthern Democratic committee chairmen, thedeath in November 1961 of Speaker Sam Ray-burn, and the passive leadership style of SenatorMansfield combined to deadlock the legislativeprocess. As part of the Kennedy administration,Johnson was moving leftward away from hisformer power base of southern conservatives,and this further reduced his effectiveness inplanning legislative strategy. Harry McPhersonnoted that by mid-1963 the vice presidentseemed to share in the ‘‘general malaise’’ of thetime, and that he ‘‘had grown heavy and lookedmiserable.’’ Rumors persisted that he would bedropped from the Democratic ticket in 1964.

A Scandal

Johnson saw Attorney General Robert Ken-nedy as his chief adversary, but rather thanBobby Kennedy, it was Democratic Majority Sec-retary Bobby Baker who most threatened his po-litical survival. For years, Bobby Baker had beenJohnson’s alter ego, known as ‘‘Little Lyndon.’’Baker combined unlimited energy and ambitionwith poor judgment. While Johnson served asmajority leader he dominated Baker’s activities,telling him exactly what he wanted done. ‘‘Getso and so on the telephone,’’ Johnson wouldsnap his fingers, sending Baker off to relay theleader’s wishes. Senator Mansfield retainedBaker as the Democratic secretary, but left himto his own devices. During the 1960s, Baker de-

voted as much time to his own finances as hedid to Senate business.28

Dabbling in everything from vending ma-chines to motels and real estate ventures, BobbyBaker was sued by one of his partners in August1963. This event triggered press inquiries intoBaker’s financial dealings and reports of his in-fluence peddling. As the story unfolded, John-son’s name surfaced in connection with an insur-ance agent close to Baker who charged that hehad given the vice president kickbacks in theform of gifts and advertising on the Johnson fam-ily television and radio stations as conditions forselling him an expensive life insurance policy.Republican senators demanded a full-fledged in-vestigation, and on October 7, Baker resigned hisSenate position. ‘‘I knew Johnson was petrifiedthat he’d be dragged down,’’ Baker later wrote;‘‘he would show this by attempting to make lightof our former relationship and saying that I hadbeen more the Senate’s employee than his own.’’One day, when Senator Russell rose to pay trib-ute to Harry McPherson, who was leaving totake a post at the Pentagon, Johnson as presidingofficer called over one of the Democratic cloak-room staff and muttered:

Now here’s a boy—Harry McPherson—fromTyler, Texas. I brought him up here. I put himon the policy committee. . . . Now here is SenatorRussell down there on the floor saying what agreat man he is. . . . On the other hand, whenI came here Bobby Baker was working here.. . . Then he gets in trouble. Everybody says he’smy boy. But they don’t say anything about HarryMcPherson being my boy.29

Despite the negative publicity, John Kennedygave every indication of keeping Lyndon John-son as vice president during his second term.Late in 1963, reporter Charles Bartlett privatelyasked why he did not get another vice president.Kennedy replied that dumping Johnson wouldonly hurt the Democratic ticket’s chances inTexas. It was to mend political fences betweenDemocratic factions in Texas that Kennedy trav-eled to Dallas in November 1963. Johnson metthe official party and planned to entertain themat his ranch. The vice president was riding in acar behind Kennedy’s limousine when shots

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were fired. When the motorcade rushed to thehospital, Johnson learned that Kennedy wasdead. Taking the oath of office from Judge SarahT. Hughes—herself a symbol of his limited influ-ence as vice president—Johnson returned toWashington as president of the United States.Half of Kennedy’s cabinet had been flying to ameeting in Tokyo when they received the news.As the plane changed course for home, someonespoke what they were all thinking: ‘‘I wonderwhat kind of a president Johnson will make?’’ 30

Suddenly President

Lyndon Johnson underwent a remarkabletransformation. The disaffected vice presidentgrew into a remarkably active and determinedpresident. He set out to heal a shocked nation,to enact Kennedy’s legislative program, and toleave his own mark on the presidency. Freedfrom his obligations to the southern conserv-atives in the Senate, Johnson won passage of themost significant civil rights and voting rights leg-islation of the century. Following his landslidereelection in 1964, Johnson enacted the mostsweeping domestic reforms since the New Deal.Few areas of American social and economic lifewere left untouched by his ‘‘Great Society’’ pro-grams. Commented the liberal Democratic Sen-

ator Paul Douglas, ‘‘Had I been told in 1956 thatten years later I would be one of Lyndon John-son’s strongest supporters, I would have thoughtthe seer was out of his mind.’’ 31

As president, Johnson played the ultimate ma-jority leader, although as the chief executive hefound there were some areas where he could notcut a deal. His civil rights triumphs could notstop racial turmoil and riots in American cities.Nor could his ability to ram the Gulf of TonkinResolution through Congress ensure a militaryvictory in Southeast Asia. There his efforts to for-tify the shaky government of South Vietnam ledto America’s longest and most unpopular warand ultimately to his withdrawal as a candidatefor reelection in 1968. Returning to his Texasranch a rejected and deeply wounded man, Lyn-don Johnson died on January 23, 1973, just as thepeace accords in Vietnam were being finalized.Recalling his old friend’s career, GeorgeSmathers asserted that of all the people withwhom he served Johnson ‘‘was far and away theman who accomplished the most, by far. He de-serves to be remembered for the good things thathe did, and not just to be remembered as sortof a lumbering, overbearing, sometimes crudeindividual who tried to dominate everybody hewas with.’’ 32

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NOTES1 Robert A. Caro, The Years of Lyndon Johnson: The Path to

Power (New York, 1982), pp. 79–137.2 Bruce J. Schulman, Lyndon B. Johnson and American Lib-

eralism: A Brief Biography with Documents (Boston, 1995), p.9.

3 Ibid., p. 18; Caro, The Path to Power, pp. 217–40, 261–68.4 Schulman, p. 19; Robert A. Caro, The Years of Lyndon

Johnson: Means of Ascent (New York, 1990).5 Bobby Baker, Wheeling and Dealing: Confessions of a Cap-

itol Hill Operator (New York, 1978), pp. 34, 40.6 John A. Goldsmith, Colleagues: Richard B. Russell and His

Apprentice, Lyndon B. Johnson (Washington, 1993), pp. 9–30;Robert Dallek, Lone Star Rising: Lyndon Johnson and HisTimes, 1908–1960 (New York, 1991), pp. 378–80.

7 Dallek, pp. 421–23; Bobby Baker, pp. 59–63.8 Goldsmith, p. 73.9 Merle Miller, Lyndon: An Oral Biography (New York,

1980), p. xvi; Harry McPherson, A Political Education (Bos-ton, 1972), p. 159; Robert L. Riggs, ‘‘The South Could RiseAgain: Lyndon Johnson and Others,’’ in Eric Sevareid, ed.,Candidates 1960; Behind the Headlines in the Presidential Race(New York, 1959), pp. 299–300; Rowland Evans and RobertNovak, Lyndon B. Johnson: The Exercise of Power (New York,1966), p. 104.

10 James Cannon, Time and Chance: Gerald Ford’s Appoint-ment with History (New York, 1994), p. 67; George A.Smathers, United States Senator from Florida, Oral HistoryInterviews, 1989, (U.S. Senate Historical Office, Washing-ton, DC), pp. 45, 74–75.

11 Smathers oral history, p. 22; Darrell St. Claire: AssistantSecretary of the Senate, Oral History Interviews, 1976–1978(U.S. Senate Historical Office, Washington, DC), pp. 134,214–15; Riggs, p. 295.

12 George Reedy, The U.S. Senate: Paralysis or a Search forConsensus? (New York, 1986), p. 107; Smathers oral history,pp. 57, 70.

13 Howard E. Shuman, ‘‘Lyndon B. Johnson: The Senate’sPowerful Persuader,’’ Richard A. Baker and Roger H. Da-vidson, eds., First Among Equals: Outstanding Senate Leadersof the Twentieth Century (Washington, 1991), pp. 222–29;Dallek, pp. 517–27.

14 McPherson, pp. 159, 168; Jay G. Sykes, Proxmire (Wash-ington, 1972), pp. 109–20.

15 Riggs, p. 301.16 McPherson, p. 171; Dallek, p. 569; Howard E. Shuman,,

Legislative and Administrative Assistant to Senators Paul Doug-

las and William Proxmire, 1955–1982, Oral History Inter-views, 1987 (U.S. Senate Historical Office, Washington, DC),pp. 116–17; Bobby Baker, p. 138.

17 Evans and Novak, p. 273.18 Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., Robert Kennedy and His Times

(Boston, 1978), 1: 209–21; Dallek, pp. 574–81.19 McPherson, pp. 178–79; Smathers oral history, p. 88;

Goldsmith, p. 77.20 McPherson, p. 179; Dorothye G. Scott, Administrative As-

sistant to the Senate Democratic Secretary and the Secretary ofthe Senate, 1945–1977, Oral History Interviews, 1992 (U.S.Senate Historical Office, Washington, DC), pp. 140–41.

21 Goldsmith, p. 81; Rein J. Vander Zee, Assistant to the Sen-ate Democratic Whip and Assistant Secretary of the Majority,1961–1964, Oral History Interviews, 1992 (U.S. Senate His-torical Office, Washington, DC,) p. 65. The photograph isincluded in Susan Kismaric, American Politicians: Photo-graphs from 1843 to 1993 (New York, 1994), p. 166.

22 Miller, pp. 272–73; Carl Marcy, Chief of Staff, Foreign Re-lations Committee, 1953–1973, Oral History Interviews, 1983(U.S. Senate Historical Office, Washington, DC), p. 128;Goldsmith, p. 86; Evans and Novak, pp. 314–15.

23 Goldsmith, pp. 83–84; Leonard Baker, The JohnsonEclipse: A President’s Vice Presidency (New York, 1966), pp.22–28, 32; Smathers oral history, pp. 89, 121; Shuman oralhistory, p. 239.

24 Goldsmith, p. 86; McPherson, pp. 184–85.25 William S. White, The Professional: Lyndon B. Johnson

(Boston, 1964), pp. 227–46; Goldsmith, p. 87; Leonard Baker,pp. 42–48; Smathers oral history, pp. 86, 89.

26 Leonard Baker, pp. 62–67, 167; Paul Conkin, Big Daddyfrom the Pedernales: Lyndon Baines Johnson (Boston, 1986), pp.167–69.

27 Booth Mooney, LBJ: An Irreverent Chronicle (New York,1976), p. 141; Roy L. McGhee, Superintendent of the Senate Peri-odical Press Gallery, 1973–1991, Oral History Interviews, 1992(U.S. Senate Historical Office, Washington, DC), pp. 22–23.

28 Evans and Novak, pp. 311–13; Goldsmith, p. 91;McPherson, p. 200; Smathers oral history, pp. 61–62.

29 Bobby Baker, pp. 172–91; Vander Zee oral history, pp.87–88.

30 Miller, pp. 308, 316.31 Paul H. Douglas, In the Fullness of Time: The Memoirs

of Paul H. Douglas. New York, 1972), p. 233.32 Smathers oral history, pp. 165–66.

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Chapter 38

HUBERT H. HUMPHREY1965–1969

HUBERT H. HUMPHREY

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Chapter 38

HUBERT H. HUMPHREY38th Vice President: 1965–1969

I did not become vice president with Lyndon Johnson to cause him trouble.—HUBERT H. HUMPHREY, 1965

As vice president during 1968—arguably theUnited States’ most politically turbulent post-World War II year—Hubert Humphrey faced anexcruciating test of statesmanship. During a timeof war in Southeast Asia when the stakes for thisnation were great, Humphrey confronted an ago-nizing choice: whether to remain loyal to hispresident or to the dictates of his conscience. Hisfailure to reconcile these powerful claims costhim the presidency. Yet few men, placed in hisposition, could have walked so agonizing a tight-rope over so polarized a nation.

Near the end of his long career, an AssociatedPress poll of one thousand congressional admin-istrative assistants cited Hubert Humphrey asthe most effective senator of the preceding fiftyyears.1 A biographer pronounced him ‘‘the pre-mier lawmaker of his generation.’’ 2 Widely rec-ognized during his career as the leading progres-sive in American public life, the Minnesota sen-ator was often ahead of public opinion—whicheventually caught up with him. When it did, hewas able to become one of Congress’ most con-structive legislators and a ‘‘trail blazer for civilrights and social justice.’’ 3 His story is one of richaccomplishment and shattering frustration.

Hubert Humphrey’s oratorical talents, fore-most among his abundant personal and politicalqualities, powered his rapid ascent to nationalprominence.4 Lyndon Johnson remarked that‘‘Hubert has the greatest coordination of mindand tongue of anybody I know,’’ 5 althoughHarry Truman was one among many who recog-

nized that this ‘‘Rembrandt with words’’ fre-quently talked too much.6 Dubbed ‘‘MinnesotaChats,’’ 7 by Johnny Carson, Humphrey often lefthimself open to the charge that he was ‘‘a gabbyextremist of the Left,’’ a label that stuck with himdespite his moves towards moderation.8 Anylapses of caution may have been the result ofHumphrey the orator being an ‘‘incandescentimproviser,’’ 9 with overstatement being theprice he paid for his dazzling eloquence.

Humphrey drew his oratorical power from hisemotional temperament, which sometimes lefthim in tears on the stump, undoubtedly movingmany in his audience. He would say that he hada ‘‘zealous righteousness burning within him,’’yet his ultimate legislative accomplishmentswere achieved when he moderated the firebrandand willingly compromised with his oppo-nents.10 In fact, Humphrey learned to combinehis rhetorical talents effectively with his sub-stantive goals by developing into a persuaderand for the most part foregoing intimidation, un-like his colleague and mentor Lyndon Johnson.It is not surprising that, while Johnson hated thepowerlessness of the vice-presidency, Hum-phrey relished the national podium it offered.

A Prairie Progressive

The origins of the Minnesotan’s ‘‘zealous right-eousness’’ can be found in his home state’s tradi-tion of agrarian reformism that tenaciously pro-moted ‘‘the disinherited’’ underdogs at the ex-pense of ‘‘the interests.’’ 11 Humphrey personally

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was a warm, sincere, even ‘‘corny’’ populist, anold-time prairie progressive politically de-scended from the likes of William JenningsBryan, George Norris, and Robert La Follette, Sr.

Born in South Dakota in 1911, Humphreylearned his ideology first hand in the persistentagricultural depression of the Midwest duringthe 1920s and 1930s. He and his family were vic-tims, like so many others, of the Dust Bowl andthe Great Depression that had evicted them fromtheir home and business. Humphrey’s poor,rural upbringing stirred both him and his phar-macist father to become politically conscious, ar-dent New Dealers. Thus Humphrey was ‘‘per-manently marked by the Depression,’’ which inturn stimulated him to study and teach collegepolitical science in the employ of the New Deal’sWorks Progress Administration.12 After Hum-phrey became an administrator in that agency,the Minnesota Democratic party recognized hisoratorical talents and, in their search for ‘‘newblood,’’ tapped him as candidate for mayor ofMinneapolis.13 Although he lost his first race in1943, he succeeded in 1945. This post wouldprove to be Humphrey’s sole executive experi-ence until the time of his vice-presidency. Hemade the most of it, successfully impressing hisreformist principles on organized crime bystretching his mayoral powers to their limit onthe strength of his personality and his ability tocontrol the city’s various factions.

Hubert Humphrey’s mayoral success and visi-bility propelled him directly into the Senate fora career that would encompass five terms. Hewas first elected in 1948 after gaining national at-tention at the Democratic National Conventionwith his historic plea for civil rights legislation.Although no strong constituency existed for thisissue in Minnesota, the position was in line withHumphrey’s championing of others among hisstate’s underdogs, including farmers, labor, andsmall business. In hammering his civil rightsplank into the platform, Humphrey helped tobring the breakaway progressive supporters ofHenry Wallace back into the Democratic fold,while simultaneously prompting the Dixiecratsto walk out of the convention hall and the party.

In the Senate

Humphrey’s headline-grabbing civil rightsspeech appealed to Minneapolis’ liberal commu-nity, and his stand in favor of the Marshall Planand against the Taft-Hartley labor-managementrelations law attracted the support of farmersand labor. As a result, Minnesota elected a Dem-ocrat to the Senate for the first time since 1901.In his first feisty days in the Senate, Humphreyimmediately moved to the cutting edge of lib-eralism by introducing dozens of bills in supportof programs to increase aid to schools, expandthe Labor Department, rescind corporate taxloopholes, and establish a health insurance pro-gram that was eventually enacted a decade anda half later as Medicare. In addition, Humphreyspoke as a freshman senator on hundreds of top-ics with the ardor of a moralizing reformer. Ac-customed to discussing candidly and openly pol-icy matters that disturbed him, the junior senatorquickly ran afoul of the Senate’s conservative es-tablishment. He found that many senatorssnubbed him for his support of the Democraticparty’s 1948 civil rights plank and, as SenatorRobert C. Byrd has written, Humphrey ‘‘chosehis first battles poorly, once rising to demand theabolition of the Joint Committee on the Reduc-tion of Nonessential Federal Expenditures as anonessential expenditure.’’ Committee chairmanHarry Byrd, Sr., happened to be away from theSenate floor at the time, but he and other power-ful senior senators punished this breach of deco-rum by further isolating Humphrey.14

Yet Humphrey, under the guidance of Demo-cratic leader Lyndon Johnson, soon moderatedhis ways, if not his goals. As New York Times con-gressional correspondent William S. White ob-served in his classic study of the early 1950s Sen-ate, Humphrey’s

slow ascent to grace was [due to] the clear, butfar from simple, fact that he had in him so manylatently Senatorial qualities. Not long had he beenaround before it became evident that, notwith-standing his regrettable past, he had a tactilesense of the moods and the habits and the mindof the place.15

By the mid-1950s, Humphrey had moved intothe ranks of the Senate’s ‘‘Inner Club.’’

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It is hardly surprising that a politician so filledwith energy and vision had presidential ambi-tions dating from the time of his mayoral elec-tion. Indeed, on six occasions during his careerHumphrey sought either the presidency or thevice-presidency. His first foray into the vice-presidential race was 1952, but it was the 1956contest that revealed the essential Humphrey, ashe campaigned vigorously for that office afterpresidential nominee Adlai Stevenson threwopen the nomination. Undaunted by his failurein that contest, Humphrey continued his advo-cacy role in the Senate. Then, in 1958, during avisit to the Soviet Union as part of a fact-findingtrip to Europe, Humphrey engaged in a historiceight-and-a-half-hour impromptu conversationon disarmament with Soviet Premier NikitaKhrushchev. This event thrust him into the inter-national spotlight, and the publicity he gainedmade him an instant presidential candidate for1960. Yet Humphrey, a longtime proponent ofdisarmament, then paradoxically exploited thispublicity to criticize President Dwight Eisen-hower for allowing a ‘‘missile gap’’ to develop.

In 1960 a defense issue of a more personalstripe helped to undermine Humphrey’s presi-dential bid. More than in any other of his manyelection years, his World War II draftdeferment—first as a father and then for a medi-cal condition identified as a right scrotal her-nia 16—was used against him in the primaries.Although Humphrey’s draft status seemed to in-vite exploitation by his political opponents, hischronic lack of campaign funds and organiza-tion, as well as his moderate liberal image, actu-ally lost him the nomination.

Out of defeat, the irrepressible Minnesotansnatched senatorial victory by becoming thechoice of departing Majority Leader and VicePresident-elect Lyndon Johnson for Senate ma-jority whip. Humphrey used his new post to be-come a driving force in the Senate. Johnson hadpromoted Humphrey for this leadership positionas a reward for his cooperation in the Senate andto solidify a relationship for the benefit of theKennedy administration. Newly elected MajorityLeader Mike Mansfield noted Humphrey’s ‘‘vi-brant personality and phenomenal energy.’’These traits, coupled with a new-found prag-

matism, gained him appointment to the Appro-priations Committee and a solid record of legis-lative accomplishment.17 Humphrey went on tobecome a major congressional supporter of anumber of New Frontier programs, many ofwhich had been originally outlined in his ownbills in the 1950s. Chief among these were the JobCorps, the Peace Corps, an extension of the Foodfor Peace program, and ‘‘a score of progressivemeasures’’ pertaining to health, education, andwelfare.18

Humphrey’s role in pressing for the landmark1963 Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty with theSoviet Union ranks as one of his greatest tri-umphs. A supporter of disarmament since the1950s, he helped persuade President Eisenhowerto follow the Soviets into a voluntary testingmoratorium. Humphrey was a follower ofGeorge Kennan’s geo-strategic analysis, whichcounselled a moderate course designed selec-tively and nonprovocatively to contain Sovietprobes into areas vital to the United States. Thismiddle way between provocation and disar-mament also encouraged pragmatic negotia-tions, and Humphrey continued to prod Presi-dent John F. Kennedy into the more permanenttest ban treaty and the establishment of a U.S.Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. At thetreaty-signing ceremony, President Kennedy rec-ognized Humphrey’s years of often lonely ef-forts, commenting, ‘‘Hubert, this is your treaty—and it had better work.’’ 19

The principal items on Humphrey’s longstand-ing domestic legislative agenda failed to advancesignificantly until the so-called ‘‘Great Society’’period that followed Kennedy’s death. The first,and perhaps biggest, breakthrough came withpassage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which hemanaged in a Senate obstructed by southern fili-busterers. In working for that legislation, Hum-phrey skilfully combined his talent as a soft-spo-ken, behind-the-scenes negotiator with a rhetori-cal hard sell focused on the media. Humphrey’ssubsequent record of legislative achievementwas remarkable. With his support, federal aid tofarmers and rural areas increased, as did the newfood stamp program and foreign-aid food ex-ports that benefitted the farms. Congress author-ized scholarships, scientific research grants, aid

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to schools, rehabilitation of dropouts, and voca-tional guidance. Legislation promoted publicpower projects, mass transportation, publichousing, and greater unemployment benefits.

While the Minnesota senator could claim creditfor helping to create millions of jobs, he alsoreaped the scorn of critics fearful of deficitspending. Humphrey replied that ‘‘a balancedbudget is a futile dream,’’ which could not be at-tained anyway until ‘‘the world is in balance.’’Dismissing those ‘‘Scrooges’’ who harbored a‘‘bookkeeper’s mentality,’’ Humphrey, a self-proclaimed ‘‘jolly Santa,’’ reiterated his priority,people’s ‘‘needs and desires.’’ 20

Campaigning for Vice President

Hubert Humphrey was convinced he couldfulfill these ‘‘needs and desires’’ only by becom-ing president. He saw the vice-presidency as themajor stepping stone to this objective, reasoningthat, as vice president, he would also have great-er access to the president than he did as Senatewhip. Humphrey believed he would need thenational prominence of the vice-presidential of-fice to secure the presidency because he lackedthe requisite financial base to run such a largenational campaign. Since 1945 the vice-presi-dency had come to be viewed as a viable spring-board to the presidency—a notion furthered bythe near success of Vice President Nixon in the1960 presidential contest. Yet Humphrey recog-nized that the vice-presidential office itself was‘‘awkward’’ and ‘‘unnatural’’ for an energeticpolitician.21

Humphrey realized that he would have to paythe price for his greater access to power by com-promising some of his principles, because, aboveall, Johnson demanded loyalty from his vicepresident. But in 1964, the cost did not appearto be substantial, since Johnson needed Hum-phrey and the entree he provided to the Demo-cratic party’s liberal wing. There was, however,never any question as to who was boss. Evenwhen both men served together in the Senate,their relationship was ‘‘one of domination-subor-dination.’’ 22 Humphrey had been Johnson’sprotege, his ‘‘faithful lieutenant’’ and go-be-tween with the liberals.23 It is ironic that whenHumphrey actually became Johnson’s vice presi-

dent, one of the closest political relationships inCongress eventually turned into one of the mostmutually frustrating presidential-vice-presi-dential relationships in history. This conflict oc-curred even though the new vice presidentsought to accommodate the chief executive byadopting a more conservative stance on both do-mestic and foreign policy issues, with the result-ing erosion of his former liberal credentials.

Johnson succeeded in effectively manipulatingHumphrey by running hot and cold, alternatelyfavoring and punishing him. Such behaviormodification began early in the political seasonof 1964, when Johnson played Humphrey offagainst rivals for the vice-presidency, encourag-ing all the potential candidates to campaign pub-licly for popular support. Humphrey’s politicaladroitness in arranging a compromise solutionfor the racially divided Mississippi delegation atthe Democratic National Convention impressedJohnson and finally clinched the nomination forthe Minnesotan. Humphrey augmented his pop-ularity by delivering a speech at the conventionwith a famous refrain attacking right-wing oppo-sition to the Great Society programs that manyRepublicans had indeed voted for: ‘‘But not Sen-ator Goldwater.’’ 24 The charges by the Repub-lican vice-presidential candidate William Millerduring the fall campaign that Humphrey was a‘‘radical,’’ on the ‘‘left bank . . . of the DemocraticParty’’ 25 had little impact on the voters. Hum-phrey campaigned persuasively, dispelling hispast reputation as a ‘‘flaming radical’’ by ex-plaining that, although he retained his old goals,he was now willing to take an incremental ap-proach and ‘‘make what progress is available atthe moment.’’ 26

Lobbying for the Administration

After the landslide mandate of the 1964 elec-tion, Humphrey enthusiastically reverted to typeand became, according to biographer AlbertEisele, ‘‘the busiest vice president in history dur-ing his first year in office.’’ 27 An active vice-pres-idential lobbyist, he sought to trade on hisformer status as ‘‘one of the most well-likedmembers of the Senate.’’ 28 Concentrating on sell-ing Congress and the nation on the domesticmeasures to bring about the Great Society, Hum-

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phrey maintained a degree of involvement thatwas unprecedented for a vice president. No pre-vious vice president had been so intimately asso-ciated with crafting such a body of legislation.The ‘‘legislation long dear to his heart’’ includedthe 1965 Voting Rights Act, Medicare, establish-ment of the Department of Housing and UrbanDevelopment and the Office of Economic Oppor-tunity, and creation of the Head Start program.29

Humphrey’s vision for the Great Society in-cluded providing federal funds for the NationalEndowment for the Arts, the Public BroadcastingService, and solar energy research. Instrumentalin passage of the Food Stamp Act of 1964, Hum-phrey was also the White House’s most vigoroussalesman in persuading farmers to accept theModel Cities program, African-Americans toabide the draft, and conservatives to tolerate theexpanded welfare state.30

The president assigned Humphrey his primaryjob inside the halls of Congress, where hisknowledge and contacts would be invaluable.After presiding in the Senate chamber, Hum-phrey took his campaign for the administration’sagenda into the adjacent cloakrooms—the mosteffective legislative venue, as his long years ofexperience had taught him. Humphrey’s tenureas a member also made him acutely aware of theSenate’s unwritten codes of behavior. The vicepresident understood that as Senate president hemust never forget the difference between itschamber and its cloakrooms: now that he was nolonger a regular member of the ‘‘club,’’ he mustconfine his political dealings to the cloakrooms,while limiting his chamber activities to the strict-ly procedural.

After Johnson announced in 1965 that hisGreat Society programs and the mission in Viet-nam could be accomplished simultaneously,Humphrey worked the Senate on a daily basis,encouraging the sale of some raw materials fromthe U.S. strategic stockpile to pay for the rapidlyescalating costs of military involvement, sincethe administration did not propose to increasetaxes.

Humphrey’s lobbying activity on Capitol Hillreflected his style of perpetual exertion. SenateMajority Leader Mike Mansfield utilized the vicepresident’s consensus-gathering talents when he

asked him to mediate between contentious fac-tions supporting the 1965 Voting Rights bill. Thenext year, the vice president dealt directly withcongressional leaders to push the administra-tion’s version of the Model Cities bill.31 Hum-phrey understood that he no longer had any leg-islative authority, but in his capacity as the presi-dent’s ‘‘field marshal on Capitol Hill,’’ he‘‘collect[ed]’’ debts that were ‘‘due’’ him from hispast accumulation of goodwill. In 1965, Hum-phrey spent far more time in his chandeliered of-fice a few steps from the Senate chamber thanhe did across town in the Old Executive OfficeBuilding. On Capitol Hill he exercised his skillsas a ‘‘legislative troubleshooter’’ and‘‘intermediary’’ between factions. ‘‘Time andagain,’’ the vice president ‘‘delivered votes fromlawmakers who seemed immune to blandish-ments from any other quarter.’’ According toNewsweek’s Charles Roberts, Humphrey some-times cautioned senators in the cloakroom thathe would be obligated to make unflatteringspeeches about them in their districts if they didnot vote his way.32

By 1966, however, Great Society programsbegan to stall in Congress and racial tensionsmounted, prompting Humphrey to increase thepressure for summer jobs for inner city youth.In frustration, the vice president blurted out oneday that, if he were a slum dweller, immersedin rats and garbage, he himself might ‘‘revolt.’’ 33

When riots broke out a week later, Humphrey,under fire from both critics and the White House,qualified his earlier statement by adding that‘‘we cannot condone violence.’’ 34 And whenurban riots flared again in the summer of 1967,while the administration’s agenda remained inlimbo, Humphrey called for a ‘‘Marshall Plan’’for the cities.35 Johnson, burdened by soaring in-flation, interest rates, and government debt, im-mediately rebuked his vice president, who didnot mention his plan again.

On the domestic front Humphrey was moti-vated by the disparity in standards of living heobserved in the richest country on earth. He con-stantly pressed for increases in Aid to Familieswith Dependent Children, Social Security, andwelfare benefits.36 The glory of the Great Societywas its future-oriented generosity, yet as the eco-

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nomic consequences became apparent, PresidentJohnson grew more fiscally conservative. As a re-sult, Vice President Humphrey felt doubly cheat-ed, not only because his long-held vision wasbeing constrained, but also because, despite hiscontinuous congressional lobbying efforts, themore parsimonious president—and not he—re-ceived all the credit for the successes that wereachieved.37 Nevertheless, Humphrey couldhardly be dissatisfied with the results of the do-mestic policy labors that he so enjoyed.

A Varied Role

Although domestic legislation consumed mostof Humphrey’s energies early in his term, hisvice-presidential role can be divided into rough-ly three separate functions. He was, at varioustimes, the executive branch’s representative inthe Senate, the chief of numerous executivecouncils, and the president’s spokesman-at-large. Among the statutory duties assigned to thevice-presidency were the administration ofoceanography and the space race. As the chair-man of councils on topics ranging from NativeAmericans to the environment, youth, and tour-ism, Humphrey served as titular head of a widevariety of executive branch enterprises.

But Humphrey soon abandoned most of theseWhite House duties when he realized that thepresident personally controlled everything ofsignificance. He did, however, maintain his roleas liaison to the country’s mayors, a duty thatdovetailed nicely with his assignment as civilrights coordinator and liaison to the country’sAfrican American leaders. These activities wereall part of Humphrey’s political mission to re-duce racial inequities and conflicts by institutingjust governance.

In 1966, with the Great Society’s remaining leg-islation stalled in Congress, Humphrey used hisvice-presidential platform to support Democratsseeking congressional seats in the coming mid-term elections. To that end, Humphrey cam-paigned in almost every state as party cheer-leader and presidential surrogate. He also usedhis liaison duties to channel political informationback to the president, thereby influencing the aidmany candidates would receive and gaining asubstantial hand in overall campaign strategy.

Humphrey proved to be a vigorous campaigner.As the escalating war in Vietnam slowly smoth-ered domestic legislative initiatives, he advisedcampaigners to ‘‘Run on Vietnam’’ and becamethe administration’s ‘‘chief spear carrier.’’ 38

Despite Humphrey’s energetic Senate lobby-ing, by 1966 events had shifted the focus of hisvice-presidency from Capitol Hill to the WhiteHouse. Indeed, he became the most active WhiteHouse spokesman, and his nationwide speakingtours were geared to a ‘‘frantic pace.’’ 39 Hum-phrey’s frenzy may be traced in part to the inse-curity that his mercurial and manipulative bossengendered. Johnson had a ‘‘routine of slappingHumphrey one day and stroking him thenext.’’ 40 The president would publicly praise hisvice president and then, shortly afterward, ex-clude him from the inner councils, chiefly be-cause Humphrey talked too much and too freelyin public. Johnson, inordinately concerned withleaks and their relationship to loquacity, endedup giving Humphrey little opportunity to con-tribute to administration policy decisions. Themore Humphrey was shut out, the more he be-came a mere ‘‘political spokesman,’’ as he put it,falling back on his formidable rhetorical tal-ents.41 This choice reflected not only his pledgeof loyalty to the president, but also his inclina-tion to seek compromise.

With the situation in Vietnam heating up,Johnson made Humphrey his primary spokes-man on war policy. The vice president duly vis-ited university campuses to answer questionsand reiterate the administration’s policy line. Buthis new, more conservative stance began to al-ienate liberal supporters as he uttered suchhawkish assertions as, ‘‘only the Viet Cong com-mit atrocities.’’ 42

Anticommunist and Internationalist

The president also sent Humphrey to Europeto gather support for the administration’s warpolicy, along with a nuclear nonproliferationtreaty, increased East-West trade, and inter-national monetary reform. Although many con-sidered the vice president’s efforts on his Euro-pean trip a diplomatic success, he encounteredantiwar demonstrators everywhere he went.Humphrey handily dismissed these Europeans

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as ‘‘Communist led,’’ 43 an assessment in keepingwith his political record, since he had supportedUnited States cold war policy since 1950. Evenas mayor, Humphrey had battled Communistsand pro-Soviet leftists for control of his Demo-cratic-Farmer-Labor party. In the Senate, Hum-phrey had joined the anticommunist crusade inthe interest of protecting his noncommunistfriends in labor unions. Ideologically, he had al-ways been an internationalist, a Wilsonian, com-mitted to worldwide free trade and open mar-kets, which would, ‘‘coincidentally,’’ benefit hisMinnesota farm constituents.

The Minnesota Democrat was not always con-sistent in his internationalist motivations andforeign policy views. For example, although hewas a longtime advocate of disarmament, chair-man of the Senate disarmament subcommittee,and later father of the Limited Nuclear Test BanTreaty of 1963, Humphrey had also attacked theEisenhower administration’s ‘‘missile gap’’ in1960. Even though he may have indulged in ameasure of political inconsistency, his viewswere fundamentally moderate. He never es-poused unilateral disarmament but rather sup-ported an active policy of negotiating mutual nu-clear and conventional cutbacks with the Soviets.While he advocated outright independence forthe ‘‘captive nations’’ of Eastern Europe, he de-nounced Secretary of State John Foster Dulles’‘‘brinksmanship’’ over Vietnam, Taiwan, andKorea as a dangerous game of threatening to usemassive nuclear force.

Humphrey’s record on the cold war at homewas even more complex. He had voted for theMcCarran Internal Security Act of 1950 and hadintroduced the Communist Control Act of 1954,both of which severely repressed those identifiedas American Communists. Humphrey later re-gretted his participation in the latter act andcalled for its repeal. Yet, at the time, he was silentregarding the actions of Senator Joseph McCar-thy, even though he did deplore the ‘‘psychosisof fear’’ and ‘‘this madness of know-nothing-ness.’’ 44 In the 1950s Humphrey supported thegenerally held view that agents of foreign gov-ernments committed to the overthrow of the U.S.government were not entitled to civil liberties.Yet, this stance could also be explained as a cyni-

cal attempt to save the Democrats from the ‘‘softon communism’’ label, especially duringthe election year of 1954, the apogee ofMcCarthyism.

While Humphrey’s staunch anticommunismbecame even more pronounced as he progressedinto the upper echelons of the ‘‘Establishment,’’he struggled to maintain his position as a mod-erate, shifting nimbly to the right and left of cen-ter as the circumstances warranted—the so-called ‘‘Humphrey duality.’’ 45 By the time of the1964 presidential campaign, Humphrey labeledGoldwater and his faction as ‘‘reactionary,’’ pre-dicting that, if Goldwater were elected, he wouldinstitute a ‘‘nuclear reign of terror.’’ 46 In spite ofhis strong anticommunism, Humphrey fearedthat an East-West confrontation could escalateinto nuclear warfare. Thus, his conservative de-tractors were able to label him ‘‘soft on com-munism’’ when the compromiser in him pro-posed, for instance, the solution of coalition gov-ernments in Southeast Asia.47 Humphrey be-lieved that, if the native Communist andanticommunist elements could pragmaticallycombine in a parliamentary forum, the local mili-tary conflict would be less likely to engender aneventual superpower confrontation.

The Vietnam War I: Opposition

As early as 1954, Humphrey had opposed anycontinuance of the French war in Vietnam by theUnited States. On that issue, his pre-vice-presi-dential foreign policy can generally be describedas ‘‘dovish,’’ despite the often precarious balancehe sought to strike. Humphrey did lead the effortto ratify the SEATO treaty in 1955 and assertedin 1960 that, ‘‘I happen to believe that the mostdangerous, aggressive force in the world todayis Communist China.’’ 48 But for Vietnam, he ad-vocated the counterinsurgency techniques ofGeneral Edward Lansdale that, rather than aconventional military strategy, emphasized anunconventional and, above all, a political solu-tion incorporating a ‘‘rural reconstruction’’ pro-gram.49 In the 1964 campaign, although Hum-phrey endorsed a ‘‘free civilization’’ resisting the‘‘expansion of Communist power,’’ he remaineda relatively consistent moderate as the cam-paign’s political rhetoric focused more on do-

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mestic affairs and the larger cold war, in whichthe Democrats appeared more moderate than thesaber-rattling Goldwater and his running mate,William Miller.50

Just a few weeks after the newly elected John-son administration took office, however, the VietCong attacked and killed American troops inSouth Vietnam, spurring the president to retali-ate by bombing the North. Humphrey, virtuallyalone among Johnson’s inner circle, immediatelyopposed this ‘‘Operation Rolling Thunder’’ withseveral arguments. The first was drawn from theadvice of Undersecretary of State George Ball. Aformer member of the U.S. Strategic BombingSurvey after World War II, Ball understood thelimited capabilities of the U.S. Air Force. Hum-phrey himself reminded the cabinet that theUnited States’ experience in Korea demonstratedthe pitfalls of the nation engaging in a land warin Asia, even though that earlier conflict had in-deed represented a clearer case of a conventionalinvasion. Citing that precedent, Humphreywarned that U.S. escalation in Vietnam couldprovoke an intervention by the Chinese or evenby the Soviets, with potential nuclear con-sequences. The vice president asked what goodreason the United States could have to interjectitself into ‘‘that faraway conflict’’ when ‘‘no last-ing solution can be imposed by a foreignarmy.’’ 51

In 1965 Humphrey pushed for a political reso-lution as the only hope to save not only the un-stable government of South Vietnam, but also thefull funding of the Great Society programs. Thevice president included these points in bothverbal counsel and memos to the president, alsoreminding him that direct bombing by the Unit-ed States had been Goldwater’s position duringthe campaign. Humphrey predicted that thepresident would eventually be opposed not bythe Republicans, but more dangerously, fromwithin his own party. Johnson’s response was in-creasingly to freeze the vice president out of theVietnam councils, forcing him to concentrate onGreat Society issues. Although Humphrey lostaccess to the president because of a variety of in-judicious public comments, the gulf over Viet-nam was the principal cause of his year-long ex-ecutive exile. This period proved to be the turn-

ing point not only of his vice-presidency, but alsoof his political career.

The Vietnam War II: A Change of Position

As Humphrey’s legislative and executive op-portunities dwindled, the penitent vice presidenteventually became only too happy to carry outthe new role Johnson had assigned him, that ofspecial envoy. The president sent him on propa-ganda and fact-finding trips to Southeast Asia togather evidence of Chinese aggression. On hisfirst trip in early 1966, Humphrey was stronglyinfluenced by the hawkish views of AmbassadorHenry Cabot Lodge and General William West-moreland. So eager was Humphrey to regain thegood graces of the president that, even as earlyas November 1965, he had reported back fromhis visits to college campuses, which were nowholding ‘‘teach-ins’’ against the war, that stu-dents were increasingly supporting the Vietnampolicy. As Humphrey found that his hopes forcompromise were not always attainable, hebegan to make his irrevocable political choice be-tween loyalty to his lifelong conscience and loy-alty to Lyndon Johnson. ‘‘I did not become vicepresident with Lyndon Johnson to cause himtrouble,’’ he declared in 1965.52 The presidentmay have somewhat appeased Humphrey justbefore his February 1966 conversion with theChristmas 1965 bombing pause of which Johnsonsaid that he was now trying ‘‘Hubert’s way.’’ 53

Humphrey departed on his extended peace of-fensive throughout Indochina and South Asia,which even included some impromptu, and ulti-mately fruitless, negotiations with Soviet Pre-mier Alexei Kosygin in India. At the end of thispublicity-laden circuit, Johnson continued hispattern of molding Humphrey’s behavior. Thepresident rewarded—or exploited—dependingon one’s perspective, Humphrey’s demonstra-tion of renewed loyalty by permitting him to an-nounce ambitious plans ‘‘to export the Great So-ciety to Asian countries,’’ like South Vietnam.54

Humphrey instinctively responded to the idea ofextending the war on poverty and injustice toother nations.

During the vice president’s grand tour ofSouth and Southeast Asian capitals, the localleaders easily persuaded him that the Red Chi-

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nese menace and its advance ‘‘agent North Viet-nam’’ necessitated U.S. military aid to their coun-tries.55 Humphrey returned to the United Statesconvinced that Chinese ‘‘imperialism and expan-sion’’ threatened to topple Asian dominos as faras Australia.56 He dismissed Senator Mike Mans-field and other skeptical senators as havingmissed the ‘‘big picture’’ regarding the Com-munist ‘‘master plan’’ and the Chinese ‘‘epi-demic [that] we must stop’’ before they come‘‘closer to home’’ and all the way to Honoluluand San Francisco.57 When Senator Robert F.Kennedy suggested the possibility of a coalitiongovernment for South Vietnam, a position Hum-phrey himself had espoused in his pre-vice-pres-idential days, the vice president retorted thatwould be like ‘‘putting a fox in a chickencoop.’’ 58 Humphrey soon came to regret thememorable quality of some of his more stridentstatements, as he lost the support of many lib-erals and midwestern progressives who nowcharacterized him as being ‘‘more royalist thanthe crown.’’ 59 Newsweek magazine observed thatHumphrey was ‘‘the scrappiest warrior in theWhite House phalanx.’’ 60

The Vietnam War III: Public Support and PrivateDoubts

Johnson again tapped Humphrey’s inherentexuberance in a successful campaign to persuadeCongress to vote more money for the war. Asone Democratic liberal commented, the vicepresident was ‘‘one hell of a salesman.’’ 61 Hum-phrey declared that his new position was bornout of ‘‘conscience’’ 62 and that the war was ‘‘amatter of survival.’’ He pointed out that ‘‘Viet-nam today is as close to the U.S. as London wasin 1940’’ and would require the same kind oflong-term U.S. commitment.63 Such statementswere more than enough to get Humphrey re-admitted to the administration’s inner circle ofVietnam advisers. Having done his duty, the vicepresident was rewarded with a second trip toSoutheast Asia in 1967. There, shortly after hear-ing another of General William Westmoreland’soptimistic estimates, he publicly hailed the Viet-nam war as ‘‘our great adventure,’’ which wasmaking the world freer and better.64

Humphrey’s closest foreign policy adviser,George Ball, recognized that the vice president‘‘could never do anything half heartedly.’’ Yet asa genuine intimate, Ball also knew that ‘‘Hum-phrey’s loyal and excessively exuberant sup-port’’ masked a vice president who ‘‘was person-ally revolted by the war.’’ 65 Ball believed that aHumphrey administration would pull out ofVietnam quickly. Although Humphrey had noinput into the Johnson administration’s Vietnampolicy, as Defense Secretary Clark Clifford waswell aware, the vice president did join Clifford’sfaction in the White House, which advocated amore dovish diplomacy. This group pushed fora pause in bombing North Vietnam without pre-condition as an inducement to the Communiststo reciprocate. The more hawkish faction de-manded advance concessions by the North Viet-namese. Humphrey was caught between loyallysupporting the hawks in public and actuallybeing antiwar, ‘‘in his heart.’’ 66

Humphrey had already begun to rediscoverthe doubts in his heart during his second trip toSoutheast Asia. He observed the continuing in-difference of South Vietnamese GeneralsNguyen Van Thieu and Nguyen Cao Ky to theirown forces and their apparently unlimited de-mands on the United States at the very time thewar was supposedly being ‘‘de-Americanized.’’After that second trip, Humphrey implied to hisclose friend, Dr. Edgar Berman, that he identifiedwith Republican presidential candidate GeorgeRomney, who had destroyed his political futureby admitting in 1967 that he had been ‘‘brain-washed’’ by American officials into believing theUnited States was winning the war.67 Bermanlater related that Humphrey had told him pri-vately that the United States was ‘‘throwing livesand money down a corrupt rat hole’’ in SouthVietnam.68 When Humphrey sent a confidentialmemo suggesting this to Johnson, who was be-ginning to have private doubts of his own, thepresident typically became infuriated by the dis-sent. In fact, the vice president was the associateon whom Johnson took out most of his anger,remaining rigid in his insistence that it was theNorth Vietnamese who had to yield a concessionfirst before U.S. deescalation could occur.

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Neither the president nor the vice president,however, could ignore for long the fact that theiradministration was publicly backing a seeminglylosing cause that was also undermining Hum-phrey’s homegrown American Great Society.When the U.S. bombing neither forced NorthVietnam to the negotiating table nor did muchstrategic damage, since that country had little in-frastructure, Humphrey in the spring of 1968strongly advised a halt. This action was Hum-phrey’s first serious divergence from Johnson’spolicy since 1965.

The 1968 Election

This vice-presidential advice, delivered justdays before the end of March 1968, was not theonly instance of a prominent Democrat dissent-ing from Johnson’s policy. As Humphrey hadpredicted three years earlier, the president’s ownparty was now sharply divided, resulting in astrong showing by the peace candidate, SenatorEugene McCarthy, in the New Hampshire andWisconsin presidential primaries. When Johnsonon March 31 announced his decision not to runfor reelection, Humphrey was in Mexico City ini-tialing a nuclear nonproliferation treaty. The vicepresident immediately became the Democraticfrontrunner, although he declined to enter anyprimaries. Robert Kennedy’s assassination inJune, after winning the California primary, as-sured Humphrey the nomination by default butleft the Democratic party in serious disarray. Thepath to the November election was strewn withother obstacles, as well, not the least of whichwas Humphrey’s late start due to Johnson’s last-minute surprise withdrawal. As a result, Hum-phrey lacked either sufficient campaign funds ora mature organization to apply them. Moreover,the vice president contributed to his own organi-zational inefficiency by decentralizing his cam-paign structure.

The Democrats projected an image of dis-organization and chaos to the nation that year,as the party at one time or another split as manyas four ways into factions supporting Hum-phrey, Johnson, Eugene McCarthy, and GeorgeWallace. The raucous Chicago convention—withnationally televised images of police beatingyoung antiwar protesters in the parks—further

weakened Humphrey’s standing in the polls,and the extreme polarization within the partyprevented him from achieving his trademarkunifying compromise. The vice president strug-gled to avoid either being too closely identifiedwith the unpopular president, or dissociatinghimself so far that he would lose his Democraticparty support and Johnson-controlled campaignfunds. Even though Johnson had withdrawnfrom the race in March, the possibility remainedthat the president might reenter the campaign ifcircumstances allowed him to be drafted at theAugust convention. With this sword hangingover Humphrey’s head, he did not feel secureenough to risk provoking Johnson into such amove by openly opposing the president’s policy.As a result, the vice president had publicly asso-ciated himself with the president’s policy for solong that a post-convention switch would lackcredibility with the voters.

Johnson not only intimidated Humphrey, buthe also cajoled the vice president into supportingthe administration’s line on the war in order toavoid jeopardizing the delicate Paris peace talks.Since Republican nominee Richard Nixon hadadopted the patriotic stance of not criticizingJohnson’s current handling of the war, Hum-phrey could not differentiate himself from hisRepublican opponent on that score withoutbeing perceived as disloyal either to the presi-dent, to the country, or to his own vice-presi-dential record. In classic fashion, Humphrey pre-sented ambiguous scenarios for a bombing haltand troop withdrawal. These proposals were di-rectly rejected by Johnson, who thus appeared tomove closer to Nixon! In the face of the nationalcrisis, both candidates chose to divert their atten-tion to the domestic problems of law and orderand inflation.69 As these issues, too, were inex-tricably bound to the war itself, all topics seemedto associate the party in power with the generalchaos. Humphrey refused to repudiate either thepositions taken during his vice-presidency or hisbelief that there would be a breakthrough atParis. Johnson had convinced Humphrey thatthe latter was imminent, even while denying hisvice president detailed information from thosenegotiations.70

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Badly behind in the polls, Humphrey took totelevision in late September to try to solve thedilemma of his private opposition to the war andhis public pledge to bring it to an ‘‘honorableconclusion.’’ 71 For the first time, he publicly pro-posed halting the bombing as an inducement toNorth Vietnamese reciprocity once he becamepresident. As a result, his popularity reboundedin the final month of the campaign. When theelection returns came in, Humphrey had col-lected 42.7 percent of the popular vote to RichardNixon’s 43.4 percent, although the Republicanhad 301 electoral votes to Humphrey’s 191. Toomany voters had remembered the vice presi-dent’s overselling of the war and distrusted hisrecent apparent conversion.72

After the election, Humphrey blamed the losson his failure to break with Johnson but con-tended that he could not have proceeded dif-ferently. A more dovish or hawkish approachmight not have secured Humphrey the presi-dency, but it is probable that a less ambivalent,less inconsistent message might have satisfiedenough of the electorate. In the end, perhapsHumphrey could not have overcome the pro-found irony inherent in the fact that the war thatgave him his presidential chance also took itaway.

Back in the Senate

Humphrey’s electoral defeat finally removedthe constraints of his office, allowing him to ex-press his personal political opinions. He did soin his newspaper column, his memoirs, and asa college political science teacher, along withother educational ventures. Humphrey almostimmediately began to seek the Minnesota Senateseat that Eugene McCarthy planned to vacate in1970. Easily winning on his old populist platformand underplaying the Vietnam issue, Humphreyresumed his prior senatorial pattern of introduc-ing an abundance of bills that were mostly do-mestic in content. As in his early Senate career,most of his new legislative proposals were sty-mied. Returning as a new senator without se-niority or important committee assignments,Humphrey also had lost many of his valuableformer contacts, who had left the Senate. Thetimes had passed him by.

But the irrepressible warrior already had hiseye on the 1972 presidential contest, believing hecould successfully challenge Richard Nixon oneconomic issues. Humphrey also criticized theadministration’s rough handling of dissidents,asserting that ‘‘you can’t have civil order withoutcivil justice.’’ 73 Still, he remained vulnerable onVietnam, especially after the 1971 publication ofthe Pentagon Papers, which revealed that a de-ceitful Johnson had decided before the 1964 elec-tion to bomb North Vietnam and thus escalatethe war. These disclosures resuscitated Hum-phrey’s image as Johnson’s dupe or shill andconvinced many citizens that the former vicepresident could not be trusted. Although leadingin the national polls in December 1971, Hum-phrey was soon accused of waffling even on do-mestic issues, and another poll that same yearfound that he was viewed as ‘‘too talkative, toowilling to take both sides of an issue.’’ 74 Toomany Democrats saw the former vice presidentas part of the ‘‘Establishment’’ and turned to hisSenate colleague George McGovern as the agentof change. Despite failing to win the 1972 nomi-nation, Humphrey tried unsuccessfully oncemore in 1976.

During his typically active Senate term, Hum-phrey resumed his seat on the powerful Appro-priations Committee and by 1975 was chairmanof the Joint Economic Committee. In 1974 he in-troduced the highly ambitious Humphrey-Haw-kins Full Employment and National Growth bill,which eventually passed after his death in 1978.This final legislative monument symbolizesHumphrey’s entire career, which was committedto ‘‘the humanitarian goals of the New Deal.’’ 75

Humphrey realistically understood that his coreconstituency comprised those Americans fromthe lower social and economic classes—the dis-advantaged underdogs—a positioning thatflowed from what journalist Murray Kemptoncalled Humphrey’s ‘‘overabundance of feelingfor humanity.’’ 76 Although this instinct lit hisway onto the public stage in 1948 when he madehis singular stand for civil rights, his historicalvision became blinded by his failure to recognizethat the Vietnam war could destroy his hopes forthe Great Society. Humphrey’s digression into

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self-delusion had prompted him in 1968 tostump for ‘‘the politics of joy,’’ a slogan thatmany viewed as entirely inappropriate in themidst of wartime and civil disorder.77 Hum-phrey’s greatest asset, his enthusiasm, paradox-ically may have also been his greatest liability.In the course of pragmatically compromising onthe chief issue of the day, Vietnam, he allowedhimself to become the administration’s loudestproponent of the war.

Although Humphrey’s tactics may have some-times veered off course, he understood the pro-found value of the strategy of compromise, with-out which, he said, the Great Society legislationwould not have been possible. In 1971 Hum-phrey called himself a gradualist, the soundestcourse by which one can make ‘‘steady progressif we don’t bite off too much.’’ 78 In 1973, formerSecretary of State Dean Rusk echoed Hum-phrey’s self-assessment by characterizing him as‘‘a liberal with common sense.’’ 79 Humphreywas able to realize the difference between cam-paigning, where it was constructive to be par-tisan, and governing, where to hold grudges

would be, in his words, ‘‘Neanderthal.’’ 80 Whilethis generosity of spirit made him incapable ofbeing ruthless, a trait probably essential to apresidential aspirant, it also made him an idealsenator or vice president, an advocate and dealmaker who ‘‘was a terrific fighter but no kill-er.’’ 81 As a result, the ‘‘Happy Warrior’’ in thepublic service knew enough defeats to ensurethat his ‘‘name had become synonymous withcheerfulness in the face of adversity.’’ 82 Hum-phrey’s behavior during his last days testifies tohis awe-inspiring strength of character. Termi-nally ill and in great physical discomfort, he con-tinued his senatorial workload with the same in-tensity and affability as always. He died on Janu-ary 13, 1978.

Perhaps the key to Humphrey’s indefatigableessence was that he placed personal political am-bition below his support of a larger agenda. Theinnumerable bills that he introduced and shep-herded through Congress demonstrate that, withHumphrey, the people and their issues camefirst.

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NOTES1 Edgar Berman, Hubert, the Triumph and the Tragedy of the

Humphrey I Knew, (New York, 1979), p. 23.2 Carl Solberg, Hubert Humphrey: A Biography, (New York,

1984), p. 214.3 Jules Witcover, Crapshoot: Rolling the Dice on the Vice

Presidency, (New York, 1992), p. 182.4 Solberg, p. 387.5 Ibid., p. 12.6 Ibid., p. 167.7 Hays Gorey, ‘‘I’m a Born Optimist,’’ American Heritage,

December 1977, p. 63.8 Allan H. Ryskind, Hubert, An Unauthorized Biography of

the Vice President, (New York, 1968), p. 234.9 Solberg, p. 91.10 Ryskind, p. 300.11 Ibid., p. 231.12 Berman, p. 17.13 Solberg, p. 89.14 U.S., Congress, Senate, The Senate, 1789–1989: Addresses

on the History of the United States Senate, by Robert C. Byrd,S. Doc. 100–20, 100th Cong., 1st sess., vol. 1, 1989, p. 606.

15 William S. White, Citadel: The Story of the Senate (NewYork, 1957), pp. 112–13.

16 Solberg, pp. 99, 209.17 Albert Eisele, Almost to the Presidency, a Biography of Two

American Politicians (Blue Earth, MN, 1972), p. 179.18 Ibid., p. 181.19 Ibid., p. 185.20 Ryskind, pp. 280, 281.21 Berman, p. 87.22 Marie D. Natoli, ‘‘The Humphrey Vice Presidency in

Retrospect,’’ Presidential Studies Quarterly 12 (Fall 1982): 604.23 Ryskind, p. 319.24 Solberg, p. 258.25 Joel K. Goldstein, The Modern American Vice Presidency,

(Princeton, NJ, 1982), pp. 121, 122.26 Eisele, pp. 206, 212.27 Ibid., p. 235.28 Natoli, p. 604.29 Witcover, p. 197.30 Solberg, pp. 462–63; Berman, p. 97.31 Congressional Quarterly Almanac, 89th Cong., First sess.,

1965, vol. 21 (Washington DC, 1966), pp. 547, 821, 829; vol.22, p. 226.

32 Charles Roberts, LBJ’s Inner Circle, (New York, 1965),pp. 190–91.

33 Ryskind, p. 324; Eisele, p. 249.34 Eisele, p. 249.35 Solberg, p. 309.36 Berman, pp. 27, 31.37 Goldstein, p. 181.38 Solberg, p. 297; Eisele, pp. 249–50.

39 Ibid., p. 236.40 Witcover, p. 199.41 Natoli, p. 605.42 Solberg, p. 301.43 Ibid., p. 304.44 Eisele, p. 99.45 Gorey, p. 62; Eisele, p. 99; Solberg pp. 157–59, 468.46 Ryskind, p. 266.47 Ibid., p. 275.48 Eisele, p. 229.49 Ibid., p. 230; Solberg, p. 276.50 Witcover, p. 195.51 Berman, p. 102.52 Eisele, p. 224.53 Solberg, p. 284.54 Eisele, p. 243.55 Solberg, p. 291.56 Eisele, p. 243.57 Solberg, p. 289; Goldstein, p. 194; Eisele, p. 243.58 Ryskind, p. 303.59 Solberg, p. 290.60 Goldstein, p. 194.61 Eisele, p. 246.62 Ibid., p. 246.63 Solberg, p. 291.64 Ibid., p. 312.65 George Ball, The Past has Another Pattern: Memoirs (New

York, 1982), pp. 445, 409.66 Clark Clifford, with Richard Holbrooke, Counsel to the

President: Memoirs (New York, 1991), pp. 527, 570.67 Berman, p. 111.68 Ibid., p. 115.69 Eisele, p. 369.70 Solberg, pp. 347–48, 350.71 Eisele, p. 379; Berman, p. 215.72 Solberg, p. 407.73 Eisele, p. 432.74 Ibid., p. 440.75 Ibid., p. 445.76 Berman, p. 40.77 Solberg, p. 332.78 LBJ Oral History Collection, Joe B. Frantz interview with

Hubert Humphrey, 1971, University of Texas Oral HistoryProject, p. 17.

79 Natoli, p. 604.80 Berman, p. 60.81 Solberg, p. 469.82 Eisele, p. 393.

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Chapter 39

SPIRO THEODORE AGNEW1969–1973

SPIRO T. AGNEW

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Chapter 39

SPIRO THEODORE AGNEW39th Vice President: 1969–1973

A little over a week ago, I took a rather unusual step for a Vice President . . . I said something.—SPIRO AGNEW

On November 13, 1969, Vice President SpiroAgnew became a household word when he vehe-mently denounced television news broadcastersas a biased ‘‘unelected elite’’ who subjectedPresident Richard M. Nixon’s speeches to instantanalysis. The president had a right to commu-nicate directly with the people, Agnew asserted,without having his words ‘‘characterizedthrough the prejudices of hostile critics.’’ Agnewraised the possibility of greater government reg-ulation of this ‘‘virtual monopoly,’’ a suggestionthat the veteran television newscaster WalterCronkite took as ‘‘an implied threat to freedomof speech in this country.’’ But Agnew’s wordsrang true to those whom Nixon called the SilentMajority. From then until he resigned in 1973,Agnew remained an outspoken and controver-sial figure, who played traveling salesman forthe administration. In this role, Spiro Agnew wasboth the creation of Richard Nixon and a reflec-tion of his administration’s siege mentality.1

Early Years

The son of a Greek immigrant whose nameoriginally was Anagnostopoulos, Spiro Theo-dore Agnew was born in Baltimore, Maryland,on November 9, 1918. He attended publicschools and went to Johns Hopkins Universityin 1937 to study chemistry, before transferring tothe University of Baltimore Law School, wherehe studied law at night while working at a gro-cery and an insurance company during the day.In 1942 he married a fellow insurance company

employee, Elinor Isabel Judefind, known to allas Judy. Drafted into the army during WorldWar II, he won a Bronze Star for his service inFrance and Germany. He returned to school onthe GI Bill of Rights, received his law degree in1947, practiced law in a Baltimore firm, andeventually set up his own law practice in the Bal-timore suburb of Towson.

Remaking His Image

Moving from city to suburb, Agnew remadehis own image. When he recalled the ethnic slurshe suffered about ‘‘Spiro’’ while a school boy, henow called himself ‘‘Ted’’ and vowed that noneof his children would have Greek names. Agnewsimilarly changed party affiliations. Althoughhis father was a Baltimore Democratic wardleader and Agnew had first registered as a Dem-ocrat, his law partners were Republicans and hejoined their party. In 1957 the Democratic countyexecutive of Baltimore County appointed him tothe board of zoning appeals. In 1960 Agnewmade his first race for elective office, running forassociate circuit judge, and coming in fifth in afive-person contest. In 1961, when a new countyexecutive dropped him from the zoning board,Agnew protested vigorously and in so doingbuilt his name recognition in the county. The fol-lowing year he ran for county executive. A bittersplit in the Democratic party helped make himthe first Republican elected Baltimore County ex-ecutive in the twentieth century. In office he es-tablished a relatively progressive record, and in

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1966, when nominated as the Republican can-didate for governor of Maryland, Agnew posi-tioned himself to the left of his Democratic chal-lenger, George Mahoney. An arch segregationist,Mahoney adopted the campaign slogan, ‘‘YourHome Is Your Castle—Protect It,’’ which onlydrove liberal Democrats into Agnew’s camp.Charging Mahoney with racial bigotry, Agnewcaptured the liberal suburbs around Washingtonand was elected governor.2

It came as a shock to Agnew’s liberal support-ers when as governor he took a more hard-lineconservative stance on racial matters than he hadduring the campaign. Early in 1968, students atthe predominantly African American BowieState College occupied the administration build-ing to protest the run-down condition of theircampus—at a time when Maryland essentiallyran separate college systems for black and whitestudents. Instead of negotiating, Agnew sent thestate police to take back the administrationbuilding. When the students went to Annapolisto protest, Agnew ordered their arrest and hadthe college temporarily closed down. Then inApril, when riots broke out in Baltimore follow-ing the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King,Jr., Governor Agnew summoned black leaders tohis office. Rather than appeal for their help, hecastigated them for capitulating to radical agi-tators. ‘‘You were intimidated by veiled threats,’’Agnew charged, ‘‘you were stung by . . . epithetslike ‘Uncle Tom.’’’ Half of the black leaderswalked out before he finished speaking. ‘‘Hetalked to us like we were children,’’ one statesenator complained. The incident dramaticallyreversed Agnew’s public image, alienating hisliberal supporters and raising his standingamong conservatives.3

Spiro Who?

On the national scene, Agnew formed a com-mittee to draft New York Governor NelsonRockefeller for president in 1968. In March, dur-ing his weekly press conference, Agnew watchedon television what he expected would be Rocke-feller’s declaration of candidacy. Without warn-ing, Rockefeller withdrew from the contest,humiliating Agnew in front of the press corps.Rockefeller later jumped back into the race, but

by then Agnew had moved toward thefrontrunner, Richard Nixon. When polls showednone of the better-known Republicans addingmuch as Nixon’s running mate, Nixon surprisedeveryone—as he liked to do—by selecting therelatively unknown Agnew. ‘‘Spiro who?’’ askedthe pundits, who considered Agnew unqualifiedfor national office. Despite such doubts, Nixonsaw much promise in his choice. ‘‘There can bea mystique about the man,’’ Nixon assured re-porters. ‘‘You can look him in the eyes and knowhe’s got it.’’ 4

Nixon expected Agnew to appeal to whitesoutherners and others troubled by the civilrights movement and recent rioting in the cities.Attention shifted from this issue during the cam-paign, however, when Agnew made a numberof gaffes, including some ethnic slurs and an ac-cusation that Vice President Hubert Humphrey,the Democratic candidate, was soft on com-munism. Agnew also encountered allegations ofhaving profited financially from his public office,charges that he flatly denied. Agnew’s biggestproblem was that he seemed so ordinary andunremarkable. A tall, stiff, bullet-headed manand the sort of fastidious dresser who never re-moved his tie in public, he tended to speak ina deadening monotone. Whether he helped orhurt the campaign is not clear, but in Novemberthe Nixon-Agnew ticket won a razor-thin victoryover the Democratic candidate Hubert Hum-phrey and the independent candidacy of Ala-bama Governor George Wallace.5

Learning the Constraints of the Office

Although Nixon had chosen a running matewho would not outshine him, he had pledged togive his vice president a significant policy-mak-ing role and—for the first time—an office in theWest Wing of the White House. Nixon also en-couraged Agnew to use his position as presidingofficer of the Senate to get to know the membersof Congress in order to serve as their liaison withthe White House, and Agnew enthusiasticallycharged up Capitol Hill. Having had no previouslegislative experience, he wanted to master thetechniques of presiding over the Senate. For thefirst months of his vice-presidency, he met eachmorning with the Senate parliamentarian, Floyd

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Riddick, to discuss parliamentary proceduresand precedents. ‘‘He took pride in administeringthe oath to the new senators by never having torefer to a note,’’ Riddick observed. ‘‘He wouldstudy and memorize these things so that hecould perform without reading.’’ According toRiddick, at first Agnew presided more fre-quently than had any vice president since AlbenBarkley.6

‘‘I was prepared to go in there and do a jobas the President’s representative in the Senate,’’said Agnew, who busily learned to identify thesenators by name and face. Yet he quickly dis-covered the severe constraints on his role as pre-siding officer. Agnew had prepared a four-minute speech to give in response to a formalwelcome from Majority Leader Mike Mansfield.When Mansfield moved that the vice presidentbe given only two minutes to reply, Agnew felt‘‘it was like a slap in the face.’’ The vice presidentalso unwittingly broke precedent by trying tolobby on the Senate floor. During the debate overthe ABM (Anti-Ballistic-Missile) Treaty, Agnewapproached Idaho Republican Senator Len Jor-dan and asked how he was going to vote. ‘‘Youcan’t tell me how to vote!’’ said the shocked sen-ator. ‘‘You can’t twist my arm!’’ At the nextluncheon of Republican senators, Jordan accusedAgnew of breaking the separation of powers bylobbying on the Senate floor, and announced the‘‘Jordan Rule,’’ whereby if the vice presidenttried to lobby him on anything, he would auto-matically vote the other way. ‘‘And so,’’ Agnewconcluded from the experience, ‘‘after trying fora while to get along with the Senate, I decidedI would go down to the other end of Pennsylva-nia Avenue and try playing the Executivegame.’’ 7

The vice president fit in no better at the WhiteHouse than at the Capitol. Nixon’s highly protec-tive staff concluded that Agnew had no conceptof his role, especially in relation to the president.Nixon found their few private meetings dismay-ing because of Agnew’s ‘‘constant self-aggran-dizement.’’ Nixon told his staff that as vice presi-dent he rarely had made any requests of Presi-dent Dwight Eisenhower. ‘‘But Agnew’s visits al-ways included demands for more staff, better fa-cilities, more prerogatives and perquisites.’’ The

anticipated use of Agnew as a conduit to the na-tion’s mayors and governors floundered when itbecame apparent that Agnew did nothing morethan pass their gripes along to the president.When Agnew protested that Nixon did not seeenough of his cabinet, Nixon grumbled that hisvice president had become an advocate for all the‘‘crybabies’’ in the cabinet who wanted to pleadtheir special causes. Nixon’s chief of staff H.R.Haldeman took Agnew aside and advised himthat ‘‘the President does not like you to take anopposite view at a cabinet meeting, or say any-thing that can be construed to be mildly not inaccord with his thinking.’’ 8

Nixon appointed Agnew head of the NationalAeronautics and Space Council but again foundthe vice president more irritant than asset. InApril 1969, while at Camp David, Nixon sum-moned Haldeman to complain that the vicepresident had telephoned him simply to lobbyfor a candidate for director of the Space Council.‘‘He just has no sensitivity, or judgment abouthis relationship’’ with the president, Haldemannoted. After Agnew publicly advocated a spaceshot to Mars, Nixon’s chief domestic advisor,John Ehrlichman, tried to explain to him the factsof fiscal life:

Look, Mr. Vice President, we have to be practical.There is no money for a Mars trip. The Presidenthas already decided that. So the President doesnot want such a trip in the [Space Council’s] rec-ommendations. It’s your job . . . to make abso-lutely certain that the Mars trip is not in there.

From such experiences, the White House staffconcluded that Agnew was not a ‘‘Nixon teamplayer.’’ 9

Unleashing Agnew

Throughout his first term, President Nixonwas preoccupied with the war in Vietnam. By thefall of 1969, Nixon came to the unhappy conclu-sion that there would be no quick solution inVietnam and that it would steadily become hiswar rather than Lyndon Johnson’s. On Novem-ber 3, Nixon delivered a television address to thenation in which he called for public support forthe war until the Communists negotiated an hon-orable peace. Public reaction to the speech wasgenerally positive, but the Nixon family was

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‘‘livid with anger’’ over the critical commentaryby various network broadcasters. Nixon fearedthat the ‘‘constant pounding from the media andour critics in Congress’’ would eventually under-mine his public support. As president he wantedto follow the Eisenhower model of remainingabove the fray and to use Agnew for the kindof hatchet work that he himself had done for Ike.When his speech writer Pat Buchanan proposedthat the vice president give a speech attackingnetwork commentators, Nixon liked the idea.H.R. Haldeman went to discuss the proposedspeech with the vice president, who was inter-ested ‘‘but felt it was a bit abrasive.’’ Neverthe-less, the White House staff believed the messageneeded to be delivered, ‘‘and he’s the one to doit.’’ 10

Agnew already had some hard-hitting speech-es under his belt. On October 20, 1969, at a dinnerin Jackson, Mississippi, he had attacked ‘‘liberalintellectuals’’ for their ‘‘masochistic compulsionto destroy their country’s strength.’’ On October30 in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, he called studentradicals and other critics of the war ‘‘impudentsnobs.’’ On November 11 in Philadelphia he de-cried the ‘‘intolerant clamor and cacophony’’that raged in society. Then, on November 13 inDes Moines, Iowa, he gave Buchanan’s blast atthe network news media. Haldeman recorded inhis diary that, as the debate on Agnew mounted,the president was ‘‘fully convinced he’s rightand that the majority will agree.’’ The WhiteHouse sent word for the vice president ‘‘to keepup the offensive, and to keep speaking,’’ notingthat he was now a ‘‘major figure in his ownright.’’ The vice president had become ‘‘Nixon’sNixon.’’ 11

Agnew relished the attention showered uponhim. He had been frustrated with his assignmentas liaison with the governors and mayors, anddealing with taxation, health, and other sub-stantive issues had required tedious study. Bycontrast, he found speechmaking much moregratifying. As John Ehrlichman sourly noted,Agnew ‘‘could take the texts prepared in thePresident’s speechwriting shop, change a phrasehere and there, and hit the road to attack the ef-fete corps of impudent snobs.’’ His colorfulphrases, like ‘‘nattering nabobs of negativism,’’

and ‘‘radiclibs’’ (for radical liberals) were com-piled and published as ‘‘commonsensequotations.’’ ‘‘I have refused to ‘cool it’—to usethe vernacular,’’ Agnew declared, ‘‘until the self-righteous lower their voice a few decibels. . . .I intend to be heard over the din even if it meansraising my voice.’’ 12

The Agnew Upsurge

The ‘‘Agnew upsurge’’ fascinated PresidentNixon, who took it as evidence that a new con-servative coalition could be built between blue-collar ethnic voters and white-collar suburban-ites. Nixon believed that Agnew was receivingincreasing press coverage because his attacks onthe media ‘‘forced them to pay attention.’’ Whensome of his advisers wanted to put Agnew outin front in opposition to expanded school deseg-regation, Nixon hesitated because he did notwant to ‘‘dilute or waste the great asset he hasbecome.’’ By March 1970, the relationship be-tween the president and vice president reachedits apex when the two appeared for an amusingpiano duet at the Gridiron Club. No matter whattunes Nixon tried to play, Agnew would drownhim out with ‘‘Dixie,’’ until they both joined in‘‘God Bless America’’ as a finale.13

As the strains of their duet faded, Nixon beganhaving second thoughts and concluded that heneeded to ‘‘change the Agnew approach.’’ He in-formed Haldeman that the vice president had be-come a better salesman for himself than for theadministration, emerging as ‘‘too much of anissue and a personality himself.’’ That month,when the Apollo XIII astronauts had to aborttheir mission and return to earth, Haldemanworked frantically to keep Agnew from flying toHouston and upstaging the president. Agnew satin his plane on the runway for over an hour untilNixon finally canceled the trip. ‘‘VP mad ashell,’’ Haldeman noted, ‘‘but agreed to follow or-ders.’’ In May 1970, after National Guardsmenshot and killed four students at Kent State Uni-versity, Nixon cautioned Agnew not to say any-thing provocative about students. Word leakedout that the president was trying to muzzle hisvice president. The next time Buchanan prepared‘‘a hot new Agnew speech,’’ Nixon felt moreleery than before.14

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By the summer of 1970, Nixon pondered howbest to use Agnew in that fall’s congressionalelections. The president himself wanted to re-main remote from partisanship and limit hisspeaking to foreign policy issues while Agnewstumped for candidates. Nixon worried that, ifAgnew continued to appear an unreasonable fig-ure, using highly charged rhetoric, he might hurtrather than help the candidates for whom hecampaigned. ‘‘Do you think Agnew’s toorough?’’ Nixon asked John Ehrlichman one day.‘‘His style isn’t the problem, it’s the content ofwhat he says. He’s got to be more positive. Hemust avoid all personal attacks on people; he cantake on Congress as a unit, not as individuals.’’Some Republican candidates even asked Agnewto stay out of their states. As the campaign pro-gressed, Agnew’s droning on about law andorder diminished his impact. Nixon felt com-pelled to abandon his presidential aloofness andenter the campaign himself, barnstormingaround the country, as Attorney General JohnMitchell complained, like a man ‘‘running forsheriff.’’ The disappointing results of the mid-term elections—Republicans gained two seats inthe Senate but lost a dozen in the House—furthershook Nixon’s confidence in Agnew.15

The Number One Hawk

In 1971 the president devoted most of his at-tention to foreign policy, planning his historicvisit to China, a summit in Moscow, and contin-ued peace talks with the North Vietnamese inParis. The vice president went abroad for a seriesof good-will tours and ached for more involve-ment in foreign policy—an area that Nixon re-served exclusively for himself and National Se-curity Adviser Henry Kissinger. Nixon preferredthat Agnew limit himself to attacking the mediato ‘‘soften the press’’ for his foreign policy initia-tives. He decided to keep the vice president outof all substantive policy decisions, since Agnewseemed incapable of grasping the big picture. Forhis part, Agnew complained that he was ‘‘neverallowed to come close enough’’ to Nixon to par-ticipate in any policy discussions. ‘‘Every time Iwent to see him and raised a subject for discus-sion,’’ the vice president later wrote, ‘‘he

would begin a rambling, time-consumingmonologue.’’ 16

Agnew, who described himself as the ‘‘num-ber-one hawk,’’ went so far as to criticize Nixon’s‘‘Ping-Pong Diplomacy’’ with the People’s Re-public of China. The dismayed president consid-ered Agnew ‘‘a bull in the . . . diplomatic Chinashop.’’ Nixon had H.R. Haldeman lecture thevice president on the importance of using theChina thaw to ‘‘get the Russians shook.’’ ‘‘It isbeyond my understanding,’’ Nixon toldEhrlichman. ‘‘Twice Agnew has proposed thathe go to China! Now he tells the world it’s a badidea for me to go! What am I going to do abouthim?’’ 17

The Connally Alternative

By mid-1971, Nixon concluded that SpiroAgnew was not ‘‘broad-gauged’’ enough for thevice-presidency. He constructed a scenario bywhich Agnew would resign, enabling Nixon toappoint Treasury Secretary John Connally as vicepresident under the provisions of the Twenty-fifth Amendment. By appealing to southernDemocrats, Connally would help Nixon create apolitical realignment, perhaps even replacing theRepublican party with a new party that couldunite all conservatives. Nixon rejoiced at newsthat the vice president, feeling sorry for himself,had talked about resigning to accept a lucrativeoffer in the private sector. Yet while Nixon ex-celled in daring, unexpected moves, he encoun-tered some major obstacles to implementing thisscheme. John Connally was a Democrat, and hisselection might offend both parties in Congress,which under the Twenty-fifth Amendment hadto ratify the appointment of a new vice president.Even more problematic, John Connally did notwant to be vice president. He considered it a‘‘useless’’ job and felt he could be more effectiveas a cabinet member. Nixon responded that therelationship between the president and vicepresident depended entirely on the personalitiesof whoever held those positions, and he prom-ised Connally they would make it a more mean-ingful job than ever in its history, even to thepoint of being ‘‘an alternate President.’’ ButConnally declined, never dreaming that the postwould have made him president when Nixon

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was later forced to resign during the Watergatescandal.18

Nixon concluded that he would not only haveto keep Agnew on the ticket but must publiclydemonstrate his confidence in the vice president.He recalled that Eisenhower had tried to drophim in 1956 and believed the move had onlymade Ike look bad. Nixon viewed Agnew as ageneral liability, but backing him could mutecriticism from ‘‘the extreme right.’’ AttorneyGeneral John Mitchell, who was to head the re-election campaign, argued that Agnew had be-come ‘‘almost a folk hero’’ in the South andwarned that party workers might see his re-moval as a breach of loyalty. As it turned out,Nixon won reelection in 1972 by a margin wideenough to make his vice-presidential candidateirrelevant.19

Immediately after his reelection, however,Nixon made it clear that Agnew should not be-come his eventual successor. The president hadno desire to slip into lame-duck status by allow-ing Agnew to seize attention as the frontrunnerin the next election. ‘‘By any criteria he fallsshort,’’ the president told Ehrlichman:

‘‘Energy? He doesn’t work hard; he likes to playgolf. Leadership?’’ Nixon laughed. ‘‘Consist-ency? He’s all over the place. He’s not really aconservative, you know.’’

Nixon considered placing the vice president incharge of the American Revolution Bicentennialas a way of sidetracking him. But Agnew de-clined the post, arguing that the Bicentennial was‘‘a loser.’’ Because everyone would have a dif-ferent idea about how to celebrate the Bicenten-nial, its director would have to disappoint toomany people. ‘‘A potential presidential can-didate,’’ Agnew insisted, ‘‘doesn’t want to makeany enemies.’’ 20

Impeachment Insurance

Unbeknownst to both Nixon and Agnew, timewas running out for both men’s political careers.Since the previous June, the White House hadbeen preoccupied with containing the politicalrepercussions of the Watergate burglary, inwhich individuals connected with the presi-dent’s reelection committee had been arrestedwhile breaking into the Democratic National

Committee headquarters. Although Watergatedid not influence the election, persistent storiesin the media and the launching of a Senate inves-tigation spelled trouble for the president. Inno-cent of any connection to Watergate, Agnewspoke out in Nixon’s defense.

Then, on April 10, 1973, the vice presidentcalled Haldeman to his office to report a problemof his own. The U.S. attorney in Maryland, inves-tigating illegal campaign contributions and kick-backs, had questioned Jerome Wolff, Agnew’sformer aide. Wolff had kept verbatim accountsof meetings during which Agnew discussed rais-ing funds from those who had received state con-tracts. Agnew swore that ‘‘it wasn’t shakedownstuff, it was merely going back to get supportfrom those who had benefitted from the Admin-istration.’’ Since prosecutor George Beall was thebrother of Maryland Republican Senator J. GlennBeall, Agnew wanted Haldeman to have SenatorBeall intercede with his brother—a request thatHaldeman wisely declined.21

President Nixon was not at all shocked to learnthat his vice president had become enmeshed ina bribery scandal in Maryland. At first, Nixontook the matter lightly, remarking that takingcampaign contributions from contractors was ‘‘acommon practice’’ in Maryland and other states.‘‘Thank God I was never elected governor ofCalifornia,’’ Nixon joked with Haldeman. Butevents began to move quickly, and on April 30,1973, Nixon asked Haldeman and Ehrlichman toresign because of their role in the Watergatecoverup. Then, that summer, the Justice Depart-ment reported that the allegations againstAgnew had grown more serious. Even as vicepresident, Agnew had continued to take moneyfor past favors, and he had received some of thepayments in his White House office.22

Nixon had quipped that Agnew was his insur-ance against impeachment, arguing that no onewanted to remove him if it meant elevatingAgnew to the presidency. The joke took on re-ality when Agnew asked House Speaker Carl Al-bert to request that the House conduct a full in-quiry into the charges against him. Agnew rea-soned that a vice president could be impeachedbut not indicted. That line of reasoning, however,also jeopardized the president. For over a cen-

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tury since the failed impeachment of PresidentAndrew Johnson, it had been commonly accept-ed reasoning that impeachment was an imprac-tical and inappropriate congressional toolagainst the presidency. Agnew’s impeachmentwould set a precedent that could be turnedagainst Nixon. A brief from the solicitor generalargued that, while the president was immunefrom indictment, the vice president was not,since his conviction would not disrupt the work-ings of the executive branch. Agnew, a proudman filled with moral indignation, reacted tothese arguments by digging in his heels and tak-ing a stance that journalists described as ‘‘aggres-sively defensive.’’ He refused the initial sugges-tions from the White House that he resign volun-tarily, after which Agnew believed that high-level officials ‘‘launched a campaign to drive meout by leaking anti-Agnew stories to themedia.’’ 23

‘‘I Will Not Resign If Indicted!’’

By September, it was a more desperate, lessconfident-looking man who informed Nixon thathe would consider resignation if granted immu-nity from prosecution. Nixon noted that ‘‘in asad and gentle voice he asked for my assurancethat I would not turn my back on him if he wereout of office.’’ Believing that for Agnew to resignwould be the most honorable course of action,Nixon felt confident that, when the vice presi-dent left for California shortly after their meet-ing, he was going away to think matters over andto prepare his family for his resignation. But inLos Angeles, fired up by an enthusiastic gather-ing of the National Federation of RepublicanWomen, Agnew defiantly shouted, ‘‘I will not re-sign if indicted!’’ As Agnew later explained, hehad spent the previous evening at the home ofthe singer Frank Sinatra, who had urged him tofight back.24

Nixon’s new chief of staff and ‘‘crisis man-ager,’’ General Alexander M. Haig, Jr., washaunted by the specter of a double impeachmentof the president and vice president, which couldturn the presidency over to congressional Demo-crats. General Haig therefore took the initiativein forcing Agnew out of office. He instructedAgnew’s staff that the president wanted no more

speeches like the one in Los Angeles. He furtheradvised that the Justice Department would pros-ecute Agnew on the charge of failing to recordon his income tax returns the cash contributionshe had received. Haig assured Agnew’s staffthat, if the vice president resigned and pleadedguilty on the tax charge, the government wouldsettle the other charges against him and hewould serve no jail sentence. But if Agnew con-tinued to fight, ‘‘it can and will get nasty anddirty.’’ From this report, Agnew concluded thatthe president had abandoned him. The vicepresident even feared for his life, reading intoHaig’s message: ‘‘go quietly—or else.’’ GeneralHaig similarly found Agnew menacing enoughto alert Mrs. Haig that should he disappear she‘‘might want to look inside any recently pouredconcrete bridge pilings in Maryland.’’ 25

A Plea of Nolo Contendere

Meanwhile, Agnew’s attorneys had enteredinto plea bargaining with the federal prosecu-tors. In return for pleading nolo contendere, orno contest, to the tax charge and paying $160,000in back taxes (with the help of a loan from FrankSinatra), he would receive a suspended sentenceand a $10,000 fine. On October 10, 1973, whileSpiro T. Agnew appeared in federal court in Bal-timore, his letter of resignation was delivered toSecretary of State Henry Kissinger. Agnew wasonly the second vice president to resign the office(John C. Calhoun had been the first). Prior to re-signing, Agnew paid a last visit to PresidentNixon, who assured him that what he was doingwas best for his family and his country. Whenhe later recalled the president’s gaunt appear-ance, Agnew wrote: ‘‘It was hard to believe hewas not genuinely sorry about the course ofevents. Within two days, this consummate actorwould be celebrating his appointment of a newVice-President with never a thought of me.’’ 26

Nixon still wanted to name John Connally asvice president, but Senate Majority Leader MikeMansfield intimated that Congress would neverconfirm him. On October 12—even as pictures ofAgnew were being removed from federal officesaround the country—Nixon appointed HouseRepublican Leader Gerald R. Ford as the firstvice president to be selected under the Twenty-

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fifth Amendment. Agnew was stunned by thelaughter and gaiety of the televised event thatseemed ‘‘like the celebration of a great electionvictory—not the aftermath of a stunningtragedy.’’ 27

The coda to the Agnew saga occurred the fol-lowing year, as Nixon’s presidency came to anend. In June 1974, the besieged president dic-tated an entry in his diary in which he con-fronted the real possibility of impeachment.Nixon reviewed a series of decisions that nowseemed to him mistakes, such as askingHaldeman and Ehrlichman to resign, appointingElliot Richardson attorney general, and not de-stroying the secret tape recordings of his WhiteHouse conversations. ‘‘The Agnew resignationwas necessary although a very serious blow,’’Nixon added,

because while some thought that his steppingaside would take some of the pressure off the ef-fort to get the President, all it did was to openthe way to put pressure on the President to resignas well. This is something we have to realize: thatany accommodation with opponents in this kindof a fight does not satisfy—it only brings on de-mands for more.

On August 9, 1974, Richard Nixon joined SpiroAgnew in making theirs the first presidential and

vice-presidential team in history to resign fromoffice.28

Following his resignation, the vice presidentwho had made himself a household word fadedquickly into obscurity. Agnew moved to RanchoMirage, California, where he became an inter-national business consultant, tapping many ofthe contacts he had made with foreign govern-ments on travels abroad as vice president. Hepublished his memoir, ominously entitled GoQuietly . . . or else, and a novel, The Canfield Deci-sion, whose protagonist was a wheeling anddealing American vice president ‘‘destroyed byhis own ambition.’’ For the rest of his life, Agnewremained largely aloof from the news media andcut off from Washington political circles. Feeling‘‘totally abandoned,’’ he refused to accept anytelephone calls from former President Nixon.When Nixon died in 1994, however, Agnewchose to attend his funeral. ‘‘I decided aftertwenty years of resentment to put it aside,’’ heexplained. The next year, Spiro Agnew’s bustwas at last installed with those of other vicepresidents in the halls of the U.S. Capitol. ‘‘I’mnot blind or deaf to the fact that there are thosewho feel this is a ceremony that should not takeplace,’’ he acknowledged. Agnew died of leuke-mia on September 17, 1996, in his home state ofMaryland.29

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NOTES1 John R. Coyne, Jr., The Impudent Snobs: Agnew vs. the In-

tellectual Establishment (New Rochelle, NY, 1972), pp. 7–18,265–70.

2 Jim G. Lucas, Agnew: Profile in Conflict (New York, 1970),pp. 9–37.

3 Ibid., pp. 37–62.4 Jules Witcover, White Knight: The Rise of Spiro Agnew

(New York, 1972), pp. 4–10, 180–99; Robert W. Peterson, ed.,Agnew: The Coining of a Household Word (New York, 1972),pp. 1–25; Dan Rather and Gary Paul Gates, The Palace Guard(New York, 1974), p. 295.

5 Witcover, pp. 234–82; Lucas, pp. 19, 63–100; RichardNixon, RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon (New York, 1978),311–13.

6 Tom Wicker, One of Us: Richard Nixon and the AmericanDream (New York, 1991), p. 344; Peterson, ed., p. 9; Nixon,p. 340; Allen Drury, Courage and Hesitation (Garden City,NY, 1971), p. 98; Floyd M. Riddick: Senate Parliamentarian,Oral History Interviews, 1978–1979 (U.S. Senate HistoricalOffice, Washington, DC), p. 68.

7 Drury, pp. 98–100; Witcover, p. 293.8 H.R. Haldeman, The Haldeman Diaries; Inside the Nixon

White House (New York, 1994), p. 27; John Ehrlichman, Wit-ness to Power: The Nixon Years (New York, 1982), pp. 106,111, 145–46; Spiro T. Agnew, Go Quietly. . . or else (NewYork, 1980), pp. 31–32.

9 Haldeman, p. 53; Ehrlichman, pp. 144–45, 152.10 Nixon, pp. 409–12; Haldeman, pp. 99, 106; Witcover,

pp. 296–97, 449.11 Coyne, pp. 253–70; Haldeman, p. 109; Rather and Gates,

p. 296.

12 Ehrlichman, p. 146; James Calhoun, The Real SpiroAgnew: Commonsense Quotations of a Household Word (Greta,LA, 1970), p. 45.

13 Haldeman, pp. 118, 127–28.14 Ibid., pp. 147, 150, 161–62, 169.15 Ibid., pp. 179–80; Ehrlichman, p. 103; Rather and Gates,

pp. 300–302.16 Haldeman, pp. 240–41; Agnew, p. 34.17 Nixon, p. 549; Haldeman, p. 247; Ehrlichman, pp. 154–

55; Agnew, p. 23.18 Haldeman, pp. 275, 296, 306–7, 317, 327; Witcover, pp.

432–33; Agnew, pp. 38–40.19 Nixon, pp. 674–75; Haldeman, pp. 356–57.20 Ehrlichman, p. 142; Haldeman, p. 534; Agnew, pp. 37–

38.21 Haldeman, p. 629; Agnew, pp. 50–51, 57–58; Richard

M. Cohen and Jules Witcover, A Heartbeat Away: The Inves-tigation and Resignation of Vice President Spiro T. Agnew (NewYork, 1974), pp. 3–16.

22 Jonathan Aitken, Nixon: A Life (Washington, 1993), pp.356–57, 503–4; Nixon, p. 823; Ehrlichman, pp. 142–43;Agnew, pp. 98–99.

23 Agnew, pp. 100–103, 130–32; Cohen and Witcover, pp.149, 190–216.

24 Nixon, pp. 912–18; Agnew, p. 178.25 Agnew, pp. 182–83, 186–90; Alexander M. Haig, Jr.,

Inner Circles: How America Changed the World: A Memoir(New York, 1992), pp. 350–67.

26 Agnew, pp. 192–99.27 Ibid., pp. 201–2, 220–21; Haig, pp. 367–70.28 Nixon, pp. 1002–5.29 Washington Post, September 19, 1996.

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Chapter 40

GERALD RUDOLPH FORD1973–1974

GERALD R. FORD(Addressing a joint session of Congress after his swearing in

as vice president on December 6, 1973)

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Chapter 40

GERALD RUDOLPH FORD40th Vice President: 1973–1974

Life plays some funny tricks on people. Here I have been trying . . . for 25 years to become Speakerof the House. Suddenly, I am a candidate for President of the Senate, where I could hardly ever vote,and where I will never get a chance to speak.

—GERALD R. FORD

The assassination of President John F. Ken-nedy in November 1963 placed Lyndon Johnsonin the White House and—for the sixteenth timein American history—left the vice-presidencyunoccupied. Just months later, former Vice Presi-dent Richard M. Nixon, his political career seem-ingly terminated by his loss to Kennedy in thepresidential election of 1960 and his subsequentdefeat for governor of California in 1962, ap-peared before the Senate Judiciary Subcommitteeon Constitutional Amendments to discuss meansof filling vice-presidential vacancies. The existingorder of succession that placed the Speaker of theHouse and president pro tempore of the Senatenext in line to the presidency troubled Nixon. Hepointed out that there were no guarantees thateither of these legislative officials would be ideo-logically compatible with the president or evenof the same party. He similarly disliked propos-als for the president to nominate a vice presidentsubject to confirmation by Congress, since a Con-gress controlled by the opposition party mightunduly influence the president’s choice. Nixonproposed that the Electoral College elect the newvice president. Not only would this methodguarantee that the same electors who chose thepresident would choose the vice president, buthaving been elected by the people the electorswould give additional legitimacy to the new vicepresident.1

Chairman Birch Bayh, an Indiana Democrat,and other subcommittee members listened re-spectfully to Nixon’s arguments but wereunpersuaded. They considered the Electoral Col-lege ‘‘too much of a historical curiosity,’’ toocumbersome, and too far removed from publicawareness to make such an important decision.Instead, the subcommittee reported an amend-ment that provided:

Whenever there is a vacancy in the office of VicePresident, the President shall nominate a VicePresident who shall take the office upon con-firmation by a majority vote of both houses ofCongress.

The Twenty-fifth Amendment, which also in-cluded provisions for the vice president to takecharge during a president’s disability, waspassed by Congress and ratified by the requiredthree-quarters of the states in 1967.

Six years later the amendment was imple-mented by none other than President RichardNixon. Following Spiro Agnew’s resignation,Nixon nominated Gerald R. Ford as his new vicepresident. Confronting the scenario that he haddescribed in his earlier testimony, Nixon couldnot choose the candidate he preferred, JohnConnally. Because the Democratic majorities inboth houses of Congress opposed Connally, thepresident was forced to settle for someone morelikely to win confirmation. For the Democrats,

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there was also some irony involved. Less thana year later, when Nixon himself resigned, it wasthe former Republican leader of the House whosucceeded him. Had the Twenty-fifth Amend-ment not been adopted, the resignations—or im-peachments—of Nixon and Agnew would havehanded the presidency to the Speaker of theHouse, a Democrat.2

An Uncomplicated Man

The amendment’s first beneficiary, Gerald Ru-dolph Ford, was an uncomplicated man whotraveled a complex path to become vice presi-dent. He was born Leslie Lynch King, Jr. inOmaha, Nebraska, on July 14, 1913. His mother,after having been physically abused by his fa-ther, obtained a divorce and moved to her par-ents’ home in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Thereshe met and married Gerald R. Ford, a paintsalesman, who formally adopted her son and re-named him. The novelist John Updike has ob-served that Ford therefore became ‘‘the onlyPresident to preside with a name completely dif-ferent from the one he was given at birth,’’ whichwas just as well, since ‘President King’ ‘‘wouldhave been an awkward oxymoron.’’ 3

After this uncertain start, Jerry Ford lived anormal Middle American childhood in what hedescribed as a ‘‘strait-laced, highly conservativetown.’’ He attended public schools, excelled inathletics, and worked lunch times grilling ham-burgers. His mother was an active member of herchurch, garden clubs, and various civic organiza-tions, and his stepfather was a Mason, Shriner,and Elk. Jerry became an Eagle Scout. The familyfortunes alternated between prosperous andstrapped, more often the latter; some footballboosters arranged for Ford to receive scholar-ships and part-time jobs to help him attend theUniversity of Michigan, where he became a starfootball player. The Green Bay Packers and De-troit Lions offered to sign him as a professionalplayer, but Ford chose instead to attend the YaleLaw School. To support himself, he coachedYale’s freshman football squad, two of whosemembers—William Proxmire and Robert Taft,Jr.—would one day as senators vote for his con-firmation as vice president.4

A ‘‘B’’ student among Phi Beta Kappas, Fordfound the academic competition as tough as any-thing he had experienced on a football field. Hisclassmates at Yale included Cyrus Vance, PotterStewart, and Sargent Shriver. Yet Ford managedto rank in the top third of his class. ‘‘How thathappened,’’ he later commented, ‘‘I can’t ex-plain.’’ He completed course work in 1941 andwent back to Michigan to take the bar exam andstart a law practice. After Pearl Harbor he en-listed in the navy and spent the war in the Pa-cific. Discharged in 1946, he returned to GrandRapids, moved to a larger law firm, and joinedthe American Legion and Veterans of ForeignWars. In 1947 Ford began dating Elizabeth(Betty) Bloomer Warren, the fashion coordinatorfor a local department store, who was in theprocess of obtaining a divorce.

Politics also attracted him. At Yale he had sup-ported the Republican presidential candidateWendell Willkie in 1940 and had become in-volved in the isolationist group America First.Ford would remain a Republican, but Pearl Har-bor and the Second World War converted himto an internationalist foreign policy. He modeledhimself after his state’s senior senator, Repub-lican Arthur Vandenberg, who had similarly re-versed his position on America’s role in worldaffairs. In 1948, the thirty-four-year-old Ford de-cided to challenge the renomination of Repub-lican Representative Barney Jonkman, an out-spoken isolationist and critic of Senator Vanden-berg. Conventional wisdom pictured Jonkman asunbeatable, but when President Harry Trumancalled the Eightieth Congress back into specialsession that summer, Ford had the district tohimself for campaigning, while the incumbentwas busy in Washington. He drew support frominternationalists in both parties—since Demo-crats knew they had no chance of electing a Dem-ocrat in that district. In the primary, Ford beatJonkman 2 to 1. On October 15, 1948, shortly be-fore the general election, Ford married BettyWarren. He had been campaigning just minutesbefore the ceremony, and the next day the newlymarried couple attended a political rally. ‘‘I wasvery unprepared to be a political wife,’’ BettyFord later observed, ‘‘but I didn’t worry because

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I really didn’t think he was going to win.’’ Shewas wrong. Although Truman and the Demo-crats carried the election of 1948, Gerald Fordwon election to Congress with 61 percent of thevote.5

Rising in the House Leadership

When Ford entered the House of Representa-tives in the Eighty-first Congress, an oldtimer onthe Michigan delegation advised him that hecould either spend his time in committee, mas-tering one area of legislation, or on the floor,learning the rules, parliamentary procedure anddebating tactics. Ford chose the latter. It was onthe House floor that he first met Richard Nixon,who had already achieved notoriety during theHouse Un-American Activities Committee’s in-vestigation of the Alger Hiss-Whittaker Cham-bers controversy. Impressed with Nixon’s per-formance, Ford tried to be present whenever theCalifornian spoke in the House. The two menshared similar backgrounds and outlooks on for-eign and domestic politics and liked to talk aboutfootball and baseball. In 1951, Ford invited thenewly elected Senator Nixon to speak at a Lin-coln Day banquet in Grand Rapids.6 The nextyear, when Nixon delivered his famous ‘‘Check-ers’’ televised speech to save his vice-presi-dential candidacy, Ford wired him:

Over radio and newspapers I am in your corner100 percent. Fight it to the finish as you did thesmears by Communists when you were provingcharges against Alger Hiss. . . . I will personallywelcome you in Grand Rapids or any other partof Michigan.7

As Nixon’s horizons expanded, Ford retainedhis seat in the House, slowly amassing seniorityand respect. Ford had joined with Nixon andother new members of the House to organize theChowder and Marching Society, an informalcaucus of Republican veterans of the SecondWorld War, which became his first steppingstone to leadership. In 1960, Ford’s name sur-faced as a possible vice-presidential candidate torun with Nixon. In 1963, Lyndon Johnson ap-pointed him a member of the Warren Commis-sion to investigate the assassination of John F.Kennedy. But Ford focused his ambition prin-cipally on the House, where he hoped someday

to become Speaker. Elected chairman of the Re-publican Conference in 1963, Ford was also mov-ing up in seniority on the powerful Appropria-tions Committee. In 1965, after his party suffereda thirty-six-seat loss and had its ranks reducedto the lowest level since the Great Depression,a group of dissatisfied Republicans known asYoung Turks promoted Ford as their candidateto replace the incumbent Charles Halleck as mi-nority leader. Ford attributed his narrow victoryover Halleck to the help of Representative BobDole, who delivered the support of the Kansasdelegation to him as a bloc.8

President Johnson, having worked closely withHalleck, deplored Ford’s elevation to the Repub-lican leadership. Expecting Ford to be more par-tisan than Halleck and less cooperative, Johnsonmade wisecracks that the trouble with Ford wasthat ‘‘he used to play football without a helmet’’and that he was ‘‘too stupid to walk and chewgum at the same time.’’ Johnson also told report-ers that Ford had violated national security byleaking stories told to him in confidence. Thesecharges were untrue, and reporters backedFord’s denial, but the incident revealed the depthof Johnson’s animosity toward the new Repub-lican leader. Ford’s friend and supporter, NewYork Representative Charles Goodell, believedthat ‘‘Johnson thought Ford was stupid becausehe was predictable.’’ Goodell saw Ford as a solidfellow who had no instinct for the kind of politi-cal manipulation upon which men like Johnsonand Nixon thrived.9

In September 1965, at a time when Ford’s starwas on the rise and Richard Nixon’s had goneinto political eclipse, the two men met for break-fast at the Mayflower Hotel to discuss rebuildingtheir damaged party. Nixon, who still harboredpresidential ambitions, pledged to campaign forHouse Republican candidates, admitting that hewas motivated by ‘‘pragmatism more than altru-ism.’’ Thereafter, Nixon maintained close tieswith Ford, calling him sometimes from payphones during his political journeys around thecountry. ‘‘Many people in politics respectedRichard Nixon’s abilities,’’ the journalist RichardReeves observed, ‘‘but Ford was one of the fewwho talked about liking Nixon.’’ 10

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Ford also spent much of the time between 1965and 1968 traveling from state to state to speakfor Republican candidates and reinforce his po-litical base in the House. During his first sixmonths as leader, Ford visited thirty-two states.When reporters asked if he was running forsomething, he replied: ‘‘I’m running for HouseSpeaker.’’ Given that the Republicans held only140 out of 435 House seats, this was an extrava-gant ambition, but in 1966 his efforts helpedHouse Republicans make a remarkable reboundwith a gain of 47 seats. Ford’s long hours on Cap-itol Hill and frequent absences from home forpolitical speaking engagements, however, tooktheir toll on his family, especially on his wifeBetty, who turned to alcohol and pain-killers tocompensate for her loneliness. ‘‘I’d felt as thoughI were doing everything for everyone else, andI was not getting any attention at all,’’ shelamented.11

The Ultimate Nixon Loyalist

In 1968, a ‘‘new Nixon’’ won the Republicanpresidential nomination, and Ford was againmentioned as a vice-presidential candidate. Ford,the permanent chairman of the convention, hadbeen an unequivocal Nixon supporter from thebeginning of the campaign. At a strategy session,Nixon turned to him and said, ‘‘I know that inthe past, Jerry, you have thought about beingVice President. Would you take it this year?’’Ford replied that, if the Republicans did as wellin 1968 as they had two years earlier, they mighttake the majority in the House, and he wouldprefer to become Speaker. He endorsed NewYork Mayor John Lindsay for vice president. Butin fact, Nixon had already decided on MarylandGovernor Spiro Agnew as his running mate—even before asking Ford. Ford shook his head indisbelief at that choice.12

During Nixon’s first term, House Republicanleader Gerald Ford was the ultimate Nixon loyal-ist in Congress. In May 1971, when the Housevoted to restore funds for the Supersonic Trans-port (SST) project, but not enough votes couldbe found in the Senate, President Nixon rumi-nated to his aide, H.R. Haldeman, on the ‘‘lackof leadership’’ in Congress, ‘‘making the pointthat Gerry Ford really is the only leader we’ve

got on either side in either house.’’ Ford annoyedconservative Republicans by his support for Nix-on’s Family Assistance Plan and angered liberalsby his efforts to impeach Supreme Court JusticeWilliam O. Douglas—an action widely inter-preted as a response to the defeat of two of Nix-on’s Supreme Court nominations.13

For all these efforts, Ford and his Republicancounterparts in the Senate ‘‘had trouble findinganyone on the White House staff dealing withpolicy who was interested in consulting with uson domestic legislative priorities.’’ Whenever theRepublican congressional leadership met withNixon at the White House, the members receivedpromises that his aides would work with them,‘‘but they never did.’’ Ford attributed this unre-sponsiveness to the ‘‘us versus them’’ mentalityof Nixon’s staff. He also regretted Vice PresidentAgnew’s intemperate attacks on the news media,which Ford believed would only reopen oldwounds. Nevertheless, Ford felt confident thatNixon’s coattails in 1972 would carry a Repub-lican majority into the House and finally makehim Speaker. On election night, he was deeplydisappointed with the results. ‘‘If we can’t get amajority [in the House] against McGovern, witha Republican President winning virtually everystate, when can we?’’ Ford complained to hiswife. ‘‘Maybe it’s time for us to get out of politicsand have another life.’’ He began to think seri-ously of retiring as House leader when Nixon’ssecond term was over in 1976.14

The First Appointed Vice President

Unforseen events during the next year com-pletely changed Gerald Ford’s life. When storiesbroke that Vice President Agnew had taken kick-backs from Maryland contractors, the vice presi-dent visited Ford to swear to his innocence. Al-though Ford professed not to doubt Agnew’sword, after that meeting he made certain thatsomeone else was always present whenever hesaw the vice president. On October 10, 1973,Nixon called Ford to his hideaway office at theExecutive Office Building and told him that therewas evidence that Agnew had received illegalpayments in his office in the West Wing of theWhite House and that the matter was going tocourt. Ford returned to the House chamber,

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where just minutes later the word was passed:‘‘Agnew has resigned.’’ The next day, Nixon metwith Ford and Senate Republican leader HughScott at the White House to discuss filling the va-cancy under the Twenty-fifth Amendment andasked them to have their Republican colleagueseach send him their top three choices for theoffice.15

Nixon knew that Democrats felt apprehensiveabout confirming someone who might be astrong contender for the presidency in 1976 andthat they preferred ‘‘a caretaker Vice Presidentwho would simply fill out Agnew’s unexpiredterm.’’ Nixon wanted to appoint his TreasurySecretary, John Connally, but after meeting withthe Democratic congressional leadership he con-cluded that Connally would have a difficult timebeing confirmed. At Camp David, Nixon pre-pared an announcement speech with fourendings, one each for Nelson Rockefeller, RonaldReagan, Connally, and Ford. Looking throughthe names that Republican party leaders hadsuggested, he found that Rockefeller and Reaganhad tied, Connally was third, and Ford last.However, among members of Congress, includ-ing such Democrats as Senate Majority LeaderMike Mansfield and House Speaker Carl Albert,Ford’s name came in first and, as Nixon noted,‘‘they were the ones who would have to approvethe man I nominated.’’ As Speaker Albert laterasserted, ‘‘We gave Nixon no choice but Ford.’’ 16

The Watergate scandal had so preoccupiedand weakened Nixon that he could not win afight over Connally. Choosing either Rockefelleror Reagan would likely split the Republicanparty. That left Ford. Nixon reasoned that, notonly were Ford’s views on foreign and domesticpolicy practically identical with his, but that theHouse leader would be the easiest to confirm. Hehad also received assurances that Ford ‘‘had noambitions to hold office after January 1977,’’which would clear the path for Connally to seekthe Republican presidential nomination. On themorning of October 12, 1973, Nixon called Fordto a private meeting. While he intended to nomi-nate Ford for vice president, Nixon explained, heplanned to campaign for Connally for presidentin 1976. Ford raised no objections to that arrange-

ment, and that evening, Nixon announced thenews publicly from the East Room.17

Ford’s nomination was subject to confirmationin both the Senate and House, where Democratsheld commanding majorities. Because of the Wa-tergate scandal, congressional Democrats wereconcerned that the individual they confirmed asvice president might well become president be-fore Nixon’s term was completed. Liberals ex-pressed displeasure with Ford’s conservativevoting record on social welfare and other domes-tic issues and his undeviating loyalty to Presi-dent Nixon’s foreign policies but did not believethey could withhold confirmation merely be-cause of policy disagreements. A few liberals, ledby New York Representative Bella Abzug, triedto block action on Ford’s nomination, anticipat-ing that Nixon’s eventual removal would makeHouse Speaker Albert president. Albert, how-ever, pushed for Ford’s speedy confirmation.Then, on October 20, Nixon fired Special Pros-ecutor Archibald Cox in defiance of his attemptsto subpoena the White House tape recordings, anevent the press dubbed the ‘‘Saturday NightMassacre.’’ Both Democrats and Republicansnow felt it legitimate to ask what position Fordwould take as president on such questions as ex-ecutive privilege and the independent jurisdic-tions of the legislative and judicial branches.Congress appeared to hold Ford’s nominationhostage until Nixon complied with the subpoe-nas of his tapes.18

White House chief of staff Alexander Haigworried that, if Nixon were impeached beforeFord became vice president, Democrats mightdelay his confirmation in order to make SpeakerAlbert president. Haig therefore helped breakthe logjam by pressing Nixon to move on the ap-pointment of a new special prosecutor and a newattorney general (since Elliot Richardson had re-signed rather than fire Cox), as well as to guaran-tee some compliance on the matter of the tapes.On November 27 the Senate voted 92 to 3 to con-firm Ford, and on December 6, the House agreed,387 to 35 (with Ford voting ‘‘present’’). PresidentNixon wanted Ford to take the oath of office inthe East Room of the White House, but Fordthought it more appropriate to hold the cere-mony in the Capitol, where he had served for a

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quarter of a century. Nixon had little desire toappear in a House chamber where impeachmentmotions were being filed against him, and wherehe might be booed, but at last he relented. Ad-dressing his enthusiastic former colleagues, thenew vice president modestly identified himselfas ‘‘a Ford, not a Lincoln.’’ General Haig com-plained about the atmosphere in the Housechamber: ‘‘Ford was treated throughout the cere-mony and afterwards as a President-in-waiting,especially by Republicans, and there can be littlequestion that Richard Nixon’s presidency wasover, in their minds, from the moment his suc-cessor took the oath.’’ 19

A Catalyst to Bind the National Wounds

Although warmly cheered in Congress, thenew vice president received only a lukewarm re-ception in the press. Many journalists did not be-lieve Ford measured up to the job. The New YorkTimes dismissed him as a ‘‘routine partisan ofnarrow views,’’ and the Washington Post re-garded him as ‘‘the very model of a second-levelparty man.’’ The columnist David Broderthought that Nixon did not want ‘‘a partner inpolicy-making or an apprentice President.’’ Theharshest criticism came from the conservativeWall Street Journal, which pronounced, ‘‘Thenomination of Mr. Ford caters to all the worstinstincts on Capitol Hill—the clubbiness thatmade him the choice of Congress, the partisan-ship that threatened a bruising fight if a promi-nent Republican presidential contender werenamed, the small-mindedness that thinks interms of those who should be rewarded ratherthan who could best fill the job.’’ 20

During the confirmation process, RepublicanSenator Mark Hatfield of Oregon asked Fordwhether his role might be that of ‘‘a catalyst tobind up some of these deep-seated wounds, po-litical and otherwise?’’ Ford replied that he ex-pected to make speeches around the country. ‘‘Iwould maximize my efforts not to do it in an ab-rasive way,’’ he promised, ‘‘but rather to calmthe waters.’’ Ford carried out that promise sowell that President Nixon discovered he had anew political weapon: an honest, believable, andcongenial vice president. Although some skep-tics regarded Ford, in the words of the columnist

Nicholas von Hoffman, as just ‘‘Agnew withoutalliteration,’’ the public generally accepted thenew vice president as trustworthy, forthrightand unpretentious if not particularly brilliant.Ford spent most of his eight months as vicepresident on the road rather than in the Senatechamber, delivering an almost continuousstream of speeches, holding fifty-two press con-ferences, and giving eighty-five formal inter-views, in an effort to demonstrate a new open-ness in government.21

Vice President Ford balanced precariously be-tween supporting the president and maintainingsome distance from the Watergate scandal. ‘‘I ammy own man,’’ he proclaimed. The Nixon WhiteHouse thought differently. Ford’s top aide, Rob-ert Hartmann, a crusty former newspaper cor-respondent, was summoned by General Haig’sstaff secretary to receive a lengthy list of prior-ities for the new vice president. Included werecongressional relations, speaking engagementsoutside of Washington, serving as the adminis-tration’s point man during the 1974 campaign,and being available for foreign travel. If Fordneeded assistance in speech writing, scheduling,and advance personnel, the White House wouldprovide it. Hartmann concluded that Nixon’sstaff ‘‘intended to integrate [Ford’s] supportingstaff so completely with the White House that itwould be impossible for him to assert even thelittle independence Agnew had managed.’’ Atthe meeting’s end, the staff secretary shook Hart-mann’s hand and declared, ‘‘What we want todo is to make the Vice President as much as pos-sible a part of the White House staff.’’ 22

The Smoking Gun and the President’s Resignation

Although Ford steadfastly defended Nixonthroughout the Watergate crisis, he could neverunderstand why the president did not simply re-lease the tapes to clear his name and end the con-troversy, if he was as innocent as he professed.The longer Nixon stonewalled, the more pres-sure mounted from members of his own partyon Capitol Hill for the president to resign beforethe midterm elections of 1974. Where Nixon andFord had once hoped to achieve Republican ma-jorities in Congress, they now faced the prospectof massive losses of seats. In the first few months

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of 1974, Republicans lost four of five special elec-tions—including Ford’s old Grand Rapids dis-trict. In May 1974, when Nixon released the first,highly edited transcripts of his secret tapes, pub-lic opinion turned even further against him. Sen-ate Republican leader Hugh Scott called the lan-guage and contents of the transcripts ‘‘deplor-able, shabby, disgusting, and immoral.’’ Fordalso admitted that the tapes ‘‘don’t exactly confersainthood on anyone.’’ The vice president at-tended a Senate Republican Policy Committeeluncheon where Arizona Senator Barry Gold-water rose and said: ‘‘I’m not yelling at you, Mr.Vice President, but I’m just getting something offmy chest. The president ought to resign. It’s notin the best interest of everybody to have to facean impeachment trial.’’ Ford immediately ex-cused himself and left.23

The release of the additional tapes finally pro-duced the ‘‘smoking gun’’ that demonstrated be-yond question that Nixon—despite his protesta-tions to the contrary—had personally directedthe cover-up of the Watergate scandal. By the be-ginning of August, Nixon realized that he wouldhave to resign to avoid impeachment, and he in-structed General Haig to tell Ford to be preparedto take over the presidency within a matter ofdays. Nixon noted that, while Ford was not expe-rienced in foreign affairs, ‘‘he’s a good and de-cent man, and the country needs that now.’’ Gen-eral Haig went to Ford’s office, but findingFord’s aide Robert Hartmann there, Haig hesi-tated to give Ford a list of options prepared bythe president’s legal counsels that included thepower of the incoming president to pardon hispredecessor (the legal counsels had gone so faras to draft a pardon in Ford’s name, dated Au-gust 6, 1974). After the first meeting concluded,Haig called Ford at his Capitol office to set upanother meeting—alone—where he could bemore candid. Ford seemed receptive, but thenext time they talked, Haig observed that Ford’svoice had grown more formal and that he calledhim ‘‘General’’ rather than ‘‘Al.’’ ‘‘I want you tounderstand,’’ Ford said, ‘‘that I have no intentionof recommending what the President should doabout resigning or not resigning, and nothing wetalked about yesterday afternoon should be

given any consideration in whatever decision thePresident may wish to make.’’ Haig concludedthat Ford was trying to protect himself from po-tential charges that he had made a deal to getthe presidency. Haig insisted that Nixon hadnever known of the list of options, and that hisown actions had not been Machiavellian.24

On August 8, Nixon called Ford to the OvalOffice and told him that he was resigning.‘‘Jerry,’’ he added, ‘‘I know you’ll do a goodjob.’’ He recommended that Ford keep HenryKissinger as secretary of state, because if Kissin-ger were to leave along with Nixon ‘‘our foreignpolicy would soon be in disarray.’’ He also urgedhim to retain Haig as chief of staff during thetransition, to handle the inevitable ‘‘scramble forpower’’ within the staff and cabinet. Ford accept-ed both recommendations. Nixon noted that hewould be gone by noon the next day so that Fordcould take the oath of office at the White Houseas Truman had done. A tearful Nixon closed theconversation by thanking Ford for his long loyalsupport.25

The First Nonelected President

The next morning, Nixon departed from theWhite House lawn by helicopter while GeraldFord waved goodbye. The first nonelected vicepresident was then sworn in as president of theUnited States. In his inaugural address, Fordproclaimed that ‘‘our long national nightmare isover.’’ The nation agreed, and Ford entered of-fice on the crest of favorable public opinion.Within a month, however, the good will dis-sipated when Ford pardoned Richard Nixon. Al-though deeply dismayed when the tapes showedthat Nixon had lied to him, Ford felt personallyconcerned about Nixon’s mental and physicalhealth and politically concerned about the na-tional impact of a trial of a former president. Hedecided that Nixon’s resignation and the sen-tence of having to live with the humiliation wasas severe a punishment as a jail term. ‘‘You can’tpull a bandage off slowly,’’ he concluded, ‘‘andI was convinced that the sooner I issued the par-don the better it would be for the country.’’ 26

Although Ford pardoned Nixon, he declinedto pardon Nixon’s coconspirators, many ofwhom served jail terms for obstruction of justice;

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he also declined advice to issue a general am-nesty for Vietnam-era draft evaders. The Nixonpardon proved more unpopular than Ford ex-pected and forced him to spend the rest of hispresidency explaining and justifying the actionto a suspicious public. Adverse reaction to thepardon precipitated a Democratic landslide inthe congressional elections of 1974, with HouseDemocrats gaining forty-eight seats.

A man of Congress, who had wanted to restorea sense of cooperation and conciliation betweenthe executive and legislative branches, PresidentFord confronted a hostile legislature that turnedhis presidency into a clash of vetoes and vetooverrides. During his term, Congress furthertrimmed the powers of the ‘‘imperial presi-dency’’ and challenged executive authority inforeign and domestic affairs. Ford fought back,becoming an outspoken critic of Congress. Theveteran Washington correspondent SarahMcClendon interpreted Ford’s aggressiveness ashis response to all those frustrating years of serv-ing in the House without becoming Speaker. She

imagined him thinking: ‘‘Now that I am presi-dent, I can finally be Speaker of the House, too.I am going to make up for all those years by driv-ing those Democrats out of their seats, and outof their minds, if I can.’’ She concluded that healmost did.27

Ford sought reelection to the presidency in1976 but was challenged in the primaries byformer California governor Ronald Reagan.Once having secured the nomination, Ford choseas his running mate Senator Robert J. Dole ofKansas. In the first presidential race under thenew Federal Election Campaign Act that pro-vided partial public funding to presidential can-didates, Ford and Dole faced former Georgiagovernor Jimmy Carter and Minnesota SenatorWalter F. Mondale. The candidates engaged inthe first televised presidential campaign debatessince 1960. Although Ford stressed his manyyears of government experience, Carter, the out-sider, won a narrow victory, denying Ford elec-tion to a full term in the office he had held fortwo years.

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NOTES1 U.S., Congress, Senate, Judiciary Committee, Sub-

committee on Constitutional Amendments, Presidential In-ability and Vacancies in the Office of Vice President (Washing-ton, 1964), pp. 234–50.

2 U.S., Congress, Senate, Committee on Rules and Admin-istration, Nomination of Gerald R. Ford of Michigan to be VicePresident of the United States (Washington, 1973), pp. 4, 144–64.

3 John Updike, Memories of the Ford Administration: A Novel(New York, 1992), p. 354.

4 Gerald R. Ford, A Time to Heal: The Autobiography of Ger-ald R. Ford (New York, 1979), pp. 42–56; James Cannon, Timeand Chance: Gerald Ford’s Appointment with History (NewYork, 1994), pp. 1–38.

5 Ford, pp. 57–68; Cannon, pp. 32–52.6 Ford, pp. 68–70; Cannon, pp. 54–55.7 Richard Nixon, RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon (New

York, 1978), pp. 101–2.8 Ford, pp. 72–78; Cannon, pp. 53–55; Nixon, pp. 215–16.9 Ford, pp. 78–79; Samuel Shaffer, On and Off the Floor:

Thirty years as a Correspondent on Capitol Hill (New York,1980), pp. 264–65; Richard Reeves, A Ford, Not a Lincoln(New York, 1975), p. 26.

10 Cannon, pp. 89–90; Reeves, p. 115.11 Clark R. Mollenhoff, The Man Who Pardoned Nixon (New

York, 1976), p. 13; Jerald F. terHorst, Gerald Ford and the Fu-ture of the Presidency (New York, 1974), p. 97; Cannon, p.88.

12 Ford, pp. 85–86; Cannon, p. 95.

13 H.R. Haldeman, The Haldeman Diaries: Inside the NixonWhite House (New York, 1994), pp. 286, 288; Mollenhoff, p.14; Nixon, pp. 427, 438.

14 Ford, pp. 89–90; Cannon, p. xv.15 Robert T. Hartmann, Palace Politics: An Inside Account

of the Ford Years (New York, 1980), pp. 14–17.16 Nixon, p. 925; Cannon, p. 205.17 Nixon and Ford tell different versions of the event in

their memoirs: Nixon, pp. 926–27; and Ford, pp. 104–6; seealso Cannon, pp. 210–11.

18 Committee on Rules and Administration, Nomination ofGerald R. Ford, p. 5.

19 Alexander M. Haig, Jr., Inner Circles: How AmericaChanged the World: A Memoir (New York, 1992), pp. 427, 439–41; Hartmann, p. 87.

20 Mark J. Rozell, The Press and the Ford Presidency (AnnArbor, MI, 1992), pp. 15–16.

21 Ibid., p. 19; Ford, p. 127; Cannon, p. 273.22 Stanley I. Kutler, The Wars of Watergate: The Last Crisis

of Richard Nixon (New York, 1990), p. 420; Hartmann, p. 82.23 Nixon, pp. 988–89, 996–97, 1001; Shaffer, p. 293.24 Nixon, pp. 1057–58; Haig, pp. 481–86; Kutler, p. 555;

Ford, pp. 4–6.25 Nixon, pp. 1078–79.26 Ford, pp. 157–82; Hartmann, p. 255.27 Haig, pp. 512–15; Cannon, pp. 359–91, 414–15; Sarah

McClendon, My Eight Presidents (New York, 1978), pp. 186–87.

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Chapter 41

NELSON ALDRICHROCKEFELLER

1974–1977

NELSON A. ROCKEFELLER

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Chapter 41

NELSON ALDRICHROCKEFELLER

41st Vice President: 1974–1977

I’ve known all the Vice Presidents since Henry Wallace. They were all frustrated, and some werepretty bitter.

—NELSON ROCKEFELLER

Television cameras that had been installed inthe Senate chamber to cover the expected im-peachment trial of President Richard M. Nixonwere used instead to broadcast the swearing-inof Nelson A. Rockefeller as vice president on De-cember 19, 1974. A year earlier, Gerald Ford hadchosen to take his oath as vice president in theHouse chamber, where he had served as Repub-lican floor leader. Rockefeller might have optedfor a White House ceremony but decided to takethe oath in the chamber where he would presideas president of the Senate. With President GeraldFord attending and Chief Justice Warren Burgeradministering the oath, Rockefeller became thenation’s second appointed vice president. Afterthe brief ceremony, the cameras were switchedoff. Not until 1986 would Senate proceedings betelevised on a regular basis.1

A Family of Wealth and Power

Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller came to the vice-presidency boasting a remarkable pedigree. Hismaternal grandfather, Rhode Island Senator Nel-son Aldrich, had been the Senate’s most power-ful member at the turn of the century. Aldrichchaired the Senate Finance Committee andplayed the key role in passage of tariffs that in-fluenced every industry and agricultural prod-uct. In 1901, Aldrich’s daughter Abby marriedJohn D. Rockefeller, Jr., son of the nation’s

wealthiest man, the founder of Standard Oil. Al-though they combined political power and cor-porate wealth, the reputations of Nelson Aldrichand John D. Rockefeller, Sr. were less than stel-lar. In a series of articles for Cosmopolitan maga-zine during 1906, muckraking journalist DavidGraham Phillips portrayed Aldrich as a corruptboss who contributed to the ‘‘Treason of the Sen-ate.’’ Similarly, writer Ida Tarbell exposed thesenior Rockefeller as a ruthless robber baron, andPresident Theodore Roosevelt included himamong the ‘‘malefactors of great wealth.’’ At thetime of Nelson Rockefeller’s birth, on July 8,1908, both of his grandfathers were afflicted bynegative publicity. Senator Aldrich withdrewfrom politics in 1911, while John D. Rockefeller,Sr., hired one of the first public relations special-ists to reshape his public image into that of akindly old gentleman handing shiny dimes tochildren.2

Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller inherited both avast family fortune and a family image that hehad to live down in order to achieve his politicalambitions—because even as a little boy he want-ed to be president of the United States. ‘‘Afterall,’’ he reasoned, ‘‘when you think of what Ihad, what else was there to aspire to?’’ The thirdof five brothers, Nelson was the energetic, out-going leader within his own family. He and his

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brothers grew up in the family home on West54th Street in New York, which was so filled withart that his parents bought the town house nextdoor just to house their collection. Eventually theRockefellers gave the property to the Museum ofModern Art. Nelson attended the progressiveLincoln School of Teachers College at ColumbiaUniversity, but dyslexia hindered his schoolingand prevented him from attending Princeton.With the help of tutors he graduated Phi BetaKappa from Dartmouth in 1930. Shortly there-after, he married Mary Todhunter Clark, knownas Tod, whose calm reserve seemed to balancehis boundless enthusiasms. After a round-the-world honeymoon, they settled in New York andNelson went to work for the family business.3

Nelson Rockefeller proved so successful inrenting out space in the newly constructedRockefeller Center that his father made himpresident of the Center. He earned negative pub-licity after he ordered the removal from Rocke-feller Center of murals painted by the notedMexican artist Diego Rivera, which contained aheroic Lenin and a villainous-looking J.P. Mor-gan. Otherwise, Rockefeller won high praise forhis executive abilities. He became a director ofthe Creole Petroleum Company, a Rockefellersubsidiary in Venezuela. He learned Spanish andbegan a lifelong interest in Latin-American af-fairs. Art was another of his passions, and duringthe depression he served as treasurer of the Mu-seum of Modern Art. In 1939 he became the mu-seum’s president, encountering such intense in-fighting that he boasted, ‘‘I learned my politicsat the Museum of Modern Art.’’ 4

In 1940, President Franklin Roosevelt ap-pointed the thirty-two-year-old Rockefeller tothe new post of coordinator of the Office of Inter-American Affairs. It was a shrewd move on Roo-sevelt’s part, designed to mute the Rockefellerfamily’s support of Wendell Willkie for presi-dent that year. Although his brothers served inuniform, Nelson held civilian posts throughoutWorld War II, becoming assistant secretary ofstate for American republics affairs in 1944. Heplayed a key role in hemispheric policy at theUnited Nations Conference held in San Fran-cisco, developing consensus for regional pacts(such as the Rio Pact and NATO) within the

UN’s framework. Although President Roosevelttried to lure Rockefeller into the Democraticparty, he remained loyal to his family’s Repub-lican ties. When Roosevelt died, his successorshowed less appreciation for Rockefeller’s tal-ents. In August 1945 the failed haberdasherHarry Truman fired the multimillionaire Rocke-feller, in order to settle a dispute within the StateDepartment.5

Reputation as a Spender

Rockefeller returned to government duringDwight Eisenhower’s administration, where hechaired a committee on government organiza-tion, became under secretary of the new Depart-ment of Health, Education and Welfare, servedas special assistant to the president for cold warstrategy, and headed the secret ‘‘Forty Commit-tee,’’ a group of high government officials whowere charged with overseeing the CIA’s clandes-tine operations. He was slated for a high-levelpost in the Department of Defense until fiscallyconservative Secretary of the Treasury GeorgeHumphrey vetoed Rockefeller as a ‘‘spender.’’ 6

Rockefeller returned to New York determinedto establish his own political career. In 1958 hechallenged the popular and prestigious governorAverell Harriman, in what the press dubbed the‘‘battle of the millionaires.’’ Rockefeller cam-paigned as a man of the people, appearing inshirtsleeves and eating his way through the eth-nic foods of New York neighborhoods. His vic-tory in a year when Republicans lost badly else-where made him an overnight contender for theRepublican presidential nomination in 1960. Re-publicans who distrusted Vice President RichardNixon rallied to Rockefeller, and Democrats likeSenator John F. Kennedy considered him themost formidable candidate that the Republicansmight nominate. Because Rockefeller’s adviserswere reluctant to have him enter the party pri-maries, however, he was never able to dem-onstrate his popular appeal or overcome Nixon’slead among party loyalists. Instead, Rockefellerused his clout to summon Nixon to his Fifth Ave-nue apartment and dictate terms for a more lib-eral party platform. Arizona Senator Barry Gold-water denounced this event as ‘‘the Munich ofthe Republican Party,’’ the beginning of a long

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estrangement between Rockefeller and the Re-publican right.7

Nixon’s defeat in 1960 made Rockefeller thefrontrunner for the Republican nomination in1964. But between the two elections he stunnedthe nation by divorcing his wife of thirty-twoyears and marrying a younger woman,Margaretta Fitler Murphy, better known as‘‘Happy.’’ She was the recently divorced wife ofan executive in the Rockefeller Medical Institute.The birth of their son, Nelson, Jr., on the eve ofthe Republican primary in California remindedvoters of the remarriage and contributed toRockefeller’s loss to Goldwater. At the party’sconvention in San Francisco, Goldwater’s dele-gates loudly booed Rockefeller when he tried tospeak. To them, he embodied the hated ‘‘Easternliberal establishment.’’ Rockefeller sat out theelection, an act that further branded him as aspoiler.8

An Impressive Record as Governor

Unsuccessful in his presidential bids, Rocke-feller achieved a more impressive record as gov-ernor. He was a master builder, overseeing high-way construction, the expansion of the state uni-versity system, and the erection of a vast newcomplex of state office buildings in Albany. Al-though New Yorkers joked about their gov-ernor’s ‘‘edifice complex,’’ they elected him tofour terms. To pay for his many projects withoutraising taxes excessively, Rockefeller consultedthe prominent municipal bond specialist JohnMitchell (later attorney general under RichardNixon) who advised the creation of quasi-inde-pendent agencies that could issue bonds. TheState University Construction Fund would repayits bonds through tuition and fees, while otheragencies would build roads, public housing, andhospitals. As a result, control of a large part ofthe budget and of state operations shifted fromthe legislature to the governor. It was later re-vealed during Rockefeller’s vice-presidentialconfirmation hearings that he had also made per-sonal financial contributions to the chairmen ofthese independent agencies, thereby reinforcingtheir loyalty to the governor.9

In perpetual motion, Governor Rockefellertackled one project after another. He waded into

campaigning with similar gusto, shaking handsand giving his famous greeting: ‘‘Hiya, fella!’’ Helaced his speeches with superlatives and plati-tudes and so often repeated the phrase, ‘‘thebrotherhood of man under the fatherhood ofGod,’’ that reporters shortened it to create the ac-ronym BOMFOG. Although he campaigned as aman of the people, he lived in a different world.When aides proposed a plan for the state to takeover state employee contributions to Social Secu-rity, in order to increase their take-home pay,Rockefeller asked, ‘‘What is take-home pay?’’ 10

A staunch anticommunist, Rockefeller neveropposed the war in Vietnam, explaining that hedid not want to offend President Lyndon John-son and risk cuts in federal aid to New York. In1968 Johnson tried to convince Rockefeller to runfor president. ‘‘He told me he could not sleep atnight if Nixon was president, and he wasn’t allthat sure about Hubert [Humphrey] either,’’Rockefeller later revealed. The governor re-sponded that he had promised his wife not torun again, but Johnson insisted, ‘‘Let me talk toHappy,’’ and took her off in the White House toapply some of his famed personal persuasion.‘‘They came back a half hour later,’’ Rockefellerrecalled, ‘‘and Lyndon said, ‘I’ve talked her intoletting you run.’’’ Rockefeller announced his can-didacy, but Nixon’s powerful campaign appara-tus rolled over him. When Humphrey becamethe Democratic nominee, he invited Rockefellerto run as his vice president. ‘‘I turned himdown,’’ Rockefeller said. ‘‘Franklin Rooseveltwanted me to be a Democrat (back in the 1940s).It was too late.’’ 11

Despite an inability to hide his personal dis-dain for Richard Nixon, Rockefeller campaignedfor Nixon in both 1968 and 1972. He admiredNixon’s tough stands in Vietnam and Cam-bodia—shaped by National Security AdviserHenry Kissinger, who originally had served asRockefeller’s foreign policy adviser. Nixon ap-pointed Rockefeller to serve on the Foreign Intel-ligence Advisory Board to oversee CIA activities.Meanwhile, Rockefeller’s own politics wereshifting toward the right, partly to make peacewith conservative Republicans who had vilifiedhim, and partly in response to the so-called ‘‘con-servative backlash’’ of the late 1960s. Rocke-

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feller’s tough ‘‘law and order’’ stand during theAttica prison riots in 1971 further diminished hisliberal image. The governor refused demands ofrioting prisoners at the state penitentiary that henegotiate with them in person and instead sentin state troops, resulting in the deaths of manyinmates and their captives. At the Republicanconvention in 1972, Rockefeller nominatedNixon. After the election, as Nixon sank into theWatergate scandal, Rockefeller steadfastly re-sisted attacking him while he was down.12

Broadening the Ticket’s Electoral Appeal

When Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned inOctober 1973, Rockefeller let it be known that hewould not turn down a vice-presidential nomi-nation, as he had done in 1960 and 1968. ButNixon, believing that choosing Rockefellerwould offend Republican conservatives, insteadselected the more centrist Gerald Ford. HappyRockefeller said she never expected Nixon topick her husband because ‘‘weakness neverturns to strength.’’ That December, Rockefellerresigned after fourteen years as governor, to givehis long-serving lieutenant governor, MalcolmWilson, a chance to run for the office as the in-cumbent. Rockefeller then devoted his attentionto the newly created Commission on CriticalChoices for America, which many expected hewould use as a vehicle to run for the presidencyin 1976.13

Rockefeller was firmly convinced that Nixonwould never resign, but events proved himwrong. In August 1974, when Gerald Ford as-sumed the presidency and prepared to appointhis own vice president, Rockefeller and GeorgeBush headed his list of candidates. Bush, aformer Texas congressman and chairman of theRepublican National Committee, was the safer,more comfortable choice. But Ford believed in abalanced ticket (in 1968 Ford had urged Nixonto select New York City’s liberal Republicanmayor John Lindsay as his running mate).Weighing the assets and deficits, Ford acknowl-edged that Rockefeller was still anathema tomany conservatives. Still, the new president be-lieved that the New Yorker was well qualifiedto be president, would add executive expertiseto the administration, and would broaden the

ticket’s electoral appeal if they ran in 1976. Also,by selecting as strong a man as Rockefeller, Fordwould demonstrate his own self-confidence aspresident.14

Robert Hartmann, one of Ford’s closest aides,asked Rockefeller why he had accepted the vice-presidency now after turning it down before. ‘‘Itwas entirely a question of there being a Constitu-tional crisis and a crisis of confidence on the partof the American people,’’ Rockefeller replied. ‘‘Ifelt there was a duty incumbent on any Amer-ican who could do anything that would contrib-ute to a restoration of confidence in the demo-cratic process and in the integrity of govern-ment.’’ Rockefeller also reasoned that, whileFord as a former member of Congress under-stood the ‘‘Congressional-legislative side’’ of theissues, he as governor had mastered the ‘‘Execu-tive-administrative side,’’ and that together theycould make an effective team. Although fullyaware of the limitations of his office, and rec-ognizing that he was ‘‘just not built for standbyequipment,’’ Rockefeller had accepted becauseFord promised to make him a ‘‘partner’’ in hispresidency.15

Number One Achievement

The media applauded the selection. After be-rating Nixon for picking Ford, reporters praisedFord’s appointment of ‘‘a man of national stat-ure.’’ The New York Times called it a ‘‘masterlypolitical act,’’ and Newsweek congratulated Fordfor adding a ‘‘dollop of high style’’ to his ‘‘home-spun Presidency.’’ Time observed that PresidentFord felt secure enough to name a dynamic per-sonality as vice president. Ford basked in his ac-complishment. In November, when reportersasked him what he considered the top achieve-ments of his first hundred days as president,Ford replied: ‘‘Number one, nominating NelsonRockefeller.’’ 16

Yet nomination was only half the process, forthe Twenty-fifth Amendment to the Constitutionrequired confirmation by both houses of Con-gress. Democrats and some conservative Repub-licans relished the prospect of opening the bookson the private finances of one of the nation’swealthiest families. Even President Ford ex-pressed fascination with the details as they

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emerged. ‘‘Can you imagine,’’ he said privately,‘‘Nelson lost $30 million in one year and it didn’tmake any difference.’’ After the shocks of Water-gate and the revelations that Agnew had takenkickbacks, it was reassuring to have a vice presi-dent too rich to be bought. But the confirmationhearings revealed that Rockefeller had beenmaking personal contributions to governmentofficials, including Henry Kissinger and the ad-ministrators of New York’s supposedly inde-pendent commissions. Since state law had pro-hibited making large financial gifts to state ap-pointees, Rockefeller had given the money as‘‘loans’’ that he never expected to be repaid.17

Rockefeller’s confirmation hearings draggedon for months, and House and Senate leaderstalked of delaying his confirmation until the newCongress convened in January. ‘‘You just can’tdo that to the country,’’ President Ford com-plained to House Speaker Carl Albert and SenateMajority Leader Mike Mansfield. ‘‘You can’t doit to Nelson Rockefeller, and you can’t do it tome. It’s in the national interest that you confirmRockefeller, and I’m asking you to move as soonas possible.’’ The Senate finally acted on Decem-ber 10, and the House on December 19. Thatevening, Rockefeller took the oath in the Senatechamber.18

The secretary of the Senate found it amusingto give Rockefeller the standard orientation,signing him up for health insurance and otherbenefits he did not need. Ironically, Rockefellerwas also the first vice president eligible to oc-cupy the new vice-presidential mansion—for-merly the residence of the chief of Naval Oper-ations—on Massachusetts Avenue. ‘‘Congresshas finally determined to give the Vice Presidenta home in Washington,’’ Ford told Rockefeller.‘‘It’s up on Admiral’s Hill, and you’ll have to livein it.’’ Rockefeller grimaced but nodded in agree-ment. He already had a home in Washington thathe purchased during the Second World War, acolonial-era farmhouse situated on twenty-sevenacres of land, one of the most expensive prop-erties in the District of Columbia. Rockefellerspent only a single night in the vice-presidentialmansion, but he stimulated some publicity by in-stalling a mink-covered bed designed by MaxErnst that was valued at $35,000. Press criticism

later resulted in the bed being loaned to a mu-seum. Years after, when Happy Rockefeller vis-ited George and Barbara Bush at the vice-presi-dential mansion, she offered to return the bed tothe mansion. Barbara Bush insisted that Mrs.Rockefeller was always welcome to spend thenight and did not need to bring her own bed.19

Less Than a Full Partner

Gerald Ford told the nation that he wanted hisvice president to be ‘‘a full partner,’’ especiallyin domestic policy. ‘‘Nelson, I think, has a par-ticular and maybe peculiar capability of bal-ancing the pros and cons in many social pro-grams, and I think he has a reputation and theleadership capability,’’ Ford explained. ‘‘I wanthim to be very active in the Domestic Council,even to the extent of being chairman of the Do-mestic Council.’’ But during the months whileRockefeller’s nomination stalled in Congress,Ford’s new White House staff established its con-trol of the executive branch and had no intentionof sharing power with the vice president and hisstaff. One Rockefeller aide lamented that the‘‘first four month shakedown was critical and hewasn’t involved. That was when the relationshipevolved and we were on Capitol Hill fighting forconfirmation.’’ 20

Rockefeller envisioned taking charge of do-mestic policies the same way that Henry Kissin-ger ran foreign policy in the Ford administration.Gerald Ford seemed to acquiesce, but chief ofstaff Donald Rumsfeld objected to the vice presi-dent preempting the president. When Rocke-feller tried to implement Ford’s promise that do-mestic policymakers would report to the presi-dent via the vice president, Rumsfeld intervenedwith various objections. Rockefeller shifted gearsand had one of his trusted assistants, James Can-non, appointed chief of the Domestic Council.Rumsfeld responded by cutting the Council’sbudget to the bone. Rockefeller then moved todevelop his own policies independent of the Do-mestic Council. Tapping the scientist EdwardTeller, who had worked for Rockefeller’s Com-mission on Critical Choices, he proposed a $100billion Energy Independence Authority. Al-though Ford endorsed the energy plan, the presi-

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dent’s economic and environmental adviserslined up solidly against it.21

Usually, Ford and Rockefeller met once aweek. Ford noted that Rockefeller ‘‘would sitdown, stir his coffee with the stem of his horn-rimmed glasses and fidget in his chair as heleaped from one subject to another.’’ Nothing,Ford observed, was too small or too grandiosefor Rockefeller’s imagination. Beyond the sub-stantive issues, the two men also spent muchtime talking over national politics. Yet Ford andhis staff shut Rockefeller out of key policy de-bates. In October 1975, when Ford proposedlarge cuts in federal taxes and spending, the vicepresident complained, ‘‘This is the most impor-tant move the president has made, and I wasn’teven consulted.’’ Someone asked what he did asvice president, and Rockefeller replied: ‘‘I go tofunerals. I go to earthquakes.’’ Rockefeller haddisliked the vice-presidential seal, with itsdrooping wings and single arrow in its claw. Hehad a new seal designed with the eagle’s wingsoutspread and multiple arrows in its clutch. Asone of his aides recalled, ‘‘One day after a par-ticularly long series of defeats, I walked into theGovernor’s office [Rockefeller’s staff always re-ferred to him as ’’Governor‘‘] with yet anotherpiece of bad news. The Governor turned to meand pointed at the new seal and flag, sighing,‘See that goddamn seal? That’s the most impor-tant thing I’ve done all year.’ ’’ 22

An Impervious Senate

Vice President Rockefeller found the Senateequally impervious to his desire to exert leader-ship. In January 1975, when the post-WatergateCongress met, the expanded liberal ranks in theSenate moved to amend Rule 22 to reduce fromtwo-thirds to three-fifths of the senators thenumber of votes needed to invoke cloture andend a filibuster. Minnesota Democratic SenatorWalter Mondale introduced the amendment, andKansas Republican James Pearson moved thatthe chair place before the Senate a motion tochange the cloture rule by a majority vote. Whenthe Senate took up the matter in February, SenateDemocratic Majority Leader Mike Mansfieldraised a point of order that the motion violatedSenate rules by permitting a simple majority vote

to end debate. Instead of ruling on the point oforder, Vice President Rockefeller submitted it tothe Senate for a vote, stating that, if the body ta-bled the point of order, he ‘‘would be compelledto interpret that action as an expression by theSenate of its judgment that the motion offered bythe Senator from Kansas to end debate is a prop-er motion.’’ The Senate voted 51 to 42 to tableMansfield’s motion, in effect agreeing that Senaterules could be changed by a simple majority voteat the beginning of a Congress. The Senate, how-ever, adjourned for the day without actually vot-ing on the resolution to take up the cloture rulechange. The leaders of both parties then met anddetermined that they disagreed with this proce-dure, which they felt had set a dangerous prece-dent. The leadership therefore devised a plan tovoid the rulings of the chair and revise the clo-ture rule in a more traditional manner. Morethan a week later, in early March, the Senatevoted to reconsider the vote by which the Mans-field point of order had been tabled and thenagreed to Mansfield’s point of order by a major-ity vote. A cloture motion was then filed andagreed to, 73 to 21, after which the Senate adopt-ed a substitute amendment introduced by Sen-ator Robert C. Byrd, which specified that cloturecould be invoked by a three-fifths vote on all is-sues except changes in the rules, which wouldstill require a two-thirds vote. 23

In making his controversial ruling, Rockefellerhad notified the Senate parliamentarian that hewas making the decision on his own, contrary tothe parliamentarian’s advice. As parliamentarianemeritus Floyd Riddick observed,

Certainly it was contrary to the practices andprecedents of the Senate, and I think that is whythe leadership, under Mr. Mansfield as majorityleader, wanted to vitiate in effect all of the state-ments made by the vice president and come backand do it under the rules, practices, and prece-dents of the Senate.24

On another occasion as presiding officer,Rockefeller tried to break a filibuster by declin-ing to recognize Senators James Allen of Ala-bama and William Brock of Tennessee and in-stead ordering the roll call to proceed. SenatorBarry Goldwater challenged him, but Rockefeller

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replied, ‘‘It says right here in the precedents ofthe Senate, ‘The Chair may decline to respond;the chair may decline to answer a parliamentaryinquiry.’ ’’ ‘‘That is correct,’’ Goldwater coun-tered. ‘‘That is what it says, but I never thoughtI would see the day when the chair would takeadvantage of it.’’ Later, Rockefeller apologizedfor any ‘‘discourtesy’’ he may have shown theSenate by this incident. ‘‘If I make a mistake Ilike to say so.’’ 25

Investigating the CIA

President Ford also sought to use Rockefellerto head off a Senate investigation of the CentralIntelligence Agency. In December 1974, the NewYork Times’ reporter Seymour Hersh publishedan expose of CIA spying on antiwar activists thatconstituted domestic activities in violation of theCIA’s charter. When Democrats called for an in-vestigation, Ford appointed a blue-ribbon Com-mission on CIA Activities and made Rockefellerits chairman. But the Senate went ahead and es-tablished its own Select Committee on Intel-ligence Activities, chaired by Frank Church ofIdaho. When Senator Church asked for materialsfrom the White House, he was told that the pa-pers had been given to the Rockefeller Commis-sion. When the senator demanded the papersfrom Rockefeller, the vice president declined toprovide them on the grounds that only the presi-dent could grant access to the papers. OneChurch aide called Rockefeller ‘‘absolutely bril-liant’’ in denying them access in a friendly man-ner. ‘‘He winked and smiled and said, ‘Gee, Iwant to help you but, of course I can’t—not untilwe’ve finished our work and the president ap-proves it.’ ’’ Said Senator John Tower, vice chairof the committee, ‘‘We were very skillfullyfinessed.’’ 26

The CIA assignment put Rockefeller in thecrossfire between critics and defenders of theagency. Whether his report was critical or le-nient, it was sure to draw fire. Rockefeller him-self had a long involvement in CIA matters, dat-ing back to the Eisenhower and Nixon adminis-trations, when he served on panels that oversawthe highly secret agency. Yet even Rockefellerseemed unprepared for the revelations that theintelligence agency had plotted the assassina-

tions of foreign leaders. To the surprise of bothSenator Church and President Ford, the Rocke-feller Commission chose to adhere to its originalmandate and not investigate the assassinations.The panel turned those records over to the Sen-ate committee, allowing Rockefeller to extricatehimself from a difficult situation.27

Ford’s Biggest Political Mistake

In the fall of 1975, President Ford determinedto run for election and appointed Howard ‘‘Bo’’Callaway of Georgia as his campaign manager.Ford did not consult Rockefeller until the day heannounced the choice. Callaway immediatelybegan spreading the word that Rockefeller wastoo old, and too liberal, and too much of a det-riment to the ticket. Some administration officialsbelieved that Donald Rumsfeld wanted the vice-presidential nomination for himself and hopedthat this humiliation would encourage Rocke-feller to remove himself from contention. Presi-dent Ford was given opinion polls that showedtwenty-five percent of all Republicans would notvote for him if Rockefeller remained on the tick-et. Ford’s advisers complained that Rockefellerwas not a ‘‘team player,’’ and that he had beena ‘‘commuting’’ vice president, flying weekly toNew York where his wife and sons had re-mained. Still, Rockefeller hung on doggedly,patching up his difference with Barry Goldwaterand making public appearances in the South—to prove, as he said, that he did not have horns.After one rally in South Carolina, a Republicanleader conceded that the vice president hadchanged some minds from ‘‘hell no,’’ to ‘‘no.’’ 28

When it became clear that former CaliforniaGovernor Ronald Reagan would challenge Fordfor the Republican nomination, Ford reluctantlyresolved to jettison Rockefeller. Putting the situa-tion to him, Ford insisted that he was just tellinghim the facts, not what to do. Rockefeller, how-ever, had been in politics long enough to knowthat he was being asked to leave gracefully. Heannounced that he would not be a candidate forvice president the following year. Although hepublicly insisted that he jumped without havingbeen shoved, privately he told friends, ‘‘I didn’ttake myself off the ticket, you know—he askedme to do it.’’ 29

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Rockefeller’s withdrawal, along with Ford’sclumsy firing of Defense Secretary James Schles-inger—replacing him with Donald Rumsfeld—became known as the ‘‘Halloween Massacre.’’ Itresulted in a plunge in Ford’s popularity andpolls that showed Reagan leading him for the Re-publican nomination. Southern Republicanslargely deserted the president for Reagan, caus-ing Rockefeller to comment that he had made amistake in withdrawing when he did. ‘‘I shouldhave said in that letter . . . when Bo Callawaydelivered to you the Southern delegates, then I’moff the ticket.’’ Ford responded, ‘‘You didn’tmake the mistake. We made the mistake.’’Dumping Rockefeller embarrassed Ford as muchas it did Rockefeller. ‘‘It was the biggest politicalmistake of my life,’’ Ford confessed. ‘‘And it wasone of the few cowardly things I did in mylife.’’ 30

Despite being dropped, Rockefeller still want-ed to be a major player. Before the Republicanconvention in 1976, he even proposed takingover as White House chief of staff, to help boostmorale and public confidence. At the convention,Rockefeller delivered the large New York statedelegation to Ford, participated in the choice ofSenator Robert Dole as Ford’s running mate, and

placed Dole’s name in nomination. He cam-paigned hard for the Republican ticket in the fall.At one stop in Birmingham, New York, hecklersprovoked the vice president into making an ob-scene gesture back at them. Photographs of thevice president ‘‘giving the finger’’ were widelyreprinted as a symbolic act of signing out ofpolitics.31

Leaving office in January 1977, Rockefeller re-tired from politics and devoted his last two years(he died on January 26, 1979) to other interests,primarily in the arts. He always insisted that hehad understood full well what he was gettinginto when Ford offered him the vice-presidency.‘‘I’ve known all the Vice Presidents since HenryWallace,’’ he said. ‘‘They were all frustrated, andsome were pretty bitter. So I was totally pre-pared.’’ Rockefeller expressed thanks for the re-spectful way in which Ford had treated him. ‘‘Iwas never told to make a speech or to clear aspeech with the President,’’ he noted. But he re-gretted not having had more responsibilities inthe administration and not being able to makea greater contribution to public policy. ‘‘TheVice-Presidency is not much of a job,’’ he con-cluded. ‘‘But at least Washington is where the ac-tion is.’’ 32

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NOTES1 Floyd M. Riddick: Senate Parliamentarian, Oral History

Interviews, June 16, 1978 to February 15, 1979 (U.S. SenateHistorical Office, Washington, DC), pp. 255–65.

2 For Aldrich, see Horace Samuel Merrill and Marion Gal-braith Merrill, The Republican Command, 1897–1913 (Lexing-ton, KY, 1971); for Rockefeller see Allan Nevins, John D.Rockefeller: The Heroic Age of American Enterprise (New York,1940), 2 vols.

3 Memorial Addresses and Other Tributes in the Congress ofthe United States on the Life and Contributions of Nelson A.Rockefeller, S. Doc. 96–20 (Washington, 1979), p. 16.

4 Joseph E. Persico, The Imperial Rockefeller: A Biography ofNelson A. Rockefeller (New York, 1982), pp. 25–32; Peter Col-lier and David Horowitz, The Rockefellers: An American Dy-nasty (New York, 1976), pp. 206–10.

5 Collier and Horowitz, pp. 214, 237, 242–43.6 Ibid., pp. 272–76; Michael Kramer and Sam Roberts, ‘‘I

Never Wanted to Be Vice-President of Anything!’’ An Investiga-tive Biography of Nelson Rockefeller (New York, 1976), p. 373.

7 Collier and Horowitz, p. 342.8 See Theodore H. White, The Making of the President, 1964

(New York, 1965).9 Ibid., pp. 469–77.10 Persico, p. 227; Memorial Addresses, p. 229.11 Richard Reeves, A Ford, Not a Lincoln (New York, 1975),

p. 150; Memorial Addresses, p. 237.12 Persico, p. 241.13 Robert T. Hartmann, Palace Politics: An Inside Account

of the Ford Years (New York, 1980), p. 238.14 Reeves, p. 149; Gerald R. Ford, A Time to Heal: The Auto-

biography of Gerald R. Ford (New York, 1979), pp. 143–44.15 Hartmann, pp. 230–36; Persico, p. 245.

16 Mark Rozell, The Press and the Ford Presidency (AnnArbor, MI, 1992), pp. 45–46; Reeves, p. 147.

17 Reeves, p. 147; Kramer and Roberts, pp. 369–70.18 Ford, p. 224.19 Dorothye G. Scott: Administrative Assistant to the Senate

Democratic Secretary and the Secretary of the Senate, 1945–1977,Oral History Interviews, 1992 (U.S. Senate Historical Office,Washington, DC), p. 174; Ford, p. 145; Persico, pp. 262–63.

20 ‘‘How It Looks to Ford,’’ Newsweek (December 9, 1974),p. 37; Paul C. Light, ‘‘The Institutional Vice Presidency,’’Presidential Studies Quarterly 13 (Spring 1983): 210; Paul C.Light, Vice-Presidential Power: Advice and influence in theWhite House (Baltimore, Press, 1984), pp. 180–83.

21 Hartmann, pp. 304–10; Kramer & Roberts, pp. 372–73.22 Ford, p. 327; Persico, p. 262; Light, ‘‘The Institutional

Vice Presidency,’’ p. 211.23 Riddick Oral History, pp. 212–219; U.S., Congress, Sen-

ate, Committee on Rules and Administration, Senate ClotureRule, by Congressional Research Service, S. Print 99–95, 99thCong., 1st sess., 1985, pp. 30–31.

24 Riddick Oral History, pp. 218–19; U.S., Congress, Sen-ate, Congressional Record, 94th Cong., 1st sess., p. 3841.

25 Kramer and Roberts, p. 371.26 Loch K. Johnson, A Season of Inquiry: The Senate Intel-

ligence Investigation (Lexington, KY, 1985), pp. 30–31, 41–43.27 Ibid., p. 48; Light, Vice-Presidential Power, pp. 184–87.28 Light, Vice-Presidential Power, pp. 183, 189–90; Hart-

mann, p. 354; Persico, p. 272; Kramer and Roberts, p. 375.29 Ford, p. 328; Hartmann, pp. 357, 365–66.30 Ford, p. 331; Hartmann, p. 367; James Cannon, Time and

Chance (New York, 1994), p. 407.31 Hartmann, p. 400; Persico, pp. 274–75.32 Ford, p. 437; Hartmann, p. 231; Persico, pp. 245, 277.

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Chapter 42

WALTER F. MONDALE1977–1981

WALTER F. MONDALE

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Chapter 42

WALTER F. MONDALE42nd Vice President: 1977–1981

We understood each other’s needs. We respected each other’s opinions. We kept each other’s con-fidence. Our relationship in the White House held up under the searing pressure of that place becausewe entered our offices understanding—perhaps for the first time in the history of those offices—that eachof us could do a better job if we maintained the trust of the other. And for four years, that trust endured.

—WALTER F. MONDALE

The wisest decision Walter Mondale evermade was not to run for president in 1976. Fortwo years, the Minnesota senator tested the wa-ters for a presidential campaign, conducting anextensive fund-raising and public relations tourof the country. Concluding that he had neglectedboth his family and his senatorial responsibil-ities, that he had little taste for mass media imagemaking, and that his standing in the polls hadnot risen, he dropped out of the race in Novem-ber 1974. At the time, he explained that he lacked‘‘the overwhelming desire to be President’’ anddreaded spending another year ‘‘sleeping in Hol-iday Inns.’’ A number of Democratic senators an-nounced for president in 1976, but the candidatewho won the nomination was the little-knownformer governor of Georgia, Jimmy Carter, whoshowed the determination to conduct preciselythe kind of campaigning that Mondale had re-jected. Carter then bypassed the senators whohad run against him and tapped Mondale for hisrunning mate. Although he would never becomepresident, Walter Mondale proved himself oneof the more successful vice presidents in Amer-ican history, in terms of shaping administrationpolicies and exercising influence over cabinetappointments.1

Being selected by Carter for the vice-presi-dential nomination followed a familiar patternfor Mondale, in which he was admired, trusted,

and promoted by other politicians. His careerprogressed as much by selection as by election.As a college student in the 1940s he organizeda ‘‘Diaper Brigade’’ of student volunteers to helpHubert Humphrey, Orville Freeman, and KarlRolvaag take control of the Minnesota Demo-cratic-Farmer-Labor party, and each of thoseleaders later fostered his career. Mondale wastwenty-one when he first went to Washington asa protege of Senator Humphrey; at thirty-twoGovernor Freeman appointed him state attorneygeneral; and at thirty-six Governor Rolvaag ap-pointed him to fill Humphrey’s vacant seat in theUnited States Senate. Despite his youth when heentered the Senate, Mondale held values closerto those of the older generation of Democrats—forged by the Great Depression and the NewDeal and influenced by the liberalism of FranklinD. Roosevelt—than they were to the new genera-tion of postwar politicians of the era of John F.Kennedy. As a senator, vice president, and presi-dential candidate, Mondale played a transitionalrole in the Democratic party, seeking to bridgethe generational and ideological divisions thatracked the party during and after the 1960s.2

‘‘Crazy Legs’’ from Elmore

A small-town, midwestern preacher’s son,Walter Frederick ‘‘Fritz’’ Mondale was born inCeylon, Minnesota, on January 25, 1928. His fa-ther Theodore Sigvaard Mondale was a Meth-

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odist minister and his mother Claribel HopeMondale taught music. The family’s Norwegiansurname originally had been Mundal. As a child,Fritz moved with his family when his father wasreassigned to a church in Elmore, Minnesota, in1937. A strong believer in the social gospel ofhelping the poor and needy, who feared the con-centration of wealth in the hands of the few,Mondale’s father regularly talked politics withhis family at mealtimes. The family’s heroes wereFranklin Roosevelt and Minnesota’s radical gov-ernor Floyd Olson.3

Fritz was an ambitious youth, eager to makea name for himself. Showing more interest insports than religion, Mondale excelled at basket-ball and track in high school, and won the nick-name ‘‘Crazy Legs’’ as a star football player. Healso showed an interest in politics, founding the‘‘Republicrats,’’ a student political organizationand winning election as president of the juniorclass (although he lost his race for senior classpresident). Once, on a summer job, his wise-cracks caused a fellow worker to lose his temper.‘‘I’m sorry, George, I didn’t mean any harm,’’Mondale apologized. ‘‘But I’m planning to gointo politics someday, and I’ve gotta learn howto get people’s hackles up.’’ In 1946 he enrolledin Macalester College in St. Paul, working at oddjobs to pay his way.4

As a college freshman in the days of the coldwar, Mondale encountered political science pro-fessors who warned against the extremes of boththe right and left and called for liberals to seekthe middle ground. In October 1946, Mondaleheard the left-leaning former Vice PresidentHenry Wallace speak at the campus. A fewmonths later he was more impressed when heheard Minneapolis Mayor Hubert H. Humphrey.A political science professor had taken Mondaleto a rally that aimed at merging the Democraticparty with the Farmer-Labor party to supportHumphrey’s reelection as mayor. Captivated bythe thirty-five-year-old mayor’s energy and rhet-oric, Mondale volunteered his services to Hum-phrey’s campaign. Campaign manager OrvilleFreeman enlisted him to put up signs and handout leaflets. Humphrey and other liberal Demo-crats were attempting to steer the leadership ofthe Democratic-Farmer-Labor party away from

the Communists and other radical groups of thetype that had coalesced around Wallace. In 1948,Mondale again volunteered to help Humphreywin first the Democratic nomination for the U.S.Senate against the radical Elmer Benson and thenthe Senate seat from the Republican incumbentJoseph Ball.5 Humphrey had helped organize theAmericans for Democratic Action (ADA), andMondale became active in its campus offshoot,Students for Democratic Action (SDA). After hisfather died in 1948, Mondale dropped out of col-lege. Too excited by politics to sit passively incollege lectures, he followed Humphrey toWashington to become national secretary of theSDA. Writing to his mother, he described thepost as placing him ‘‘in an excellent position tomeet and know national figures in the liberalmovement’’ and that he was ‘‘exploiting this ad-vantage to its fullest.’’ Labor unions, however,withheld funding from the ADA, which they dis-missed as comprised of college professors andvisionaries. Mondale therefore spent his timeraising money and shuffling paperwork ratherthan pursuing politics, which left him disillu-sioned. An SDA colleague, Norma Dinnerstein,to whom he was briefly engaged, diagnosed hisdiscontent: ‘‘because you were moving so veryfast and seeking so very much, you found cor-ruption and a certain defeat in every victory,’’she wrote. ‘‘And worst of all, you figured outthat ‘Crazy Legs’ from Elmore wasn’t worth sovery much in the big wide world.’’ 6

A Rising Young Politician

In January 1950, Mondale returned to collegeat the less-expensive University of Minnesota,graduating in the summer of 1951, cum laude.With the United States fighting a war againstCommunist North Korea, Mondale enlisted inthe army. Stationed at Fort Knox, Kentucky, hewas a corporal in education programs at the timeof his discharge in 1952. Armed with the GI Bill,he entered the University of Minnesota LawSchool and received his law degree in 1956. Hethen practiced law in Minneapolis until 1960. Ablind date during the summer of 1955 introducedhim to Macalester student Joan Adams. He didnot know her, but she had heard of him, since‘‘he was well known on campus.’’ Although

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more interested in art than politics, she, too, wasthe child of a small-town minister, and the twofound they had much in common. They marriedon December 27, 1955.7

In 1958, Mondale managed Orville Freeman’sgubernatorial race and became the Democratic-Farmer-Labor party’s finance director, as well asa special assistant to the state attorney generalon interstate trade matters. The next year, theMondales moved into a house located in a newlycreated state senate district, because he plannedto run for office. Before he could announce, how-ever, he received an appointment from GovernorFreeman to be state attorney general—makinghim the youngest state attorney general in thenation.8

Mondale catapulted to national attention by in-vestigating the celebrated Sister Elizabeth KennyFoundation, a Minneapolis-based charity thatadvertised nationally in its crusade to help thehandicapped. When allegations arose that theFoundation’s directors had been diverting mil-lions of dollars from the donations to their pri-vate use, Mondale investigated and found thatonly 1.5 percent of the money raised actuallysupported medical services. The resulting pressattention kept him on the front pages and as-sured his election to the attorney general post.Mondale won by 246,000 votes, while Freemanlost his bid for reelection as governor. In office,Mondale solidified his reputation as an active‘‘people’s lawyer,’’ pursuing consumer protec-tion and civil rights cases. Rather than runningfor governor in 1962, as many had expected,Mondale deferred to Lieutenant Governor KarlRolvaag, who defeated the incumbent Repub-lican Governor Elmer Anderson by only ninety-one votes. Meanwhile, Mondale won reelectionas attorney general with more votes than anyother candidate on the ballot. In 1963 he per-suaded twenty-three other state attorney gen-erals to sign a brief in favor of the indigent pris-oner Clarence Earl Gideon, who was urging theU.S. Supreme Court to establish the right to freecounsel for those charged with major crimes butunable to hire their own attorneys.9

The Great Society and the Vietnam War

In the presidential election of 1964, LyndonJohnson chose Hubert Humphrey as his runningmate. With their landslide victory, Humphrey’sSenate seat became available. Governor Rolvaagappointed Mondale to the vacancy over severalmore senior Democrats—because he consideredMondale the most likely to win reelection. Theappointment sent Fritz Mondale to Washingtonat an auspicious moment for Democratic liberals.Following the Johnson landslide, the Senate ofthe Eighty-ninth Congress opened with 68Democrats facing 32 Republicans and a similarlylopsided margin in the House. So many Demo-crats crowded the Senate chamber, in fact, thatan extra fifth row of desks was set up to accom-modate Mondale, Robert Kennedy of New York,Joseph Tydings of Maryland, and Fred Harris ofOklahoma. The younger, more liberal senatorswere eager to help Johnson build his ‘‘Great Soci-ety.’’ In 1966 Mondale sponsored the Fair Warn-ing Act, requiring automotive manufacturers tonotify owners of any defects in their cars. Hethen surprised everyone by forging the legisla-tive compromise that led to the enactment of anopen housing amendment to the Civil Rights Actof 1968. Mondale steadfastly endorsed LyndonJohnson’s handling of both domestic and foreignpolicy issues and stuck with the president evenwhen the Democratic party began to divide overthe Vietnam War.10

As a senator, Mondale labored long hours anddemanded similar stamina from his staff. He re-vealed little of Hubert Humphrey’s passionatepolitical style. Cool, deliberate, and rarely emo-tional, Mondale wore a coat and tie even to themost informal gatherings, refused to be photo-graphed smoking the cigars he loved, sportedbad haircuts, and tended to look wooden andformal. Although he attracted respectful noticefrom the press, he was uncomfortable speakingon television, unable to adopt the more relaxedand natural style that medium favored. Bal-ancing these shortcomings were Mondale’s natu-ral decency and seriousness. ‘‘The thing that ismost evident about Mondale,’’ Hubert Hum-phrey once observed, ‘‘is that he’s nonabrasive.

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He is not a polarizer.’’ These were not attributesthat drew public attention or acclaim. Mondalecould walk through any airport in the country,he joked, ‘‘and not a head will turn.’’ Neverthe-less, when he stood for election to his Senate seatin 1966, a year that favored Republican can-didates, he won by a comfortable margin.11

When Johnson withdrew from the presidentialcampaign of 1968, Mondale cochaired HubertHumphrey’s bid for the Democratic nomination.That tragic campaign year was marred by the as-sassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy and byriots at the Democratic convention in Chicago.Humphrey gained the nomination but also abadly tattered party. ‘‘I didn’t leave Chicago,’’Mondale later recalled, ‘‘I escaped it.’’ Duringthe campaign, he urged Humphrey to support abombing halt over North Vietnam, a positionthat Humphrey finally embraced in late Septem-ber. The Democratic ticket then gained in thepolls and in the end lost the election to the Re-publican candidate Richard Nixon by less thanone percent of the popular vote.12

Nixon’s entrance into the White House gaveWalter Mondale and other liberal Democrats anopportunity to reevaluate their views about thewar and the ‘‘imperial presidency.’’ In a speechat Macalester College in October 1969, Mondalereversed his position on the Vietnam War. Hecalled the war ‘‘a military, a political and a moraldisaster’’ and declared that the United Statesgovernment could not impose a solution on Viet-nam’s essentially internal conflict. As a liberal,Mondale also feared that the war was drainingfinancial resources that should be applied to do-mestic problems. In 1971 he voted for theMcGovern-Hatfield Amendment to stop Amer-ican military actions in Cambodia and to set atimetable for withdrawing American troopsfrom Vietnam. In 1973 he cosponsored the WarPowers Resolution. Mondale had come to theSenate sharing the conventional view that ‘‘wehad to rely greatly on the President of the UnitedStates.’’ But the events had showed him ‘‘theconsequences of having a President who is large-ly unaccountable to Congress, to the law or tothe American people.’’ 13

The Nixon administration provided a naturalfoil for Mondale’s liberalism. As chairman of the

Senate Select Committee on Equal EducationalOpportunity, Mondale fought Nixon’s proposedantibusing legislation. He similarly opposed theadministration’s plans to build costly antiballis-tic missile systems and supersonic transport air-craft. But, facing reelection in 1972, Mondale wascareful to avoid unpopular causes that might al-ienate him from his middle-class constituency. ‘‘Idon’t like wasting my time slaying windmills,’’he insisted. When Senator George McGovernemerged as the frontrunner for the Democraticpresidential nomination that year, he sent hiscampaign manager Gary Hart and the Holly-wood actor Warren Beatty to ask whether Mon-dale would be a vice-presidential candidate. TheMinnesotan declined to give up his Senate seatto join a losing campaign, headed by a candidatewith whom he often disagreed. Although Mon-dale’s opponent in his Senate race tried to painthim as a ‘‘McGovern liberal,’’ Mondale won byan even greater margin than in his previousrace.14

Running for President—and for Vice President

After 1972 the Watergate scandal inverted thepolitical landscape. Democratic chances lookedbrighter with Nixon crippled by a string of dev-astating revelations about illegal activities, com-bined with public concerns over a weakenedeconomy. Early in 1973, Mondale began con-structing a campaign for the next presidentialnomination. To gain more depth in foreign pol-icy issues, he toured foreign capitals from Lon-don to Jerusalem. In order to raise both fundsand his public visibility, he logged some 200,000miles, visiting thirty states, campaigning forDemocratic candidates for Congress, meetingwith local party organizers, and engaging in asmany radio and television interviews as possible.Mondale and his legislative assistant, RogerColloff, also wrote a book, The Accountability ofPower: Toward a Responsible Presidency, discussingways to keep the presidency strong and yet fullyaccountable to the Congress and the people. Butbefore the book was published in 1975, Mondalehad already dropped out of the race.15

Mondale found the road to the nomination tor-tuous and unendurable. ‘‘It is a process whichinvolves assembling an experienced and quali-

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fied core staff, raising funds in staggering quan-tities, and traveling to every corner of the nationin preparation for a series of delegate selectionseach of which is unique.’’ The time required tocampaign kept a candidate away from his fam-ily, his job, and his rest. For all the agony, Mon-dale’s standing in the polls never rose. On No-vember 21, 1974, he surprised everyone by an-nouncing his withdrawal from the race. Many la-mented his decision as a sign that only someone‘‘single-mindedly obsessed’’ with pursuing thepresidency could achieve it.16

Free of the campaign, Mondale returned to hisSenate duties. With civil rights legislation pri-marily in mind, he led a movement in 1975 tochange the Senate cloture rule in order to makeending a filibuster easier, by reducing the votesneeded from two-thirds to three-fifths of the sen-ators. He also won recognition for his diligentwork as a member of the select committee,chaired by Senator Frank Church, that inves-tigated the covert activities of the CIA and FBI.Having done the necessary background researchto ask incisive questions, Mondale regularly up-staged Church, who was still actively campaign-ing for president. Church, Henry Jackson, BirchBayh, and other senators appeared to be the lead-ing contenders for the nomination until a sur-prise candidate claimed victory in the Iowa cau-cuses. Former Georgia Governor Jimmy Cartercampaigned as an ‘‘outsider,’’ removed from theWashington political scene that had producedthe Vietnam War, the Watergate scandal andother policies that dismayed and disillusionedAmerican voters. Carter’s freshness, down-to-earth style, and promise of a government thatwould be honest, fair, and compassionateseemed a welcome antidote to the ‘‘imperialpresidency.’’ By June, Carter had the nominationsufficiently locked up and could take timeto interview potential vice-presidentialcandidates.17

The pundits predicted that Frank Churchwould be tapped to provide balance as an experi-enced senator with strong liberal credentials.Church promoted himself, persuading friends tointervene with Carter in his behalf. If a quickchoice had been required as in past conventions,Carter later recalled, he would probably have

chosen Church. But the longer period for delib-eration gave Carter time to worry about his com-patibility with the publicity-seeking Church,who had a tendency to be long-winded. Instead,Carter invited Senators Edmund Muskie, JohnGlenn, and Walter Mondale to visit his home inPlains, Georgia, for personal interviews, whileChurch, Henry Jackson, and Adlai Stevenson IIIwould be interviewed at the convention in NewYork.18

When Mondale arrived in Plains, it was evi-dent that he had studied for the interview. Hehad researched Carter’s positions on every issueto identify their similarities and differences. Heread Carter’s book, Why Not the Best? and talkedto those who knew the Georgia governor. Carterfound him ‘‘extremely well prepared’’ and wasalso impressed by Mondale’s assertion that hewould not trade in his Senate seat for a purelyceremonial office. He was only interested inbeing vice president if the position became ‘‘auseful instrument of government.’’ There weremany similarities in the two men’s lives, bothhaving grown up in small towns with strong reli-gious influences. Of all the potential candidates,Carter found Mondale the most compatible.When reporters asked why the Minnesotanwanted to get back into a race he had alreadydropped out of and spend more nights in Holi-day Inns, he replied wryly, ‘‘I’ve checked andfound out they’ve all been redecorated.’’ 19

Mondale’s longtime mentor Hubert Hum-phrey strongly advised him to accept the secondspot. ‘‘My vice presidential years were toughyears but I am a better man for it and I wouldhave made a better President,’’ he counseled. ‘‘Ilearned more about the world and the presi-dency than I could have ever learned in the Sen-ate.’’ To provide some suspense for the conven-tion, Carter waited until the last moment to an-nounce his choice. When the offer finally came,Mondale accepted instantly. The press dubbedthe ticket ‘‘Fritz and Grits.’’ After the convention,Mondale set off on a rigorous campaign that em-phasized economic issues. The high point of thecampaign for him came during his televised de-bate with the Republican vice-presidential can-didate, Senator Robert Dole. Carter’s advisersfelt so certain that Mondale had won the debate

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that they featured it in televised advertisements,asking, ‘‘When you know that four of the last sixvice presidents have wound up as president,who would you like to see a heartbeat away fromthe presidency?’’ 20

Teamwork in the Carter White House

A close election put Carter in the White Houseand made the Mondales the first family to settleinto the vice-presidential mansion on Massachu-setts Avenue. That twenty-room Victorian house,previously occupied by the chief of Naval Oper-ations, was, Mondale observed, ‘‘the best housewe’ve ever had.’’ No longer did American vicepresidents have to provide their own lodging.Joan Mondale won the nickname ‘‘Joan of Art’’for her elaborate presentations of artworks in thevice president’s mansion and her promotion ofAmerican artists. She also expanded the role of‘‘second lady’’ by reviving, and serving as hon-orary chair of, the Federal Council on the Artsand Humanities.21

Carter and Mondale formed a remarkablyclose team. Carter was conscious that previous‘‘forced marriages’’ of presidents and vice presi-dents had not worked, that White House staffhad shut out vice presidents, and that strongmen like Hubert Humphrey and Nelson Rocke-feller had been frustrated in the job. Determinedto make Mondale more of a partner, Carter di-rected that Mondale be given an office inside theWest Wing—the first since Spiro Agnew—andinstructed that the presidential and vice-presi-dential staffs be integrated ‘‘as a working team’’(Mondale had a vice presidential staff thatranged from fifty-five to sixty members). The of-fice space proved critical, since as one vice-presi-dential aide commented, ‘‘Mondale didn’t haveto beg anyone to visit him in the West Wing.’’Not everyone was happy with this arrangement,especially the Georgians who had accompaniedCarter to power. Attorney General Griffin Bellthought that moving the vice president into theWhite House had been a mistake, noting that,even though Carter was a more conservativeDemocrat than Mondale, the vice president hadshaped much of the administration’s program tohis own liking. ‘‘He managed to do this becauseof his physical location in the West Wing of the

White House,’’ Bell concluded, ‘‘and because ofplacing some close aides in crucial posts in thepolicy-making apparatus.’’ 22

Famous as a politician who always did hishomework, Mondale studied the vice-presidencyto determine why so many of his predecessorshad failed. He had not paid much attention tothe subject previously; his book on the presi-dency, Accountability of Power, had mentioned thevice-presidency only in terms of succession.Mondale identified Nelson Rockefeller’s chairingof the Domestic Council as a mistake and ob-served that vice presidents too often took minorfunctions ‘‘in order to appear that their role wassignificant.’’ Instead of specific assignments, hepreferred to remain a generalist and a trouble-shooter, someone consulted on all issues. At onepoint he even turned down Carter’s suggestionthat the vice president become the chief of staff.‘‘If I had taken on that assignment,’’ Mondalereasoned, ‘‘it would have consumed vastamounts of my time with staff work.’’ The vicepresident also planned to avoid being shuntedinto such ceremonial functions as attending statefunerals. The chief exception that he made wasto travel to Yugoslav President Tito’s funeral in1980, because high-level diplomatic contact wasrequired.23

From the start, Carter invited Mondale toevery meeting that he scheduled and gave himthe opportunity to pick and choose those hewished to attend. Carter and Mondale also heldprivate luncheons each Monday to discuss anymatters that either wanted to bring up. Mondalereceived the same daily intelligence informationthat Carter got and met regularly with the seniorstaff and the National Security Council. Yet thevice president usually kept silent in group meet-ings, knowing that he would later have an op-portunity to talk with Carter alone. Havingplayed junior partner to men like Hubert Hum-phrey and Orville Freeman, Mondale instinc-tively understood his role as vice president. Ingroups of any size he automatically deferred toCarter. The president responded by threateningto fire any staff member who assailed the vicepresident. Hamilton Jordan, Carter’s eventualchief of staff, also made sure that Mondale andhis staff were never isolated from current policy

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discussions. ‘‘I consider I work for Mondale,’’Jordan insisted. ‘‘He’s my second boss, the wayCarter is my first boss.’’ Jordan, whose office waslocated next to Mondale’s, liked the vice presi-dent, whom he considered shrewd. ‘‘In theWhite House, he played his cards wisely,’’ Jor-dan reflected.24

‘‘We understood each other’s needs,’’ Mondalelater said of his relationship with Carter. ‘‘We re-spected each other’s opinions. We kept each oth-er’s confidence. Our relationship in the WhiteHouse held up under the searing pressure of thatplace because we entered our offices understand-ing—perhaps for the first time in the history ofthose offices—that each of us could do a betterjob if we maintained the trust of the other. Andfor four years, that trust endured.’’ The vicepresident’s free access to the Oval Office gavehim considerable leverage over the administra-tion’s agenda. Unlike many of his predecessors,he could bring ideas to the table and win rec-ognition for them. When Mondale took a posi-tion, Carter usually listened. In 1978, when Con-gress passed a defense authorization bill thatprovided $2 billion for a new aircraft carrier thatCarter opposed, Mondale advocated a veto.Carter’s top aides believed that a veto wouldsurely be overridden, embarrassing the presi-dent, but Mondale went to Carter and arguedthat he had to take a stand against unnecessaryspending, saying, ‘‘If you don’t do it now, you’llnever get control.’’ Carter vetoed the bill, andCongress upheld his veto.25

A Crisis of Confidence

At the same time, Mondale cringed at Carter’sinept handling of Congress and tried unsuccess-fully to stop actions that might alienate the ad-ministration from its erstwhile supporters onCapitol Hill. Mondale watched Carter squanderthe initial good will afforded his administrationby pursuing a legislative agenda that was muchtoo ambitious and complicated, rather than fo-cusing on a few major issues. In one instance,however, Mondale himself became the object ofcongressional ire. In 1977 Senate liberals led byHoward Metzenbaum of Ohio and JamesAbourezk of South Dakota filibustered againstCarter’s proposal to deregulate natural gas.

Using the recently devised tactics of the ‘‘post-cloture filibuster,’’ they filed more than five hun-dred amendments to the bill. After the Senate de-bate had dragged on for twelve days, includingan all-night session, Majority Leader Robert C.Byrd persuaded Mondale to cooperate in a dar-ing strategy to cut off the filibuster. On the floor,Byrd raised points of order that many of theamendments should be ruled out of order as in-correctly drawn or not germane. As presiding of-ficer, Mondale ruled thirty-three amendmentsout of order in a matter of minutes. The Senateerupted into angry protest, with even senatorswho had not filibustered denouncing the tactic.The vice president was lectured by many sen-ators, including some of his longtime friends, forabusing the powers of the presiding officer. Inhis defense, Senator Byrd pointed out that thevice president was not there to ‘‘pull the rug out’’from under the Senate. ‘‘The Vice President ishere to get the ox out of the ditch.’’ Although thestrategy worked and the bill was enacted, ‘‘thestruggle had left some deep wounds,’’ Byrd laterconcluded.26

Repeatedly, Mondale urged President Carterto make clear his goals for the nation and the rea-sons the public should follow his lead. Neithera New Deal nor a Great Society liberal, nor a tra-ditional conservative, Carter seemed to straddlethe issues and avoid choosing sides. Ironically,when Carter finally did attempt to define hispresidential identity, he left Mondale in despair.During the summer of 1979, Carter abruptly can-celed a planned televised address on energy pol-icy and closeted himself at Camp David withgroups of citizen advisers to help him rethink hisadministration’s aims. Pollster Patrick Caddellwanted the president to address the ‘‘malaise’’that seemed to have settled on America. Mon-dale thought Caddell’s analysis ‘‘crazy’’ andwarned that if the president made such a nega-tive speech he would sound like ‘‘an old scoldand a grouch.’’ Although Carter’s other advisersreluctantly came around, Mondale could not rec-oncile himself to Carter’s position. ‘‘I thought itwould destroy Carter and me with him,’’ Mon-dale later noted. He felt so strongly about thisissue that he contemplated resigning if Carter

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gave Caddell’s speech. The president took Mon-dale for a long walk at Camp David and triedto calm him down. ‘‘I had only partial success,’’Carter recorded, ‘‘convincing him to support mydecision even though he could not agree with it.’’Carter went on to deliver a televised speechwarning of a ‘‘crisis of confidence’’ and to chargethat Americans were suffering from a nationalmalaise. He followed that speech with a drasticoverhaul of his cabinet, giving the impressionthat his administration was falling to pieces. Thenegative public reaction proved Mondale’s con-cerns fully justified.27

The Carter administration’s standing in thepublic opinion polls slipped steadily. In Novem-ber 1978, Republicans had made considerablegains in the congressional elections, includingwinning both Senate seats in Minnesota. The‘‘malaise’’ speech and cabinet shake-ups furtherdisenchanted the voters. Exhausted staff mem-bers, pessimistic about the president’s reelectionchances, began making plans for themselvesafter the 1980 election. The Georgians in thepresident’s inner circle grew increasingly protec-tive of him and complained about the lack of loy-alty in the cabinet, and some also criticized thevice president. Reporters noted that Mondale nolonger attended the White House weekly staffsessions on congressional relations.28

One crisis after another eroded public con-fidence in the president’s abilities. The nationsustained gasoline shortages, double-digit infla-tion, and a serious recession. Carter’s decision toimpose an austerity budget to cut inflation, rath-er than stimulating the economy to end the reces-sion, offended Democratic liberals, who urgedMassachusetts Senator Edward M. Kennedy tochallenge the president for renomination. Asmatters grew worse, Mondale took a less visibleand active role. ‘‘I thought there was not muchI could do to change things,’’ he later explained,‘‘so why break my health trying.’’ In November1979, militant Iranians seized the American em-bassy in Teheran and took sixty-three hostages.In December, Soviet troops invaded Afghani-stan. Initially, these foreign policy crises boostedCarter’s popularity and were enough to helpCarter and Mondale win renomination. But asthe months wore on with no solutions, Carter

again slipped in the polls. The Republican can-didate, Ronald Reagan, portrayed the Carter ad-ministration as weak abroad and in disarray athome. Mondale campaigned vigorously for theDemocratic ticket, but as vice president he drewlittle media attention. ‘‘I’d have to set my hairon fire to get on the news,’’ he complained.29

Titular Leader and Presidential Candidate

Reagan’s election discredited Carter and leftMondale as the titular leader of the Democraticparty. Although he returned to private law prac-tice in Minnesota, Mondale had determined,even before he left the vice-presidency, to run forpresident in 1984. As a private citizen, he trav-eled abroad to meet with foreign leaders, con-sulted with leading American economists, andsought to build bridges to reunite the Democraticparty. During the 1982 congressional elections,Mondale campaigned far and wide for Demo-cratic candidates. A deep recession swung manyvoters back to the Democratic party and madeReagan vulnerable as a candidate for reelection,but in 1983 the economy began to revive, forwhich ‘‘Reaganomics’’ took full credit. Surprisecontenders for the Democratic nomination alsoappeared, among them the Reverend Jesse Jack-son and Colorado Senator Gary Hart. AlthoughMondale had the support of labor and other tra-ditional elements of the Democratic coalition, hewas more reserved, less charismatic, and lesstelegenic than his competitors. Hart campaignedas the candidate of ‘‘new ideas,’’ but Mondalecountered with a parody of a popular televisioncommercial, asking: ‘‘Where’s the beef?’’ He wonthe nomination but then faced Ronald Reagan inthe general election campaign.30

The 1984 race between Walter Mondale andRonald Reagan offered a clear-cut choice be-tween liberal and conservative candidates andphilosophies. While running against one of thebest-loved presidents, Mondale won credit forbeing one of the best-informed candidates everto run for the presidency. He also added somespark to his campaign by selecting the firstwoman candidate for vice president on a majorparty ticket, Representative Geraldine Ferraro, aliberal who also appealed to many conservativesin her Queens, New York, district. During the

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first television debate of the campaign, Reaganseemed to appear distracted and show his age.In a later debate, however, the seasoned per-former bounced back by promising not to makean issue of Mondale’s ‘‘youth and inexperience.’’With the nation facing huge deficits, Mondaletold the voters that a raise in taxes was inevi-table. ‘‘Mr. Reagan will raise taxes, and so willI,’’ he said. ‘‘He won’t tell you, I just did.’’ It wasa disastrous strategy. Reagan promised prosper-ity, a strong defense, and balanced budgets with-out raising taxes. Mondale ended his campaignin Minneapolis, telling the crowd, ‘‘You havegiven me, a small-town boy from Elmore, achance to shape our country and to shape ourtimes,’’ but on election day, he lost forty-ninestates and carried only Minnesota and the Dis-trict of Columbia. Assessing the results, Mondalecommented, ‘‘Reagan was promising them‘morning in America,’ and I was promising aroot canal.’’ 31

In later years, many anticipated that Mondalewould challenge Minnesota Republican RudyBoschwitz for his Senate seat in 1990. Pollsshowed Mondale running ahead, but at agesixty-two he chose not to reenter politics. ‘‘I be-lieve it’s time for other candidates to step for-

ward,’’ he said, admitting that it had been a dif-ficult decision to make. When Bill Clinton wonthe presidency in 1992, he offered Mondale theambassadorship to Japan, which he accepted.The Mondales had frequently visited that coun-try, and Joan had considerable knowledge of Jap-anese pottery and art. The Japanese dubbed FritzMondale an Oh-mono, which roughly translates,‘‘big wheel,’’ or ‘‘big cheese.’’ As reporter T.R.Reid commented, ‘‘Mondale brings to the Tokyoembassy everything Japan wanted in a U.S. am-bassador: political clout, personal access to thepresident and a genuine appreciation for Japa-nese culture and traditions.’’ One Japanese news-paper described him as ‘‘A man with real powerin Congress and the Democratic Party!!’’ Mon-dale professed to be ‘‘glad to be back in publiclife’’ with such ‘‘an exciting, challenging under-taking.’’ He was sworn in as ambassador by VicePresident Al Gore, who declared that Mondale’sexperiences as a senator had prepared him fora diplomatic life ‘‘full of tribal feuds and strangelanguages.’’ Responding in kind, Mondale in-sisted that ‘‘Nothing could be more ennoblingthat to be sworn in by a Democratic vicepresident.’’ 32

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NOTES1 Finlay Lewis, Mondale: Portrait of a Politician (New York,

1984), pp. 160–61; Paul C. Light, Vice-Presidential Power: Ad-vice and Influence in the White House (Baltimore, 1984), p. 1.

2 Steven M. Gillon, The Democrats’ Dilemma: Walter F. Mon-dale and the Liberal Legacy (New York, 1992), pp. x-xiv.

3 Ibid., pp. 1–15; Lewis, pp. 9–11.4 Lewis, p. 15.5 Ibid., pp. 20–34; Gillon, pp. 17–21.6 Gillon, pp. 21–40.7 Ibid., pp. 41–52; Lewis, pp. 49–52.8 Gillon, pp. 51–54.9 Ibid., pp. 56–66; Lewis, pp. 62–75.10 Gillon, pp. 69–97; Lewis, pp. 76–84.11 Gillon, pp. 99–111, 146–47; Lewis, p. 43.12 Gillon, pp 111–22.13 Ibid., pp. 123–30; Walter F. Mondale, The Accountability

of Power: Toward a Responsible Presidency (New York, 1975),pp. vii-ix.

14 Gillon, pp. 130–41.15 Ibid., pp. 143–53; Mondale, pp. ix-xv.16 Mondale, pp. 23–30; Gillon, p. 152.17 Gillon, pp. 153–62; Loch K. Johnson, A Season of Inquiry:

The Senate Intelligence Investigation (Lexington, KY, 1985),pp. 105, 153–56.

18 LeRoy Ashby and Rod Gramer, Fighting the Odds: TheLife of Senator Frank Church (Pullman, WA, 1994), pp. 522–

26; Jimmy Carter, Keeping Faith: Memoirs of a President (NewYork, 1982), pp. 35–36.

19 Gillon, pp. 163–67; Carter, p. 37.20 Gillon, pp. 163–85.21 Washington Post, August 14, 1993; Lewis, pp. 230–40.22 Carter, pp. 39–40; Light, pp. 75, 164–65, 207.23 Mondale, pp. 72–76; Light, pp. 29, 47, 206.24 Light, pp. 49–50, 141, 146, 208–9, 212–15, 229.25 Ibid., pp. 42, 213, 251.26 U.S., Congress, Senate, The Senate, 1789–1989: Addresses

on the History of the United States Senate, by Robert C. Byrd,S. Doc. 100–20, 100th Cong., 1st sess., vol. 2, 1991, pp. 154–56; Gillon, pp. 187–93.

27 Gillon, pp. 200–203, 260–66; Lewis, pp. 214–15; Light,p. 255; Carter, pp. 115–16; Garland A. Haas, Jimmy Carterand the Politics of Frustration (Jefferson, NC, 1992), pp. 83–85.

28 Light, p. 216; Haynes Johnson, In the Absence of Power:Governing America (New York, 1980), p. 287.

29 Gillon, pp. 251–57, 267–76, 289; Lewis, pp. 208–10.30 Lewis, p. 245; Gillon, pp. 301–32.31 Gillon, pp. 365–90, 394; Elizabeth Drew, Campaign Jour-

nal: The Political Events of 1983–1984 (New York, 1985), pp.555–57, 619–22.

32 Roll Call, June 4, 1989; Washington Post, August 14, Sep-tember 15, 1993.

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Chapter 43

GEORGE H.W. BUSH1981–1989

GEORGE H.W. BUSH(Presiding in old Senate chamber)

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Chapter 43

GEORGE H.W. BUSH43rd Vice President: 1981–1989

Only the President lands on the south lawn.—VICE PRESIDENT GEORGE BUSH, MARCH 30, 1981

Rarely had a vice president come to the officeso eminently qualified as George Bush. He hadbeen a businessman, United States representa-tive, United Nations ambassador, chairman ofthe Republican National Committee, chief U.S. li-aison officer to the People’s Republic of China,Central Intelligence Agency director, and presi-dential contender. Yet while his vice-presidentialpredecessors had struggled to show they werepart of the president’s inner circle of policy-makers, Bush found himself having to insist thathe was ‘‘out of the loop.’’ While he occupied thevice-presidency, he kept his profile low, avoideddoing anything that might upstage his president,and remained ever loyal and never threatening.That strategy made him the first vice presidentin more than 150 years to move directly to thepresidency by election.

A Tradition of Public Service

Bush dedicated his vice-presidential memoirs,Looking Forward, to his mother and father,‘‘whose values lit the way.’’ ‘‘Dad taught usabout duty and service,’’ he said of Senator Pres-cott S. Bush. The son of an Ohio steel companypresident, Prescott Bush had attended Yale,where he sang with the Whiffenpoofs and ex-celled in athletics. After military service in theFirst World War, he married Dorothy Walker in1921 and produced a family of five children. In1923 Prescott Bush moved east to take a manage-rial position in Massachusetts, and two yearslater shifted to New York City, establishing his

family in suburban Greenwich, Connecticut. In1926 he became vice president of W.A. Harrimanand Company, an investment firm, later BrownBrothers, Harriman. In addition to his Wall Streetactivities, Prescott Bush served as president ofthe United States Golf Association during the1930s. During World War II, he helped to estab-lish the United Service Organization (USO). Pres-cott Bush also sought elected office. From 1947to 1950 he was finance chairman of the Connecti-cut Republican party. He lost a race for the Sen-ate in 1950 by just a thousand votes, and in 1952defeated Representative Abraham Ribicoff for avacant seat in the Senate. Tapping his golf skills,Prescott Bush became a frequent golfing partnerwith President Dwight Eisenhower. After twoterms in the Senate, he retired in 1962, an exem-plar of the eastern, internationalist wing of theRepublican party.1

As much as George Bush physically resembledhis tall, lean, athletic father and followed hisfootsteps in business and politics, he was raisedprimarily by his mother, Dorothy. An athleticwoman herself (she was runner-up in the na-tional girls’ tennis tournament of 1918), DorothyBush brought up her large family while her hus-band absented himself to devote long hours tobusiness and public service. She taught her chil-dren kindness, charity, and modesty—and re-buked them for any signs of self-importance.George Bush’s closest associates attributed hisdifficulty in talking about himself to his mother’sadmonitions. Once when he was vice president,

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Dorothy complained that her son had been read-ing while President Ronald Reagan delivered hisState of the Union address. Bush explained thathe was simply following the text of the speech,but she still thought it showed poor manners.2

George Herbert Walker Bush was born on June12, 1924, at Milton, Massachusetts, where his fa-ther was then working. His mother named himfor her father, George Herbert Walker, and sinceWalker’s children had called him ‘‘Pop,’’ hisnamesake won the unfortunate diminutive‘‘Poppy.’’ George grew up in Greenwich andspent his summers at his grandfather’s vacationhome in Kennebunkport, Maine. At twelve hewent off to the prestigious Phillips Academy inAndover, Massachusetts, in preparation for en-tering his father’s alma mater, Yale. When theJapanese bombed Pearl Harbor, on December 7,1941, George Bush determined to enlist. Sec-retary of War Henry Stimson delivered the com-mencement address at Andover, urging thegraduating class to get a college eduction beforeputting on a uniform. ‘‘George, did the Secretarysay anything to change your mind?’’ his fatherasked. ‘‘No, sir. I’m going in,’’ Bush replied. Hewas sworn into the navy on his eighteenthbirthday.3

The youngest aviator in the navy, Bush wassent to the Pacific and flew missions over WakeIsland, Guam, and Saipan. On September 2, 1944,his plane was hit by antiaircraft fire. Bush man-aged to drop his cargo of bombs (winning thenavy’s Distinguished Flying Cross for complet-ing his mission under fire) before he flew out tosea to give his crew a chance to parachute. How-ever, one crew member was trapped on the planeand the other’s chute failed to open. Bush eject-ed, drifted alone at sea on a raft, and was rescuedby the American submarine, U.S.S. Finback. Re-joining his squadron, he saw further action overthe Philippines, flying a total of fifty-eight com-bat missions before he was finally ordered homein December 1944.4

Two weeks later he married Barbara Pierce inher home town of Rye, New York. They had metas teenagers at a Christmas dance and becomeengaged in 1943 (in the Pacific he had nicknamedhis plane ‘‘Barbara’’). The newlyweds headed toNew Haven, where George Bush enrolled at

Yale. Their first child—a future governor ofTexas—was born there in July 1946. Having awife and child to support deterred Bush neitherfrom his education nor from his extracurricularactivities. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa, cap-tained the Yale baseball team, and was admittedto the prestigious Skull and Bones Club. Unlikefellow student William F. Buckley, Bush was notoffended by the liberal humanism of Yale in the1940s. Neither a political activist nor an ag-grieved conservative, Bush concerned himselfprimarily with winning a national baseballchampionship at the College World Series.5

A Shift to the Sunbelt

Having graduated in two and a half years withhonors and won two letters in sports, Bush con-sidered applying for a Rhodes scholarship butconcluded that he could not afford to bring hiswife and son with him to England. He turnedinstead to a career in business and accepted anoffer from a close family friend, Neil Mallon, towork in the Texas oil fields. Bush started as anequipment clerk at Odessa, Texas. The companythen transferred him to California as a salesmanand then called him back to Midland, Texas.George and Barbara Bush moved frequently andcalculated that they had lived in twenty-eightdifferent houses before eventually reaching theWhite House. During these years their family in-creased to four sons and two daughters, al-though, tragically, their first daughter, Robin,died of leukemia as a child. Bush coached LittleLeague and was less an absentee father than hisown father had been, but it was Barbara Bushwho served as the disciplinarian and kept thegrowing family in line.6

Once back in Texas, George Bush decided togo independent. He and a neighbor, JohnOverby, formed the Bush-Overby Oil Develop-ment Company, which benefitted from Bushfamily connections on Wall Street that financedits operations. His uncle Herbert Walker in-vested nearly a half million dollars, for instance.Others, including Washington Post owner EugeneMeyer, were willing to invest in a ‘‘sure-fire’’business headed by Senator Prescott Bush’s son.By 1953 Bush-Overby had merged with anotherindependent oil company to form Zapata Petro-

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leum—picking the name from the Mexican revo-lutionary and Marlon Brando film, Viva Zapata!In 1959 the company split its operations betweeninland and offshore oil and gas, and Bush movedto Houston as president of Zapata Offshore.7

The moving force for Bush’s energetic businesscareer was a desire to amass sufficient capital toenter politics. His father had been elected to theSenate in 1952 from Connecticut, but the son,born and raised a Yankee, staked his claim in-stead in the ‘‘Solid South.’’ In 1952 Democratsheld almost every House and Senate seat in thesoutheastern and southwestern states, a vast ex-panse sweeping from Virginia to Southern Cali-fornia. Yet dramatic change was already under-way. In 1948 southern delegates had walked outof the Democratic convention in protest over in-cluding a civil rights plank in the platform andhad run South Carolina Governor J. Strom Thur-mond as the ‘‘Dixiecrat’’ candidate for president.In 1952 Republican presidential candidateDwight D. Eisenhower made inroads into thestates of the old Confederacy, carrying Virginia,Tennessee, Florida, and his birth state of Texas.Texas’ conservative governor Allan Shivers leda ‘‘Democrats for Eisenhower’’ movement, andin 1961 a political science professor named JohnTower won Vice President Lyndon Johnson’s va-cated Senate seat, becoming the first Texas Re-publican senator since Reconstruction.8

George Bush reflected a significant politicalpower shift in post-World War II America.Young veterans like himself sought a fresh startby moving from inner cities into new suburbsand from the Rust Belt to the Sunbelt. Through-out the South, military bases established or ex-panded during the Second World War continuedto grow during the cold war. In Texas, the post-war demand for energy sources brought boomtimes to the oil fields. The state attracted eageryoung entrepreneurs not bound by old party loy-alties. In 1962, a group of Republicans fearfulthat the reactionary John Birch Society mighttake over the local party operations invited Bushto head Houston’s Harris County Republicanparty organization. ‘‘This was the challenge I’dbeen waiting for,’’ he said, ‘‘—an opening intopolitics at the ground level, where it allstarts.’’ 9

Bush did not plan to stay at the ground levelfor long. In 1963 he announced his candidacy forthe Republican nomination for the Senate to oustthe incumbent liberal Democrat Ralph Yar-borough. Bush won the primary with 67 percentof the vote. Although the Texas electorate waslopsidedly Democratic, Bush believed he couldappeal to its conservative majority. But in 1964he ran on a ticket headed by Barry Goldwater,while Yarborough had the coattails of Texas’own Lyndon B. Johnson. LBJ took 63 percent ofthe state’s votes, while Bush managed to pareYarborough’s winning margin to 56 percent. Itwas a creditable first race for a novicepolitician.10

The national population shift also added newmembers to the Texas delegation in the Houseof Representatives. In 1963, as Harris Countychairman, Bush had filed suit under the SupremeCourt’s one-man-one-vote ruling for a congres-sional redistricting in Houston. Victory in courtled to the creation of a new Seventh Congres-sional District, for which Bush ran in 1966. Tofinance his campaign, he resigned from Zapata,selling his share for more than a million dollars.His opponent, the Democratic district attorney ofHouston, portrayed Bush as a carpetbagger, butBush knew that three-fourths of the district’sresidents were also newcomers. It was a ‘‘silk-stocking’’ district—white, wealthy, and withonly a small Hispanic and African Americanpopulation. Cashing in on the name recognitionhe had gained from his Senate bid, Bush took theHouse seat with 57 percent of the vote.11

Congressman Bush

The 1966 election provided a midterm reboundfor Republicans after the disaster two years ear-lier. Former Vice President Richard Nixon can-vassed the nation for Republican congressionalcandidates, building a base for his own politicalcomeback. Nixon toured Houston for Bush, asdid House Republican leader Gerald Ford in hisbid to become Speaker. Both Nixon and Ford hadknown Prescott Bush in Washington. Due to hisfather’s prominence and his own well-publicizedrace for the Senate, George Bush arrived in theHouse better known than most of the forty-sixother freshmen Republicans. As a freshman he

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won a coveted seat on the Ways and MeansCommittee (which put the Bushes on everyone’s‘‘list’’ of social invitations). He paid diligent at-tention to constituent affairs and in 1968 was re-elected without opposition. That year, after a sin-gle term in Congress, his name surfaced on theshort list of candidates whom Nixon consideredas running mates. Holding a safe seat and fittingcomfortably into the camaraderie of the House,Bush might have made his career there, exceptfor his greater ambitions and for the urging oftwo presidents of the United States that he runfor the Senate.12

Neither Lyndon Johnson nor Richard Nixoncared for the liberal Democratic senator RalphYarborough, and both appealed to Bush to chal-lenge him again. Nixon added a particular in-ducement by promising Bush a high-level postin his administration should he lose the race. Cal-culating the conservative mood of his state, Bushconcluded that he could unseat Yarborough ina rematch. In 1970 he easily won the Republicannomination but was distressed when Yar-borough lost the Democratic primary to the moreconservative Lloyd Bentsen. Rather than cam-paigning from the right of his opponent, Bushfound himself situated on the left. Democratsportrayed him as a liberal, Ivy League carpet-bagger. (At a Gridiron dinner years later, TexasRepresentative Jim Wright was still teasing Bushas ‘‘the only Texan I know who eats lobster withhis chili. . . . He and Barbara had a little down-home quiche cook off.’’) Bush lost the race with46 percent of the vote. It would take him eight-een years to even the score with Bentsen.13

Politics and Foreign Policy

Bush reminded President Nixon of his offer ofa job but did not want anything in the WhiteHouse, where he might be under the thumb ofNixon’s ‘‘praetorian guard,’’ H.R. Haldeman andJohn Ehrlichman. He volunteered instead for thepost of United Nations ambassador, arguing thatit would position him within New York’s socialcircles, where Nixon lacked a strong politicalbase. That argument appealed to Nixon, whowas very concerned about his own reelection in1972. Bush’s appointment raised complaints thathe was a Texas oilman-politician with no pre-

vious experience in foreign affairs. He retortedthat his experience as a salesman would makehim ‘‘the American salesman in the world mar-ketplace for ideas.’’ 14

Nixon won a landslide reelection in 1972 andwent to Camp David to reorganize his adminis-tration, determined to put absolute loyalists inevery top position. In his memoirs, Bush later re-called that he hoped for a cabinet appointment,but when he received his summons to the presi-dent’s mountain retreat it was to take over theRepublican National Committee from SenatorBob Dole. Bush reluctantly agreed to take the jobbut only if he could attend cabinet meetings. Atthe time, he had no notion that the Watergatebreak-in of June 1972 would erupt into a post-election scandal and destroy Nixon’s presidency.But from the moment he took office, Bush re-called, ‘‘little else took up my time as nationalcommittee chairman.’’ Throughout the storm,Bush defended the president against all charges.Finally, the release of the ‘‘smoking gun’’ taperevealed that Nixon had participated in the Wa-tergate cover-up, eroded what was left of thepresident’s support on Capitol Hill, and changedBush’s mind.15

On Tuesday, August 6, 1974, Nixon called acabinet meeting to dispel rumors of his impend-ing resignation. He announced that had decidednot to resign because it would weaken the presi-dency and because he did not believe he hadcommitted an impeachable offense. As Nixonthen tried to steer the discussion onto economicissues, White House chief of staff AlexanderHaig heard a stir from the group sitting awayfrom the cabinet table:

It was George Bush, who as a guest of the Presi-dent occupied one of the straight chairs along thewall. He seemed to be asking for the floor. WhenNixon failed to recognize him, he spoke anyway.Watergate was the vital question, he said. It wassapping public confidence. Until it was settled,the economy and the country as whole wouldsuffer. Nixon should resign.

Surely it was unprecedented, Haig observed,for the chairman of the Republican NationalCommittee to advise a Republican president toresign from office at a cabinet meeting. The cabi-

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net sat in shocked silence as all realized that Nix-on’s resignation was inevitable. Bush, whothought that Nixon had looked ‘‘beleaguered,worn down by stress, detached from reality,’’ feltthat the issue needed to be addressed squarely.In a letter the next day he reiterated that Nixonshould resign, adding that his view was ‘‘heldby most Republican leaders across thecountry.’’ 16

Nixon’s resignation on August 9 made GeraldFord president and opened a vacancy in the vice-presidency. Bush let Ford know that he wasavailable for the post. A poll of Republican of-ficeholders put Bush at the top of the list, but hewas passed over for New York Governor NelsonRockefeller, who carried more independent stat-ure. To soften the blow, Ford offered Bush achoice of ambassadorships to London or Paris.Instead, Bush asked to be sent to China. Therehe thought he could both broaden his foreignpolicy expertise and remain politically visible.Nixon’s initiatives in 1971 had drawn great pub-lic attention and put China back on the Americanpolitical map. During his year in Beijing, Chinaattracted a steady stream of American visitors,from President Ford and Secretary of StateHenry Kissinger to members of Congress andcountless delegations of prominent Americancitizens.17

When he made the appointment, Ford toldBush to expect to stay in China for two years,but after a year Bush wrote the president that hewanted to return to the United States. His letterarrived while Ford was preoccupied with con-gressional scrutiny of the Central IntelligenceAgency. Considering Bush an able administratorand a savvy politician, Ford telegraphed him tocome home to be CIA director. The ‘‘for eyesonly’’ cable came as a shock to Bush, who hadexpected a cabinet appointment. He never antici-pated taking charge of an agency that was underinvestigation for everything ‘‘from lawbreakingto simple incompetence.’’ Since the post had tra-ditionally been nonpolitical, Bush suspected hisrivals within the administration wanted to buryhim there. Yet he felt he had no choice but toaccept. His confirmation was stalled when con-gressional Democrats demanded that Bushpromise not to run for vice president in 1976. ‘‘If

I wanted to be Vice President,’’ Bush demurred,‘‘I wouldn’t be here asking you to confirm mefor the CIA.’’ He refused to renounce his ‘‘politi-cal birthright’’ for the price of confirmation. Thesenators persisted until Bush finally asked Fordto exclude him from consideration for the secondspot. ‘‘I know it’s unfair,’’ he told the president,‘‘but you don’t have much of a choice if we areto get on with the job of rebuilding and strength-ening the agency.’’ After Ford notified the SenateArmed Services Committee that Bush would notbe considered for vice president, the CIA con-firmation followed speedily.18

Although he briefed the president each weekon intelligence matters, Bush found that the CIAdirectorship was not a policy-making position. Italso kept him on the fringe of politics. From hisoffices in Langley, Virginia, Bush watched the1976 presidential race take place in the distance.Challenged from the right by former CaliforniaGovernor Ronald Reagan, Ford dropped Rocke-feller and selected Kansas Senator Bob Dole forvice president. An even more unexpected politi-cal saga was unfolding on the Democratic side,where a pack of senior Democratic senatorsvying for the nomination were eliminated by anobscure political ‘‘outsider,’’ former GeorgiaGovernor Jimmy Carter. In Iowa, Carter scoredan upset by persistent personal campaigning andby promising to create a less ‘‘imperial’’ presi-dency. As CIA director, Bush briefed candidateCarter, then later returned to Plains, Georgia, tobrief him as president-elect. Bush informedCarter that if the president wanted to name hisown director he would resign from the CIA.19

Running for President—and Vice President

Back in private life in Houston for the first timein a decade, Bush laid the groundwork for apresidential campaign in 1980. As with theDemocrats, Republican party reforms had shift-ed control of the delegate-selection process fromstate party organizations to primary elections. In1979, Bush logged more than 250,000 miles to at-tend 850 political events. Like Carter, he in-tended to make his mark in the Iowa caucuses.The field of Republican contenders included Sen-ators Howard Baker and Bob Dole, Representa-tives John Anderson and Philip Crane, and

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former Texas Governor John Connally, but theman to beat was Ronald Reagan. After narrowlylosing the nomination in 1976, Reagan made itclear that despite his age he planned to runagain. As the frontrunner, Reagan initially pur-sued a more traditional campaign, spendingmost of his time in New Hampshire and thenortheast, while Bush devoted nearly every dayto Iowa. A week before the Republican caucuses,Bush’s organization sent a million pieces of mailto party members across the state. When the cau-cuses met on January 21, 1980, Bush won 31.5percent to Reagan’s 29.4 percent. The marginwas slim but enough to enable Bush to claim mo-mentum—or as he called it ‘‘the Big Mo.’’ 20

The news from Iowa jolted Ronald Reagan,who learned the result while watching an oldmovie. Rather than become unnerved, however,Reagan found the loss reinvigorating. He reorga-nized his staff, replaced his campaign manager,and concentrated his fire on Bush in New Hamp-shire. Reagan and Bush agreed to meet at a head-to-head debate sponsored by the Nashua Tele-graph. When four other Republican candidatesobjected to the two-person format, Bush opposedopening the debate, while Reagan dramaticallyappeared at the debate trailed by the four ex-cluded candidates. As Bush sat stiffly, Reaganstarted to explain why he had brought the others.The debate moderator, Nashua Telegraph editorJon Breen, ordered Reagan’s microphone turnedoff. Reagan replied, ‘‘I am paying for this micro-phone.’’ No matter that he had swiped the linefrom an old Spencer Tracy movie, State of theUnion, Reagan had given a memorable perform-ance. Leaving the debate, Reagan’s staff told himthat ‘‘the parking lot was littered with Bush-for-President badges.’’ Having regained commandof the race, Reagan remained in the state untilelection night, convincingly beating Bush by 50to 23 percent.21

Bush was frustrated at the way the public per-ceived him and his opponent. Bush had been acombat pilot in the Second World War, butReagan was widely known for his war movies.Bush had actually ‘‘met a payroll’’ as an inde-pendent oil company executive, while Reaganhad simply preached the free-enterprise systemto appreciative audiences. Bush was a devoted

family man, while Reagan won attention for de-fending family values, despite being divorcedand estranged from his children. Bush lookedand sounded awkward and inarticulate on tele-vision, while Reagan mastered the medium.Bush’s media advisers warned him about his‘‘preppy’’ and ‘‘elitist’’ appearance, but when heasked why the public had never held Ivy Leagueattendance against the Roosevelts, Tafts, andKennedys, they had no explanation. He con-cluded that his image was ‘‘just something I’dhave to live with.’’ 22

The New Hampshire primary effectivelyended Bush’s presidential campaign well beforehe formally dropped out of the race in May. Itwas during this interregnum, when his politicalfuture seemed doubtful, that Bush sold his homein Houston and purchased his grandfather’s oldestate, Walker’s Point, at Kennebunkport, Maine.This move further blurred his identity: was hea Texan or a Yankee? In July, he went to the Re-publican convention in Detroit with a slim hopefor the vice-presidential nomination but encoun-tered a boom for Gerald Ford. With a goodchance of defeating the incumbent PresidentJimmy Carter and the divided Democrats,Reagan wanted to unify the Republican party. AtHenry Kissinger’s suggestion, Reagan ap-proached Ford with the novel idea that theformer president run for vice president. Ford in-dicated he might accept if assured a meaningfulrole in the administration.

Word of this ‘‘dream ticket’’ sparked consider-able enthusiasm at the Republican convention.Then Ford visited the CBS booth to be inter-viewed by Walter Cronkite. The veteran broad-caster pressed Ford about the details of how aformer president might accept the second spot,prompting Ford to elaborate on his ideas for aco-presidency. From his hotel room, Bushwatched the interview with the sinking feelingthat Ford would never talk so freely unless allof the arrangements for his candidacy had beencompleted. But Ronald and Nancy Reagan alsowatched Ford’s interview, with mounting dis-may. ‘‘Wait a minute’’ Reagan later recalled think-ing, ‘‘this is really two presidents he’s talking about.’’Later that night, Reagan called Ford to his hotelsuite, where the two men met behind closed

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doors. When they emerged after ten minutesalone together, the ‘‘dream ticket’’ had evapo-rated. ‘‘The answer was no,’’ Reagan told hisstaff. ‘‘He didn’t think it was right for him or forme. And now I am inclined to agree.’’ Reaganknew he needed to make a prompt decisionabout a replacement, since any delay wouldcause a letdown among the delegates and raisequestions about his decision-making abilities. AsMichael Deaver described the scene, Reagan‘‘picked up the phone and said, to the amaze-ment of everyone in the room, ‘I’m callingGeorge Bush. I want to get this settled. Anyonehave any objections?’ ’’ Recognizing the need tobroaden the ticket ideologically, no one couldoffer an alternative. Reagan placed the call, tell-ing Bush that he wanted to announce his selec-tion right away, if he had no objection. Surprisedand delighted, Bush had none.23

Joining the Reagan Team

Reagan had not been impressed by Bush dur-ing the primaries. During their contest, Bush hadleveled the charge of ‘‘voodoo economics’’against Reagan’s programs, a taunt that stillstung. Reagan thought Bush lacked ‘‘spunk’’ andbecame too easily rattled by political criticism.‘‘He just melts under pressure,’’ Reagan com-plained. Thus when Reagan won the presidencyin 1980, there were indications that Bush wouldremain an outsider from the Reagan team. Wash-ington observers commented that the Reagansand the Bushes rarely socialized. Yet Bush hadseveral advantages as vice president. His person-ality and his long experience in appointed officesmade him naturally deferential to the president.He avoided criticizing or differing with Reaganin any way. He also had the good fortune of see-ing his campaign manager, James A. Baker III,appointed chief of staff in the Reagan WhiteHouse. While other vice presidents had to com-bat protective chiefs of staff, the longtime friend-ship of Bush and Baker continued throughoutReagan’s administration. Although Baker servedReagan foremost, he made sure nothing wouldjeopardize Bush’s eventual succession to thepresidency.24

George and Barbara Bush moved into the vice-presidential mansion at the Naval Observatory

and thrived on the many social duties of the of-fice. Bush’s attendance at a string of state funer-als became a common joke for comedians. Bar-bara Bush felt such criticism was shortsighted,since ‘‘George met with many current or futureheads of state at the funerals he attended, ena-bling him to forge personal relationships thatwere important to President Reagan—and later,President Bush.’’ From the start, Bush recognizedthe constitutional limits of the office. He wouldnot be the decision maker, since that was thepresident’s job. His position would be meaning-ful therefore only if the president trusted himenough to delegate significant responsibilities tohim. He determined to be a loyal team playerand not to separate himself when things gottough. As president of the Senate, he also triedto stay in close touch with the senators and tokeep the president informed of what was hap-pening on the Hill. Respecting the limitations onhis legislative role, however, he avoided tryingto intervene in Senate deliberations.25

That attitude served Bush well during the firstcrisis of his vice-presidency. Touring Texas,where he had unveiled a historical marker at thehotel where John Kennedy spent his last nightbefore Dallas, Bush received word that PresidentReagan had been shot and seriously wounded.He immediately flew to Washington. When hisplane landed at Andrews Air Force Base, aideswanted him to proceed directly to the WhiteHouse by helicopter. They thought it wouldmake dramatic television footage and dem-onstrate that the government was still function-ing. Bush vetoed the idea, declaring that ‘‘onlythe President lands on the south lawn.’’ His heli-copter instead flew to the vice-presidential resi-dence, from which he drove to the White House.The gesture was not lost on Ronald Reagan, whoslowly warmed to his vice president.26

Over time, Reagan grew comfortable with hisvice president. The genial Reagan especially ap-preciated Bush’s effort to start staff meetingswith a ‘‘joke of the day.’’ The two men had lunchtogether every Thursday and their discussions,according to Bush, were ‘‘wide-ranging, from af-fairs of state to small talk.’’ The vice presidentmade a point of never divulging publicly the ad-

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vice he gave the president in private, and Reaganclearly appreciated his loyalty and discretion.27

As vice president, Bush devoted much atten-tion to two special projects the president as-signed to him. One was to chair a special taskforce on federal deregulation. The task force re-viewed hundreds of rules and regulations, mak-ing specific recommendations on which ones torevise or eliminate in order to cut red tape. Bushchaired another task force on international drugsmuggling, to coordinate federal efforts to stemthe flow of drugs into the United States. Not co-incidentally, both efforts—against big govern-ment and illegal drugs—were popular issueswith Republican conservatives. Having joinedthe Reagan ticket as a representative of the mod-erate wing of his party, Vice President Bushcourted conservatives to erase their suspicions.His conspicuous efforts to befriend the likes ofNew Hampshire publisher William Loeb andMoral Majority leader Jerry Falwell drove thenewspaper columnist George Will to comment:‘‘The unpleasant sound Bush is emitting as hetraipses from one conservative gathering to an-other is a thin, tinny arf—the sound of a lapdog.’’ 28

A Troubled Second Term

Bush so solidified his position by 1984 thatthere was no question of replacing him whenReagan ran for a second term. By then, BarbaraBush had also become a national figure in herown right. The public enjoyed her direct, warm,and casual style. In 1984 she published a popularchildren’s book, C. Fred’s Story, about the fami-ly’s basset hound—a forerunner of the best-sell-ing Millie’s Book by C. Fred’s replacement. YetGeorge and Barbara Bush found the reelectioncampaign far more trying than the race fouryears earlier. The Democratic candidate, WalterMondale, had made history by choosing the firstwoman candidate for vice president on a majornational ticket. New York Representative Geral-dine Ferraro was an attractive and aggressivecandidate. Although a millionaire herself, sherepresented a blue-collar district in Queens thatplaced her in sharp contrast to Bush’s Ivy Leagueimage. While Ferraro encountered significantproblems of her own, she brought color to an

otherwise dull and packaged campaign. Manyreporters, especially women members of thepress, cheered her campaign, leaving Bush at adecided disadvantage. As his anger flared afterhis televised debate with Ferraro, Bush wasquoted as saying that he had ‘‘tried to kick a littleass last night.’’ Despite Reagan’s landslide re-election, the campaign left Bush feeling de-pressed and wondering if he still had a futurein politics.29

Bush’s friends Jim Baker and Nicholas Bradyquickly helped revive his optimism and enthu-siasm, and by that Christmas they were alreadyplanning strategy for his run for the presidencyin 1988. From the Reagan camp, Bush hired CraigFuller as his vice-presidential chief of staff, andfrom Reagan’s campaign team he selected LeeAtwater as his chief campaign strategist. Beforethe end of 1985, Atwater had set up a politicalaction committee, the Fund for America, that hadraised more than two million dollars. Well in ad-vance of the election, Bush became the concededfrontrunner to replace Reagan. The strategy,however, depended upon Reagan retaining hisphenomenal popularity. Then news of theIran-Contra scandal shook the Reaganadministration.30

The press and public were astonished in thefall of 1986 to learn that the Reagan administra-tion had secretly reversed its declared intentionnot to sell arms to Iran. Designed to free Amer-ican hostages, the arms sales had produced reve-nue that administration officials had diverted tosupport anticommunist rebels in Nicaragua, indirect violation of the law. These revelations im-plicated President Reagan’s national security ad-visers, Robert McFarland and John Poindexter,and a National Security Council aide, OliverNorth. When Secretary of State George Shultzand Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinbergermade it clear that they had opposed the Iran-Contra plan, they left open the question of thevice president’s position. Either way, whether hehad supported the illegal plan or been kept inthe dark about it, Bush stood to lose. AlexanderHaig, one of his opponents for the Republicannomination, asked: ‘‘Where was George Bushduring the story? Was he the copilot in the cock-pit, or was he back in economy class?’’ 31

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The vice president maintained that those whoran the operation had ‘‘compartmentalized’’ it,so that he knew of only some parts of the planand had been ‘‘deliberately excluded’’ from oth-ers. Despite his claims of being ‘‘out of the loop,’’public opinion polls indicated that people hadtrouble believing Bush was an innocent by-stander. The issue burst open in a live televisionencounter between Bush and CBS anchormanDan Rather on January 25, 1988. Lee Atwater andRoger Ailes, Bush’s campaign director andmedia adviser, worried much over the vice presi-dent’s image as a ‘‘wimp.’’ Before the interview,they convinced Bush that the broadcaster wassetting a trap for him and planned to ‘‘sandbag’’him over the Iran-Contra affair. Rather prefacedthe interview by suggesting that Bush had beenpresent at numerous White House meetings onIran-Contra and then devoted his first questionto the scandal. Bush angrily charged that CBShad misrepresented the purpose of the inter-view. Rather replied that he did not want to beargumentative, but Bush retorted, ‘‘You do, Dan.. . . I don’t think it’s fair to judge a whole career. . . by a rehash on Iran.’’ Atwater, and Ailes weredelighted. Bush’s obvious fury had put ‘‘thewimp issue’’ to rest.32

Winning the Presidency in His Own Right

By the time Bush had officially declared hiscandidacy for president, his campaign had al-ready raised ten million dollars, but he was byno means assured of the nomination. No vicepresident since Martin Van Buren in 1836 hadwon election on his own immediately followingthe term of the president with whom he hadserved. While Reagan was still personally popu-lar, the Iran-Contra scandal had hobbled his ad-ministration. Senate Republican Leader Bob Dolewas pressing a hard campaign against Bush, aswas televangelist Pat Robertson. Returning to aneconomically depressed Iowa, Bush campaignedsurrounded by Secret Service agents and rode ina motorcade of official limousines that lookedlike ‘‘the caravan of an Eastern potentate.’’ Theresults of the Iowa caucuses relegated Bush to adismal third place behind Dole and Robertson.33

As it did for Ronald Reagan eight years earlier,the embarrassing loss in Iowa forced Bush to re-

vamp his strategy. The Bushes flew to NewHampshire, where Governor John Sununu as-sured Barbara: ‘‘Don’t worry. He’ll win in NewHampshire. ‘Mr. Fix-it’ will see to it.’’ Bush fol-lowed the advice of his ‘‘handlers’’—Sununu,Baker, Atwater, and Ailes. He abandoned his setspeeches in favor of meeting voters at factoriesand shopping malls and drove an eighteen-wheel truck, trying to shed his ‘‘preppy’’ imageand show a more down-to-earth personal side.He also went on the attack, pledging that hewould never raise taxes as president, whileclaiming that Senator Dole had straddled the taxissue. The New Hampshire campaign saw thebeginning of the negative attack advertisementsthat would mark the Bush campaign for the restof the year. The decent, affable, self-effacingBush, who had trouble boasting about his ownimpressive resume, had fewer compunctionsabout attacking his opponents. Bush defeatedDole and Robertson in New Hampshire andwent on to take the Republican nomination.

Although he started well behind in the pollsat the outset, he waged a vigorous general elec-tion campaign against Massachusetts GovernorMichael Dukakis and his running mate, LloydBentsen (who had defeated Bush for the Senatein 1970). Atwater and Ailes crafted a campaignof direct attacks on the Democratic candidate forrefusing to sign a bill making the Pledge of Alle-giance mandatory for school children, for allow-ing a weekend parole system that released con-vict Willie Horton from prison, and for not hav-ing cleaned up a badly polluted Boston harbor.Never appreciating the impact of the negativeads, Dukakis responded to them inadequately.Bush won an impressive victory in November,portraying himself as proudly patriotic, tough oncrime, opposed to taxes, and sympathetic to edu-cational and environmental issues.34

The chief circumstance in which candidateBush ignored the advice of his ‘‘handlers’’ con-cerned the choice of his own vice-presidentialcandidate. Neither James Baker nor Lee Atwaterwas impressed with the qualifications of IndianaSenator Dan Quayle, although Roger Ailes andCraig Fuller saw Quayle’s potential to attractyounger and more conservative voters. Quaylehad also been conducting his own ‘‘sub rosa’’

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campaign to bring his availability to Bush’s at-tention. Bush viewed Quayle as a young, good-looking, successful politician who was likely toplay the same appreciative and deferential rolethat Bush had as vice president. WhateverQuayle’s merits, the Bush campaign’s strategy ofkeeping his choice secret until the last momentto add some drama to an otherwise predeter-mined convention, proved to be a mistake.Quayle was so little known to the nation—evento the media—that his public image becameshaped entirely by initial perceptions, whichwere not favorable. One 1988 Democratic cam-paign button read simply, ‘‘Quayle—A Heart-beat Away.’’ 35

George Bush served one term as president ofthe United States. His years of experience in for-eign policy prepared him well to serve as the na-tion’s first post-cold war president. When theIraqi army under Saddam Hussein invadedIraq’s oil-rich neighbor Kuwait, Bush respondedpromptly and boldly on both the diplomatic andmilitary fronts. The lightning-quick Persian Gulfwar lifted his public approval rating to an aston-ishing 91 percent. On the domestic front, his ad-ministration fared less well, diminished by a per-

sistent economic recession, mounting federaldeficits, and his broken campaign pledge not toraise taxes. Bush also suffered from his lack ofwhat he called ‘‘the vision thing,’’ a clarity ofideas and principles that could shape publicopinion and influence Congress. ‘‘He does notsay why he wants to be there,’’ complained col-umnist George Will, ‘‘so the public does notknow why it should care if he gets his way.’’Standing for reelection, Bush faced a ‘‘New Dem-ocrat,’’ Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton, and ascrappy Texas billionaire independent can-didate, Ross Perot. In November 1992, PresidentBush finished second with 38 percent of the voteto Clinton’s 43 percent and Perot’s 19 percent.36

In retrospect, George Bush lost in 1992 for thesame reason he had won in 1988. Having servedas Reagan’s vice president, he personified a con-tinuation of the previous policies. By 1992, Bar-bara Bush concluded that ‘‘we lost because peo-ple really wanted a change. We had had twelveyears of a Republican presidency.’’ Seen in thoseterms, Bush’s defeat represented the vice-presi-dential conundrum: once having achieved the of-fice, one never escapes it.37

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NOTES1 George Bush with Victor Gold, Looking Forward (New

York, 1987), p. 26; Leonard Schlup, ‘‘Prescott Bush and theFoundations of Modern Republicanism,’’ Research Journal ofPhilosophy and Social Sciences (1992), pp. 1–16; Garry Wills,‘‘Father Knows Best,’’ New York Review of Books (November5, 1992), pp. 36–40.

2 George Bush, pp. 26–27; Washington Post, November 20,1992.

3 George Bush, pp. 30.4 Ibid., pp. 32–40; Fitzhugh Green, George Bush: An Inti-

mate Portrait (New York, 1989), pp. 27–40.5 George Bush, pp. 41–45; Barbara Bush, Barbara Bush: A

Memoir (New York, 1994), pp. 16–29; see William F. Buckley,God and Man at Yale: The Superstitions of Academic Freedom(Chicago, 1951).

6 George Bush, pp. 46–58; Green, pp. 55–58, Barbara Bush,pp. 30–49.

7 Green, pp. 59–74; George Bush, pp. 61–68.8 See Dewey W. Grantham, The Life and Death of the Solid

South: A Political History (Lexington, KY, 1988).9 Green, pp. 75–81.10 Ibid., pp. 81–87; George Bush, pp. 77–89.11 Barbara Bush, pp. 57–63; George Bush, pp. 89–93.12 George Bush, pp. 93–98; Barbara Bush, p. 67; Richard

Nixon, RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon (New York, 1978),p. 312.

13 George Bush, pp. 99–103; Bob Schieffer and Gary PaulGates, The Acting President (New York, 1989), p. 317; Wash-ington Times, March 24, 1986.

14 Schieffer and Gates, p. 317; Barbara Bush, p. 79; Green,pp. 115–17; George Bush, pp. 107–20; H.R. Haldeman, TheHaldeman Diaries: Inside the Nixon White House (New York,1994), p. 217.

15 George Bush, pp. 120–25; Haldeman, pp. 540, 545, 553.16 Alexander M. Haig, Jr., with Charles McCarry, Inner

Circles: How America Changed the World: A Memoir (NewYork, 1992), pp. 492–93; George Bush, pp. 122–25.

17 George Bush, pp. 129–49.18 Barbara Bush, pp. 108, 130–31; George Bush, pp. 153–

59; Gerald Ford, A Time to Heal: The Autobiography of GeraldR. Ford (New York, 1979), pp. 325–26, 337–38; Loch K. John-son, A Season of Inquiry: The Senate Intelligence Investigation(Lexington, KY, 1985), pp. 158–59.

19 George Bush, pp. 164–79.20 Ibid., pp. 184–85; Lou Cannon, Reagan (New York,

1982), pp. 229, 247–48.21 Cannon, pp. 249–54; Ronald Reagan, An American Life

(New York, 1990), pp. 212–13.22 Schieffer and Gates, p. 341; George Bush, p. 203.23 Marie D. Natoli, ‘‘The Vice Presidency: Gerald Ford as

Healer?’’ Presidential Studies Quarterly 10 (Fall 1980): 662–64; Schieffer and Gates, pp. 313–14; Cannon, pp. 265–67;Reagan, pp. 214–16; Michael Deaver, Behind the Scenes (NewYork, 1987), pp. 96–97; Barbara Bush, p. 169.

24 Cannon, pp. 262–63; Schieffer and Gates, p. 125.25 Barbara Bush, p. 182; Green, pp. 185–96; George Bush

to Senator Mark Hatfield, April 14, 1995, Senate HistoricalOffice files.

26 George Bush, pp. 217–32.27 Schieffer and Gates, p. 318.28 George Bush, p. 233; Schieffer and Gates, p. 320.29 Barbara Bush, pp. 194–97; Schieffer and Gates, p. 318.30 Schieffer and Gates, p. 319.31 William S. Cohen and George J. Mitchell, Men of Zeal:

A Candid Inside Story of the Iran-Contra Hearings (New York,1989), p. 268; see also Theodore Draper, A Very Thin Line:The Iran-Contra Affairs (New York, 1991).

32 George Bush, pp. 240–41; Green, pp. 216–18; Cohen andMitchell, p. 264; Schieffer and Gates, pp. 347–50; Jack W.Germond and Jules Witcover, Whose Bright Stripes and BrightStars? The Trivial Pursuit of the Presidency, 1988 (New York,1989), pp. 118–30.

33 Schieffer and Gates, pp. 321–23, 342–45; Germond andWitcover, pp. 65–80, 101–18.

34 Barbara Bush, pp. 224–25; Schieffer and Gates, pp. 353–55, 373; Germond and Witcover, pp. 399–467.

35 Schieffer and Gates, pp. 365–67; Germond andWitcover, pp. 375–95; David S. Broder and Bob Woodward,The Man Who Would be President: Dan Quayle (New York,1992), p. 15.

36 George F. Will, The Leveling Wind: Politics, the Cultureand Other News, 1990–1994 (New York, 1994), pp. 282–94;on Bush and the Persian Gulf War, see Bob Woodward, TheCommanders (New York, 1991).

37 Barbara Bush, p. 498.

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Chapter 44

J. DANFORTH QUAYLE1989–1993

J. DANFORTH QUAYLE

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Chapter 44

J. DANFORTH QUAYLE44th Vice President: 1989–1993

The essence of the vice presidency is preparedness.—VICE PRESIDENT DAN QUAYLE

New Orleans’ Spanish Plaza, on a hot Augustday in 1988, teemed with people waiting for theSS Natchez to steam down the Mississippi River.On board the riverboat was Vice PresidentGeorge Bush, soon to become the Republicannominee for president of the United States. Fran-tically pushing their way through the mob on theplaza were Indiana Senator Dan Quayle and hiswife Marilyn. Those who had been standing inthe broiling sun for hours understandably werenot anxious to make way for the late arrivals.Only the Quayles knew that he was to join Bushon deck to be announced as the vice-presidentialcandidate. Bush had insisted that the choice re-main secret to add drama to the event. ‘‘This wasnot the best-planned episode in political his-tory,’’ Quayle lamented. The Quayles wavedvainly at Bush’s staff members on the boat butwent unnoticed until South Carolina SenatorStrom Thurmond and a few others on boardpointed them out in the crowd, and the SecretService parted the way for the Quayles to board.Barbara Bush later commented that ‘‘Dan andMarilyn had trouble getting to the platform be-cause they looked too young and no one realizedwhy they needed to be up there.’’ 1

More of a problem for Quayle than reachingthe boat was being taken seriously once he gotthere. Bush’s tactic of not revealing his vice-pres-idential choice until the last moment added sus-pense to an otherwise predictable convention butdid a disservice to Quayle. Little known to thenational media and to the public outside of his

own state, the forty-one-year-old senator foundhis public identity shaped by some unfortunatefirst impressions. Jacketless on the swelteringdeck, Quayle grabbed Bush’s arm and shouted‘‘Let’s go get ’em!’’ He reminded reporters lessof a vice-presidential candidate than an elatedgame show contestant who had just won a car.Even Bush’s own staff had to order speedy back-ground research to find out about their nominee.When keen observers like journalists DavidBroder and Bob Woodward and political sci-entist Richard Fenno examined his backgroundand positions closely, Quayle appeared fairlysubstantial. Yet his initial image as a lightweightmade his selection seem so inappropriate that theentire vice-presidency, in the metaphor of jour-nalist Jules Witcover, appeared to be a‘‘crapshoot.’’ 2

The media legitimately wanted to know whatcredentials Quayle possessed for the nation’s sec-ond-highest job. Could he confirm reports thathe had been a poor student? What was his fami-ly’s financial standing? Had he dodged the Viet-nam War? Quayle did not handle these initial in-quiries well. He seemed tongue-tied and flus-tered, wearing a stunned expression that Bush’smedia adviser Roger Ailes described as ‘‘thatdeer-in-the-headlights look.’’ Campaign man-agers made things worse by staging Quayle’sfirst formal news conference in his home townof Huntington, Indiana, among a crowd of sup-porters so protective of their candidate and hos-

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tile to the reporters that the event souredQuayle’s relations with the press from the start.3

A Problem of Perception

Quayle perceived himself quite differentlyfrom the image he saw in the general media. Thepress pictured him as wealthy, because hisgrandfather Eugene Pulliam owned radio sta-tions and such newspapers as the IndianapolisStar and the Arizona Republic. But Quayle arguedthat his own family had lived a much more mod-est, middle-class life. His grandfather had actu-ally left his money in a series of trusts designedto protect the financial security of his news-papers rather than to enrich his family.

Born on February 4, 1947, in Indianapolis, theson of Corrine Pulliam Quayle and James C.Quayle, he was named James Danforth Quayleafter a college friend of his father who was killedin World War II. James Quayle, a manager forthe Pulliam newspapers, moved the family toScottsdale, Arizona, in the mid-1950s and thenback to Huntington, Indiana, in 1963, where hepublished the Huntington Herald-Press. DanQuayle grew up in a Republican family—he re-called once walking behind his grandfather andhis golfing partner Dwight Eisenhower—and thefamily newspapers were staunchly conservative.But Dan Quayle ‘‘was never much of a studentgovernment type,’’ and at DePauw Universityhis prime interests were golf and the DeltaKappa Epsilon fraternity. He described himselfas a ‘‘late bloomer,’’ and admitted that he en-joyed the movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off becauseit reminded him of his own lackadaisicalschooldays.4

Intending to go to law school, Quayle realizedthat his draft deferment would expire when hegraduated from DePauw in 1969. He thereforechose to join the Indiana National Guard, whichwould most likely keep him out of the VietnamWar. Countless other young men of his genera-tion were making similar decisions, but this actwould have serious consequences when Quaylewas selected to run for vice president. Grilled byBush’s staff regarding whether he had any re-grets about going into the Guard rather than toVietnam, he replied, ‘‘I did not know in 1969 thatI would be in this room today, I’ll confess.’’ A

related question was whether Quayle’s familypulled any strings to get him into the Guard.Interviewed during the convention, Quaylecould not recall any special connections but spec-ulated that ‘‘phone calls were made.’’ Identifica-tion with his family’s newspaper had furtherhelped gain him assignment as an informationofficer with the Guard’s public relations unit.5

After his six months in the National Guard,Quayle applied to Indiana University LawSchool. His poor college grades kept him out ofthe main law school in Bloomington, but he wasadmitted to the night school in Indianapolis.Quayle studied harder in law school, findingtime also to work as a research assistant for thestate attorney general, as an administrative as-sistant in the governor’s office, and as directorof inheritance taxes for the state department ofrevenue. A joint project on a capital punishmentbrief introduced him to fellow law studentMarilyn Tucker, and a short courtship led totheir marriage ten weeks later in 1972. Two yearslater, after they both passed the bar exam on thesame day (and in the same month that their firstchild was born) the Quayles moved back to Hun-tington. They set up a law practice, Quayle andQuayle, in the building that housed his father’snewspaper. Marilyn handled most of the legalbusiness, while Dan spent his time as an associ-ate publisher of the paper. His real career objec-tive, however, was politics rather than journal-ism. They chose a house in a district representedin the state legislature by a Democrat, whomQuayle planned to challenge in 1976.6

Upset Victories

Unexpectedly, in February 1976, Republicancounty chairman Orvas Beers approached thetwenty-nine-year-old Quayle and asked him torun for Congress. ‘‘You mean now?’’ the aston-ished Quayle asked, thinking of his plan to startin the state legislature. Beers explained that noone else wanted to run for the House seat againsteight-term Democrat Ed Roush. After consultingwith his wife and his father, and obtaining prom-ises from Beers to provide enough money tomount a creditable campaign, Quayle an-nounced his candidacy. Copying Jimmy Carter’sstyle, Quayle ran as a Washington ‘‘outsider,’’ at-

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tacking the Democratic Congress and Roush’sliberal voting record. While he went out cam-paigning, Marilyn Quayle set up a headquartersin a back room of Mother’s Restaurant in FortWayne, where she ‘‘met with the county chair-men and stroked everybody and made every-body fall into place.’’ Rather than rely on theparty organization, Quayle developed his owncadre of volunteers, drawn especially, as henoted, from ‘‘the Christian community.’’ Roushfailed to take his challenger seriously and agreedto a series of debates that gave the newcomermuch-needed exposure. Election day providedample Republican coattails, as Indianans casttheir votes for Republicans Gerald Ford for presi-dent, Otis Bowen for governor, and RichardLugar for senator. Dan Quayle upset Ed Roushwith 54 percent of the vote. In the wake of thevictory, both Dan and Marilyn Quayle sus-pended their law practice.7

Congressman Quayle began his term by intro-ducing a term-limit bill that would restrict him-self and his colleagues to no more than twelveyears’ service. He identified himself as a critic of‘‘the old ways’’ and as an opponent of pork bar-rel politics, congressional pay raises, and govern-ment bureaucracy. Yet Quayle had a lacklusterattendance record in the House, often skippingcommittee meetings and missing votes to playgolf. People referred to him as a ‘‘wet head,’’ be-cause he always seemed to be coming from theHouse gymnasium. The House never engagedhis interest. ‘‘Almost as soon as I was in, I want-ed out—or up,’’ he admitted. Since, as a fresh-man member of the minority party, Quaylewould have little influence over legislation, hedevoted most of his attention to constituent serv-ices and building a strong base back home,spending most of his second year running for re-election. For years Quayle’s district had beenconsidered marginal, with only a few percentagepoints dividing the two parties. But in 1978 hewon reelection by a smashing two-to-one mar-gin, causing people to talk about him challengingBirch Bayh for the Senate.8

Quayle approached ‘‘Doc’’ Bowen, the populargovernor of Indiana, offering to support Bowenfor the Senate in 1980 but stating that, if Bowenchose not to run, then Quayle would declare his

own candidacy. He repeated that message to Re-publican leaders across the state. Bowen’s deci-sion in 1979 not to make the Senate race clearedthe way for Quayle. As a thirty-three-year-oldchallenger, Quayle reversed the tables on the vet-eran Bayh, who himself had challenged andupset a three-term incumbent while still in histhirties. It was a classic race of a liberal versusa conservative, with the two men differing onevery issue from abortion to welfare. The politi-cal scientist Richard Fenno joined Quayle on thecampaign trail while the candidate was still thedecided underdog. ‘‘He struck me as a remark-ably handsome kid, but more kid even thanhandsome,’’ Fenno noted. ‘‘As a campaigner, hewas a natural—vigorous (but not polished) inspeech, attentive in personal contact, open in dia-logue and undaunted by potentially unfriendlyaudiences.’’ The National Conservative PoliticalAction Committee (NCPAC) and the Moral Ma-jority ran ads attacking Bayh, but, even more sig-nificantly, double-digit inflation and unemploy-ment in the state undermined the incumbent.Ronald Reagan’s 1980 challenge to Jimmy Carterprovided a further boost to Republican senato-rial candidates. Carter dragged down to defeatwith him such senior Democratic senators asGeorge McGovern, Frank Church, Warren Mag-nuson, and Birch Bayh. For the first time since1952, Republicans won control of the Senate.9

Quayle found it both a curse and a blessing tobe so constantly underestimated. Like Roush,Bayh had agreed to a series of debates, assumingthat he could easily outshine his opponent. Bythe end of the campaign, Bayh regretted the deci-sion. Although not particularly articulate as a de-bater, Quayle exuded confidence and dem-onstrated his highly competitive nature. Evenafter this second impressive upset, however,Quayle arrived in the Senate identified as a‘‘golden boy’’ who had led a ‘‘charmed life.’’ Re-inforcing this image, his name surfaced in a scan-dal in March 1981, when it was revealed that heand two representatives on a golfing weekend inFlorida had shared a cottage with an attractivefemale lobbyist. Both representatives lost theirseats in the next election, while Quayle lost face.He also found the transition to the Senate dif-

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ficult, especially missing the afternoon basketballgames in the House gym. ‘‘There aren’t manysenators under thirty-five with children undersix,’’ he observed (the Quayles by then had threesmall children). Sessions in the Senate ran lateinto the nights. Good advice, however, camefrom Senator Mark Hatfield, who took Quayleaside and said, ‘‘Look, you’re young and you’vegot a family. Make time for them.’’ MarilynQuayle later commented that there was probablynot another U.S. senator who rearranged hisschedule to coach his sons’ basketball teams.10

Building a Record in the Senate

In choosing committees, Quayle had hoped forForeign Relations and Finance. Instead he wasassigned to Armed Services, Budget, and Laborand Human Resources. Initially, Quayle showedno interest in the Labor Committee but took itwhen he determined that he could achieve se-niority there faster than on any other committee.In the past, freshman senators had to bide theirtime before they could chair a committee, butSenate reforms in the 1970s had ensured thatmost new senators of the majority party wouldchair a subcommittee. Quayle had sought tochair the Labor Committee’s subcommittee onHealth, but committee chairman Orrin Hatchchose that spot for himself. Instead, Quaylechaired the Employment and Productivity Sub-committee, which would handle the reauthoriza-tion of the Comprehensive Employment andTraining Act (CETA). During his campaign,Quayle had criticized CETA as one of the worstexamples of big government programs, yet herecognized that any jobs program would impacton the high unemployment in Indiana.11

President Ronald Reagan was leading a con-certed effort to trim government spending on do-mestic programs, particularly those identifiedwith the welfare state. Quayle also wanted to cutgovernment, but he had stepped up from rep-resenting a single, fairly prosperous district toserving a state with a severe unemployment cri-sis. ‘‘The scale of problems Gary has is so muchgreater than Fort Wayne,’’ he commented. IfCETA were abolished, who would help poor andunskilled workers retrain? Since the members ofthe slim Republican majority might not be united

on this issue, Quayle sought to build a bipartisancoalition. He sidestepped the subcommittee’scantankerous ranking Democrat, Ohio SenatorHoward Metzenbaum, and forged an alliance in-stead with Massachusetts Senator Edward M.Kennedy. When reporters asked about this prag-matic union, which flew in the face of ideologicaldifferences, Quayle replied:

They don’t know who Dan Quayle is in Massa-chusetts. But they do know who Ted Kennedy isin Indiana. I don’t think there will be any recall.Actually, the fact that the two of us would gettogether underscores the seriousness of the prob-lem of unemployment, and it emphasizes ourcommitment.12

The Quayle-Kennedy alliance caught theReagan administration off guard and disruptedits plan to let CETA expire. The administrationcountered with an alternative bill, but Quayle’sbipartisan approach enabled him to negotiate be-tween Kennedy, Hatch, and the Reagan adminis-tration. The eventual Quayle-Kennedy bill re-sulted in creation of the Jobs Training Partner-ship Act of 1982. Senator Kennedy congratulatedQuayle for having worked hard to develop acommon consensus while remaining consistentwith his own principles. Both congressionalDemocrats and the Reagan administrationclaimed credit for the act, and to Quayle’s dis-may the White House scheduled the signingceremony for a day when he would be out oftown. Still, his success won considerable atten-tion, gave him credibility as an effective senator,and provided him with ammunition for his Sen-ate reelection campaign.13

In foreign affairs, Quayle was eclipsed by Indi-ana’s senior senator, Richard Lugar, who chairedthe Foreign Relations Committee. Yet Quayle in-volved himself in foreign policy issues throughthe Armed Services Committee. As a freshman,he took the lead in persuading other freshmenRepublicans to reach a compromise on a Reaganadministration plan to sell AWACS surveillanceplanes to Saudi Arabia. Quayle arranged forReagan to sign a ‘‘letter of certification’’ that sat-isfied enough otherwise doubtful senators to winapproval for the sale. Quayle was also willing totake positions independent of the administra-

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tion. In 1987, as the Intermediate Nuclear Forces(INF) Treaty moved toward completion, Quaylejoined a group of conservative Republican sen-ators in opposition. When President Reagan ac-cused them of accepting the inevitability of war,Quayle denounced the president’s comments as‘‘totally irresponsible.’’ A question arose overwhether the treaty covered such ‘‘futuristic’’weapons as lasers, particle beams and micro-waves. Both the State Department and the Sovi-ets agreed they were covered, but Quayle in-sisted they were not. (Later it became evidentthat the economic deterioration of the SovietUnion severely hampered its ability to competewith the United States in developing such so-phisticated space weapons.) ‘‘Senator Quaylecame at me repeatedly with complaints aboutthis issue,’’ Secretary of State George Shultz re-called. At last the secretary begged, ‘‘Dan, youhave to shut down! We can’t have the president’sachievement wrecked by Republicans!’’ The trea-ty was finally approved by a vote of 93 to 5, withQuayle voting in favor.14

Senate Republican Leader Howard Baker ap-pointed Quayle in 1984 to chair a special commit-tee to examine procedural chaos in the Senate.Quayle had impressed the leadership, as AlanEhrenhalt noted, for ‘‘asking troublesome ques-tions in a way that might lead to constructive an-swers.’’ The Quayle Committee argued that toomany committees and subcommittees stretchedsenators’ time too thin. It recommended that sen-ators serve on no more than two major commit-tees and one secondary committee and chair nomore than two committees or subcommittees.The panel urged that the number of committeeslots be reduced and called for no more than fivesubcommittees per committee. Reviewing floorprocedures in the Senate, the committee pro-posed limiting ‘‘nongermane’’ amendments andother dilatory tactics. None of these ruleschanges was adopted, but based on the report,seventeen senators gave up their extra committeeseats, and one committee reduced its subcommit-tees. Secretary of the Senate WilliamHildenbrand, who had followed the processclosely, called it remarkable that any senatorsgave up committee memberships, since they

‘‘had staff on those committees, and they didn’twant to lose staff.’’ Hildenbrand said Quaylesucceeded ‘‘beyond my wildest expectations.’’Quayle, however, considered the achievementsmore modest than the recommendations. He wasespecially disappointed when the Democrats re-versed several committee cutbacks after theywon back control of the Senate in 1987.15

These accomplishments gave Quayle a strongrecord on which to campaign in 1986, and he de-feated his opponent, Jill Long, by an impressive61 percent of the vote. His reelection was morenotable because, without Ronald Reagan head-ing the ticket, many other first-term Senate Re-publicans—including Mark Andrews of NorthDakota, Jeremiah Denton of Alabama, PaulaHawkins of Florida, and Mack Mattingly ofGeorgia—went down to defeat when they ran ontheir own. As a result, Democrats won enoughseats to regain the chamber’s majority. Quayle’smargin of victory was large enough to give himthoughts of running for president. But when VicePresident George Bush survived the Iran-Contrascandal and reestablished himself as the Repub-lican frontrunner, Quayle shifted his attention tothe vice-presidency.16

The Unexpected Vice-Presidential Candidate

No one runs for vice president so much asmaking oneself strategically available for the se-lection. Quayle consciously began to give moreSenate speeches, particularly on such high-pro-file issues as the INF Treaty. He issued morepress releases and wrote more op-ed pieces toraise his name recognition. He made a point ofdropping by George Bush’s office at the Capitolfor informal chats. He also maintained contactwith Bush’s campaign aides. He tried ‘‘as subtlyas I could, to make it clear I was both qualifiedand available.’’ 17

Although some of Bush’s top staff consideredQuayle a lightweight, the sixty-four-year-oldBush had compelling reasons for picking the In-diana senator as his running mate. Youthful andphotogenic, Quayle would appeal to a youngergeneration of voters. He had proven his abilityto campaign by his upset victories for the Houseand Senate. He had applied himself seriously asa senator, building a strong conservative voting

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record and receiving high marks from conserv-ative groups that were suspicious of Bush’s mod-eration. As a midwesterner, Quayle would addregional balance to Bush’s Texas-New Englandbackground. And especially since Quayle hadnot yet established a national identity, he wouldbe likely to remain dependent and deferential to-ward Bush, in much the same manner that Bushhad served Ronald Reagan. To maintain sus-pense about his choice, Bush kept his decisionsecret from everyone. Not until they were flyingto the convention in New Orleans, did Bushwhisper to his wife Barbara that he had chosenQuayle for vice president, because he felt Quaylewas respected as a senator, was bright, and ‘‘theright age.’’ 18

Neither Bush nor Quayle anticipated the incre-dulity and negative publicity that the selectionwould trigger. The press felt blindsided by thechoice of Quayle, and reporters scrambled to col-lect information about him. As the first personnamed to a national ticket who had been bornafter World War II and who had come of ageduring the Vietnam War, Quayle found that hisbackground was scrutinized differently than ithad been during his previous campaigns. Initialreports also distorted Quayle’s family financesand connections. The candidate himself hadtrouble perceiving himself the way others did.What seemed to him a normal, middle-class up-bringing appeared more affluent to others. DanCoats, who served on his staff and succeededhim in the House and Senate, observed: ‘‘stand-ing back and looking at the surface of his life,almost everyone would say it was fairly shel-tered, some would say privileged. Plenty of op-portunities to play golf; enough money in thefamily to live a comfortable lifestyle.’’ 19

Quayle blamed Bush’s aides for not makingavailable to the press more background materialabout his record and for allowing a hostile cari-cature to develop. With a sickening feeling,Quayle realized that ‘‘the stories and the jokesand the contempt were going to keep coming.’’Bush’s aides blamed Quayle’s inexperience indealing with the national press. He had a habitof not reading prepared texts that led him tomake offhand remarks, and the resulting inco-herent expressions and nonsequiturs fed the

monologues of late-night television comedians.Bush’s staff took over Quayle’s campaign anddesigned it to avoid drawing any attention awayfrom the presidential candidate. Quayle’s ‘‘han-dlers’’ prevented him from talking directly to thepress and arranged his schedule to skirt majorcities or other areas where the ticket was introuble.20

The lowest point of the campaign occurred onOctober 6, 1988, during his nationally televisedvice-presidential debate with the Democraticcandidate, Lloyd Bentsen. Quayle had promisedthe debate would give viewers ‘‘a much betterimpression’’ of him. Because the press paintedhim as a juvenile, unseasoned for national office,he had often responded that he had as much ex-perience in Congress as Jack Kennedy had whenhe sought the presidency. His advisers warnedthat a Kennedy analogy could backfire, but dur-ing the debate a nervous Quayle fell back on theline. When he did, Bentsen had a well-preparedresponse: ‘‘Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy.I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friendof mine. Senator, you are no Jack Kennedy.’’ Theaudience laughed and applauded, and the nextday Michael Dukakis’ campaign ran an ad fea-turing pictures of Bentsen and Quayle, with themessage: ‘‘This is the first presidential decisionthat George Bush and I had to make. Judge usby how we made it and who we chose.’’ But vot-ers rarely cast a ballot for or against a vice-presi-dential candidate. Despite bad publicity and neg-ative public opinion polls, Quayle was notenough of a liability to prevent George Bush’selection. On inauguration day, in January 1989,it was Senator Quayle not Senator Bentsenwho took the oath of office as vicepresident.21

Inside the Bush Administration

Bush’s staff described his White House as‘‘smaller, more collegial—intimate even’’ than ithad been under Reagan. The informal tone suit-ed Vice President Quayle well, and he enjoyedregular access to the president. Still, Quaylelacked the standing of such strong-minded offi-cials as Secretary of State James A. Baker, Officeof Management and Budget director RichardDarman, and White House Chief of Staff John

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Sununu. The top staff preferred that Quayle keepoccupied with ‘‘the traditional busywork of theNo. 2 job.’’ Marilyn Quayle, always her hus-band’s closest and most candid adviser, com-plained that the vice president’s overcrowdedschedule prevented him from focusing on spe-cific issues. Quayle countered by forming asmart, young staff (six of whom held Ph.D.s),headed by William Kristol, known as ‘‘the GreatReaganite Hope’’ in the Bush White House forarguing for conservative positions with Bush’smore moderate advisers. His staff—larger thanMondale or Bush’s vice-presidential staffs—worked to carve an independent identity forQuayle within the confines of the president’sagenda.22

Several former vice presidents offered Quaylesolicitous advice. Richard Nixon emphasized theneed for loyalty to the president. Walter Mon-dale counseled him not accept any ‘‘line item au-thority,’’ meaning responsibility for particularprograms, since the vice-presidency did not pro-vide the authority to carry out such tasks and hewould only be blocked by cabinet members andother centers of power within the administration.George Bush, who had held the job for the pre-vious eight years, suggested that he travel a lotto get some seasoning. Bush also encouragedQuayle to ‘‘say some things that the Presidentcannot say,’’ particularly on ideological themespopular with conservative groups. The presidentinvited his vice president to attend all significantmeetings to become fully informed about everyaspect of the presidency.23

Shortly after the election, Quayle asked: ‘‘Howam I going to spend my day?’’ He seriously con-sidered taking a more activist role as presidingofficer of the Senate. ‘‘The gavel is a very impor-tant instrument,’’ he insisted, ‘‘. . . an instrumentof power. An instrument that establishes theagenda.’’ The problem was that the Democratscontrolled the Senate, and the rules of the Senate,which allowed any ruling of the chair to be over-turned by a majority vote, made presiding morea responsibility than a power. Quayle soonlapsed back into the traditional legislative role ofthe vice-presidency. He visited Capitol Hillweekly for the regular luncheon meetings of Re-publican senators and stood ready when needed

to break a tie vote (although he never had an op-portunity to do so). He argued the administra-tion’s case on legislation and unsuccessfully triedto persuade senators to confirm John Tower assecretary of defense. Steadily he felt himself be-coming more a part of the executive than the leg-islative branch. ‘‘When I was in the Senate, Ithought it was disorganized but manageable,’’he mused. ‘‘From the viewpoint of the ExecutiveBranch, I found the Senate disorganized andunmanageable.’’ 24

Marilyn Quayle faced similar problems in de-fining her new role. The governor of Indianaasked if she would be interested in being ap-pointed to fill Dan’s Senate seat. The Quaylesbriefly considered the office but concluded thatit would not work, since the press would pounceupon the slightest disagreement between herselfand the Bush administration. She thought of re-suming her law career, but concluded that itraised the appearances of conflict of interest. Shechose instead to play a more traditional role ashostess and unofficial adviser. On the side, sheand her sister wrote and published Embrace theSerpent, a novel about politics, intrigue and a vicepresident’s wife.25

The vice-presidency was, in Quayle’s words,an ‘‘awkward job,’’ far more confining than hisyears in the House and Senate when he could de-termine for himself what he supported and whathe would say. Not only did the president set theprogram, but others in the administration heldjurisdiction for carrying it out and jealouslyguarded their territory. Quayle, who met earlyeach weekday morning with the president andhis national security adviser and lunched withthe president weekly, felt free to argue his posi-tions in any meeting. Once a decision was made,however, he loyally fell in behind, even if he hadopposed it. ‘‘Anyone who thinks cheerleadingfor a policy you don’t believe in amounts to hy-pocrisy doesn’t really understand the way gov-ernment has to work,’’ he insisted.26

Following the lead of his predecessors, Quayletraveled widely, giving speeches for the adminis-tration, raising funds for the Republican party,and introducing himself in foreign capitals. Atthe White House he chaired the White HouseCouncil on Competitiveness, which aimed at re-

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ducing burdensome regulations. Quayle re-ceived relatively little publicity for his efforts onthe council, in part because he thought deregula-tion could be achieved more easily if the councilworked behind the scenes and avoided clashingwith Congress. He received more press attentionfor chairing the National Space Council, whichcoordinated policy for the space program.27

On Capitol Hill, the vice president played a li-aison role with the conservative wing of the Re-publican party. His services proved most usefulin 1990, when a ‘‘budget summit’’ with congres-sional Democrats led Bush to break his ‘‘no-new-taxes’’ pledge. House Republicans revolted andvoted down the initial budget compromise.Georgia Representative Newt Gingrich com-mented that for several days conservatives in theHouse were no longer talking to budget directorRichard Darman or chief of staff John Sununu,leaving vice president Quayle as ‘‘the primarysource of information between the most activewing of the House Republican Party’’ and theBush administration. ‘‘Oddly enough,’’ Quayleconcluded, ‘‘I came out of the debacle somewhatenhanced within the party and the West Wing.’’He did not talk down to House Republicans inthe manner of Darman and Sununu, and he dem-onstrated that in private he could play a role asbroker and peacemaker. By contrast, his publicposition of blaming tax increases on the Demo-crats drove his ratings down further in the opin-ion polls.28

A similar gap between Quayle’s backstage ac-tivity and the public perception of him devel-oped in foreign policy matters. In late 1989, whenPresident Bush and Secretary of State Baker wereflying to a meeting with Mikhail Gorbachev atMalta, an attempted coup took place in the Phil-ippines. Quayle presided over the White HouseSituation Room, coordinating American effortsto ensure the survival of Philippine PresidentCorazon Aquino’s government. When those inthe Situation Room had reached a consensus toprovide air power to keep rebel planes from tak-ing off, rather than to bomb them as Aquino hadrequested, Quayle called Air Force One and hadBush awakened to present their recommenda-tion. Quayle prided himself on his crisis manage-ment, but since the activity took place away from

public view, and since he could not publicly bragabout his role, only ‘‘a small spate of welcomestories’’ appeared.29

In other matters of foreign policy, George Bushremained very much in command, leaving littleroom for his vice president other than to attendthe meetings and offer the president his support.In January 1991, just before ‘‘Operation DesertShield’’ changed to ‘‘Desert Storm,’’ Bush sentQuayle to the Middle East to meet with SaudiArabian leaders. On his own, Quayle determinedto visit American troops. He realized that thegesture might rekindle press ridicule of his Na-tional Guard service but decided that he had noother choice. ‘‘The fact is I had to do it,’’ he laterexplained. ‘‘The essence of the vice-presidency ispreparedness, and if I ever had to take over fromPresident Bush—especially at a time like this—I would not be able to function if I felt I couldn’tvisit the troops who would be under mycommand.’’ 30

The ‘‘Dump Quayle’’ Movement

Victory in the Persian Gulf War lifted Presi-dent Bush’s standing in the public opinion pollsto unprecedented heights. As leading Democratstook themselves out of contention, Bush seemedcertain of reelection in 1992. Quayle’s position onthe ticket received a boost from a seven-part se-ries of respectful articles by the prominent jour-nalists David Broder and Bob Woodward thatappeared in January 1992 on the front pages ofthe Washington Post. These were later publishedas a book, The Man Who Would Be President.Broder and Woodward argued that ‘‘serious as-sessments of Quayle have taken a back seat tojokes about him.’’ After his ‘‘gaffe-ridden per-formance’’ in 1988, he had been ‘‘saddled witha reputation as a lightweight and treated as a fig-ure of fun.’’ The press had focused on the vicepresident only when he did something that liveddown to their expectations. But Broder andWoodward concluded that ‘‘all jokes aside—DanQuayle has proved himself to be a skillful playerof the political game, with a competitive drivethat has been underestimated repeatedly by hisrivals.’’ 31

The election, however, turned out differentlythan expected. A persistent recession held the

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economy stagnant, and the Bush administrationmustered none of the decisiveness on economicissues that it had demonstrated in winning theGulf War. The president’s health also revivedworries about Quayle’s ability to succeed him.While jogging in May 1991, Bush suffered heartfibrillations, and plans were made for Quayle totake over presidential powers if Bush needed tobe anesthetized to regulate his heart beat. Thisnews inspired a tee-shirt featuring the EdvardMunch painting of ‘‘The Scream,’’ with the cap-tion: President Quayle? 32

The vice president still suffered from gaffes. Tohis dismay he heard that even Republican mem-bers of Congress were telling Quayle jokes, mostof them apocryphal, such as his comment thathis Latin American travels made him wish hehad studied Latin harder in school. The conserv-ative magazine American Spectator ran a coverstory on ‘‘Why Danny Can’t Read.’’ In May 1992,Quayle delivered a speech on family values inwhich he criticized the popular television pro-gram Murphy Brown for ‘‘mocking the impor-tance of fathers, by bearing a child alone.’’ Al-though even his critics conceded that the rise ofsingle-parent families was a cause for alarm, thevice president’s example of a fictional televisioncharacter seemed to trivialize his issue. The nextmonth brought an even more embarrassing flapwhen Quayle visited a school in Trenton, NewJersey, for a ‘‘little photo op,’’ helping studentsprepare for a spelling bee. The word was ‘‘po-tato.’’ The student at the blackboard spelled itcorrectly, but the card Quayle had been handedread ‘‘potatoe.’’ Television pictures of the vicepresident coaxing the puzzled student to mis-spell ‘‘potato’’ confirmed everyone’s worst sus-picions. ‘‘Boy, I hope this doesn’t hurt his credi-bility,’’ mocked comedian Jay Leno.33

During the summer of 1992, the Bush adminis-tration seemed increasingly vulnerable, andnervous Republicans urged the president todump Quayle from the ticket. Public opinionpolls showed him to be the least popular vicepresident in forty years, scoring even lower thanSpiro Agnew. The televised Persian Gulf Warhad also raised public awareness of other playersin the Bush administration, among them Sec-retary of Defense Dick Cheney and Chairman of

the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell, who beganto be mentioned as replacements for Quayle.However, the White House staff concluded thatchanging running mates would be a sign ofpanic, would make Bush appear disloyal, andwould serve as an admission that his originalchoice had been a mistake. Bush made it clearhe would stick with Quayle, while Quayle in atelevision interview said that he had Bush’s com-plete confidence and added, ‘‘Believe me, if Ithought I was hurting the ticket, I’d be gone.’’ 34

Now four years older, slightly grayer, andmore seasoned in the job, Quayle hoped that thereelection race would cast him in a more favor-able light. This time his own staff ran his cam-paign. Having been the first member of the post-war generation on a national ticket, Quayle thistime faced two more ‘‘baby boomers,’’ ArkansasGovernor Bill Clinton for president and Ten-nessee Senator Al Gore for vice president.Quayle and Gore both had come to the Housein 1977 and had played basketball together in theHouse gym. The orderly announcement of theDemocratic vice-presidential selection causedQuayle some envy: ‘‘It was hard for me to watchGore’s unveiling without thinking back to thechaos of Spanish Plaza in New Orleans and shak-ing my head.’’ Most of all, he anticipated that adebate with Gore could wipe the slate clean,erasing his faltering performance against Bent-sen four years earlier. It was a scrappy debate,with neither vice-presidential candidate conced-ing any points to the other. This time it was Ad-miral James Stockdale, running mate of third-party candidate Ross Perot, who seemed clearlyout of his depth. Although critics declared thedebate a draw, Quayle won by not losing. Col-umnist Charles Krauthammer described his per-formance as nervy: ‘‘His party facing annihila-tion, his colleagues deserting, his ammunitiongone, Quayle seemed determined to go downfighting. It was a display of frantic combative-ness that verged on courage.’’ 35

Returning to Huntington, Indiana, to vote onelection day, Quayle by chance encountered EdRoush, the man he had beaten for Congress inhis first race. The incident seemed a forewarningthat his decade and a half in politics ‘‘was com-ing full circle.’’ That night the Bush-Quayle ticket

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J. DANFORTH QUAYLE

lost with 38 percent of the vote to Clinton-Gore’s43 percent and Perot-Stockdale’s 19 percent. DanQuayle retired from the vice-presidency to writea popular memoir, Standing Firm, to appear in aFrito-Lay potato chip commercial, and to con-template his own race for president in 1996. Al-though he moved back to Indiana, he made itclear that he would not run for governor. ‘‘If Iever run for public office again,’’ he promised,‘‘it will be for president.’’ His every step seemedto point to a return to the national political arena,but serious illnesses, including blood clots in thelungs and a benign tumor on his appendix, con-vinced him to withdraw from the race. He an-nounced that he planned to put his family first‘‘and to forgo the disruption to our lives that athird straight national campaign wouldcreate.’’ 36

‘‘No Vice President took as many shots—un-fair shots—as Dan Quayle,’’ declared Senate Re-publican Leader Bob Dole. ‘‘And no Vice Presi-dent withstood those shots with as much grace,good humor, and commitment to not backdown.’’ Barbara Bush similarly saluted Quaylefor being ‘‘a superb vice president.’’ He was loyaland smart, she insisted. ‘‘There is no questionthat he had a perception problem, and it was po-litically chic to kick Dan around. It was darnedunfair.’’ Admitting that he had been bruised bythe experience, the former vice president kept hissense of humor. When asked about his handicapin golf, Quayle quipped: ‘‘My handicap is thesame as it has been ever since I became vicepresident: the news media.’’ 37

[ 553 ]

NOTES1 Dan Quayle, Standing Firm: A Vice-Presidential Memoir

(New York, 1994), pp. 3–9; Barbara Bush, Barbara Bush: AMemoir (New York, 1994), p. 226.

2 David S. Broder and Bob Woodward, The Man WhoWould Be President: Dan Quayle (New York, 1992), pp. 57,62; Richard F. Fenno, Jr., The Making of a Senator: Dan Quayle(Washington, 1989), pp. vii-viii; Jules Witcover, Crapshoot:Rolling the Dice on the Vice Presidency (New York, 1992), pp.4–11.

3 Witcover, p. 343; Broder and Woodward, p. 65; New YorkTimes, August 17, 25, 1988.

4 Broder and Woodward, pp. 37, 84–87; Quayle, p. 43;Maureen Dowd, ‘‘The Education of Dan Quayle,’’ New YorkTimes Magazine, (June 25, 1989), p. 20; Washington Post, Octo-ber 2, 1988.

5 Quayle, pp. 30–41; New York Times, August 26, 1988.6 Quayle, pp. 11–12; Fenno, pp. 3–4.7 Quayle, pp. 12–14; Broder and Woodward, pp. 33–46.8 Fenno, pp. 6–12, 30; Quayle, p. 14.9 Quayle, pp. 14–15; Broder and Woodward, pp. 47–51;

Fenno, p. 13.10 Fenno, pp. 21–22; Quayle, pp. 15–16; Washington Post,

August 18, 1988.11 Fenno, pp. 23–24, 35–36.12 Ibid., pp. 35–51, 61; Quayle, pp. 16–17.13 Fenno, pp. 69–118.14 Ibid., pp. 24–31; George P. Shultz, Turmoil and Triumph:

My Years as Secretary of State (New York, 1993), pp. 1007,1084–85.

15 Alan Ehrenhalt, Politics in America: Members of Congressin Washington and at Home (Washington, 1985), p. 498; Wil-liam F. Hildenbrand, Secretary of the Senate, Oral History Inter-views, 1985 (U.S. Senate Historical Office, Washington, DC),p. 331; Dan Quayle, ‘‘The New Senate: Two Steps Back-wards,’’ Congressional Record, 100th Cong., 1st sess., January13, 1987, pp. 1215–17; Temporary Select Committee to Studythe Senate Committee System, Report Together with ProposedResolutions, 98th Cong., 2d sess., S. Prt. 98–254.

16 Quayle, Standing Firm, p. 18.17 Ibid., pp. 18–19; Broder and Woodward, pp. 15–21.18 Quayle, Standing Firm, p. 18; Bush, pp. 225–26; Bob

Schieffer and Gary Paul Gates, The Acting President (NewYork, 1989), pp. 365–67.

19 Broder and Woodward, p. 36.

20 Quayle, Standing Firm, pp. 26–58; Schieffer and Gates,p. 366.

21 Washington Post, October 2, 1988; Quayle, Standing Firm,pp. 59–67; Jack W. Germond and Jules Witcover, WhoseBroad Stripes and Bright Stars? The Trivial Pursuit of the Presi-dency, 1988 (New York, 1989), pp. 435–44; Fitzhugh Green,George Bush: An Intimate Portrait (New York, 1989), p. 238.

22 John Podhoretz, Hell of a Ride: Backstage at the WhiteHouse Follies, 1989–1993 (New York, 1993), pp. 165, 219;Broder and Woodward, pp. 18–19, 120; Roll Call, September17, 1992.

23 Quayle, Standing Firm, pp. 74–76, 91–92; Dowd, p. 36;Dan Quayle to Senator Mark O. Hatfield, June 1995, SenateHistorical Office files.

24 Washington Post, December 3, 1988; Quayle to Hatfield,June 1995.

25 Quayle, Standing Firm, pp. 77–78; Broder and Wood-ward, pp. 155–74; Marilyn T. Quayle and Nancy T. North-cott, Embrace the Serpent (New York, 1992).

26 Broder and Woodward, pp. 90–91; Quayle, StandingFirm, p. 105.

27 Broder and Woodward, pp. 91–92, 125–52; Quayle,Standing Firm, pp. 177–90.

28 Broder and Woodward, p. 101; Quayle, Standing Firm,pp. 189–203.

29 Quayle, Standing Firm, pp. 145–239; Bob Woodward,The Commanders (New York, 1991), pp. 146–53.

30 Quayle, Standing Firm, p. 219; see also Paul G. Kengor,‘‘The Role of the Vice President During the Crisis in the Per-sian Gulf,’’ Presidential Studies Quarterly 24 (Fall 1994).

31 Broder and Woodward, p. 10.32 Washington Post, May 6, 1991; Quayle, Standing Firm,

pp. 251–63.33 Quayle, Standing Firm, pp. 131–32, 315–36; Dan Quayle,

‘‘Restoring Basic Values,’’ Vital Speeches of the Day 58 (June15, 1992), pp. 517–20.

34 Quayle, Standing Firm, pp. 255–56; 337–46; WashingtonPost, July 2, August 19, 1992.

35 Quayle, Standing Firm, pp. 337–38, 351–53; WashingtonPost, October 15, 1992.

36 Quayle, Standing Firm, p. 356; Washington Post, January13, 1993, February 10, 1995.

37 U.S., Congress, Senate, Congressional Record, 103dCong., 1st sess., January 27, 1993, p. S771; Bush, p. 447.

[ 555 ]

APPENDIXMajor Party Presidential and Vice-Presidential Candidates

Election Year Winners/Party Losers/Party

1788 George Washington (Federalist)John Adams

1792 George Washington (Federalist)John Adams

1796 John Adams (Federalist) Thomas Jefferson (Republican) 1

Thomas Jefferson

1800 Thomas Jefferson (Republican) John Adams (Federalist)Aaron Burr 2 Charles C. Pinckney

1804 Thomas Jefferson (Republican) Charles C. Pinckney (Federalist)George Clinton Rufus King

1808 James Madison (Republican) Charles C. Pinckney (Federalist)George Clinton Rufus King

1812 James Madison (Republican) DeWitt Clinton (Federalist)Elbridge Gerry Jared Ingersoll

1816 James Monroe (Republican) Rufus King (Federalist)Daniel Tompkins John E. Howard

1820 James Monroe (Republican) J. Q. Adams (Republican) 3

Daniel Tompkins Richard Stockton

1824 J.Q. Adams (National Republican) 4 Andrew Jackson (Republican)John C. Calhoun John C. Calhoun

1828 Andrew Jackson (Democrat) 5 J.Q. Adams (National Republican)John C. Calhoun Richard Rush

1832 Andrew Jackson (Democrat) Henry Clay (National Republican)Martin Van Buren John Sergeant

1836 Martin Van Buren (Democrat) W. H. Harrison/DanielRichard M. Johnson 6 Webster/H.L. White (Whig—

regional candidates) 7

Francis Granger/John Tyler

1840 W.H. Harrison (Whig) Martin Van Buren (Democrat)John Tyler 8 Richard M. Johnson 9

[ 556 ]

APPENDIX

Election Year Winners/Party Losers/Party

1844 James K. Polk (Democrat) Henry Clay (Whig)George M. Dallas Theodore Frelinghuysen

1848 Zachary Taylor (Whig) Lewis Cass (Democrat)Millard Fillmore William O. Butler

1852 Franklin Pierce (Democrat) Winfield Scott (Whig)William R. King William A. Graham

1856 James Buchanan (Democrat) John C. Fremont (Republican)John C. Breckinridge William L. Dayton

1860 Abraham Lincoln (Republican) Stephen A. Douglas (Democrat) 10

Hannibal Hamlin Herschel V. Johnson

1864 Abraham Lincoln (Republican) George B. McClellan (Democrat)Andrew Johnson 11 G. H. Pendleton

1868 Ulysses S. Grant (Republican) Horatio Seymour (Democrat)Schuyler Colfax Francis P. Blair, Jr.

1872 Ulysses S. Grant (Republican) Horace Greeley (Democrat) 12

Henry Wilson B. Gratz Brown

1876 Rutherford B. Hayes (Republican) Samuel J. Tilden (Democrat)William A. Wheeler Thomas Hendricks

1880 James Garfield (Republican) Winfield S. Hancock (Democrat)Chester A. Arthur William H. English

1884 Grover Cleveland (Democrat) James G. Blaine (Republican)Thomas A. Hendricks John A. Logan

1888 Benjamin Harrison (Republican) Grover Cleveland (Democrat)Levi P. Morton Allen G. Thurman

1892 Grover Cleveland (Democrat) Benjamin Harrison (Republican)Adlai E. Stevenson Whitelaw Reid

1896 William McKinley (Republican) William J. Bryan (Democrat)Garret A. Hobart Arthur Sewall

1900 William McKinley (Republican) William J. Bryan (Democrat)Theodore Roosevelt Adlai E. Stevenson

1904 Theodore Roosevelt (Republican) Alton B. Parker (Democrat)Charles W. Fairbanks Henry G. Davis

1908 William H. Taft (Republican) William J. Bryan (Democrat)James S. Sherman John W. Kern

[ 557 ]

APPENDIX

Election Year Winners/Party Losers/Party

1912 Woodrow Wilson (Democrat) Theodore Roosevelt (Progressive) 13

Thomas R. Marshall Hiram W. Johnson

1916 Woodrow Wilson (Democrat) Charles E. Hughes (Republican)Thomas R. Marshall Charles W. Fairbanks

1920 Warren G. Harding (Republican) James M. Cox (Democrat)Calvin Coolidge Franklin D. Roosevelt

1924 Calvin Coolidge (Republican) John W. Davis (Democrat) 14

Charles G. Dawes Charles W. Bryan

1928 Herbert C. Hoover (Republican) Alfred E. Smith (Democrat)Charles Curtis Joseph T. Robinson

1932 Franklin D. Roosevelt (Democrat) Herbert C. Hoover (Republican)John N. Garner Charles Curtis

1936 Franklin D. Roosevelt (Democrat) Alfred M. Landon (Republican)John N. Garner Frank Knox

1940 Franklin D. Roosevelt (Democrat) Wendell L. Willkie (Republican)Henry A. Wallace Charles L. McNary

1944 Franklin D. Roosevelt (Democrat) Thomas E. Dewey (Republican)Harry S. Truman John W. Bricker

1948 Harry S. Truman (Democrat) Thomas E. Dewey (Republican) 15

Alben W. Barkley Earl Warren

1952 Dwight D. Eisenhower (Repub.) Adlai E. Stevenson (Democrat)Richard M. Nixon John J. Sparkman

1956 Dwight D. Eisenhower (Repub.) Adlai E. Stevenson (Democrat)Richard M. Nixon Estes Kefauver

1960 John F. Kennedy (Democrat) Richard M. Nixon (Republican)Lyndon B. Johnson Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr.

1964 Lyndon B. Johnson (Democrat) Barry M. Goldwater (Republican)Hubert H. Humphrey William E. Miller

1968 Richard M. Nixon (Republican) Hubert H. Humphrey (Democrat)Spiro T. Agnew Edmund S. Muskie

1972 Richard M. Nixon (Republican) George S. McGovern (Democrat)Spiro T. Agnew R. Sargent Shriver 16

1976 Jimmy Carter (Democrat) Gerald R. Ford (Republican)Walter F. Mondale Robert J. Dole

[ 558 ]

APPENDIX

Election Year Winners/Party Losers/Party

1980 Ronald Reagan (Republican) Jimmy Carter (Democrat)George Bush Walter F. Mondale

1984 Ronald Reagan (Republican) Walter F. MondaleGeorge Bush Geraldine Ferraro

1988 George Bush (Republican) Michael S. Dukakis (Democrat)Dan Quayle Lloyd Bentsen

1992 Bill Clinton (Democrat) George Bush (Republican)Al Gore, Jr. Dan Quayle

NOTES1 Jefferson ran against Adams for president. Since he re-

ceived the second highest electoral vote, he automaticallybecame vice president under the system that existed at thetime. (See note 2.) ‘‘Republican’’ refers to two different par-ties widely separated in time: Jeffersonian Republicans ofthe late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and thepresent Republican party, which was founded in the 1850s.The election dates should make clear which of the two par-ties is intended.

2 In the nation’s early years, electors did not differentiatebetween their votes for president and vice president, andthe runner-up for president became vice president. In 1800Jefferson and Burr each received 73 electoral votes, thussending the election to the House of Representatives, whichselected Jefferson as president. Burr automatically becamevice president. This stalemate led to ratification of theTwelfth Amendment to the Constitution in 1804.

3 By 1820 the Federalist party was defunct, and a periodof party realignment began that continued until 1840 whenthe Whig and Democratic parties became established. In theinterim, party affiliations underwent considerable flux. Formuch of that time, the split fell between the supporters andopponents of Andrew Jackson. The pro-Jackson forcesevolved into the Democratic party, while those opposingJackson eventually coalesced into the Whig party.

4 All the presidential candidates in 1824 were Repub-licans—although of varying persuasions—and Calhoun hadsupport for the vice-presidency from both the Adams andJackson camps. As no presidential candidate received thenecessary majority of electoral votes, the House of Rep-resentatives made the decision. Calhoun, however, receiveda clear majority (182 of 260) of the vice-presidential electoralvotes.

5 The Democratic party was not yet formally created dur-ing Jackson’s two terms as president but developed laterfrom his supporters. (See note 3.)

6 As no vice-presidential candidate received a majority ofelectoral votes in 1836, the Senate for the only time in itshistory selected the vice president.

7 For a discussion of the early origins of the Whig partyin the 1836 election, see Chapter 9, ‘‘Richard Mentor John-son,’’ p. 127, and Chapter 10, ‘‘John Tyler,’’ p. 139.

8 Although Tyler ran on the Whig ticket, he remained aDemocrat throughout his life.

9 The Democratic party initially failed to nominate a vice-presidential candidate in 1840 but ultimately backed John-son. (See Chapter 9, p. 130.)

10 John C. Breckinridge and Joseph Lane were the presi-dential and vice-presidential nominees of the SouthernDemocratic party that year. John Bell and Edward Everettran on the Constitutional Union party ticket.

11 Johnson was a War Democrat, who ran on a fusion tick-et with Republican President Abraham Lincoln. (See Chap-ter 16, p. 215.)

12 Also the candidates of the Liberal Republican party.13 William Howard Taft and James S. Sherman were the

Republican presidential and vice-presidential candidates.14 Robert M. La Follette and Burton K. Wheeler were the

presidential and vice-presidential nominees of the Progres-sive party that year.

15 J. Strom Thurmond and Fielding L. Wright were thepresidential and vice-presidential nominees of the States’Rights Democratic party that year.

16 Added to the ticket on August 8, 1972, after the resigna-tion of Thomas Eagleton.

[ 559 ]

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

This selected bibliography includes general works dealing with the history of the vice-presidency as well as studiesand published works of the individuals who have served as vice president from 1789 to 1993. ‘‘Campaign biographies’’are not included, except for those vice presidents who lack more scholarly biographies. Period histories are omitted, butpresidential histories likely to provide useful background information are listed as appropriate. The voluminous literaturedealing with the Twenty-fifth Amendment is not included.

GENERAL REFERENCES

Bayh, Birch. One Heartbeat Away: Presidential Disability andSuccession. Indianapolis, 1968.

Cantor, Joseph E. ‘‘The Vice Presidency and the Vice Presi-dents: A Selected Annotated Bibliography.’’ CongressionalResearch Service Report No. 84–124 L, October 1, 1976. Re-vised July 31, 1984 by George H. Walser.

David, Paul D. ‘‘The Vice Presidency: Its Institutional Evo-lution and Contemporary Status.’’ Journal of Politics 29 (No-vember 1967): 721–48.

Dorman, Michael. The Second Man: The Changing Role of theVice Presidency. New York, 1968.

Feerick, John. From Failing Hands. New York, 1965.

————. ‘‘The Problem of Presidential Inability—WillCongress Ever Solve It.’’ Fordham Law Review 32 (1963): 73–134.

————. The Twenty-Fifth Amendment. New York, 1976.

Ferrell, Robert H. Ill Advised: Presidential Health and PublicTrust. Columbia, MO, 1992.

Goldstein, Joel L. The Modern American Vice Presidency: TheTransformation of a Political Institution. Princeton, NJ, 1982.

Graf, Henry F. ‘‘A Heartbeat Away.’’ American Heritage 15(August 1964).

Hatch, Louis C., and Shoup, Earl L. A History of the Vice-Presidency of the United States. New York, 1934.

Kiser, George C. ‘‘Presidential Primaries: Stepping-Stonesto the Vice Presidential Nomination?’’ Presidential StudiesQuarterly 22 (Summer 1992): 493–517.

Learned, Henry B. ‘‘Casting Votes of the Vice Presidents,1789–1915.’’ American Historical Review 20 (April 1915): 571–76.

————. ‘‘Some Aspects of the Vice Presidency.’’ AmericanPolitical Science Review 7 (February 1913 supp.): 162–77.

Medina, J. Michael. ‘‘The American Vice President: Towarda More Utilized Institution.’’ George Mason University LawReview 13 (Fall 1990): 77–111.

Paullin, Charles O. ‘‘The Vice President and the Cabinet.’’American Historical Review 29 (April 1924): 496–500.

Tompkins, Dorothy C. The Office of Vice President: A SelectedBibliography. Berkeley, CA, 1957.

Waugh, Edgar Wiggins. Second Consul: The Vice-Presidency:Our Greatest Political Problem. Indianapolis, 1956.

Wilhelm, Stephen J. ‘‘The Origins of the Office of the VicePresidency.’’ Presidential Studies Quarterly 7 (Fall 1977): 208–14.

Williams, Irving G. The American Vice-Presidency: New Look.Garden City, NY, 1954.

————. ‘‘Senators, Rules, and Vice-Presidents.’’ ThoughtPatterns 5 (1957): 21–35.

————. The Rise of the Vice Presidency. Washington, 1956.

Witcover, Jules. Crapshoot: Rolling the Dice on the Vice-presi-dency. New York, 1992.

Young, Donald. American Roulette: The History and Dilemmaof the Vice Presidency. New York, 1974.

Young, Klyde, and Lamar Middleton. Heirs Apparent: TheVice Presidents of the United States. 1948. Reprint. Freeport,NY, 1969.

JOHN ADAMS (Chapter 1)Adams, John. Diary and Autobiography. Edited by Lyman H.Butterfield. 4 vols. Cambridge, MA, 1961.

Adams, John. Papers of John Adams. Edited by Robert J. Tay-lor, Mary-Jo Kline, Gregg L. Lint, et al. 8 vols. Cambridge,MA, 1977–1989.

Bowling, Kenneth R., and Veit, Helen E. The Diary of WilliamMaclay and Other Notes on Senate Debates. Documentary His-tory of the First Federal Congress, 1789–1791, vol. 9. Baltimore,1988.

Dauer, Manning J. The Adams Federalists. 1953. Reprint. Bal-timore, 1968.

Ellis, Joseph J. Passionate Sage: The Character and Legacy ofJohn Adams. New York, 1993.

Ferling, John. John Adams: A Life. Knoxville, TN, 1992.

Guerrero, Linda Dudik. ‘‘John Adams’ Vice Presidency,1789–1797: The Neglected Man in the Forgotten Office.’’

[ 560 ]

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Santa Barbara,1978.

Howe, John R., Jr. The Changing Political Thought of JohnAdams. Princeton, NJ, 1966.

Hutson, James H. ‘‘John Adams’ Titles Campaign.’’ NewEngland Quarterly 41 (1968): 34–41.

Shaw, Peter. The Character of John Adams. Chapel Hill, NC,1976.

Smith, Page. John Adams. 2 vols. 1962–1963. Reprint. Nor-walk, CT, 1988.

THOMAS JEFFERSON (Chapter 2)Brown, Ralph Adams. The Presidency of John Adams. Law-rence, KS, 1975.

Cunningham, Noble E., Jr. The Jeffersonian Republicans: TheFormation of Party Organization, 1789–1801. Chapel Hill, NC,1957.

Gibbs, George. Memoirs of the Administrations of Washingtonand John Adams. 2 vols. New York, 1846.

U.S. Congress. Senate. A Manual of Parliamentary Practice, byThomas Jefferson. 1801. Reprint. S. Doc., 103–8, 102d Cong.,2d sess., 1993.

Jefferson, Thomas. The Life and Selected Writings of ThomasJefferson. Edited, and with an introduction by AdrienneKoch and William Peden. New York, 1944.

————. The Writings of Thomas Jefferson. Edited by PaulLeicester Ford. 10 vols. New York, 1892–1899.

Kurtz, Stephen G. The Presidency of John Adams: The Collapseof Federalism, 1795–1800. Philadelphia, 1975.

Malone, Dumas. Jefferson and the Ordeal of Liberty. Jeffersonand His Time, vol. 3. Boston, 1962.

Peterson, Merrill D. Thomas Jefferson and the New Nation: ABiography. 1970. Reprint. Norwalk, CT, 1987.

AARON BURR (Chapter 3)Abernethy, Thomas Perkins. The Burr Conspiracy. 1954. Re-print. Gloucester, MA, 1968.

Alexander, Holmes Moss. Aaron Burr, the Proud Pretender.1937. Reprint. Westport, CT, 1973.

Burr, Aaron. Memoirs of Aaron Burr. 2 vols. 1836–1837. Re-print. New York, 1971.

Cunningham, Noble E., Jr. The Jeffersonian Republicans inPower: Party Operations, 1801–1809. Chapel Hill, NC, 1963.

————. The Process of Government Under Jefferson. Prince-ton, NJ, 1978.

Harrison, Lowell. ‘‘John Breckinridge and the Vice-Presi-dency, 1804: A Poltical Episode.’’ Filson Club History Quar-terly 26 (April 1952): 155–65.

Kline, Mary-Jo, and Joanne Wood Ryan, eds. Papers of AaronBurr. Ann Arbor, MI, 1978–1981. Microfilm, 27 reels andguide, 1 supplemental reel.

————. The Political Correspondence and Public Papers ofAaron Burr. 2 vols. Princeton, NJ, 1983.

Lomask, Milton. Aaron Burr. 2 vols. New York, 1979–1982.

Malone, Dumas. Jefferson the President: First Term, 1801–1805.Jefferson and His Time, vol. 4. Boston, 1970.

Mitchill, Samuel Latham. ‘‘Dr. Mitchill’s Letters from Wash-ington, 1801–1813.’’ Harper’s New Monthly Magazine 58(April 1879): 740–55.

Pancake, John S. ‘‘Aaron Burr: Would-Be Usurper.’’ Williamand Mary Quarterly 8 (April 1951).

Parmet, Herbert S., and Marie B. Hecht. Aaron Burr: Portraitof An Ambitious Man. New York, 1967.

Plumer, William. William Plumer’s Memorandum of Proceed-ings in the United States Senate, 1803–1807. Edited by EverettS. Brown. 1923. Reprint. New York, 1969.

Reports of the Trials of Colonel Aaron Burr. David Robertson,Reporter. 1808. Reprint. New York, 1969.

Slaughter, Thomas P. ‘‘Conspiratorial Politics: The PublicLife of Aaron Burr.’’ New Jersey History 103 (Spring/Sum-mer 1985): 69–81.

Thomas, Gordon L. ‘‘Aaron Burr’s Farewell Address.’’Quarterly Journal of Speech 39 (1953).

GEORGE CLINTON (Chapter 4)Cunningham, Noble E., Jr. The Jeffersonian Republicans inPower: Party Operations, 1801–1809. Chapel Hill, NC, 1963.

————. The Process of Government Under Jefferson. Prince-ton, NJ, 1978.

Kaminski, John P. George Clinton: Yeoman Politician of theNew Republic. Madison, WI, 1993.

Malone, Dumas. Jefferson the President: Second Term, 1805–1809. Jefferson and His Time, vol. 5. Boston, 1974.

Plumer, William. William Plumer’s Memorandum of Proceed-ings in the United States Senate,1803–1807. Edited by EverettS. Brown. 1923. Reprint. New York, 1969.

Rutland, Robert Allen. The Presidency of James Madison. Law-rence, KS, 1990.

Spaulding, Ernest Wilder. His Excellency George Clinton, Crit-ic of the Constitution. 1938. Reprint. Port Washington, NY,1964.

ELBRIDGE GERRY (Chapter 5)Austin, James T. The Life of Elbridge Gerry. 2 vols. 1828–1829.Reprint. New York, 1970.

Billias, George Athan. Elbridge Gerry, Founding Father and Re-publican Statesman. New York, 1976.

Learned, Henry B. ‘‘Gerry and the Presidential Successionin 1813.’’ American Historical Review 22 (October, 1916): 94–97.

Rutland, Robert Allen. The Presidency of James Madison. Law-rence, KS, 1990.

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DANIEL D. TOMPKINS (Chapter 6)Ammon, Harry. James Monroe: The Quest for National Identity.1971. Reprint. Charlottesville, VA, 1990.

Irwin, Ray W. Daniel D. Tompkins: Governor of New York andVice President of the UnitedStates. New York, 1968.

Jenkins, John S. Lives of the Governors of New York. Auburn,NY, 1852.

Mooney, Chase C. William Crawford, 1772–1834. Lexington,KY, 1974.

Rayback, Joseph G. ‘‘A Myth Re-examined: Martin VanBuren’s Roles in the Presidential Election of 1816.’’ Proceed-ings of the American Philosophical Society 124 (April 29, 1980):106–18.

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Tompkins, Daniel D. Public Papers of Daniel D. Tompkins,Governor of New York, 1807–1817. 3 vols. New York, 1898–1902.

JOHN CALDWELL CALHOUN (Chapter 7)Capers, Gerald M. John C. Calhoun, Opportunist: A Re-Ap-praisal. Gainesville, FL, 1960.

Coit, Margaret L. John C. Calhoun: American Portrait. 1950.Reprint, with new introduction by Clyde N. Wilson. Colum-bia, SC, 1991.

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Ewing, Gretchen Garst. ‘‘Duff Green, John C. Calhoun, andthe Election of 1828.’’ South Carolina Historical Magazine 79(April 1978): 126–37.

Hay, Robert P. ‘‘The Pillorying of Albert Gallatin: The Pub-lic Response to His 1824 Vice-Presidential Nomination.’’Western Pennsylvania Historical Magazine 65 (June 1982): 181–202.

Hay, Thomas R. ‘‘John C. Calhoun and the PresidentialCampaign of 1824.’’ North Carolina Historical Review 12(1935): 20–44.

Meriwether, Robert M., W. Edwin Hemphill, and Clyde N.Wilson, eds. The Papers of John C. Calhoun. 22 vols. to date.Columbia, SC, 1987.

Niven, John. John C. Calhoun and the Price of Union. BatonRouge, LA, 1988.

Peterson, Merrill D. The Great Triumvirate: Webster, Clay andCalhoun. New York, 1987.

‘‘Sketch of the Life of J.C. Calhoun, Vice-President of theUnited States.’’ The Casket 3 (March 1827): 81–82.

Stenberg, Richard R. ‘‘The Jefferson Birthday Dinner, 1830.’’Journal of Southern History 4 (1938): 334–46.

————. ‘‘A Note on the Jackson-Calhoun Breach of 1830–1831.’’ Tyler’s Quarterly Historical and Genealogical Magazine21 (1939): 480–96.

Wiltse, Charles M. John C. Calhoun. 3 vols. 1944–1951. Re-print. New York, 1968.

MARTIN VAN BUREN (Chapter 8)Cole, Donald B. Martin Van Buren and the American PoliticalSystem. Princeton, NJ, 1984.

————. The Presidency of Andrew Jackson. Lawrence, KS,1993.

Curtis, James C. ‘‘In the Shadow of Old Hickory: The Politi-cal Travail of Martin Van Buren.’’Journal of the Early Republic1 (Fall 1981): 249–68.

Fitzpatrick, John C., ed. The Autobiography of Martin VanBuren. 2 vols. 1920. Reprint. New York, 1973. Originallypublished as American Historical Association Annual Reportfor the Year 1918, vol. 2.

Gammon, Samuel Rhea, Jr. The Presidential Campaign of 1832.Baltimore, 1922.

Mintz, Max M. ‘‘The Political Ideas of Martin Van Buren.’’New York History 30 (October 1949): 422–48.

Moody, Robert D. ‘‘The Influence of Martin Van Buren onthe Career and Acts of Andrew Jackson.’’ Papers of the Michi-gan Academy of Science, Arts and Letters 7 (1926): 225–40.

Niven, John. Martin Van Buren: The Romantic Age in Amer-ican Politics. New York, 1983.

Remini, Robert V. Andrew Jackson and the Course of AmericanDemocracy, 1833–1845. New York, 1984.

————. Martin Van Buren and the Making of the DemocraticParty. New York, 1959.

RICHARD MENTOR JOHNSON (Chapter 9)Bolt, Robert. ‘‘Vice-President Richard M. Johnson of Ken-tucky: Hero of the Thames—or the Great Amalgamator?’’Register of the Kentucky Historical Society 74 (July 1977): 191–203.

Brown, Thomas. ‘‘The Miscegenation of Richard MentorJohnson as an Issue in the National Election Campaign of1835–1836.’’ Civil War History 29 (1993): 5–30.

Curtis, James C. The Fox at Bay: Martin Van Buren and thePresidency, 1837–1841. Lexington, KY, 1970.

Meyer, Leland Winfield. The Life and Times of Colonel RichardM. Johnson of Kentucky. 1932. Reprint. New York, 1967.

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Padgett, James A., ed. ‘‘The Letters of Colonel Richard M.Johnson of Kentucky.’’ Register of the Kentucky Historical So-ciety 38 (1940): 186–201, 323–39; 39 (1941): 22–46, 172–88,260–74, 358–67; 40 (1942): 69–91.

Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr. The Age of Jackson. Boston, 1945.

Sprague, Stuart S. ‘‘The Death of Tecumseh and the Riseof Rumpsey Dumpsey: The Making of a Vice President.’’Filson Club History Quarterly 59 (October 1985): 455–61.

Williams, Major L. The Presidency of Martin Van Buren. Law-rence, KS, 1984.

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JOHN TYLER (Chapter 10)Adams, John Quincy. The Diary of John Quincy Adams, 1794–1845: American Diplomacy, and Political, Social and IntellectualLife from Washington to Polk. Edited by Alan Nevins. 1928.Reprint of 1951 ed. New York, 1969.

Chitwood, Oliver P. John Tyler, Champion of the Old South.1939. Reprint. New York, 1964.

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GEORGE MIFFLIN DALLAS (Chapter 11)Ambacher, Bruce I. ‘‘George M. Dallas: Leader of the ’Fam-ily’ Party.’’ Ph.D. dissertation, Temple University, 1971.

————. ‘‘George M. Dallas and the Bank War.’’ Pennsylva-nia History 42 (April 1975): 117–35.

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Bergeron, Paul H. The Presidency of James K. Polk. Lawrence,KS, 1987.

Burt, Struthers. ‘‘George Mifflin Dallas [1792–1864]: TheOther Vice-President from Princeton.’’ In The Lives of Eight-een from Princeton, edited by Willard Thorp, pp. 178–91.1946. Reprint. Freeport, NY, 1968.

Dallas, George Mifflin. Diary of George Mifflin Dallas, UnitedStates Minister to Russia, 1837–1839. 1892. Reprint. NewYork, 1970.

Nichols, Roy, ed. ‘‘The Library: The Mystery of the DallasPapers.’’ Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 73:349–92, 475–517.

MILLARD FILLMORE (Chapter 12)Barre, W. L. The Life and Public Services of Millard Fillmore.1856. Reprint. New York, 1971.

Dix, Dorothea Lynde. The Lady and the President: The Lettersof Dorothea Dix & Millard Fillmore. Lexington, KY, 1975.

Fillmore, Millard. Millard Fillmore Papers. Edited by FrankHayward Severence. 2 vols. Buffalo, NY, 1907.

————. Millard Fillmore Papers. Edited by Lester W. Smith.Buffalo, NY, 1975. Microfilm. 68 reels and guide.

Rayback, Robert J. Millard Fillmore: Biography of a President.Buffalo, NY, 1959.

WILLIAM RUFUS KING (Chapter 13)Martin, John M. ‘‘William R. King and the Vice Presidency.’’Alabama Review 16 (January 1963): 35–54.

Martin, John M. ‘‘William Rufus King: Southern Moderate.’’Ph.D. dissertation, University of North Carolina, 1955.

————. ‘‘William R. King: Jacksonian Senator.’’ AlabamaReview 18 (October 1985).

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JOHN CABELL BRECKINRIDGE (Chapter 14)Davis, William C. Breckinridge: Statesman, Soldier, Symbol.Baton Rouge, LA, 1974.

Harrison, Lowell H. ‘‘John C. Breckinridge: Nationalist,Confederate, Kentuckian.’’ Filson Club History Quarterly 47(April 1973): 125–44.

Heck, Frank H. ‘‘John C. Breckinridge in the Crisis of 1860–1861.’’ Journal of Southern History 21 (August 1955): 316–46.

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Stillwell, Lucille. Born to Be a Statesman: John Cabell Breckin-ridge. Caldwell, ID, 1936.

HANNIBAL HAMLIN (Chapter 15)Fite, Emerson David. The Presidential Campaign of 1860. 1911.Reprint. Port Washington, NY, 1967.

Hamlin, Charles Eugene. The Life and Times of Hannibal Ham-lin. 2 vols. 1899. Reprint. Port Washington, NY, 1971.

Hunt, H. Draper. Hannibal Hamlin of Maine: Lincoln’s FirstVice-President. Syracuse, NY, 1969.

————. ‘‘President Lincoln’s First Vice President: Hanni-bal Hamlin of Maine.’’ Lincoln Herald 88 (Winter 1986): 137–44.

Luthin, Reinhard H. The First Lincoln Campaign. 1944. Re-print. Gloucester, MA, 1964.

Scroggins, Mark. Hannibal: The Life of Abraham Lincoln’s FirstVice President. Lanham, MD, 1993.

ANDREW JOHNSON (Chapter 16)Benedict, Michael Les. The Impeachment and Trial of AndrewJohnson. New York, 1972.

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Graf, LeRoy P., Ralph W. Haskins, Paul H. Bergeron, eds.The Papers of Andrew Johnson. 12 vols. to date. Knoxville, TN,1967– .

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Hardison, Edwin T. ‘‘In the Toils of War: Andrew Johnsonand the Federal Occupation of Tennessee.’’ Ph.D. disserta-tion, University of North Carolina, 1981.

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Trefousse, Hans L. Andrew Johnson: A Biography. New York,1989.

SCHUYLER COLFAX (Chapter 17)Hesseltine, William Best. Ulysses S. Grant, Politician. 1935.Reprint. New York, 1957.

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HENRY WILSON (Chapter 18)Abbott, Richard. Cobbler in Congress: The Life of Henry Wilson,1812–1875. Lexington, KY, 1972.

Hesseltine, William Best. Ulysses S. Grant, Politician. 1935.Reprint. New York, 1957.

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Wilson, Henry. History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Powerin America. 3 vols. 1872–1877. Reprint. New York, 1969.

WILLIAM ALMON WHEELER (Chapter 19)Davison, Kenneth E. The Presidency of Rutherford B. Hayes.Westport, CT, 1972.

Hoogenboom, Ari Arthur. The Presidency of Rutherford B.Hayes. Lawrence, KS, 1988.

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Otten, James T. ‘‘Grand Old Partyman: William A. Wheelerand the Republican Party, 1850–1880.’’ Ph.D. dissertation,University of South Carolina, 1976.

CHESTER ALAN ARTHUR (Chapter 20)Arthur, Chester Alan. Chester A. Arthur Papers. Microfilm.3 reels. Washington, 1959.

Doenecke, Justus D. The Presidencies of James A. Garfield andChester A. Arthur. Lawrence, KS, 1981.

Howe, George Frederick. Chester A. Arthur, A Quarter-Cen-tury of Machine Politics. 1935. Reprint. New York, 1957.

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THOMAS ANDREWS HENDRICKS (Chapter 21)Gray, Ralph D. ‘‘Thomas A. Hendricks: Spokesman for theDemocracy.’’ In Gentlemen from Indiana: National Party Can-didates, 1836–1940, edited by Ralph D. Gray, pp. 117–39. In-dianapolis, 1977.

Hensel, William. ‘‘A Biographical Sketch of Thomas A. Hen-dricks, Nominee for the Vice-Presidency of the UnitedStates.’’ In Life and Public Services of Hon. Grover Cleveland,by William Dorshimer. Philadelphia, 1884.

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LEVI PARSONS MORTON (Chapter 22)Harney, Gilbert L. The Lives of Benjamin Harrison and LeviP. Morton. Providence, RI, 1888.

Katz, Irving. ‘‘Investment Bankers in American Govern-ment and Politics: The Political Activities of William C. Cor-coran, August Belmont, Sr., Levi P. Morton, and Henry LeeHigginson.’’ Ph.D. dissertation, New York University, 1964.

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ADLAI EWING STEVENSON (Chapter 23)Baker, Jean H. The Stevensons: A Biography of an AmericanFamily. New York, 1996.

Schlup, Leonard. ‘‘The Political Career of the First Adlai E.Stevenson.’’ Ph.D. dissertation, University of Illinois at Ur-bana-Champaign, 1973.

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————. ‘‘Vilas, Stevenson, and Democratic Politics, 1883–1892.’’ North Dakota Quarterly 44 (Winter 1976): 44–52.

————. ‘‘Adlai E. Stevenson and the 1892 Campaign inAlabama.’’ Alabama Review 29 (January 1976): 3–15.

————. ‘‘Adlai E. Stevenson’s Campaign Visits to WestVirginia.’’ West Virginia History 38 (January 1977): 126–35.

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————. ‘‘Grover Cleveland and His 1892 Running Mate.’’Studies in History and Society 2 (Fall 1977): 60–74.

————. ‘‘Adlai E. Stevenson’s Campaign Visits to Ken-tucky in 1892.’’ Register of the Kentucky Historical Society 75(April 1977): 112–20.

————. ‘‘Adlai E. Stevenson and the 1892 Campaign inVirginia.’’ Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 86 (July1978): 345–54.

————. ‘‘Democratic Talleyrand: Adlai E. Stevenson andPolitics in the Gilded Age and Progressive Era.’’ South At-lantic Quarterly 78 (Spring 1979): 182–94.

————. ‘‘Presidential Disability: The Case of Clevelandand Stevenson.’’ Presidential Studies Quarterly 9 (Summer1979): 303–10.

————. ‘‘Vice-President Stevenson and the Politics of Ac-commodation.’’ Journal of Political Science 7 (Fall 1979): 30–39.

————. ‘‘Adlai E. Stevenson and the Southern Campaignof 1892.’’ Quarterly Review of Historical Studies 17 (August1977): 7–14.

————. ‘‘Adlai E. Stevenson and Presidential Politics inthe Cleveland Era.’’ International Review of History and Politi-cal Science 16 (August 1979): 1–10.

————. ‘‘Gilded Age Politician: Adlai E. Stevenson of Illi-nois and His Times.’’ Illinois Historical Journal 82 (Winter1989): 219–30.

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GARRET AUGUSTUS HOBART (Chapter 24)Glynn, Martin H. In Memoriam. Garret A. Hobart, Vice-Presi-dent of the United States. Washington, 1900.

Hobart, Jennie Tuttle (Mrs. Garret A. Hobart). Memories.Patterson, NJ, 1930.

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THEODORE ROOSEVELT (Chapter 25)Blum, John Morton. The Republican Roosevelt. Cambridge,MA, 1954.

Chessman, G. Wallace. Theodore Roosevelt and the Politics ofPower. Boston, 1969.

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Lodge, Henry Cabot, and Charles Redmond, eds. Selectionsfrom the Correspondence of Theodore Roosevelt and Henry CabotLodge, 1884–1918. 2 vols. 1925. Reprint. New York, 1971.

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————. Theodore Roosevelt, An Autobiography. 1913. Re-print, with new introduction by Elting Morison. New York,1985.

————. The Works of Theodore Roosevelt. National ed.Edited by Hermann Hagedorn. 20 vols. New York, 1927.

Schlup, Leonard. ‘‘Theodore Roosevelt and Adlai Steven-son: An Examination of Differences in 1900.’’ Theodore Roo-sevelt Association Journal (Spring 1989): 2–7.

CHARLES WARREN FAIRBANKS (Chapter 26)Gould, Lewis L. ‘‘Charles Warren Fairbanks and the Repub-lican National Convention of 1900: A Memoir.’’ IndianaMagazine of History 77 (December 1981): 358–72.

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Rissler, Herbert J. ‘‘Charles Warren Fairbanks: ConservativeHoosier.’’ Ph.D. dissertation, Indiana University, 1961.

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Smith, William Henry. The Life and Speeches of Hon. CharlesW. Fairbanks, Republican Candidate for Vice-President. Indian-apolis, 1904.

JAMES SCHOOLCRAFT SHERMAN (Chapter 27)Coletta, Paolo E. The Presidency of William Howard Taft. Law-rence, KS, 1973.

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THOMAS RILEY MARSHALL (Chapter 28)Brown, John R. ‘‘Woodrow Wilson’s Vice-President: Thom-as R. Marshall and the Wilson Administration, 1913–1921.’’Ph.D. dissertation, Ball State University, 1970.

Canfield, Leon Hardy. The Presidency of Woodrow Wilson:Prelude to a World in Crisis. Rutherford, NJ, 1966.

Lincoln, A. ‘‘Theodore Roosevelt, Hiram Johnson, and theVice Presidential Nomination of 1912.’’ Pacific Historical Re-view 28 (August 1959): 267–83.

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Smith, Gene. When the Cheering Stopped: The Last Years ofWoodrow Wilson. 1964. Reprint with introduction by AllanNevins. Alexandria, VA, 1982.

Thomas, Charles M. Thomas Riley Marshall: Hoosier States-man. Oxford, OH, 1939.

CALVIN COOLIDGE (Chapter 29)Bagby, Wesley M. The Road to Normalcy: The PresidentialCampaign and Election of 1920. Baltimore, 1962.

————. ‘‘The ’Smoke-Filled Room’ and the Nominationof Warren G. Harding.’’ Mississippi Valley Historical Review41 (March 1955).

Coolidge, Calvin. The Autobiography of Calvin Coolidge. 1929.Reprint. Rutland, VT, 1984.

————. The Price of Freedom: Speeches and Addresses. NewYork, 1924.

Fuess, Claude M. Calvin Coolidge, The Man From Vermont.1940. Reprint of 1965 ed. Westport, CT, 1976.

Margulies, Herbert F. ‘‘Senator Irvine Lenroot and the Re-publican Vice Presidential Nomination of 1920.’’ WisconsinMagazine of History 61 (Autumn 1977): 21–31.

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White, William Allen. A Puritan in Babylon: The Story of Cal-vin Coolidge. 1938. Reprint. Gloucester, MA, 1973.

CHARLES GATES DAWES (Chapter 30)Ackerman, Carl W. Dawes—The Doer! New York, 1924.

Dawes, Charles G. A Journal of the McKinley Years. Chicago,1950.

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CHARLES CURTIS (Chapter 31)Ewy, Marvin. Charles Curtis of Kansas: Vice-President of theUnited States, 1929–1933. Emporia, KS, 1961.

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JOHN NANCE GARNER (Chapter 32)Fisher, Ovie C. Cactus Jack. Waco, TX, 1978.

Garner, John Nance. ‘‘This Job of Mine.’’ American Magazine118 (July 1934): 23, 96.

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HENRY AGARD WALLACE (Chapter 33)Markowitz, Norman D. The Rise and Fall of the People’s Cen-tury: Henry A. Wallace and American Liberalism, 1941–1948.New York, 1973.

Schapsmeier, Edward L., and Frederick H. Schapsmeier.Henry A. Wallace of Iowa: the Agrarian Years, 1910–1940.Ames, IA, 1968.

————. Prophet in Politics: Henry A. Wallace and the WarYears, 1940–1965. Ames, IA, 1973.

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————. Henry A. Wallace Papers at the University of Iowa.Edited by Earl M. Rogers. Iowa City, IA, 1974. Microfilm.67 reels and guide.

————. The Price of Vision: The Diary of Henry A. Wallace,1942–1946. Edited by John Morton Blum. Boston, 1973.

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————. The Reminiscences of Henry Agard Wallace. Colum-bia University Oral History Program Collection, part 3, no.40. Glen Rock, NJ, 1977. Microfilm. 2 reels.

————. Whose Constitution? An Inquiry into the GeneralWelfare. 1936. Reprint. Westport, CT, 1971.

HARRY S. TRUMAN (Chapter 34)Asbell, Bernard. When F.D.R. Died. New York, 1961.

Bishop, Jim. FDR’s Last Year: April 1944–April 1945. NewYork, 1974.

Daniels, Jonathan. The Man of Independence. 1950. Reprint.Port Washington, NY, 1971.

Donovan, Robert J. Conflict and Crisis: The Presidency of HarryS Truman, 1945–1948. New York, 1977.

Ferrell, Robert H. Choosing Truman: The Democratic Conven-tion of 1944. Columbia, MO, 1994.

————. Harry S. Truman: A Life. Columbia, MO, 1994.

————, ed. The Autobiography of Harry S Truman. Boulder,CO, 1980.

Flynn, Edward J. You’re the Boss. New York, 1947.

Goldman, Elliot. ‘‘Justice William O. Douglas: The 1944 VicePresidential Nomination and His Relationship with Roo-sevelt, an Historical Perspective.’’ Presidential Studies Quar-terly 12 (Summer 1982): 377–85.

Hamby, Alonzo L. Man of the People: A Life of Harry S. Tru-man. New York, 1995.

Heaster, Brenda L. ‘‘Who’s on Second: The 1944 DemocraticPresidential Nomination.’’ Missouri Historical Review (Janu-ary 1986).

Helm, William P. Harry Truman, A Political Biography. NewYork, 1947.

Kirkendall, Richard S. ‘‘Truman’s Path to Power.’’ SocialScience 43 (1968): 67–73.

McClure, Arthur F., and Donna Costigan. ‘‘The TrumanVice Presidency: Constructive Apprenticeship or Brief Inter-lude?’’ Missouri Historical Review 65 (April 1971): 318–41.

McCullough, David G. ‘‘ ‘I Hardly Know Truman’.’’ Amer-ican Heritage 43 (July/August 1992): 46–64.

————. Truman. New York, 1992.

Parker, Daniel F. ‘‘The Political and Social Views of HarryS Truman.’’ Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pennsylvania,1951.

Partin, John W. ‘‘Roosevelt, Byrnes, and the 1944 Vice-Presi-dential Nomination.’’ Historian 42 (1979): 85–100.

Rovin, Fern R. ‘‘Politics and the Presidential Election of1944.’’ Ph.D. dissertation, Indiana University, 1973.

Steinberg, Alfred. The Man from Missouri: The Life and Timesof Harry S Truman. New York, 1962.

Truman, Harry S. Memoirs. 2 vols., Garden City, NY, 1955–1956.

Tugwell, Rexford Guy. How They Became President: Thirty-five Ways to the White House.New York, 1964.

ALBEN W. BARKLEY (Chapter 35)Barkley, Alben W. That Reminds Me. Garden City, NY, 1954.

Barkley, Jane R. and Francis Spatz Leighton. I Married theVeep. New York, 1958.

Claussen, E. Neal. ‘‘Alben Barkley’s Rhetorical Victory in1948.’’ Southern Speech Communications Journal 45 (1979): 79–92.

Davis, Polly Ann. Alben W. Barkley, Senate Majority Leaderand Vice President. New York, 1979.

————. ‘‘Alben W. Barkley: Vice President.’’ Register of theKentucky Historical Society 76 (April 1978): 112–32.

Libbey, James K. Dear Alben. Mr. Barkley of Kentucky. Lexing-ton, KY, 1979.

Wallace, H. Lew. ‘‘Alben Barkley and the Democratic Con-vention of 1948.’’ Filson Club History Quarterly 55 (July 1981):231–52.

RICHARD MILHOUS NIXON (Chapter 36)Aitken, Jonathan. Nixon—A Life. Washington, 1993.

Ambrose, Stephen E. Nixon. 2 vols. to date. New York, 1987–1989.

Casper, Dale C. Richard M. Nixon: A Bibliographic Exploration.New York, 1988.

De Toledano, Ralph. Nixon. Rev. and expanded ed. NewYork, 1960.

Goldstein, Joel K. ‘‘The American Vice-Presidency, 1953–1978.’’ Ph.D. dissertation, Oxford University (London),1978.

Mazo, Earl and Stephen Hess. Nixon: A Political Portrait.New York, 1968.

Nixon, Richard M. RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon. NewYork, 1978.

————. Six Crises. 1962. Reprint, with new introduction.New York, 1990.

‘‘Nixon’s Own Story of Seven Years in the Vice-Presi-dency.’’ U.S. News and World Report 48 (May 16, 1960): 98–106.

Pach, Chester J., Jr., and Elmo Richardson. The Presidencyof Dwight D. Eisenhower. 1979. Rev. ed. Lawrence, KS, 1991.

Rovere, Robert H. ‘‘Letter from Washington: National Secu-rity Council and Cabinet Under Direction of Mr. Nixon.’’New Yorker 31 (October 8, 1955): 179–86.

LYNDON BAINES JOHNSON (Chapter 37)Baker, Leonard. The Johnson Eclipse: A President’s Vice Presi-dency. New York, 1966.

Caro, Robert A. The Years of Lyndon Johnson. 2 vols. to date.New York, 1982-.

Dalleck, Robert. Lone Star Rising: Lyndon Johnson and HisTimes, 1908–1960. 1 vol. to date. New York, 1991.

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Evans, Rowland and Robert Novak. Lyndon B. Johnson: TheExercise of Power, A Political Biography. New York, 1966.

Goldstein, Joel K. ‘‘The American Vice-Presidency, 1953–1978.’’ Ph.D. dissertation, Oxford University (London),1978.

Johnson, Lyndon B. The Vantage Point: Perspectives of thePresidency, 1963–1969. New York, 1971.

Kearns, Doris. Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream. NewYork, 1976.

Lester, Robert Leon. ‘‘Developments in Presidential-Con-gressional Relations: FDR-JFK.’’ Ph.D. dissertation, Univer-sity of Virginia, 1969.

Light, Paul C. ‘‘The Institutional Vice Presidency.’’ Presi-dential Studies Quarterly 13 (Spring 1983): 198–211.

Riccards, Michael P. ‘‘Rare Counsel: Kennedy, Johnson andthe Civil Rights Bill of 1963.’’ Presidential Studies Quarterly11 (1981): 395–98.

White, William S. The Professional: Lyndon B. Johnson. Boston,1964.

HUBERT HORATIO HUMPHREY (Chapter 38)Broder, David. ‘‘Triple H Brand of Vice Presidency.’’ NewYork Times Magazine (December 6, 1964).

Eisele, Albert. Almost to the Presidency: A Biography of TwoAmerican Politicians. Blue Earth, MN, 1972.

Garrettson, Charles Lloyd, III. Hubert H. Humphrey: The Poli-tics of Joy. New Brunswick, NJ, 1993.

Goldstein, Joel K. ‘‘The American Vice-Presidency, 1963–1978.’’ Ph.D. dissertation, Oxford University (London),1978.

Humphrey, Hubert H. ‘‘Changes in the Vice Presidency.’’Current History 67 (August, 1974): 58–59, 89–90.

Humphrey, Hubert H. The Education of a Public Man: My Lifeand Politics. Edited by Norman Sherman. 1976. New ed.Minneapolis, 1991.

Natoli, Marie D. ‘‘The Humphrey Vice Presidency in Retro-spect.’’ Presidential Studies Quarterly 12 (Fall 1982): 603–9.

Pomper, Gerald. ‘‘The Nomination of Hubert Humphreyfor Vice-President.’’ Journal of Politics 28 (August 1966).

Ryskind, Allan H. Hubert: An Unauthorized Biography of theVice President. New York, 1968.

U.S. Congress. Memorial Addresses. 95th Congress, 2d ses-sion, 1978. Washington, 1978.

SPIRO THEODORE AGNEW (Chapter 39)Agnew, Spiro T. Addresses and State Papers of Spiro T. Agnew,Governor of Maryland, 1967–1969. Edited by Franklin L.Burdett. 2 vols. Annapolis, MD, 1975.

Agnew, Spiro T. Collected Speeches of Spiro Agnew. NewYork, 1971.

————. Go Quietly . . . Or Else. New York, 1980.

————. The Canfield Decision. Chicago, 1976.

————. Where He Stands. New York, 1968.

Aiken, George D. Aiken: Senate Diary, January 1972-January1975. Brattleboro, VT, 1976.

Albright, Joseph. What Makes Spiro Run: The Life and Timesof Spiro Agnew. New York, 1972.

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Coyne, John R., Jr. The Impudent Snobs: Agnew vs. the Intellec-tual Establishment. New Rochelle, NY, 1972.

Goldstein, Joel K. ‘‘The American Vice-Presidency, 1953–1978.’’ Ph.D. dissertation, Oxford University (London),1978.

Witcover, Jules. White Knight: The Rise of Spiro Agnew. NewYork, 1972.

GERALD R. FORD (Chapter 40)Firestone, Bernard, and Alexej Ugrinsky, eds. Gerald R. Fordand the Politics of Post-Watergate America. 2 vols. Westport,CT, 1993.

Ford, Betty, with Chris Chase. The Times of My Life. NewYork, 1978.

Ford, Gerald R. A Time to Heal: The Autobiography of GeraldR. Ford. 1979. Reprint. Norwalk, CT, 1987.

————. Selected Speeches. Edited by Michael V. Doyle. Ar-lington, VA, 1973.

Ford, Gerald R., et al. ‘‘On the Threshold of the WhiteHouse.’’ Atlantic Monthly 234 (July, 1974): 63–72.

‘‘Gerald R. Ford: Close Scrutiny Before Confirmation.’’ Con-gressional Quarterly 31 (20 October 1973): 2759–72.

Goldstein, Joel K. ‘‘The American Vice-Presidency, 1953–1978.’’ Ph.D. dissertation, Oxford University, 1978.

‘‘Michigan Congressman GOP Vice Presidential Possibil-ity.’’ Congresssional Quarterly 22 (10 July 1964): 1445–48.

Mollenhoff, Clark R. The Man Who Pardoned Nixon. NewYork, 1976.

Natoli, Marie D. ‘‘The Vice Presidency: Gerald Ford as Heal-er?’’ Presidential Studies Quarterly 10 (Fall 1980): 662–64.

Reeves, Richard. A Ford, Not a Lincoln. New York, 1975.

Schapsmeier, Edward L., and Frederick H. Schapsmeier.Gerald R. Ford’s Date With Destiny: A Political Biography. NewYork, 1989.

Syers, William A. ‘‘The Political Beginnings of Gerald R.Ford: Anti-Bossism, Internationalism, and the Congres-sional Campaign of 1948.’’ Presidential Studies Quarterly 20(Winter 1990): 127–42.

Sidey, Hugh. Portrait of a President. New York, 1975.

TerHorst, Jerald F. Gerald Ford and the Future of the Presi-dency. New York, 1974.

U.S. Congress. House. Committee on the Judiciary. Nomina-tion of Gerald R. Ford to the Vice Presidency of the United States.

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Hearings, 93rd Cong., 1st sess. November 15–26, 1973.Washington, 1973.

U.S. Congress. Senate. Committee on Rules and Adminis-tration. Nomination of Gerald R. Ford of Michigan to be VicePresident of the United States. Hearings, 93rd Cong., 1st sess.November 1–14, 1973. Washington, 1993.

U.S. Congress. Tributes to Honorable Gerald R. Ford, Presidentof the United States. 95th Cong., 1st sess., 1977. Washington,1977.

NELSON ALDRICH ROCKEFELLER (Chapter 41)Bales, Peter Relyea. ‘‘Nelson Rockefeller and His Quest forInter-American Unity.’’ Ph.D. dissertation, State Universityof New York, Stony Brook, 1992.

Connery, Robert H., and Gerald Benjamin. Rockefeller of NewYork: Executive Power in the Statehouse. Ithaca, NY, 1979.

Desmond, James. Rockefeller. New York, 1964.

Firestone, Bernard, and Alexej Ugrinsky, eds. Gerald R. Fordand the Politics of Post-Watergate America. 2 vols. Westport,CT, 1993.

Goldstein, Joel K. ‘‘The American Vice-Presidency, 1953–1978.’’ Ph.D. dissertation, Oxford University (London),1978.

Kramer, Michael S., and Sam Roberts. ‘‘I Never Wanted tobe Vice-President of Anything’’: An Investigative Biography ofNelson Rockefeller. New York, 1976.

Library of Congress. Congressional Research Service. Analy-sis of the Philosophy and Public Record of Nelson A. Rockefeller,Nominee for Vice President of the United States. 93rd Cong.,2d sess. House. Committee Print. Washington, 1974.

Light, Paul C. ‘‘Vice-Presidential Influence Under Rocke-feller and Mondale.’’ Political Science Quarterly 98 (Winter1983–1984): 617–40.

————. Vice-Presidential Power: Advice and Influence in theWhite House. Baltimore, 1984.

Morris, Joe Alex. Nelson Rockefeller, A Biography. New York,1960.

Persico, Joseph E. The Imperial Rockefeller: A Biography of Nel-son A. Rockefeller. New York, 1982.

Rockefeller, Nelson A. The Future of Freedom: A BicentennialSeries of Speeches. Washington, 1976.

Turner, Michael. The Vice President as Policy Maker: Rocke-feller in the Ford White House. Westport, CT, 1982.

Underwood, James E., and William J. Daniels. GovernorRockefeller in New York: The Apex of Pragmatic Liberalism inthe United States. Westport, CT, 1982.

U.S. Congress. House. Committee on the Judiciary. Nomina-tion of Nelson A. Rockefeller to be Vice President of the UnitedStates. Hearings, 93rd Cong., 2d sess. November 21-Decem-ber 5, 1974. Washington, 1974.

————. Selected Issues and the Positions of Nelson A. Rocke-feller, Nominee for Vice President of theUnited States: An Analy-sis. 93rd Cong., 2d sess. Committee Print. Washington, 1974.

U.S. Congress. Senate. Committee on Rules and Adminis-tration. Nomination of Nelson A. Rockefeller of New York to beVice President of the United States. Hearings, 93rd Cong., 2dsess. September 23-November 18, 1974. Washington, 1974.

U.S. Congress. Memorial Addresses. 96th Cong., 1st sess.,1979. Washington, 1979.

WALTER F. MONDALE (Chapter 42)Carter, Jimmy. Keeping Faith: Memoirs of a President. NewYork, 1982.

Eisele, Albert. Almost to the Presidency: A Biography of TwoAmerican Politicians. Blue Earth, MN, 1972.

Gillon, Steven M. The Democrats’ Dilemma: Walter F. Mondaleand the Liberal Legacy. New York, 1992.

Goldstein, Joel K. ‘‘The American Vice-Presidency, 1953–1978.’’ Ph.D. dissertation, Oxford University (London),1978.

Lewis, Finlay. Mondale: Portrait of An American Politician.New York, 1980.

Light, Paul C. ‘‘Vice-Presidential Influence Under Rocke-feller and Mondale.’’ Political Science Quarterly 98 (Winter1983–1984): 617–40.

Mondale, Walter F. The Accountability of Power: Toward a Re-sponsible Presidency. New York, 1975.

————. Vice-Presidential Power: Advice and Influence in theWhite House. Baltimore, 1984.

Natoli, Marie D. ‘‘The Vice Presidency: Walter Mondale inthe Lion’s Den.’’ Presidential Studies Quarterly 8 (Winter1978): 100–102.

‘‘Vice Presidential Campaign Debate: Mondale-Dole Meetin Houston.’’ In The Presidential Campaign 1976. Vol. 3, TheDebates, pp. 154–79. Washington, 1979.

GEORGE BUSH (Chapter 43)Bush, George, with Victor Gold. Looking Forward. GardenCity, NY, 1987.

Bush, George. The Wit & Wisdom of George Bush: With SomeReflections from Dan Quayle. Edited by Ken Brady and Jer-emy Solomon. New York, 1989.

Ide, Arthur Frederick. Bush-Quayle: The Reagan Legacy. Ir-ving, TX, 1989. King, Nicholas. George Bush: A Biography.New York, 1980.

Kirschten, Dick. ‘‘George Bush—Keeping His Profile LowSo He Can Keep His Influence High.’’National Journal 13(June 20, 1981): 1096–1100.

U.S. Congress. Senate. Committee on Armed Services. Nom-ination of George Bush to be Director of Central Intelligence.Hearing, 94th Cong., 1st sess. December 15–16, 1975. Wash-ington, 1975.

J. DANFORTH QUAYLE (Chapter 44)Broder, David S. The Man Who Would be President: DanQuayle. New York, 1992.

Campbell, Colin S.J., and Bert A. Rockman, eds. The BushPresidency: First Appraisals. Chatham, NJ, 1991.

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DeMoss, Dorothy. ‘‘George Bush.’’ In Profiles in Power:Twentieth-Century Texans in Washington, edited by KennethE. Hendrickson, Jr., and Michael L. Collins. ArlingtonHeights, IL, 1993.

Duffy, Michael, and Dan Goodgame. Marching in Place: TheStatus Quo Presidency of George Bush. New York, 1992.

Fenno, Richard F., Jr. The Making of a Senator: Dan Quayle.Washington, 1989.

Ide, Arthur Frederick. Bush-Quayle: The Reagan Legacy. Ir-ving, TX, 1989.

Mullins, Kerry, and Aaron Wildavsky. ‘‘The ProceduralPresidency of George Bush.’’ Political Science Quarterly 107(Spring 1992): 31–62.

Quayle, Dan. Standing Firm: A Vice-Presidential Memoir. NewYork, 1994.

[ 571 ]

CREDITS FOR ILLUSTRATIONSCover illustration: Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, LC–USZ62– 116624

Frontispiece: AP/WideWorld Photo

John Adams: The Harvard University Art Museums, Acc. No. H073

Thomas Jefferson: Office of the Curator, The White House

Aaron Burr: Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, LC–USZ62–16737

George Clinton: The National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, NPG 84.172

Elbridge Gerry: Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, LC–USZ62–74104

Daniel D. Tompkins: Collection of the City of New York, City Hall

John C. Calhoun: The National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, NPG 78.64

Martin Van Buren: Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, LC–USZ62–19608

Richard Mentor Johnson: Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, LC–USZ62–1887

John Tyler: Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, LC–USZ62–96919

George M. Dallas: Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, LC–USZ62–10549

Millard Fillmore: Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, LC–USZ62–13013

Willam R. King: Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress

John C. Breckinridge: Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, LC–USZ62–9895

Hannibal Hamlin: Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, LC–BH82–3882

Andrew Johnson: Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, LC–B8184–10690

Schuyler Colfax: Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, LC–USZ62–116494

Henry Wilson: Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, LC–BH83–3701

William A. Wheeler: Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, LC–BH832–29130

Chester A. Arthur: Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, LC–USZ62–13021

Thomas A. Hendricks: Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress

Levi P. Morton: Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, LC–USZ62–10566

Adlai E. Stevenson: Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, LC–USZ62–108489

Garret Augustus Hobart: Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, LC–USZ62–10553

Theodore Roosevelt: Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, LC–USZ62–12095

Charles W. Fairbanks: Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, LC–USZ61–445

James Schoolcraft Sherman: Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, LC–USZ62–85213

Thomas R. Marshall: Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, LC–USZ62–116554

Calvin Coolidge: Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, LC–B2–5253–4

Charles G. Dawes: Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, LC–USZ62–08528

Charles Curtis: Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, LC–USZ62–11655

John Nance Garner: Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, LC–USZ62–116737

Henry A. Wallace: Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, LC–USW3–6470–D

Harry S. Truman: Harry S. Truman Presidential Library

[ 572 ]

CREDITS FOR ILLUSTRATIONS

Alben W. Barkley: UPI/Corbis-Bettman

Richard M. Nixon: U.S. Senate Historical Office, SHP–5987

Lyndon B. Johnson: Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, LC–U9–5759–#5

Hubert H. Humphrey: U.S. Senate Historical Office, SHP–5987

Spiro T. Agnew: Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, LC–U9–26543–#24

Gerald R. Ford: Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, LC–U9–28835–#34

Nelson A. Rockefeller: Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, LC–U9–30000A–#13A

Walter F. Mondale: Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, LC–U9–32972–#30

George Bush: U.S. Senate Historical Office, SHP–5580

J. Danforth Quayle: U.S. Senate Historical Office, SHP–5987

[ 573 ]

INDEX[This index generally includes individuals mentioned in the book only if they play a sufficient

role in the story or appear in more than one chapter. But major party presidential and vice-presidential candidates are included even if they are only mentioned in passing. Wives of vicepresidents are indexed but rarely parents.]

Abolitionists, Van Buren and, 114Acheson, Dean, Nixon on, 439Adams, Abigail, 4, 7, 8Adams, John, 3-13, 17, illus. 2

in 1788 election, 5-6, 52in 1796 election, 10, 19in 1800 election, 11, 35addressing the Senate, 7, 8, 10-11Alien and Sedition Acts and, 23announcing electoral vote count, xiii, 20appointment of Gerry, 65breaking tie votes, 3, 8, 10in Continental congresses, 4death of, 11, 25elected president, xv, 10, 19, 53elected vice president, 6, 52on Gerry, 64inauguration as president, 20Jefferson and, 21, 25in legislature, 4patronage and, 6, 37, 38presiding over the Senate, 7-8, 24reelected vice president, 9, 52on removal of cabinet officers, 8Revolutionary War activities, 4-5on role of vice president, 7signing legislative documents, 7in state constitutional convention, 5on titles, 7-8as vice president, xv, 6-10writings of, 4, 9youth, 3

Adams, John Quincyin 1824 election, 83, 86-87, 107in 1828 election, 93, 108on Clinton, 54-56elected president, 87, 107, 125Fillmore and, 169franking privilege for Burr and, 42as president, 88-89on Tyler, 142

Agnew, Elinor Isabel ‘‘Judy’’ Judefind, 481Agnew, Spiro T., 481-88, illus. 480

appearance of, 482

bribery scandal and, 486-87bust of, 488characteristics of, 486death of, 488Ford and, 496foreign travel by, 485as governor, 482Nixon on, 483-85, 488presiding over the Senate, 482-83resignation of, 487, 496, 508as vice president, 482-87youth, 481

Alabama, vice president from, 181-87Alabama Claims, Morton and, 270Albert, Carl

Agnew and, 486Ford and, 497Rockefeller and, 508

Aldrich, Nelson W.1908 election and, 328Curtis and, 376-77Fairbanks and, 316, 318, 329Rockefeller and, 505

Aldrich-Vreeland Emergency Currency Act (1908), 317-18Alger, Russell A., Hobart and, 292-93Alien Act (1798), 23Alien and Sedition Acts, 23-24

Burr opposition to, 34Alston, Aaron Burr, 39, 44Alston, Joseph, 39Alston, Theodosia Burr, 31, 33, 39, 44Ames, Oakes

Colfax and, 227-29Wheeler and, 244

AnticommunismHumphrey and, 470-71Nixon and, 434-35, 439

Antifederalistsin 1788 election, 5Clinton and, 51-52in Second Congress, 9

Arms control, 467, 471Armstrong, John, Jr., Clinton and, 55Antislavery movement

[ 574 ]

INDEX

Antislavery movement (continued)Colfax and, 224Wilson and, 234-35

Arthur, Chester A., 251-56, illus. 250appearance of, 253breaking tie votes, 253Conkling and, 251-55death of, 256elected vice president, 247, 253Garfield and, 254Hayes and, 252Morton and, 271New York customhouse and, 251-52patronage and, 253-55presiding over the Senate, 253-54as president, 254-56succeeding to presidency, 254, 272as vice president, 253-54as vice-presidential candidate, 271youth, 252

Arthur, Ellen L.H., 252, 253Ashurst, Henry F., on Coolidge, 353Assassinations

of president, 216-17, 254, 272, 305, 315, 461plot against vice president, 216-17

Atwater, Lee, Bush and, 536-38Atzerodt, George, A. Johnson and, 216-17

Baker, BobbyL.B. Johnson and, 454, 456scandal and, 460

Baker, Edward D., Breckinridge and, 198Baker, James A., III, Bush and, 535-36, 538Ball, George, Humphrey and, 472-73Bank of the U.S.

First, 57proposal in 1840s, 145Second, 109-11, 112-13, 123, 124, 139, 152, 153, 183

Barkley, Alben W., 423-29, illus. 422in 1948 election, 425-26as campaigner, 428as candidate for vice president, 411, 414death of, 429on Garner, 426in House, 424as majority leader, 391, 424-25nomination of Wallace and, 416presiding over the Senate, 427-28resignation as majority leader, 425rulings overturned, 427-28in Senate, 424-25, 429Truman and, 418, 425-27on vice-presidency, 426-27, 429as vice president, 426-29youth, 423

Bassett, Richard, Adams and, 8Bayard, James A., Burr and, 36

Bayh, Birch, Quayle and, 545Beckley, John, Clinton and, 54Bell, John, in 1860 election, 197Benton, Thomas Hart

on Calhoun, 99on Calhoun and Van Buren, 96on constitutional amendment, 89Dallas and, 156on debt imprisonment, 124Foote and, 160, 175King and, 183on Panama Congress, 88on Van Buren inauguration, 128

Bentsen, Lloyd M.in 1988 election, 537, 548Bush and, 532

Beveridge, Albert J., Fairbanks and, 315, 316Biffle, Leslie, Truman and, 413, 417Blaine, James G.

in 1876 election, 245in 1884 election, 256, 272in 1892 election, 273Arthur and, 255Conkling and, 252, 253, 256, 270on Hamlin, 205Morton and, 272T. Roosevelt and, 298as secretary of state, 271Wheeler and, 244, 246

Blair, Francis P., 184Breckinridge and, 198-99R.M. Johnson and, 126

Blount, William, Jefferson and, 22Board of Economic Warfare (BEW), 401-2Bonus march, Curtis and, 381Booth, John Wilkes, 216-17Borah, William E.

in 1924 election, 362on Curtis, 378

Boston massacre, 4Boston police strike, 349Boutwell, George, on H. Wilson, 235Boynton, Henry Van Ness, H. Wilson and, 238Branch, John, and Panama Congress, 89Breckinridge, John

Judiciary Act and, 38Kentucky Resolutions and, 23

Breckinridge, John C., 193-99, illus. 192addressing Senate, 196appearance of, 193as Confederate leader, 198-99characteristics of, 194, 197death of, 199elected vice president, 196expelled from Senate, 193, 198in House, 194-95A. Johnson and, 214as presidential candidate, 197-98

[ 575 ]

INDEX

Breckinridge (continued)presiding over the Senate, 196-97as vice president, 196-97as vice-presidential candidate, 195youth, 193

Breckinridge, Mary C. Burch, 193Bricker amendment, Nixon and, 438Bricker, John W., Nixon and, 438Bright, Jesse D., Hendricks and, 262Bristow, Joseph L., Curtis and, 376, 377Bryan, William Jennings

in 1896 election, 282, 314in 1900 election, 283, 303in 1908 election, 3281912 election and, 339Dawes and, 360

Buchanan, Jamesin 1856 election, 195Breckinridge and, 193, 196, 198Dallas and, 153, 155, 159, 161Hendricks and, 262King and, 184, 185veto of homestead bill, 214

Buchanan, Patrick J., Agnew and, 484Bull Moose party, in 1912 election, 306, 330Bull Run, Battle of, H. Wilson and, 235-36Burr, Aaron, 31-46, illus. 30

in 1796 election, 10, 19in 1800 election, xii, 11, 34-36addressing Senate, 36, 43announcing electoral vote count, 42breaking tie votes, 37-38as campaigner, 35as candidate for governor, 39, 40conspiracy by, 43-44death of, 44duel with Hamilton, 39elected to Senate, 33elected vice president, 11, 36in New York legislature, 33patronage and, 37, 53presiding at impeachment trials, 40-42proposal to give franking privilege on retirement, 42retirement from vice-presidency, 39in Revolutionary War, 32sworn in as vice president, 36treason trial, 44as vice president, xvi, 36-43, 49as vice-presidential candidate, 33-35, 53youth, 32

Burr, Theodosia Bartow Prevost, 33Burr, Theodosia. See Alston, Theodosia BurrBush, Barbara Pierce, 530, 535-36, 538, 552Bush, Dorothy Walker, 529Bush, George H.W., 529-38, illus. 528

in 1980 election, 533characteristics of, 530, 534in China, 533-35

as CIA director, 533deciding whether to keep Quayle on ticket, 551Ford and, 508foreign travel by, 535in House, 531-32Iran-Contra scandal and, 536-37as president, 538, 548-52as presidential candidate, 536-38Quayle and, 537-38at Republican National Committee, 532-33as Texas businessman, 531as UN ambassador, 532as vice president, 535-37in World War II, 530youth, 529

Bush, Prescott S., 529, 531Butler, Nicholas, in 1912 election, 331Butler, Pierce, Dallas and, 158Butler, William O., in 1848 election, 159, 187Byrd, Robert C.

cloture and, 510Mondale and, 523

Byrnes, James F.as candidate for vice president, 405, 411, 414-15Garner and, 390on Garner, 386Wallace and, 405

Cabinet, resignation ofJackson’s, 95, 109Taylor’s, 176Tyler’s, 145

Cabinet meetingssecretary of state presiding in president’s illness, 342,

343, 352vice president attending, 337, 352, 379, 427, 439, 445vice president declining to attend, 364vice president presiding in president’s absence, 342, 443,

446Calhoun, Floride Colhoun, 85, 86, 95, 108Calhoun, John C., 81-101, illus. 82

in 1824 election, 86, 107abolitionists and, 114appointing Senate committees and chairmen, 88-89breaking tie votes, 96, 109Compromise of 1850 and, 98, 174Dallas and, 156death of, 99Eaton affair and, 95, 108election of J.Q. Adams and, 87elected vice president, 87, 93in House, 85investigation of, 93Jackson and, 94-95King and, 182, 183, 184nullification and, 94-96, 97, 109opposition to Jackson, 111

[ 576 ]

INDEX

Calhoun (continued)as presidential candidate, 86, 96, 107presiding over Senate, 87-92, 94, 96, 174resignation as vice president, 97, 109as secretary of state, 98as secretary of war, 85-86, 123-24in Senate, 97-99, 173on Senate rules, 91Van Buren and, 96, 108-9as vice president, xvi-xvii, 87-97, 107Webster-Hayne debate and, 94writings of, 92, 93-94, 95, 96youth, 84

California, vice president from, 433-47Callaway, Howard ‘‘Bo,’’ Rockefeller and, 511Cannon, Joseph G.

Fairbanks and, 317Sherman and, 326-27Taft and, 328

Capitol, U.S.burning of, 68telegraph at, 154vice president lying in state in, 58, 239vice president’s death in, 239Vice President’s Room in, 239, 291, 365, 427

Carter, James Earl ‘‘Jimmy’’in 1976 election, 500, 517, 521, 533Mondale and, 521-24

Cass, Lewisin 1844 election, 154in 1848 election, 159, 173, 187Breckinridge and, 198

Censure of president, 112-13Central Intelligence Agency, 511Chamber, House, Ford swearing in, 498Chamber, Senate

assaults in, 175funeral in, 239Rockefeller swearing in, 505, 509

Chambers, Whittaker, Nixon and, 434Chandler, Zachariah

1876 election and, 246on A. Johnson, 213

Chase, Samuel, 40-42Cheetham, James, Burr and, 37, 43China

Bush in, 533Wallace and, 403

Chinn, Julia, and R.M. Johnson, 125Church, Frank F.

Mondale and, 521Rockefeller and, 511

Civil liberties, Jefferson and, 24Civil rights legislation

Barkley and, 428Humphrey and, 466, 467H. Wilson and, 236-37Civil Rights Act (1957)

L.B. Johnson and, 456-57Nixon and, 443

Civil Service Commission, creation of, 255Civil War

Arthur and, 252Breckinridge in, 198-99Colfax and, 225Hamlin and, 206-7, 208Hendricks and, 262A. Johnson and, 214-15, 216H. Wilson and, 235-36

Clark, Bennett Champ, on Truman, 413Clark, James B. (Champ)

in 1912 election, 339on Sherman, 328

Clay, Henryin 1824 election, 83, 87, 107in 1832 election, 1101840 election and, 140in 1844 election, 155, 169-70in 1848 election, 170censure of Jackson and, 112-13Clinton and, 57-58Compromise of 1850 and, 98, 174-75, 185dueling and, 39, 90, 184duel with Randolph, 90investigation of Calhoun and, 93R.M. Johnson and, 123, 124, 125, 131King and, 182, 183-84opposition to Jackson, 111-13opposition to Van Buren, 96as presidential candidate, 87as secretary of state, 89, 90in Senate, 173as Speaker of the House, 66, 67, 77, 85tariff and, 97Tyler and, 139, 144-45, 146

Cleveland, Groverelected president, 256, 280-81health of, 281Hendricks and, 264-65as presidential candidate, 264Sherman and, 326Stevenson and, 280-82

Clifford, Clark, Humphrey and, 473Clinton, Cornelia Tappan, 50Clinton, De Witt

in 1812 election, 66Burr and, 37, 53George Clinton and, 56patronage and, 37Tompkins and, 74, 76Twelfth Amendment and, 36Van Buren and, 106

Clinton, George, 49-60, illus. 48in 1788 election, 5, 52in 1792 election, 9, 52and 1800 election, 34

[ 577 ]

INDEX

Clinton (continued)in 1804 election, 39addressing Senate, 57appearance of, 50breaking tie votes, 55, 57Burr and, 33as candidate for vice president, 51-53characteristics of, 49Constitution and, 51in Continental Congress, 50death of, 58, 63, 66elected vice president, 42as governor, 51, 53in legislature, 50patronage and, 37, 53as presidential candidate, 55-57presiding over the Senate, 54-55, 57reelected vice president, 57residence as vice president, 54retired as governor, 52in Revolution, 50-51sworn in as vice president, 43, 49as vice president, 53-58youth, 50

Clinton, William J., 538, 551-52Colbath, Jeremiah Jones. See Wilson, HenryColfax, Ellen Wade, 227Colfax, Evelyn Clark, 224, 225Colfax, Schuyler, 223-29, illus. 222

appearance of, 224characteristics of, 223, 227Credit Mobilier scandal and, 227-28death of, 229elected vice president, 227Hamlin and, 206in House, 224as lecturer on Lincoln, 229presiding over the Senate, 227press and, 225, 227, 228retirement of, 227-28, 237-38as Speaker, 225-26as vice-presidential candidate, 226-27youth, 223

Colhoun, John Ewing, 38, 85Collier, John, Fillmore and, 169-72Committees, Senate, appointment of, 87, 90-91, 111-12, 128,

156Compensation Act (1816), 121, 123Compromise of 1850, 98, 174-76, 185Confederate States of America, 198-99Confederation Congress, 18Congress

First, 8Second, 8

Conkling, Roscoein 1876 election, 245Arthur and, 251-55Blaine and, 252-53, 256, 271

Morton and, 253, 270-71resignation of, 247, 254, 272Wheeler and, 243, 244, 247

Connally, Johnon L.B. Johnson, 455Nixon and, 485, 487, 493, 497

Constitution, U.S.amendments proposed, 89Article I, section 3, xiii, 65Article II, section 1, xii, xiii, 6, 35Burr on, 33Clinton opposition to, 51Gerry and, xv, 65

Constitution, U.S., AmendmentsTwelfth, xii, xiv, 36, 52, 121Thirteenth, 236-37Fourteenth, 236-37Fifteenth, 236-37Seventeenth, 377Nineteenth, 377Twenty-second, 428Twenty-fifth, xii, 342, 443, 485, 487-88, 493, 497, 508

Constitutional Convention, Gerry at, 64-65Continental Congress

Adams in, 4Clinton in, 50Jefferson and, 17-18

Coolidge, Calvin, 347-54, illus. 346in 1920 election, 343, 350in 1924 election, 359, 362-63appearance of, 353attending cabinet meetings, 352Boston police strike and, 349characteristics of, 347, 351-53Curtis and, 378Dawes and, 359, 364-67death of, 354as governor, 349-50as president, 353-54, 364-65presiding over the Senate, 350-51residence as vice president, 350on Senate rules, 350succeeding to presidency, 352-53vetoes by, 354, 378as vice president, 350-53youth, 347

Coolidge, Grace Goodhue, 350-52Corrupt bargain, 83, 93, 107Cox, James M., 343, 350Crawford, William H.

in 1824 election, 83, 87, 107Bank of the U.S. and, 57as president pro tempore, 58as treasury secretary, 86, 123

Credit Mobilier scandal, 228-29, 238, 244Crockett, David, on Van Buren, 114Curtis, Anna Baird, 375, 378Curtis, Charles, 373-81, illus. 372

[ 578 ]

INDEX

Curtis (continued)in 1928 election, 367appearance of, 375breaking tie votes, 379characteristics of, 375-76, 378, 380Coolidge and, 351Dawes and, 364death of, 381elected vice president, 379in House, 375-76on Indian Affairs Committee, 376as presidential candidate, 378-79presiding over the Senate, 380as Republican whip, 377in Senate, 377-79as Senate majority leader, 377-79on Sherman, 332as vice president, 379-81as vice-presidential candidate, 379youth, 373-75

Curtis, Dolly. See Gann, Dolly CurtisCushing, Caleb, nomination rejected, 145Cutler, Manasseh, on Burr, 40-41Cutting, Francis B., Breckinridge and, 194-95Czolgosz, Leon, 305

Dallas, Alexander, 40Dallas, George M., 151-61, illus. 150

addressing Senate, 156, 158, 160appearance of, 152, 161banning liquor in Senate, 160breaking tie votes, 158characteristics of, 152death of, 161elected vice president, 155Fillmore and, 172nominated for vice president, 154patronage and, 155presiding over Senate, 156-61residence as vice president, 157in Senate, 153travel expenses and, 157as vice president, 156-61youth, 151-52

Dallas, Sophia Nicklin, 152, 153Dalton, Tristram, Adams and, 8Daniels, Josephus, on Marshall, 342Davis, David, 253Davis, Henry G., in 1904 election, 316Davis, Jefferson

Breckinridge and, 197, 199Hamlin and, 204A. Johnson and, 214

Davis, John W., in 1924 election, 363Dawes, Caro Blymyer, 361, 366-67Dawes, Charles G., 359-68, illus. 358

addressing Senate, 363, 367

appearance of, 362attack on Senate rules, 363-65, 367at Bureau of the Budget, 362characteristics of, 368Curtis and, 379death of, 368declining to attend cabinet meetings, 352, 364elected vice president, 363filibusters and, 363-67financial problems of, 368intervening on legislation, 366missing tie vote, 364-65presiding over the Senate, 364-67testimony on wartime procurement, 361-62on vice-presidency, 368, 426as vice president, 363-67as vice-presidential candidate, 363winning Nobel Peace Prize, 362in World War I, 361writings of, 360youth, 359

Dawes Plan for German currency, 362Dayton, Jonathan, Burr and, 38Debt imprisonment, 124Declaration of Independence

Adams and, 4Jefferson and, 17-18

Democratic partyin 1832 election, 110in 1836 election, 114in 1850s, 203in 1950s Senate, 455in 1968 election, 474Calhoun and, 97-98caucus making committee assignments, 156formation of, 124Hamlin and, 204leaders and choice of vice president in 1944, 404, 414-

15nomination rules change in 1932, 390in Pennsylvania, 153

Depew, Chauncey, on Sherman, 326-27, 329, 331Dewey, Thomas E.

in 1948 election, 405-6, 425-26Nixon and, 435-36, 440

Dickerson, Mahlon, Calhoun and, 89, 91Dickins, Asbury

Senate election of R.M. Johnson and, 127on travel expenses, 157

Disarmament. See Arms controlDole, Robert J.

in 1976 election, 500, 512, 521, 533in 1988 election, 537Ford and, 495, 500on Quayle, 552

Douglas, Helen Gahagan, Nixon and, 434-35Douglas, Paul H., on LBJ, 461Douglas, Stephen A.

[ 579 ]

INDEX

Douglas (continued)in 1856 election, 195in 1860 election, 197Breckinridge and, 194Buchanan and, 196Hamlin and, 205Hendricks and, 262Stevenson and, 279

Douglas, William O.as candidate for vice president, 411, 415Ford and, 496Truman and, 426

Drug smuggling, control of, Bush and, 536Duels

Burr vs. Hamilton, 39Clay vs. Randolph, 90threatened, 184, 194-95

Dukakis, Michael, 537, 548Dulles, John Foster

Humphrey and, 471Nixon and, 439, 443-44

Eaton, John, Calhoun and, 95, 108Eaton, Peggy, 95, 108Ehrlichman, John

Agnew and, 483-84resignation of, 486

Eisenhower, Dwight D.in 1952 election, 435deciding whether to keep Nixon on ticket, 444health of, 443Nixon and, 433, 436, 438-40, 443-47Rockefeller and, 506on vice-presidency, 437

Elections, presidential1788, 5-6, 521792, 9, 521796, 10, 19-20, 531800, xii, 11, 25, 34-36, 531804, 39, 53-541808, 55-571812, 661816, 741820, 771824, 83, 86-87, 107, 1251828, 92-93, 107-8, 1831832, 110, 1251836, 114-15, 121, 126, 1391840, 115, 121, 129, 140-411844, 98, 116, 131, 154-55, 169, 184-851848, 116, 159, 170-71, 187, 2351852, 176, 1871856, 176, 195, 203, 2051860, 197, 205, 2251864, 215-161868, 219, 226, 237, 2631872, 228, 238, 263

1876, 243, 245, 246, 2631880, 247, 252-53, 263, 2711884, 255-56, 264, 2721888, 265, 2721892, 273, 2811896, 274, 282, 290, 314, 3601900, 283, 300, 302-31904, 3161908, 319-20, 3271912, 306, 330-31, 338-391916, 320, 3411920, 343, 349, 361, 3771924, 353, 362-631928, 367, 378-791932, 381, 387-88, 4001936, 3901940, 392, 399, 4001944, 399, 404-5, 411, 414-151948, 405-6, 425-261952, 435-37, 4391956, 440, 4441960, 444-45, 457-58, 467, 5061964, 468, 471-72, 5071968, 445, 474, 482, 496, 507, 5201972, 446, 475, 486, 496, 508, 5201976, 500, 511, 517, 521, 5331980, 524, 533-351984, 524, 5361988, 537-38, 547-481992, 538, 551-52contested, 246, 263

Electoral collegein 1788 election, 6, 52in 1796 election, 10, 19, 20in 1876 election, 263efforts to abolish, 89

Embargo Act (1807), 55Everett, Edward, on King, 182Expulsion from Senate, 193, 198, 262

Fairbanks, Charles W., 313-21, illus. 312in 1916 election, 320, 341addressing Senate, 318appearance of, 315characteristics of, 316death of, 320as presidential candidate, 318-20presiding over the Senate, 316-18railroads and, 314in Senate, 314-15as vice president, 316-20as vice-presidential candidate, 315-16, 341youth, 313

Fairbanks, Cornelia Cole, 313, 316Farley, James

Garner and, 388on Garner, 388-89, 392

[ 580 ]

INDEX

Federal deregulationBush and, 536Quayle and, 550

Federalist partyin 1790s, 9, 10, 11, 18, 21-22, 65-66in 1796 election, 10, 19in 1800 election, 35-36in 1808 election, 56Burr and, 37, 39control of judges, 40, 41Gallatin case and, 33Jefferson on, 22

Federalists, in 1788 election, 5-6, 52Ferraro, Geraldine, in 1984 election, 524-25, 536Filibusters

Dawes and, 363, 365-67Fairbanks and, 317-18Mondale and, 523Stevenson and, 281

Fillmore, Abigail Powers, 168, 176Fillmore, Caroline McIntosh, 176Fillmore, Millard, 167-76, illus. 166

in 1848 election, 159in 1852 election, 176in 1856 election, 176, 195addressing Senate, 172, 174appearance of, 168, 172Dallas and, 160death of, 176in House, 168-69patronage and, 171, 172as president, 176presiding over Senate, 168, 173-75succeeding to presidency, 167, 176, 186as vice president, 171-75as vice-presidential candidate, 169youth, 168

Foote, Henry S., Benton and, 160, 175Ford, Elizabeth ‘‘Betty’’ Bloomer Warren, 494, 496Ford, Gerald R., 493-500, illus. 492

in 1976 election, 500, 511-12, 5331980 election and, 534-35appointed vice president, 487, 493, 497, 508appointing vice president, 508Bush and, 531, 533characteristics of, 498in House, 495-96on L.B. Johnson, 455Nixon and, 487-88, 495-99pardon of Nixon, 499as president, 499-500, 508-12Rockefeller and, 508-12succeeding to presidency, 499sworn in as vice president, 497-98on vice-presidency, xivin World War II, 494youth, 494

Foreign policy

in 1790s, 9-10, 22Jefferson and, 22, 55vice president involved in, 403, 441, 550

Forney, John W.on Breckinridge, 194Hamlin and, 208on A. Johnson, 215, 218on vice-presidential swearing in, 216

FranceGerry as envoy to, 65Jefferson and, 18, 55King and, 185Revolution, 9U.S. relations with

in 1790s, 10, 22, 34, 65in 1830s, 111

Franklin, Benjamin, 18Free Soil party

in 1848 election, 116, 171, 173, 235in 1850s, 203Hamlin and, 204

Freedmen’s Bureau, veto of, 218Freedom of the press, 24Freeman, Orville, 517-19Frelinghuysen, Theodore, 155, 169Fremont, John C., 195Fulbright, J. William, L.B. Johnson and, 458

Gaillard, John, 68, 88Gallatin, Albert

Burr and, 33, 36, 39, 40Clinton and, 53, 57Dallas and, 152on Gerry, 66as Jefferson adviser, 54as treasury secretary, 67, 74, 123

Gallinger, Jacob, Fairbanks and, 317Gann, Dolly Curtis, 375, 380-81Garfield, James A.

in 1880 election, 253Arthur and, 254death of, 254, 272elected president, 247, 253, 271Morton and, 271as president, 253-54, 271-72

Garner, Ettie Rheiner, 386Garner, John N., 385-93, illus. 384

in 1932 election, 3811940 election and, 400breaking tie votes, 389characteristics of, 392death of, 393elected vice president, 388in House, 386-88influence of, 386, 389, 393, 426intervening on legislation, 390as presidential candidate, 392

[ 581 ]

INDEX

Garner (continued)presiding over the Senate, 389-90as Speaker, 386-88Supreme Court packing plan and, 390-91Truman and, 413on vice-presidency, 388as vice president, 388-93youth, 385-86

Genet, Edmond, 10Clinton and, 52, 56

Gerry, Ann Thompson, 65Gerry, Elbridge, 63-69, illus. 62

in 1812 election, 66addressing the Senate, 66in Constitutional Convention, 64-65in Continental Congress, 63-64death of, 68elected vice president, 66as envoy to France, 65‘‘Gerrymander’’ and, 66as governor, 66in House of Representatives, 65Jefferson and, 21in legislature, 63on legislative responsibilities of vice president, 65presiding over the Senate, 66-68during Revolution, 63-64social life as vice president, 67sworn in as vice president, 66as vice president, 66-68youth, 63

Giles, William Branchas candidate for president pro tempore, 67Clinton and, 57

Goldwater, Barry M.in 1964 election, 472Ford and, 499Rockefeller and, 506-7, 510

Gore, Albert A., Jr., xviii, 525, 551-52Gore, Thomas P., 317-18Gorman, Arthur P., 282Governor becoming vice president, 216, 303, 339, 347, 350,

482Granger, Francis, in 1836 election, 127Grant, Ulysses S.

in 1868 election, 219, 226-27, 237in 1872 election, 238in 1880 election, 22/5Arthur and, 252Colfax and, 223, 226-28elected president, 227, 237

Great BritainBurr on Jay Treaty, 33Jay Treaty and, 21Jefferson and, 55U.S. relations with, 10, 66, 68, 123, 152, 159, 182, 270Van Buren appointment to, 96

Greeley, Horace

in 1872 election, 237, 263Colfax and, 224-25, 228

Grundy, Felix, 111, 127

Haig, Alexander M., Jr.Agnew and, 487on Bush, 532, 536Ford and, 497-99

Haldeman, H.R.Agnew and, 483-86resignation of, 486

‘‘Half-breeds’’in 1876 election, 245in 1880 election, 253in 1884 election, 256Blaine and, 270Conkling and, 254

Hamilton, Alexander, 91788 election and, 61796 election and, 10, 191800 election and, 11, 35-36on assumption of state debts, 9, 65as Burr ally, 33, 34Burr gubernatorial campaign and, 39Clinton and, 51, 52foreign policy and, 10Jefferson and, 18killed by Burr, 39

Hamlin, Ellen, 205Hamlin, Hannibal, 203-9, illus. 202

appearance of, 204, 206, 209banning liquor from Senate, 207characteristics of, 205, 209in Coast Guard, 208death of, 209dropped from ticket for second term, 208, 215elected vice president, 198, 206in House, 204A. Johnson and, 213, 219in Senate, 204-5, 209temperance and, 204patronage and, 207presiding over the Senate, 207as vice-presidential candidate, 206youth, 203

Hamlin, Sarah Jane, 205Hancock, John, Adams and, 4, 5Hanna, Marcus A.

Dawes and, 360Fairbanks and, 315Hobart and, 290, 293T. Roosevelt and, 302, 306

Hannegan, RobertTruman and, 414-15Wallace and, 404

Hanson, John, 51Harding, Warren G.

[ 582 ]

INDEX

Harding (continued)in 1920 election, 343, 349-50, 361Curtis and, 377Dawes and, 362death of, 352as president, 352on vice-presidency, 352

Harper, Robert GoodloeBurr and, 35-36Pickering impeachment trial and, 40

Harrison, Benjaminelected president, 265, 272as president, 272-74, 280

Harrison, Byron P. ‘‘Pat,’’ Barkley and, 424Harrison, William H.

in 1836 election, 127in 1840 election, 115, 121, 130, 140-41death of, 142elected president, 115, 130, 141presidential inauguration, 141-42in Senate, 88in War of 1812, 123

Hartmann, Robert, 498-99Rockefeller and, 508

Hatfield, Mark O.Ford and, 498Quayle and, 546

Hay, John, 292, 306Hayes, Rutherford B.

in 1876 election, 243, 245, 246Arthur and, 252elected president, 246, 263Wheeler and, 246-47

Hayne, Robert Y., 94Hearst, William Randolph, on Garner, 387Henderson, David, Sherman and, 326Hendricks, Eliza Morgan, 261Hendricks, Thomas A., 261-65, illus. 260

in 1876 election, 245, 263appearance of, 264characteristics of, 264death of, 265elected vice president, 264as governor, 263health of, 263-64in House, 261-62patronage and, 265in Senate, 262as vice president, 264-65youth, 261

Hildenbrand, William F., on Quayle, 547Hillhouse, James, 36, 42Hiss, Alger, Nixon and, 434Hoar, George F.

on Morton, 273presidential succession and, 265Wheeler and, 245on H. Wilson, 237

Hobart, Garret A., 289-93, illus. 288addressing the Senate, 291breaking tie votes, 292characteristics of, 289, 291death of, 293elected vice president, 290in legislature, 289-90McKinley and, 290-93presiding over the Senate, 291-92as vice president, 290-93youth, 289

Hobart, Jennie Tuttle, 289, 291Hoover, Herbert

1924 election and, 363in 1928 election, 378-79bonus march and, 381Coolidge and, 354Curtis and, 373, 379Dawes and, 361, 367Garner and, 387

House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC), 435House of Representatives

in 1800 election, xii, 25, 35, 53in 1824 election, 83, 87, 107, 125confirming vice president, 497, 508-9investigation of Calhoun and, 93on presidential succession, 143Speaker, becoming vice president, 223, 227, 388

Hughes, Charles Evansin 1908 election, 320in 1916 election, 320, 341Sherman and, 327, 330

Hughes, Sarah T., L.B. Johnson and, 458, 461Hull, Cordell, 401-2Humphrey, Hubert H., 465-76, illus. 464

in 1968 election, 474-75, 482, 507, 520in 1972 election, 475arms control and, 467, 471back in Senate, 475-76campaigning, 470characteristics of, 465-67, 476death of, 476foreign travel by, 470, 472-73L.B. Johnson and, 459, 466-67legislative achievements of, 467-68Mondale and, 517-18on Mondale, 519-20oratory of, 465as presidential candidate, 467, 474-75in Senate, 466-68on vice-presidency, 521as vice president, 468-74as vice-presidential candidate, 468Vietnam and, 471-74youth, 465-66

Hunter, Robert M.T., 181

[ 583 ]

INDEX

Illinois, vice presidents from, 279-84, 359-68Impeachment

of Blount, 22of A. Johnson, 218-19, 226, 237of Pickering, 40of Samuel Chase, 40, 41-42

Independent treasury bill, 115, 129Indian Affairs Committee, 376Indiana

machine politics in, 338-39vice presidents from, 223-29, 261-65, 313-21, 337-43, 543-

52Ingersoll, Jared, 66Ingersoll, Robert G., A. Johnson and, 215Iowa, vice president from, 399-406Iran-Contra scandal, 536-37Irving, Washington, 74

Jackson, Andrewin 1824 election, 83, 87, 107in 1828 election, 92-93, 107-8in 1832 election, 1101836 election and, 114, 126Calhoun and, 92-93, 94-96censure of, 112-13dueling and, 39elected president, 93, 108on R.M. Johnson, 130, 131R.M. Johnson and, 124-25King and, 183nullification and, 97as presidential candidate, 87Second Bank of the U.S. and, 109-10, 153, 183in Senate, 88Tyler and, 138Van Buren and, 108-9, 110on Van Buren, 116

Jackson, Rachel, 93, 95Jay, John

Burr and, 33as candidate for governor, 52

Jay Treaty, 10, 21Burr and, 33

Jefferson, Martha, 18Jefferson, Thomas, 17-28, illus. 16

in 1796 election, 10, 19in 1800 election, xii, 11, 34-36Adams and, 21, 25addressing the Senate, 20, 25, 53Alien and Sedition Acts and, 23-24appearance of, 19, 20Burr and, 40on Burr, 34on civil liberties, 24Clinton and, 52, 53-54, 55, 56death of, 25Declaration of Independence and, 4, 18

elected president, xv, 25, 35, 42elected vice president, 10, 19, 34foreign policy and, 10, 55as governor, 18inauguration as president, 25, 36-37, 49R.M. Johnson and, 122Kentucky Resolutions and, 23-24Manual of Parliamentary Practice, xvi, 24-25, 26, 87, 175patronage and, 38on presidency, 20as president, 25, 49presiding over the Senate, 24-25reelected president, 42on role of vice-president, 21as secretary of state, 9, 18-19, 52on state governments, 24sworn in as vice president, 20as vice president, xv-xvi, 20-25writings of, 18, 21youth, 17

Jobs Training Partnership Act of 1982, 546Johnson, Andrew, 213-19, illus. 212

addressing Senate, 213appearance of, 214assassination plot against, 216-17characteristics of, 214death of, 219elected vice president, 216Hamlin and, 204, 205, 208, 209homestead bill and, 214in House, 214impeachment of, 218-19, 226, 237inauguration as vice president, 208, 213pardons by, 199patronage and, 218as president, 217-19Reconstruction and, 226in Senate, 219succeeding to presidency, 217veto by, 218as vice president, 216-17as vice-presidential candidate, 208, 215as war governor, 214-15H. Wilson and, 236youth, 213-14

Johnson, Claudia Alta ‘‘Lady Bird’’ Taylor, 454, 458Johnson, Eliza McCardle, 214Johnson, Hiram, 306, 349Johnson, James, 122, 124Johnson, Lyndon B., 453-62, illus. 452

1957 civil rights bill and, 456-57in 1964 election, 468Bobby Baker and, 454, 456Bush and, 532characteristics of, 455death of, 461as Democratic floor leader, 455-57Ford and, 495

[ 584 ]

INDEX

Johnson (continued)foreign travel by, 459in House, 454Humphrey and, 468-74on Humphrey, 465Mondale and, 519post-convention Senate session and, 458as president, 461as presidential candidate, 457presiding over the Senate, 459Rockefeller and, 507rules change and, 443in Senate, 454-57succeeding to presidency, 461as vice president, 458-61as vice-presidential candidate, 458in World War II, 454youth, 453

Johnson, Richard Mentor, 121-34, illus. 120in 1828 election, 125in 1836 election, 114-15, 121, 126-27in 1840 election, 121, 129, 141addressing Senate, 128, 129, 131appearance of, 122, 129breaking tie votes, 128characteristics of, 131death of, 131debt imprisonment and, 124in House, 122-24, 125-26patronage and, 128as presidential candidate, 126presiding over Senate, 128in Senate, 124-25Sunday mail delivery and, 124as vice president, xvii, 127-30as vice-presidential candidate, 125-26vice-presidential clerk and, 167youth, 121-22

Jones, Jesse, Wallace and, 401-2, 405Jordan, Leonard B., Agnew and, 483Judiciary Act of 1801, 38

Kansas, vice president from, 373-81Kansas-Nebraska Act, 205

Breckinridge and, 194-95Hendricks and, 262

Kellogg, William P., Wheeler and, 244, 247Kendall, Amos, 110, 126Kennedy, Edward M.

in 1980 election, 524Quayle and, 546

Kennedy, John F.in 1960 election, 445, 453, 457death of, 461L.B. Johnson and, 453, 459-60as president, 459-60, 467as presidential candidate, 457-58

Kennedy, Robert F.death of, 474Humphrey and, 473L.B. Johnson and, 457-58, 460

Kentucky Resolutions, 23-24Kentucky, vice presidents from, 121-31, 193-99, 423-29Kern, John Worth

Marshall and, 341on Sherman, 332Sherman and, 328

Key, Philip Barton, Burr and, 42Khrushchev, Nikita, Nixon and, 441King, Leslie L., Jr. See Ford, Gerald R.King, Rufus, 67

Tompkins and, 75, 77, 78-79King, William R., 181-87, illus. 180

in 1852 election, 187addressing Senate, 186appearance of, 182-83Calhoun and, 91characteristics of, 181, 183Clay and, 182-84Compromise of 1850 and, 185-86death of, 187in House, 182as president pro tempore, 127, 128, 141, 160, 181presiding over the Senate, 186sworn in as vice president, 187as vice-presidential candidate, 184-86youth, 182

Kissinger, HenryFord and, 499Rockefeller and, 507-8

Knowland, William F.L.B. Johnson and, 456Nixon and, 435

Know-Nothing partyin 1850s, 176, 195, 203Colfax and, 224Hendricks and, 262Stevenson and, 279H. Wilson and, 235

Knox, Henry, 6

La Follette, Robert M.1912 election and, 330in 1924 election, 363filibuster and, 317-18, 363on Sherman, 331Sherman and, 330tariff and, 329

La Follette, Robert M., Jr., 366Ladd, Edwin, on Coolidge, 351Lane, Joseph, 197Lansing, Robert, 342-43, 352Lenroot, Irvine, 349-50Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (1963), 467, 471

[ 585 ]

INDEX

Lincoln, Abrahamin 1860 election, 197, 205-6assassination of, 209, 216-17, 226Breckinridge and, 194Colfax and, 223, 225, 226elected president, 198Hamlin and, 203, 204, 206-8Hendricks and, 262-63in House, 214inauguration of, 213A. Johnson and, 214, 215Reconstruction and, 216Stevenson and, 279H. Wilson and, 236

Lincoln, Mary Todd, 217Breckinridge and, 193, 194, 198

Liquorin Senate, 160, 204-5, 207, 402use by vice president, 78, 208, 213

Lloyd, James, and Calhoun, 91Lodge, Henry Cabot

Curtis and, 377on Hobart, 291T. Roosevelt and, 300-302on Sherman, 326

Lodge, Henry Cabot, Jr.Humphrey and, 472Nixon and, 435, 437

Long, Chester, Curtis and, 376Long, Huey P.

Garner and, 389-90Truman and, 413

Longworth, Alice Roosevelt, 304, 380Longworth, Nicholas, 304

Garner and, 386Louisiana

in 1876 election, 246Wheeler and, 244

Lowden, Frankin 1920 election, 349, 361, 377in 1924 election, 362in 1928 election, 367

Lucas, Scott W., 427-28

Machine politics, 251, 270, 299, 301-2, 338, 412-13Maclay, William

Adams and, 5, 7, 8on Jefferson, 19on removal of cabinet officers, 8

Macon, Nathaniel, 88, 93Madison, Dolley, 67Madison, James, 21

in 1790s, 191792 election and, 52on 1800 election, 35Burr and, 40Clinton and, 53, 57

on Clinton, 52Dallas and, 152elected president, 57, 66foreign policy of, 63, 66on Gerry, 65as heir apparent to Jefferson, 49, 53inauguration of, 57Jefferson and, 20, 54as president, 57-58, 63, 67, 74as presidential candidate, 55-57Virginia Resolutions and, 23-24

Mahone, William, 253Maine, vice president from, 203-9Mangum, Willie P., 144, 167Mansfield, Michael J.

Agnew and, 483Bobby Baker and, 460Ford and, 497Humphrey and, 467, 469, 473L.B. Johnson and, 456, 459, 460Nixon and, 487Rockefeller and, 508, 510

Marshall, JohnBurr and, 37, 44swearing in Jefferson and Clinton, 49

Marshall, Lois Kimsey, 338-39Marshall, Thomas R., 337-43, illus. 336

in 1916 election, 320, 341appearance of, 339characteristics of, 337-38, 341death of, 343elected vice president, 339as governor, 338offices of, 340presiding over the Senate, 339-41, 343residence as vp, 350as vice president, 339-43Wilson’s illness and, 342-43youth, 338

Martineau, Harriett, on R.M. Johnson, 129, 130Maryland, vice president from, 481-88Mason, James, Calhoun and, 98Massachusetts, vice presidents from, 3-11, 63-68, 233-39,

347-54Mathers, James, Burr and, 41-42Maysville Road, 125McCarthy, Eugene J., 474McCarthy, Joseph R.

Humphrey and, 471Nixon and, 438

McClellan, George, H. Wilson and, 236McFarland, Ernest W.

Barkley and, 428L.B. Johnson and, 455

McGovern, George S., 475, 520McKellar, Kenneth, Wallace and, 403McKinley, Ida, 291, 360McKinley, William

[ 586 ]

INDEX

McKinley (continued)in 1900 election, 300, 302-3Dawes and, 360death of, 305, 315elected president, 282-83, 290Fairbanks and, 314-15Hobart and, 290-93as president, 289, 291-93, 300-302, 304Sherman and, 326

McNary, Charles, 401McPherson, Harry

L.B. Johnson and, 460on L.B. Johnson, 456, 460

Mexican War, 159Breckinridge in, 194

Michigan, vice president from, 493-500Miller, William E., 472Minnesota, vice presidents from, 465-76, 517-25Missouri

machine politics in, 412-13vice president from, 411-18

Missouri Compromise, 77Mitchell, John, 507

Agnew and, 486Mitchill, Samuel L.

on Burr, 40, 42, 43, 49on Clinton, 55-56

Mondale, Joan Adams, 518, 522, 525Mondale, Walter F., 517-25, illus. 516

in 1976 election, 500in 1980 election, 524in 1984 election, 524, 536as ambassador to Japan, 525appointed to Senate, 519Carter and, 521-24characteristics of, 519cloture and, 510as presidential candidate, 520-21presiding over the Senate, 523Quayle and, 549in Senate, 519-21on vice-presidency, 522, 549as vice president, 522-24as vice-presidential candidate, 521writings of, 520, 522youth, 517

Monroe, James1792 election and, 52Calhoun and, 85-86on Clinton, 52elected president, 75Jackson and, 95R.M. Johnson and, 123reelected president, 77-78as secretary of state, 67, 85Tompkins and, 77, 78on vice-presidency, 33

Morris, Gouverneur, on Clinton, 58

Morris, Robert, Adams and, 8Morse, Samuel F.B., 154Morse, Wayne L.

as Democrat, 455as Independent, 442

Morton, Anna L.R. Street, 270, 273Morton, Levi P., 269-74, illus. 268

appearance of, 271banking and, 269-70breaking tie votes, 273characteristics of, 270-71Conkling and, 251, 253death of, 274elected vice president, 272as governor, 274in House, 270-71as minister to France, 271not renominated, 273-74as vice president, 273youth, 269

Morton, Lucy K., 269, 270

National Defense Program, Special Committee toInvestigate the, 414

National Republicansin 1824 election, 83in 1828 election, 93in 1832 election, 110Calhoun and, 86Fillmore and, 168opposition to Jackson, 111

Native American ancestry of vice president, 373-74, 380Naturalization Act (1798), 23New Jersey

indictment of Burr, 39vice president from, 289-93

New Yorkcustomhouse in, 251-52, 271east-west rivalry in, 170in selection of vice president, xvi, 167indictment of Burr, 39machine politics in, 251, 270, 299, 301-2, 304vice presidents from, xvi, 31-46, 47-60, 71-80, 103-18, 167-

76, 243-47, 251-56, 269-74, 297-307, 325-32, 505-12News media. See PressNixon, Richard M., 433-37, illus. 432

in 1952 election, 435-37in 1956 election, 440in 1960 election, 444-45, 458in 1968 election, 445 474-75, 482, 496, 507, 520in 1972 election, 446, 475, 486Agnew and, 481, 483-87on Agnew, 483, 484, 485, 488appointing vice president, 487-88, 493, 497-98, 508breaking tie votes, 442Bush and, 531-33as campaigner, 439-40

[ 587 ]

INDEX

Nixon (continued)California governor’s race and, 445‘‘Checkers’’ speech, 436-37death of, 446Eisenhower and, 433, 436, 443-47on filling vice-presidential vacancies, 493Ford and, 495-99on Ford, 496, 499foreign travel by, 441-42in House, 434pardon of, 499as president, 445-46, 475, 482-87, 496-99presiding over the Senate, 442-43Quayle and, 549resignation of, 446, 488, 499Rockefeller and, 497, 506-8secret fund and, 436in Senate, 435in South America, 441in Soviet Union, 441on vice-presidency, 446, 549as vice president, 437-46in World War II, 433-34youth, 433

Nixon, Thelma ‘‘Pat’’ Ryan, 433, 442Nobel Peace Prize, Dawes and, 362Nominations rejected by Senate, 145, 364-65Norris, George

Coolidge and, 351on Curtis, 378on Dawes, 364-65filibusters and, 363-64

NullificationCalhoun and, 94-96, 97, 108-9in 1799 Kentucky resolutions, 24

Oregon boundary, 159Otis, Samuel A., Adams and, 6

Panama Congress, 88-89, 107Panic of 1837, 115, 129Panic of 1873, 263Panic of 1893, Dawes and, 360Parker, Alton B., 316, 338Parliamentarian, Senate, 366, 482-83, 510

Barkley and, 427Parties, political

in 1850s, 203development of, 9, 18first caucuses, 156first transfer of presidential power between, 25president and vice president of different, 17, 19-20

Patronage, 272Adams and, 6Arthur and, 255Burr and, 37

Clinton and, 53Conkling and, 251-55Dallas and, 155Fairbanks and, 315Fillmore and, 171-72Hamlin and, 207Hendricks and, 265Morton and, 270-71A. Johnson and, 218R.M. Johnson and, 128Sherman and, 329Stevenson and, 280-81Tompkins and, 74Wheeler and, 247

Payne, Sereno, 328-29Payne-Aldrich Tariff

Curtis and, 377Sherman and, 329

Pendergast, Thomas, 412-13, 417Pendleton, George H., 255Pennsylvania, vice president from, 151-61Pepper, George W.

on Curtis, 378on Dawes, 366

Perot, Ross, 538, 551Pickering, John, Burr and, 40Pierce, Franklin

in 1852 election, 187in 1856 election, 195Breckinridge and, 194, 198Dallas and, 161elected president, 176Hendricks and, 262

Pinckney, Charles Cotesworth, 35, 57Pinckney, Thomas, 10, 19Pinkney, William, King and, 182Platt, Thomas C.

1884 election and, 256on Arthur, 255on Conkling, 251Conkling and, 251, 253, 254Morton and, 271, 274on Morton, 274resignation of, 247, 254, 272T. Roosevelt and, 297, 299-302

Plumer, Williamon Burr, 37, 39-40, 41on Clinton, 49, 54-55on Tompkins, 78

Political campaigns, changes in, 303Polk, James K.

in 1840 election, 130in 1844 election, 116, 154, 184Calhoun and, 98Dallas and, 159elected president, 116, 155Fillmore and, 170Great Britain and, 159

[ 588 ]

INDEX

Polk (continued)on Hamlin, 204

Postmasters, patronage and, 280President of the Senate

absence from the Senate, 77, 78, 207, 238addressing the Senate, 7-8, 10-11, 20, 25, 36, 43, 53, 57,

66, 128-29, 131, 141-42, 156, 158, 160, 172, 174, 196-97, 213, 291-92, 318, 363, 367

announcing electoral vote count, xiii, 20, 42, 130, 160, 198appointing committees, 87-88, 128, 156breaking tie votes, xiii, 3, 8, 10, 37-38, 55, 57, 96, 109,

114, 128, 158, 247, 253, 273, 292, 379, 389, 403, 416,442

Democratic Conference and, 459influence on legislation, xix, 55, 128, 366, 390, 426, 438,

460, 468-69, 473, 483, 549last to preside regularly over the Senate, 423, 427missing tie vote, 364-65as party liaison, 550powers of, xvi, 87, 90-92, 173-75presiding over impeachment trials, 22, 40-42presiding over the Senate, xvii

Adams, 7-9Agnew, 482-83Arthur, 253-54Barkley, 423, 427-28Breckinridge, 196-198Burr, 37-38Calhoun, 87-92, 94, 96, 174Clinton, 54-55, 56-57Colfax, 227-28Coolidge, 351-52Curtis, 380Dallas, 156-61Dawes, 364-67Fairbanks, 316-18Fillmore, 167, 173-75Garner, 389-90Gerry, 66-68Hamlin, 207Hobart, 291-92Jefferson, 22, 24-25L.B. Johnson, 459R.M. Johnson, 128Marshall, 339-40, 343Mondale, 523Morton, 273Nixon, 442-43Quayle, 549Rockefeller, 510-11Roosevelt, 303-4Sherman, 329Stevenson, 281-82Tompkins, 76, 78, 79Truman, 416-17Van Buren, 87-92, 111-14Wallace, 402-3Wheeler, 247

Wilson, 238relations with majority leader, 428rulings by, 91, 366, 428, 442-43, 510, 523ruling overturned by Senate, 427-28signing legislative documents, 7See also Vice President of the U.S.

President of the U.S.appointing vice president, 487-88, 493, 497, 508assassination of, 216-17, 254, 272, 305, 315, 460-61censure of, 112-13, 138, 183choosing vice-presidential nominee, 390, 400, 415, 425-

26, 444, 468considering whether to replace vice president, 444, 460,

485-86, 511, 551death of, 142, 167, 175, 186, 209, 216-17, 226, 254, 272,

305, 315, 405, 417, 38/20first not elected, 499first not seeking second term, 146health of

Bush, 551Cleveland, 281Eisenhower, 443F.D. Roosevelt, 415, 416Wilson, 342-43

incapacity of, 443lobbying Congress, 340relations with vice president

Adams, 21J.Q. Adams, 88-89, 92-93Buchanan, 196Bush, 548, 550-52Carter, 522-24Cleveland, 264-65, 281-82Coolidge, 359, 363-67Eisenhower, 433, 437-40, 443-47Ford, 509-12Garfield, 254Grant, 227Harding, 352B. Harrison, 273-74Hayes, 246-47Hoover, 373, 379-80Jackson, 94-96, 110-11Jefferson, 37, 39, 40, 49, 54, 55, 56L.B. Johnson, 469, 470-74Lincoln, 206-8Kennedy, 459-60Madison, 57, 63McKinley, 289-93, 304-5Monroe, 75, 77, 78Nixon, 483-87, 498Polk, 155, 159Reagan, 535-37F.D. Roosevelt, 388-92, 401-4, 416-17T. Roosevelt, 316, 320Taft, 328-30Taylor, 172-73Truman, 426, 428

[ 589 ]

INDEX

President of the U.S. (continued)Van Buren, 128Washington, 3, 6-7, 10W. Wilson, 337, 340-42

resignation of, 446, 488, 499vetoes by, 146, 218, 354, 378, 425

Presidential candidate, choosing vice president, 482, 521,524, 534-35, 537-38, 547-48

Presidential succession, xii-xiii, 143-44, 265, 342-43Presidential Succession Act (1792), xii, 265President pro tempore

addressing the Senate, 186announcing electoral votes, 127appointing committees and chairmen, 88, 111, 128, 144in line of succession to presidency, xii-xiii, 145most often elected, 181practice of appointing at end of a Congress, 25, 67-68,

160presiding over the Senate, 58, 186swearing in vice president, 20, 128, 141in vice-presidential vacancy, xiii, 144, 186

PressAgnew and, 484Bush and, 537Coolidge and, 353Curtis and, 378, 381Fairbanks and, 314Ford and, 498Garner and, 392L.B. Johnson and, 459-60Quayle and, 543, 548, 550Rockefeller and, 508T. Roosevelt and, 306

Press corps, WashingtonColfax and, 225, 227-28L.B. Johnson and, 459-60

Prevost, Theodosia Bartow, 33Public lands, 183

Quay, Matthew, 302Quayle, J. Danforth, 543-52, illus. 542

in 1988 election, 537-38, 547-48in 1992 election, 551-52Bush and, 537-38, 548, 550-52characteristics of, 544-45foreign travel by, 549in House, 545job training and, 546presiding over the Senate, 549in Senate, 545-47on vice-presidency, 549as vice president, 548-52writings of, 552youth, 544

Quayle, Marilyn Tucker, 543-46, 549

Radical RepublicansColfax and, 226A. Johnson and, 216, 217-18H. Wilson and, 235-36, 237

Randolph, JohnCalhoun and, 89-91Chase impeachment and, 41Clinton and, 55duel with Clay, 90

Rayburn, Sam T.Barkley and, 425Garner and, 388on Garner, 387L.B. Johnson and, 454, 457-58Truman and, 417-18

Reagan, Ronaldin 1976 election, 511, 533in 1980 election, 524-25, 534-35Bush and, 535-36Iran-Contra scandal and, 536-37Nixon and, 497Quayle and, 546-47

Reconstruction1876 election and, 246Colfax and, 226Hendricks and, 262-63A. Johnson and, 216, 217-18Wheeler and, 244H. Wilson and, 236-37

Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC), 387, 402, 405Reed, James A.

Coolidge and, 350Dawes and, 364

Reed, Thomas B.Curtis and, 375Sherman and, 326

Reid, Whitelaw, 270, 273Republican floor leader, Senate, first, 377-78Republican party (1)

in 1790s, 10, 19, 21-22, 65-66in 1808 election, 55, 57in 1824 election, 83in 1828 election, 107Alien and Sedition Acts and, 23attack on Federalist judges, 40Burr and, 33-34, 37, 40formation of, 9, 18Jefferson and, 21Tompkins and, 73, 74Van Buren and, 106

Republican party (2)first Senate floor leader, 377formation of, 203, 205, 224-25in Indiana, 314machine politics in, 251, 270-72Old Guard in, 313, 315-16, 326, 328, 330, 435-38in Reconstruction, 226, 245split in, 328, 330, 348

[ 590 ]

INDEX

Republican party (2) (continued)whip, 377H. Wilson and, 235, 239

Republican party leadership, Nixon and, 437-38Resignation of vice president, 97, 109, 487, 497, 508Riddick, Floyd M.

Agnew and, 482-83on Barkley, 427Rockefeller and, 510

Rives, William C., 126, 139Robertson, William H., 252-55, 271-72Robinson, Joseph T.

in 1928 election, 379Barkley and, 424on Dawes, 364Supreme Court packing plan and, 391

Rockefeller, John D., Jr., 505Rockefeller, John D., Sr., 505Rockefeller, Margaretta (Happy) Fitler Murphy, 507-9Rockefeller, Mary Todhunter Clark, 506Rockefeller, Nelson A., 505-12, illus. 504

in 1960 election, 444, 506in 1964 election, 507in 1968 election, 482, 507Agnew and, 482characteristics of, 510family background of, 505Ford and, 508-12as governor, 506-7Nixon and, 497, 507-8not seeking renomination, 511presiding over the Senate, 510-11on vice-presidency, 512as vice president, 509-11World War II and, 506youth, 505-6

Rolvaag, Karl, Mondale and, 517-19Roosevelt, Alice. See Longworth, Alice RooseveltRoosevelt, Alice Lee, 298Roosevelt, Edith Carow, 304Roosevelt, Eleanor, Truman and, 415, 417Roosevelt, Franklin D.

in 1920 election, 343, 350in 1932 election, 381, 387-88Barkley and, 424-25choice of vice president and, 400-401, 414-15death of, 405, 417Garner and, 388-93L.B. Johnson and, 454on Marshall, 339-40Rockefeller and, 506third term and, 392, 399-400Truman and, 413-17on vice-presidency, 385Wallace and, 399-405

Roosevelt, Theodore, 297-307, illus. 2961884 election and, 298in 1904 election, 316

in 1912 election, 306, 331Curtis and, 376-77Dawes and, 360death of, 306deciding whether to run for vice president, 300-302elected vice president, 283, 297, 303Fairbanks and, 313, 315-16, 318-20as governor, 299-302as president, 305-6, 315-16presiding over the Senate, 303-4Sherman and, 326, 330in Spanish-American War, 299succeeding to presidency, 305, 315on vice-presidency, 297, 301, 305as vice president, xviii, 303-5as vice-presidential candidate, 302-3World War I and, 306writings of, 297-98youth, 297

Root, ElihuT. Roosevelt and, 301, 305-6on Sherman, 331Sherman and, 327

Roush, J. Edward, 544-45, 551Rules, Senate

call to order, 91-92, 96, 174-75change at beginning of a Congress, 443, 510cloture, 427-28, 442-43, 510, 521Dawes and, 363-65filibuster, 363-65, 367point of order, 317, 428, 510, 523rulings by presiding officer, xiv, 91, 318, 366, 428, 442-

43, 510, 523Rumsfeld, Donald, 509, 511-12Rush, Benjamin, 5, 9, 20Rush, Richard, 93Russell, Richard B.

Barkley and, 427-28L.B. Johnson and, 454-58

Russia, 182. See also Soviet Union

Salaries, Senate, 157Saulsbury, Willard, Hamlin and, 207Scott, Winfield, 176Seaton, Mrs. William A., 77Secession

Breckinridge and, 197, 198Calhoun and, 96

Secretary of Agriculture, Wallace, 400, 416Secretary of Commerce, Wallace, 401-2, 405Secretary of state

assassination plot against, 216-17Buchanan, 155Byrnes, 405Clay appointed as, 87Hull, 401-2Jefferson, 10, 18-19

[ 591 ]

INDEX

Secretary of state (continued)presiding over cabinet meetings in president’s illness,

342, 343, 352resignation of, 109, 111Van Buren, 108-9Webster, 142-43

Secretary of the Senateon dates vice presidents sworn in, 216election of R.M. Johnson and, 127first, 6on Quayle, 547on travel expenses, 157Truman and, 417on vice presidency, 208

Secretary of the treasuryCrawford, 86, 123Hamilton, 18Taney, 111Walker, 157-58

Secretary of war, 85-86, 123-24Secret Service protection for vice president, first, 417Sedition Act (1798), 23-24Senate chamber

disorder in, 292funeral in, 239Rockefeller swearing in, 505, 509

Senate majority leader becoming vice president, 379, 425-26, 457-58

Senate, U.S.choosing vice president, xviii, 115, 121, 127, 139confirming vice president, 497, 508-9even party division in, 253expulsion from, 193, 198, 262in impeachment trials, 40-42, 218-19organizational matters, 90-91, 111, 156, 157presidential succession and, 144procedure, review of, 547

Senator becoming vice president, 186, 206, 238, 316, 379,415, 425-26, 436-37, 457-58, 468, 521-22, 547-48

Senatorial courtesy, 254Senators, compensation of, 157Seniority system, beginning of, 156Sergeant at arms, Senate, 367

banning liquor in Senate, 160impeachment trials and, 41maintaining order, 207

Sergeant, John, in 1832 election, 110Seward, William H.

1852 election and, 176in 1860 election, 205-6Arthur and, 252Burr and, 44Compromise of 1850 and, 174Fillmore and, 169, 170-72Hamlin and, 206A. Johnson and, 215Lincoln assassination and, 216-17

Seymour, Horatio, 219, 227, 263

Sherman, Carrie Babcock, 325Sherman, James S., 325-32, illus. 324

characteristics of, 328-29, 331-32Committee of the Whole and, 326death of, 331elected vice president, 320, 328health of, 331in House, 325-27presiding over the Senate, 329as vice president, 328-31as vice-presidential candidate, 328youth, 325

Sherman Silver Purchase Act, 281Shively, Benjamin, Marshall and, 341Slavery

Breckinridge on, 194Hamlin and, 205Hendricks and, 263in the territories, 173, 185-86, 194-95, 197, 204Tyler on, 138Whigs and, 169-70, 171Wilson and, 234-35, 236

Smathers, George A., 455-56, 459, 461Smith, Alfred

in 1928 election, 379Garner and, 387

Smith, Margaret Bayard, 122Smith, Samuel

Clinton and, 55, 57committee chairman, 88

Smithsonian Institution, Marshall and, 337Smoot, Reed, Dawes on, 365South Carolina, vice president from, 83-99Southard, Samuel, 144Soviet Union, 403-5Spain

relations with in 1898, 292Burr conspiracy and, 44

Spanish-American War, 292, 299Sprague, Kate Chase, 251, 255Sprague, William, 251‘‘Stalwarts,’’ 251, 254

in 1876 election, 245in 1880 election, 271in 1884 election, 256Morton and, 270

Stanton, Edwin, 226Stevens, Thaddeus

Colfax and, 225impeachment of A. Johnson and, 218-19H. Wilson and, 236

Stevenson, Adlai E. (1835-1914), 279-84, illus. 278in 1900 election, 283, 303appearance of, 282death of, 283elected vice president, 281in House, 280patronage and, 265, 280

[ 592 ]

INDEX

Stevenson (continued)presiding over the Senate, 281-82as vice president, 281-82youth, 279

Stevenson, Adlai E. (1900-1965), 283-84in 1952 election, 437, 439in 1956 election, 440

Stevenson, Letitia Green, 279, 283Stone, William, 317-18Sumner, Charles

Grant and, 237-38Morton and, 270H. Wilson and, 235, 236, 237

Supreme Courtappointments to, 38chief justice on presidential succession, 143F.D. Roosevelt and, 390-91, 424

Taft, Robert A.in 1952 election, 435death of, 442nomination of Wallace and, 416

Taft, William Howardin 1908 election, 319-20, 327-28in 1912 election, 306, 330-31as president, 328-30

Taggart, Thomas, Marshall and, 338-39Tammany Society, 73Taney, Roger B.

as chief justice, 172on presidential succession, 143as treasury secretary, 111

Tariffs1832, 97, 109-101842, 146, 169of Abominations, 93, 108Dallas and, 158-59Payne-Aldrich, 329, 377

Taylor, Zacharyin 1848 election, 159, 170-71death of, 167, 175, 186elected president, 116, 171Fillmore and, 172-73inauguration of, 172slavery and, 173

Teapot Dome scandal, 352Tecumseh, 121, 123Telegraph at U.S. Capitol, 154Tennessee, vice president from, xviii, 211-19Tenure of Office Act (1867), 218, 226Texas

annexation of,Calhoun and, 98Van Buren and, 154, 185vice presidents from, 385-93, 453-61, 529-38

Thomson, Charles, on Gerry, 64Thurman, Allen G., 265

Thurmond, Strom, 405Tilden, Samuel J.

in 1876 election, 243, 246, 263Hendricks and, 263-64

Tompkins, Daniel D., 73-80, illus., 72absence from Senate, 77, 78, 88appearance of, 73death of, 79elected vice president, 75financial problems, 76, 78-79as governor, 74-75patronage and, 74presiding over the Senate, 76-77, 78-79reelected vice president, 77-78Van Buren and, 106as vice president, 75-79youth, 73

Tompkins, Hannah Minthorne, 73Tower, John G.

Quayle and, 549Rockefeller and, 511

Travel expenses, Senate, 157Treason charges against Burr, 44Treaty of Versailles, 343Truman, Elizabeth (Bess) Wallace, 411-12, 415Truman, Harry S., 411-18, illus. 410

in 1944 election, 405, 414-15in 1948 election, 406, 425-26appearance of, 414Barkley and, 425-28breaking tie votes, 416characteristics of, 414, 418death of, 418on Humphrey, 465legislation and, 427as president, 417-18, 427-28presiding over the Senate, 416-17Rockefeller and, 506in Senate, 413-15succeeding to presidency, 405, 417on vice-presidency, 415-17, 426as vice president, 416-17as vice-presidential candidate, 405, 414-15in World War I, 412youth, 411

Truman Committee, 414Trumbull, John, Adams and, 8Tyler, John, 137-46, illus. 136

in 1836 election, 127, 139in 1840 election, 130, 140-41addressing the Senate, 141-42appearance of, 142-43appointment of Calhoun, 98candidate for vice president, 130, 139, 141death of, 146elected vice president, 130Fillmore and, 169in House, 138

[ 593 ]

INDEX

Tyler (continued)nominations rejected, 145as president, 144-46resignation from Senate, 139in Senate, 138-39on slavery, 138succeeding to presidency, 137, 143-44sworn in as president, 143vetoes by, 145-46as vice president, 141-42youth, 137

Tyler, Julia Gardiner, 146Tyler, Letitia Christian, 138

Updike, Johnon Ford, 494on King, 182

Van Buren, Hannah Hoes, 106Van Buren, Martin, 103-18, illus. 104

1824 election and, 87, 1071828 election and, 107-8in 1832 election, 110, 125in 1836 election, 115, 121, 126, 139in 1840 election, 115, 129-30, 140-41in 1844 election, 116, 154, 184in 1848 election, 116, 159, 171, 173appearance of, 114, 116appointed minister to England, 95, 96, 109breaking tie votes, 114Calhoun and, 88-89, 90-91, 93, 94-95, 96censure of Jackson and, 112-13committee chairman, 88death of, 116elected president, 115, 127inauguration of, 128as Jackson adviser, 95, 108-9R.M. Johnson and, 124, 128, 129King and, 184-85in legislature, 106as president, 97, 115, 129presiding over Senate, 111-14resignation as secretary of state, 109as secretary of state, 108-9in Senate, 78, 107-8as vice president, 110-14youth, 105-6

Vandenberg, Arthur H., 494Garner and, 390Truman and, 417

Veterans. See Bonus marchVetoes, presidential

by Coolidge, 354, 378by A. Johnson, 218by F.D. Roosevelt, 425by Tyler, 146

Vice-presidencyAdams on, 7constitutional origins of, xi-xiii, 6duties of, xiii-xivJefferson on, 20-21vacancy in, xii-xiii

Vice president of the U.S.age of, xv, 195, 423, 425-26appointed by president, 487-88, 497, 508assassination plot against, 216-17attending cabinet meetings, xix, 337, 352, 427, 439, 445attending presidential meetings, 522, 549banker as, 272-73busts of, xix-xx, 239, 325campaigning for congressional candidates, 428, 439-40,

470chairing executive councils, 470, 483, 549-50challenging president for nomination, 392chosen by Senate, 127cities and towns named for, 151, 314clerk for, 167confirmed by Congress, 497, 508-9conflict with cabinet officers, 401-2consulted by president

Adams, 6-7, 10Bush, 535-36Garner, 388-89Hamlin, 206Hobart, 291Humphrey, 469Jefferson, 21Mondale, 522-23Nixon, 437, 439Quayle, 549Sherman, 330Van Buren, 110-11

declining to attend cabinet meetings, 364died in office, 58, 68, 187, 239, 265, 293, 331elected president, xv, xvii-xviii, 10, 20, 25, 115, 529elected by Senate, xvii, 115foreign travel by, 403-4, 441-42, 459, 470, 472-73, 485, 535,

550influence of, 401, 406, 437, 460involved in foreign policy, 550as link to party leadership, 437-38, 550maintaining law practice, 158not consulted by president

Adams, 6Agnew, 485Breckinridge, 196Burr, 37,Bush, 537Clinton, 54Curtis, 373, 379Dallas, 155, 159Fairbanks, 316, 320Fillmore, 172-73Hamlin, 207

[ 594 ]

INDEX

Vice president of the U.S. (continued)Humphrey, 470, 472Jefferson, 21L.B. Johnson, 459R.M. Johnson, 128Marshall, 340-41Rockefeller, 509-10Roosevelt, 305Stevenson, 382Truman. 416-17Wheeler, 247

not renominated, xv, 208, 214, 228, 273-74, 405, 411, 414,511

not seeking reelection, 392offices of, 340, 350, 365, 416, 423, 427, 459, 469, 482, 522oldest, xv, 423perquisites of, 340, 350presidential illness and, 342-43presiding over cabinet meetings in president’s absence,

342presiding over cabinet meetings during president’s

illness, 443, 446previous political experience of, xiv, xvqualifications for, xvi, xviiireasons for choosing, 487, 497, 508reelected, 57, 93, 341, 390, 444, 536renominated, 93, 130, 331, 341, 381, 433, 444, 486, 536,

551residence of, official, 380, 509, 522, 535residence of, private, 54, 350, 416, 442resignation of, 97, 109, 487, 497, 508role of, xiii-xiv, xvii, xix, 385, 393, 399, 401, 446, 470, 483,

549-50seal, coat of arms, and flag, 428, 510Secret Service and, 417serving under two presidents, xiv, 57, 87, 93song by, 360staff of, xix, 350, 522, 549succeeding to presidency, xv, xvii, 137, 143-44, 167, 176,

217, 254, 305, 352-53, 417, 461, 499swearing in of

in House chamber, 498outside United States, 187

youngest, xv, 195See also President of the Senate

Vice President’s RoomBarkley and, 427Dawes and, 365Hobart and, 291plaque to Wilson in, 239

Vice-presidential candidatesannouncement of, 543, 548chosen by president, 390, 400deceased, 331qualifications of, 543reasons for choosing, xviii

Agnew, 482, 486Arthur, 253

Barkley, 425-26Breckinridge, 195Bush, 534-35Calhoun, 87, 92-93Clinton, 53, 57Colfax, 226-27Coolidge, 349-50Curtis, 379Dallas, 154Dawes, 359, 362-63Fairbanks, 315-16Fillmore, 167, 170Ford, 40/9,Garner, 388, 390Gerry, 66,Hamlin, 203, 206Hendricks, 264Hobart, 290Humphrey, 468A. Johnson, 215, 208L.B. Johnson, 453, 457-58, 460R.M. Johnson, 126, 130King, 184, 187Marshall, 338-39Mondale, 521Morton, 271-72Nixon, 435-36, 444Quayle, 537-38, 547-48, 551Roosevelt, 300, 302Sherman, 327-28Stevenson, 281, 283Tompkins, 75Truman, 404-5, 414-15Tyler, 140-41Van Buren, 109Wallace, 393, 399-401Wilson, 237-38Wheeler, 245

Vice-presidential succession, xiiVietnam War

Humphrey and, 471-74Mondale and, 520Nixon and, 483-84

Virginia Resolutions, 23-24Virginia, vice presidents from, 17-26, 137-46Voorhees, Daniel

filibuster and, 281on Hendricks, 263-64

Voorhis, Jerry, Nixon and, 434

Wade, Benjamin F.as candidate for vice president, 226-27, 237Hamlin and, 206A. Johnson and, 217H. Wilson and, 236-37

Walker, Frank, Wallace and, 404Walker, Robert J., Dallas and, 155, 157-58

[ 595 ]

INDEX

Wallace, Henry A., 399-406, illus. 398in 1940 election, 400-401in 1948 election, 405-6appearance of, 399Barkley and, 425breaking tie votes, 403characteristics of, 399, 402as commerce secretary, 405influence of, 399, 401, 406, 426not renominated, 411, 414-15presiding over the Senate, 402-3religious views of, 401, 404as secretary of agriculture, 400-401Truman and, 416as vice president, 401-5writings of, 400, 403-4youth, 399-400

War of 1812, 66, 68, 123Warhawks, 85, 123, 182Warren, Charles, nomination of, 364-65Warren, Earl, in 1952 election, 435Warren, Francis E.

Dawes and, 365Fairbanks and, 317

Warren, Mercy Otis, on Gerry, 63Washington, George, 3, 19

in 1788 election, 5-6, 52Adams and, 7, 9elected president, 5-6neutrality of, 9, 10in Revolution, 32, 51in second term, 9-10

Watergate scandal, 486, 497-98Bush and, 532-33

Watkins, CharlesBarkley and, 427Dawes and, 366

Watson, James E., on Dawes, 366Webster, Daniel

in 1824 election, 87in 1836 election, 1271852 election and, 176as secretary of state, 142, 143Compromise of 1850 and, 98, 174Dallas and, 158opposition to Jackson, 111, 113in Senate, 173on Tompkins, 78Van Buren and, 96, 112in Webster-Hayne debate, 94

Weed, Thurlow1840 election and, 140Arthur and, 252Fillmore and, 168-70, 171, 172-73

Westmoreland, William, 472-73Wheeler, Burton K., Truman and, 413Wheeler, Mary King, 243Wheeler, William A., 243-47, illus. 242

in 1876 election, 246breaking tie votes, 247characteristics of, 243-44death of, 247health of, 243, 246in House, 244-45Louisiana contested election and, 244patronage and, 247as vice president, 246-47as vice-presidential candidate, 245youth, 243

Whig partyin 1836 election, 114, 127, 139,in 1840 election, 115, 130, 140in 1844 election, 169-70in 1848 election, 170-71in 1850s, 203after 1850, 176abolitionists and, 169-70caucus making committee assignments, 156Colfax and, 224Fillmore and, 168-69formation of, 111H. Wilson and, 234

White, Hugh Lawson, 111, 113, 126-27Willkie, Wendell, 401Wilmot Proviso, 173, 204

Calhoun and, 98Wilson, Harriet Howe, 234, 237Wilson, Henry, 233-39, illus. 232

characteristics of, 233, 237Credit Mobilier and, 228-29death of, 239elected vice president, 238on Grant presidency, 238health of, 238-39A. Johnson and, 219plaque in Capitol, 239in Senate, 235-37as shoemaker, 234as vice president, 238-39as vice-presidential candidate, 226, 228, 237youth, 233-34

Wilson, Woodrowin 1912 election, 306, 330-31, 339in 1916 election, 341Barkley and, 424elected president, 331illness of, 342-43lobbying Congress, 340Marshall and, 340-41on Marshall, 337T. Roosevelt and, 306on vice-presidency, 340

World War IDawes in, 361Marshall and, 341-42Truman in, 412

[ 596 ]

INDEX

World War IIBush in, 530L.B. Johnson in, 454Nixon in, 433-34Rockefeller and, 506Wallace and, 401-2

Wright, Silas1844 election and, 154elected governor of New York, 170R.M. Johnson and, 126, 128liquor and, 204panic of 1837 and, 129

tariff and, 93Van Buren and, 113, 116

Wythe, George, 17, 24

X,Y,Z Affair, 22, 34

Yarborough, Ralph, 531-32Yates, Richard, 33Yellowstone expedition, 123-24