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What's The Most High-Profile, Insignificant Job In America?
You'd think being vice president was an important task. But there are a lot of reasons you'd be wrong.Here are three reasons being VP is totally meaningless, and one reason it's totally not.
10.11.12
1. A lot of people — including actual vice presidents — think it's a stupid job.
John Adams called it "the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived." | |
John Nance Garner, vice president to FDR, said the position was "not worth a bucket of warm piss." | |
Daniel Webster, in turning down the nomination, said "I do not intend to be buried until I am dead." |
2. Until 1967, we didn't even care if there wasn't a vice president at all, and the position was left vacant 16 times.
Times we didn't have a VP:
1812-1813 | George Clinton died in office |
1814-1817 | Elbridge Gerry died in office |
1832-1833 | John C. Calhoun resigned from office |
1841-1845 | John Tyler became President upon the death of William Henry Harrison |
1850-1853 | Millard Fillmore became President upon the death of Zachary Taylor |
1853-1857 | William King died in office |
1865-1869 | Andrew Johnson became President upon the death of Abraham Lincoln |
1875-1877 | Henry Wilson died in office |
1881-1885 | Chester Arthur became President upon the death of James Garfield |
1885-1889 | Thomas Hendricks died in office |
1899-1901 | Garret Hobart died in office |
1901-1905 | Theodore Roosevelt became President upon the death of William McKinley |
1912-1913 | James S. Sherman died in office |
1923-1925 | Calvin Coolidge became President upon the death of Warren G. Harding |
1945-1949 | Harry Truman became President upon the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt |
1963-1965 | Lyndon Johnson became President upon the death of John F. Kennedy |
1973 | Spiro Agnew resigned from office |
1974 | Gerald Ford became President upon the resignation of Richard Nixon |
3. The position apparently leaves enough free time for veeps to shoot people.
MORE THAN ONE of them has done this while in office. First Burr:
Then Cheney:
1. And why it actually matters a lot? Being VP leads to being president a lot more often than you'd think.
John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Martin Van Buren, John Tyler, Millard Fillmore, Andrew Johnson, Chester Arthur, Theodore Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge, Harry Truman, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush all became president after serving as vice president.