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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.

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.





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