The vice-presidency of the United States is one of the two positions in the government of the United States that is filled in an election open to all eligible voters in every state and the District of Columbia.  The vice-president is the second highest ranking officer in the executive branch of the federal government, beneath only the president.  Both serve concurrent 4-year terms.  The constitutional duties of the vice-president are relatively unimportant, however, and traditionally vice-presidents have had little influence on public affairs. The Founding Fathers who wrote the U.S. Constitution in 1787 provided that all of the "executive power" would rest in the hands of the president.  Almost as an afterthought, they created the office of vice-president in order to provide for a successor should the president die or resign.

The significance of the office relates almost entirely to the fact that the vice-president succeeds to the presidency if the president dies, resigns, or is removed from office through the impeachment process.  Altogether, eight presidents have died in office, and one has resigned.  With the adoption in 1967 of the 25TH AMENDMENT to the U.S. Constitution, it is also possible for the vice-president to assume the duties of the presidency if the president becomes disabled.

President of the Senate

The vice-president is assigned only one responsibility by the Constitution, and that is in the legislative branch, not the executive branch.  The vice-president is designated as the presiding officer of the Senate of the United States and has the additional responsibility of casting a tie-breaking vote whenever the votes of the senators are evenly divided on any roll call.

The vice-president's role as president of the Senate has not proved to be significant.  The rules of parliamentary procedure adopted by the Senate provide little opportunity for the presiding officer to affect the course of the deliberations or to exercise political influence.  By custom, the vice-president does not speak except to issue rulings, and the members of the Senate generally discourage the vice-president from lobbying in the Senate chamber in support of a bill favored by the administration.  Behind the scenes, however, some vice-presidents, particularly those who have previously served in the Senate, have been effective in winning votes for bills favored by the administration and in explaining administration policies to the members of the Senate and House of Representatives.  In practice, the vice-president does not preside over the Senate with any frequency, except for ceremonial occasions.  The duty is usually delegated to a junior member of the Senate.

The responsibility for casting tie-breaking votes is not a great one.  First, if a vote on a measure has ended in a tie, it is regarded as defeated, and a negative vote by the vice-president would be superfluous.  Thus, only if the vice-president favors a particular measure and casts an affirmative vote can the tie-breaking vote prove decisive. Second, tie votes do not occur often.  For example, Richard Nixon cast only 8 votes during 8 years as vice-president.  The growth in the size of the Senate has reduced the statistical likelihood that tie votes will occur.  Furthermore, most issues are negotiated in advance among influential members of the Senate, so that a clear majority for or against a particular bill is usually formed before the actual vote is taken.

Nomination and Election

The U.S. Constitution as ratified in 1789 established a system for electing presidents and vice-presidents that remained in effect for only 15 years.  In each presidential election the electors chosen by the states cast their ballots for president and vice-president.  Each elector was permitted to vote for two candidates but was not permitted to indicate which choice he preferred for president and which for vice-president.  The authors of the Constitution reasoned that an elector might well cast one vote for a resident of his own state and give the other vote to a political leader with a national reputation, and that when all of the votes were counted such a national figure would emerge with the most votes--and, hence, the presidency.  It was further reasoned that the person who received the second greatest number of votes--hence, the vice-presidency--would also be some person of national reputation and the next best qualified person to serve as president.

The formation of political parties during the 1790s undermined the logic of this system, however.  Each political party began to put up two-man teams, and the electors chosen by that party would vote for both men.  In 1800 the candidates of the majority party, Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr, each received the same number (73) of electoral votes.  Because of the tie, the responsibility for choosing the president fell to the House of Representatives.  Everyone knew that Jefferson was the intended choice for president and Burr for vice-president, but the ambitious Burr allowed his name to remain in the running for the presidency, and he was supported by members of the House who opposed Jefferson.

As a result, although Jefferson was ultimately chosen by the House, it was apparent that the electoral system had to be abandoned.  The 12TH AMENDMENT to the Constitution, adopted in 1804, provided that the electors vote separately for the offices of president and vice-president.

The 12th Amendment created a new problem.  American political parties traditionally have been composed of several factions. Parties quickly discovered a means of achieving a semblance of unity during each election campaign.  After the contest for the presidential nomination was settled, the party leaders usually sought to console the losing faction by giving one of its members the nomination for vice-president, a process known as balancing the ticket.

This development, however, meant that if a president died in office it was highly possible that he would be succeeded by someone who had substantially different views on major issues. This situation arose on several occasions.  As a result, the ideologically balanced ticket concept gradually fell into disfavor.  Since World War II most party leaders have sought to nominate tickets composed of candidates who generally see eye-to-eye on key issues.  Balance is achieved by other means, usually by nominating a candidate who comes from a different part of the country, who represents a different ethnic background, or who has acquired different kinds of experience in public service.

In modern practice the presidential nominee consults with his advisors and with party leaders at the convention and then announces his choice for his vice-president, that is, running mate.  (The one exception was in 1956, when Adlai E.  Stevenson allowed the delegates of the Democratic Convention to select his running mate.) The presidential nominee's choice is invariably nominated, although seldom unanimously.  Because the vice-presidential nominees are often chosen in haste, failures in judgment can occur.  In 1972, Sen. George McGovern chose Sen. Thomas Eagleton to be his running mate on the Democratic ticket.  McGovern later learned that Eagleton had been treated for depression and persuaded him to resign from the ticket. Spiro T. Agnew, who was twice chosen (1968, 1972) by Richard Nixon as his running mate, was forced to resign in 1973 after pleading "no contest" to a charge of income tax evasion.

All major-party nominees for president and vice-president had been white males until 1984, when the Democrats nominated Geraldine Ferraro.  Blacks have recently also received serious consideration for the post.

The Succession Problem

The Constitution originally provided that "In Case of the Removal of the President from Office, or of his Death, Resignation, or Inability to discharge the Powers and Duties of the said Office, the Same shall devolve on the Vice President. .  .  ." Years later, a controversy arose over whether "the Same" referred to "Powers and Duties" or to "Office." In 1841, when President William Henry Harrison died in office, Vice-President John Tyler took the presidential oath and subsequently asserted that he was in fact holding the office of president, not merely performing the powers and duties of the presidency.  Although some contemporaries (and some constitutional scholars today) disagreed with Tyler's interpretation of the Constitution, no serious challenge was made to his assumption of the presidency, and his viewpoint prevailed.  In all subsequent instances in which a president had died, his successor has been accepted by the public as the president both in power and in fact.

Tyler's precedent, however, brought on another dilemma.  On several occasions a president has become disabled.  In each instance the vice-president has chosen not to take action in accord with the provision of the Constitution quoted herein, for fear that the disabled president might regain his health and seek to reclaim his office.  If his successor was in fact president, not merely performing the powers and duties of the office, then there would be no constitutional means of returning the office to the recovered president.

The 25th Amendment to the Constitution, ratified in 1967, sought to remedy that situation.  The amendment provides that if a president is disabled, the vice-president may exercise the powers and duties of the office, but only as acting president. The president, upon his recovery, may resume his duties.  The authors of the amendment devised a complicated formula to help resolve any controversy that might arise between the president and vice-president over whether or not the former was physically able to perform his duties.

On July 13, 1985, President Ronald Reagan followed the procedures set forth by the amendment, although he did not formally invoke the amendment, when he temporarily transferred executive authority to his vice-president, George Bush.  The transfer of power, which lasted approximately eight hours, was in effect while Reagan was under general anesthesia for surgery.

Before 1967 the office of vice-president had been vacant 16 times as a result of the deaths of 8 presidents and 7 vice-presidents and the resignation of one vice-president.  The 25th Amendment also created a means of filling such vacancies when they occur.  It provided that if the office of vice-president becomes vacant, the president must nominate someone to fill the vacancy.  On approval of both houses of the Congress, the nominee is sworn in as vice-president.

During the devastating political scandals of the early 1970s, this section of the amendment was applied twice.  In 1973, after Vice-President Spiro Agnew resigned, President Nixon nominated Rep. Gerald R. Ford to succeed Agnew.  After a careful investigation by the Congress, Ford's nomination was approved.  Vice-President Ford, in turn, succeeded to the presidency when Nixon resigned after being implicated in the Watergate affair.  Ford nominated Nelson A. Rockefeller for vice-president, and the latter was approved by the Congress.

The Constitution gives the Congress the responsibility for providing for the order of succession to the presidency should the offices of both president and vice-president be vacant at the same time.  The succession statute was most recently rewritten in 1947, when Congress established the succession in this order:  the Speaker of the House of Representatives, the president pro tempore of the Senate, and the heads of the departments in the executive branch of the federal government, in the order in which the departments were created, beginning with the secretary of state.  The succession has never passed below the vice-president, although this would have occurred in 1974, when Nixon resigned, had not the 25th Amendment provided for the filling of the vacancy created by Agnew's resignation a year earlier.

Political History of the Office

The most memorable event in the early history of the vice-presidency (after the Jefferson-Burr controversy) was the competition between John C. Calhoun and Martin Van Buren to succeed President Andrew Jackson.  Calhoun, who was vice-president during Jackson's first term, quarreled with the president over the issue of state rights and other matters and resigned as vice-president in frustration.  Jackson chose Calhoun's adversary, Van Buren, to be the vice-president for his second term and was instrumental in securing Van Buren's nomination and election to the presidency in 1836.

From 1836 to 1988 no incumbent vice-president had been elected directly to the presidency;  George Bush managed this feat in 1988.  Many earlier vice-presidents were relatively unknown even in their own time.

Those vice-presidents who were elevated to the highest office through the death of the president provided some memorable moments in American history.  President Zachary Taylor died during the debate over the Compromise of 1850, which he opposed.  He was succeeded by Millard Fillmore, who supported the compromise, which, when adopted, helped avert the outbreak of civil war for a decade.  President Abraham Lincoln, who favored reconciliation between the North and South after the Civil War, was assassinated and succeeded by Andrew Johnson, who shared Lincoln's attitude but who lacked the political skill to accomplish that objective.  Chester Alan Arthur, a product of the notorious spoils system, converted to the cause of civil-service reform and helped achieve its adoption after an advocate of reform, President James Garfield, was assassinated (by a disappointed office seeker).

Another reformer, Theodore Roosevelt, succeeded the assassinated William McKinley in 1901 and became a leader in the Progressive movement.  Warren Harding died in 1923 immediately before the discovery of serious scandals in his administration.  He was succeeded by Calvin Coolidge, whose probity helped restore public confidence.

The modern history of the vice-presidency dates from World War II, when Franklin D. Roosevelt gave Vice-President Henry A. Wallace major responsibilities involving acquisition of natural resources required for the war effort.  Thereafter, the concept of the working vice-president gradually evolved.  Through acts of Congress and executive orders issued by the presidents, vice-presidents have received assignments that required them to deal with such problems as race relations, the space program, and unemployment.  The vice-president is also a member of the National Security Council.  Nixon was the first vice-president to travel abroad extensively on diplomatic missions, and his successors have done the same.  Rockefeller headed an investigation into alleged abuses by the Central Intelligence Agency.  Walter Mondale served as one of Carter's closest advisors.

In another trend, recent vice-presidents have become highly partisan supporters of their presidents, defending their administrations and policies in terms more vehement than presidents consider it politic to use.  President Lyndon B. Johnson's conduct of the unpopular Vietnam War and Vice-President Hubert H. Humphrey's outspoken defense of the war accounted in large measure for Humphrey's defeat as the Democratic nominee for president in 1968.  As the public debate over Vietnam continued into the Nixon administration, Agnew delivered a series of speeches remarkable for their intemperance.

During his 8 months as vice-president, Ford spoke dozens of times at Republican gatherings, seeking to rally the party during the embarrassment of the Watergate scandal.  Walter Mondale relied on his close ties with the Washington political establishment and with union leaders, northern blacks, and traditional liberals in his effort to unite the Democratic party behind President Jimmy Carter.  George Bush campaigned vigorously for President Reagan in 1984 and 1988, and became the first sitting vice-president to win the presidency since Martin Van Buren in 1836.

Donald D. Young

Bibliography:  Barzman, Sol, Madmen and Geniuses:  The Vice-Presidents of the United States (1974);  Dunlap, Leslie W., Our Vice-Presidents and Second Ladies (1988);  Hatch, Louis C., A History of the Vice-Presidency of the United States, ed. by Earl Shoup (1934;  repr.  1970);  Healy, Diana D., America's Vice Presidents (1984);  Light, Paul C., Vice-Presidential Power:  Advice and Influence in the White House (1983); Natoli, Marie D., American Prince, American Pauper:  The Contemporary Vice-Presidency in Perspective (1985);  Nelson, Michael, A Heartbeat Away:  Report of the 20th Century Fund Task Force on the Vice-Presidency (1988);  Sindler, Allan P., Unchosen Presidents:  The Vice-President and Other Frustrations of Presidential Succession (1976);  Vexler, Robert I., The Vice-Presidents and Cabinet Members:  Biographical Sketches Arranged Chronologically by Administration, 2 vols.  (1975); Williams, Irving G., The Rise of the Vice Presidency (1956); Young, Donald, American Roulette:  The History and Dilemma of the Vice Presidency, rev.  ed.  (1972).