Webster miscalculated
Daniel Webster once declared “I do not propose to be buried until I’m dead and in my coffin.” Twice, he turned down opportunities to be vice president. Twice the president kicked the bucket:
William Henry Harrison died after a month
Zachary Taylor died less than halfway through his term
Webster missed the boat.
Lyndon B. Johnson was more calculated about the odds than Webster. I just read that when approached to be John F. Kennedy’s vice president, he asked his staff to look into how many vice presidents became president. At the time, the number was ten. And seven of those guy didn’t even campaign for the job. (Exhibit A: the guys highlighted in blue were elected president; the guys in gray received the promotion due to the president’s death.)
Inspired by An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s by Doris Kearns Goodwin
Exhibit A
________________________________
Of the ten vice presidents became president:
The last seven were due to the death of a president.
Four of those were deaths due to natural causes.
Three of the deaths were assassinations.
I referenced my own chart of vice presidents to create this doodle and yet I skipped over Millard Fillmore. I’m not sorry. He was terrible.
________________________________
Three of the presidents who died had more than one VP
Abraham Lincoln:
Hannibal Hamlin, an abolitionist from Maine, reluctantly served as vice president for Lincoln’s first term. Party leaders ditched him in favor of a southerner who could get more votes. He swore in his successor…
Andrew Johnson. Ick. Totally upended Reconstruction. I can’t help but wonder what would have happened if Hamlin stayed on the ticket. On one hand, maybe Lincoln wouldn’t have won reelection. On the other hand, what if George Atzerodt didn’t chicken out on killing the vice president… like he chickened out killing Andrew Johnson? In any case, Andrew Johnson was vice president for only 42 days before Lincoln was killed.
William McKinley:
Garret Hobart (pictured) was good friends with McKinley and sported a splendid mustache. He died in office and is spending eternity in the largest vice presidential tomb.
Theodore Roosevelt was “kicked upstairs” to keep him out of trouble. That backfired.
Franklin D. Roosevelt:
John Nance Garner, who said the vice presidency was “not worth a pitcher of warm piss.”
Henry A. Wallace, ousted from the ticket because he was too liberal, too quick to anger, and too into mysticism.
Harry S Truman, who reporters called a “Missouri compromise,” was only veep for 82 days before FDR died.
But wait! There’s more.
Click on any of these veeps-who-became-president for more info and related blog post. They’re color-coded by party! I included the ones after LBJ joined JFK’s ticket, too.
FEDERALIST / DEMOCRATIC-REPUBLICAN / DEMOCRAT / WHIG / REPUBLICAN
