There has never been a prolonged period in the nation’s history when the country didn’t have a chief executive at the helm (and no, we’re not talking about those brief times every now and then when the president, say, is anesthetized during surgery and the reigns of power are handed over to his No. 2).
VEEPs – now they’re a different story. There have been no fewer than 17 times when America has had no vice president. And those times have not been brief either. Frequently, they lasted not days or weeks but years. The office of the vice president, it seems, is truly the Rodney Dangerfield of U.S. government. It just doesn’t get any respect.
Here, then, is the first part of our two-part series on vice president-less America.
The first VEEP-less president, James Madison, had no vice president from 1812, when his second-in-command, George Clinton (no relation to Bill Clinton or the Parliament-Funkadelic funk god of the same name) died of a heart attack, until 1813, when Elbridge Gerry was chosen to succeed him. Madison again had no VEEP from 1814, when Gerry too died in office, until the end of his administration in 1817. Really, after Gerry became the second Madison VEEP to kick the bucket in office, is it any wonder the job stayed permanently vacant?
Andrew Jackson had no VEEP from 1832 when his first-term vice president, John C. Calhoun, resigned to enter the U.S. Senate, where he had more power (are you listening future VEEP potentates?), until 1833, when Martin Van Buren, elected by a landslide with Jackson for the latter’s second term, took office.
John Tyler had no vice president for his entire term in office, from 1841-1845. Tyler, who was VEEP under William Henry Harrison, became president when Harrison died a month after being inaugurated in 1841. Tyler was the first VEEP in the nation’s history to become chief executive due to the death of the sitting president, and no mandated procedures were in place at the time for a new VEEP to be selected to serve under the newly ascended head of state. (Nor would they be for another 126 years.) It wasn’t until 1967, when the 25th Amendment formally became part of the Constitution, that the issue became settled by law. The 25th Amendment holds that, “Whenever there is a vacancy in the office of the Vice President, the President shall nominate a Vice President who shall take office upon confirmation by a majority vote of both Houses of Congress.”
Millard Fillmore too had no VEEP for his entire term, from 1850-1853, for the same reason as Tyler: Fillmore, VEEP under Zachary Taylor, ascended to the presidency upon Taylor’s death while in office in July 1850.
Franklin Pierce went without a No. 2 from 1853, when Vice President William Rufus deVane King died of tuberculosis on his 45th day in office (King remains the nation’s shortest-serving VEEP), to the end of his term in 1857.
Andrew Johnson, who became president when Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, had no vice president for his entire term, from 1865-1869, for the same reasons as Tyler and Fillmore.
Ulysses S. Grant went without a VEEP from 1875, when his second vice president, Henry Wilson, died due to complications from paralysis, to the end of his term in 1877.
Like Tyler, Fillmore and Johnson, Chester Arthur was VEEP-less for his entire term in office too, from 1881-1885. Arthur, VEEP under James A. Garfield, became president when Garfield died in September 1881 from wounds suffered in an attempted assassination two months earlier.
