About the Vice President

Heart complications caused many to beleive that Vice President Dick Cheney would die in office, joining the legacy of seven other vice presidents. No one could have guessed he would join history as the second vice president to shoot someone in office. "Not since Aaron Burr, has a vice president shot someone," an NBC newscast recently declared and it's true. Aaron Burr, who served as vice president for Thomas Jefferson, purposefully shot his rival, Alexander Hamilton in a duel over political posturing and honor. However, the event is hardly comparable to Cheney's hunting accident. Yet, the results may end up the same. The duel and Burr's subsequent trial turned him into one of the most spurned vice president's in history. Similarly, if Cheney's accident turns fatal he may be subject to a grand jury investigation.
Yet, Cheney's accident is just another colorful event in the history of the vice presidency. Elbridge Gerry, the vice president under James Madison, loaned his name to the term "Gerrymandering," which refers to redistricting areas in order to increase political strength. Calvin Coolidge's vice president, Charles Dawes, won a Nobel Prize and in 1951 his composition "Melody in A Major" became a pop song later recorded by Van Morrison and Elton John. On the other hand, musical Vice President Harry S. Truman caused a scandal when he was pictured playing a piano with Lauren Bacall posing on top. His wife, Bess, was reportedly upset over the picture and Bacall still claims to receive letters about the incident.
Additionally, the history of the vice presidency is as complicated and interesting as the men who have filled it. The role seems to have been an afterthought in the minds of the framers of the Constitution. The vice president was to be the presidential understudy in case of death, illness or if the president was found guilty of treason, bribery and "other High Crimes and Misdemeanors." Originally, the founding fathers created a system where the person receiving the majority of the electoral votes became president and the person receiving the second-most became vice president. In addition, they gave the vice president two jobs; to serve as the President of the Senate and in the event of a tie, to cast the deciding vote.
However, the system for electing a vice president broke down in 1800, when Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr received the same number of electoral votes. The standoff was finally decided by the House of Representatives. These events lead to the Amendment XII in 1804, which specified different electoral ballots for the president and vice president. The amendment, did much to undercut the prestige of the vice president because the vice president was no longer the second largest vote getter.
The lack of prestige and responsibility has made the role of vice president one of the most mocked jobs in history, often by the men who filled it. Thomas R. Marshall, the 28th vice president, told a story about the job, stating, "Once there were two brothers. One went away to sea; the other was elected Vice President of the United States. And nothing was heard of either of them again." After being asked to be vice president on Zachary Taylor's ticket in 1848, Daniel Webster is reported to have said, "I do not intend to be buried until I am dead."
Though the vice president stands only a heart beat away from the presidency, Webster's statement encompasses much of the sentiment surrounding the job. As a result of this perception, many vice presidents have given the job the cold-shoulder. During the Civil War, vice president Hannibal Hamlin spent most of his time at home in Maine. Henry Wilson, Grant's vice president used his time in office to write a three volume history of slavery. In fact, John C. Calhoun resigned his seat in 1832 to fill a vacancy in the Senate. He thought he would have more influence and power as a senator than as the vice president. And at the time, he may have been correct. Vice President Spiro Agnew also resigned but not because he wanted to be a senator, rather because he pleaded no contest to charges of tax evasion and receiving bribes.
In a few circumstances the vice president has moved from obscurity and into the highest position in the land. John Tyler, Millard Fillmore, Andrew Johnson, Chester A. Arthur, Theodore Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge, Harry Truman, Lyndon Johnson and Gerald Ford, were the fated nine who have moved from the Vice President's Office to the Oval Office.