Editing Vice President of the United States (section)

===19th and early 20th centuries===

For much of its existence, the office of vice president was seen as little more than a minor position. John Adams, the first vice president, was the first of many frustrated by the "complete insignificance" of the office. To his wife [[Abigail Adams]] he wrote, "My country has in its wisdom contrived for me the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man{{spaces}}... or his imagination contrived or his imagination conceived; and as I can do neither good nor evil, I must be borne away by others and met the common fate."<ref>{{cite book| last=Smith| first=Page| author-link=Page Smith| title=John Adams| volume=II 1784–1826| date=1962| publisher=Doubleday| location= New York| lccn=63-7188| page=844}}</ref> [[Thomas R. Marshall]], who served as vice president from 1913 to 1921 under President [[Woodrow Wilson]], lamented: "Once there were two brothers. One ran away to sea; the other was elected Vice President of the United States. And nothing was heard of either of them again."<ref name="casevpquote">{{cite web|url=http://www.case.edu/news/2004/10-04/vp_trivia.htm|title=A heartbeat away from the presidency: vice presidential trivia|publisher=[[Case Western Reserve University]]|date=October 4, 2004|access-date=September 12, 2008|archive-date=October 19, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171019155112/http://case.edu/news/2004/10-04/vp_trivia.htm|url-status=live}}</ref> His successor, [[Calvin Coolidge]], was so obscure that [[Major League Baseball]] sent him free passes that misspelled his name, and a fire marshal failed to recognize him when Coolidge's Washington residence was evacuated.<ref name="greenberg2007">{{cite book|title=Calvin Coolidge profile|publisher=Macmillan|author=Greenberg, David|year=2007|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wq1D6hcYlFwC&q=notary&pg=PA40|isbn=978-0-8050-6957-0|pages=40–41|access-date=October 15, 2020|archive-date=January 14, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210114195045/https://books.google.com/books?id=wq1D6hcYlFwC&q=notary&pg=PA40|url-status=live}}</ref> [[John Nance Garner]], who served as vice president from 1933 to 1941 under President [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]], claimed that the vice presidency "isn't worth a pitcher of warm piss".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://thinkexist.com/quotation/the_vice-presidency_isn-t_worth_a_pitcher_of_warm/196103.html|title=John Nance Garner quotes|access-date=August 25, 2008|archive-date=April 14, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160414213700/http://thinkexist.com/quotation/the_vice-presidency_isn-t_worth_a_pitcher_of_warm/196103.html|url-status=live}}</ref> [[Harry Truman]], who also served as vice president under Franklin Roosevelt, said the office was as "useful as a cow's fifth teat".<ref>{{cite magazine|title=Nation: Some Day You'll Be Sitting in That Chair|url=http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,875366,00.html|magazine=Time|access-date=October 3, 2014|date=November 29, 1963|archive-date=October 7, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141007074757/http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,875366,00.html|url-status=live}}</ref> [[Walter Bagehot]] remarked in ''[[The English Constitution]]'' that "[t]he framers of the Constitution expected that the ''vice''-president would be elected by the Electoral College as the second wisest man in the country. The vice-presidentship being a sinecure, a second-rate man agreeable to the wire-pullers is always smuggled in. The chance of succession to the presidentship is too distant to be thought of."<ref>{{Cite book|last=Bagehot|first=Walter|title=[[The English Constitution]]|publisher=Collins|year=1963|pages=80|orig-year=1867}}</ref>

When the [[Whig Party (United States)|Whig Party]] asked [[Daniel Webster]] to run for the vice presidency on [[Zachary Taylor]]'s ticket, he replied "I do not propose to be buried until I am really dead and in my coffin."<ref name="webster-novp">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FVSFAAAAMAAJ&q=%22I+do+not+propose+to+be+buried+until+I+am+really+dead+and+in+my+coffin.%22|title=A Grammar of American Politics: The National Government|last1=Binkley|first1=Wilfred Ellsworth|last2=Moos|first2=Malcolm Charles|author-link2=Malcolm Moos|location=New York|publisher=[[Alfred A. Knopf]]|year=1949|page=265|access-date=October 17, 2015|archive-date=September 13, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150913042802/https://books.google.com/books?id=FVSFAAAAMAAJ&q=%22I+do+not+propose+to+be+buried+until+I+am+really+dead+and+in+my+coffin.%22|url-status=live}}</ref><!--See also: https://books.google.com/books?id=FVSFAAAAMAAJ&q=%22I+do+not+propose+to+be+buried+until+I+am+really+dead+and+in+my+coffin.%22+webster (note the added word).--> This was the second time Webster declined the office, which [[William Henry Harrison]] had first offered to him. Ironically, both the presidents making the offer to Webster died in office, meaning the three-time candidate would have become president had he accepted either. Since presidents rarely die in office, however, the better preparation for the presidency was considered to be the office of [[United States Secretary of State|Secretary of State]], in which Webster served under Harrison, Tyler, and later, Taylor's successor, Fillmore.

In the first hundred years of the United States' existence no fewer than seven proposals to abolish the office of vice president were advanced.<ref name="ames">{{cite book|last1=Ames|first1=Herman|title=The Proposed Amendments to the Constitution of the United States During the First Century of Its History|date=1896|publisher=[[American Historical Association]]|pages=[https://archive.org/details/proposedamendmen00amesrich/page/70 70]–72|url=https://archive.org/details/proposedamendmen00amesrich}}</ref> The first such constitutional amendment was presented by [[Samuel W. Dana]] in 1800; it was defeated by a vote of 27 to 85 in the [[United States House of Representatives]].<ref name="ames"/> The second, introduced by United States Senator [[James Hillhouse]] in 1808, was also defeated.<ref name="ames"/> During the late 1860s and 1870s, five additional amendments were proposed.<ref name="ames"/> One advocate, [[James Mitchell Ashley]], opined that the office of vice president was "superfluous" and dangerous.<ref name="ames"/>

[[Garret Hobart]], the first vice president under [[William McKinley]], was one of the very few vice presidents at this time who played an important role in the administration. A close confidant and adviser of the president, Hobart was called "Assistant President".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.historycentral.com/Bio/rec/GarretHobart.html|title=Garret Hobart|access-date=August 25, 2008|archive-date=September 27, 2007|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070927233833/http://www.historycentral.com/Bio/rec/GarretHobart.html|url-status=live}}</ref> However, until 1919, vice presidents were not included in meetings of the [[United States Cabinet|President's Cabinet]]. This precedent was broken by Woodrow Wilson when he asked Thomas R. Marshall to preside over Cabinet meetings while Wilson was in France negotiating the [[Treaty of Versailles]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://lugar.senate.gov/services/pdf_crs/executive/The_Vice_Presidency.pdf|title=The Vice Presidency: Evolution of the Modern Office, 1933–2001|author=Harold C. Relyea|date=February 13, 2001|publisher=Congressional Research Service|access-date=February 11, 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111109070153/http://www.lugar.senate.gov/services/pdf_crs/executive/The_Vice_Presidency.pdf|archive-date=November 9, 2011|url-status=dead}}</ref> President [[Warren G. Harding]] also invited Calvin Coolidge, to meetings. The next vice president, [[Charles G. Dawes]], did not seek to attend Cabinet meetings under President Coolidge, declaring that "the precedent might prove injurious to the country."<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/generic/VP_Charles_Dawes.htm|title=U.S. Senate Web page on Charles G. Dawes, 30th Vice President (1925–1929)|publisher=Senate.gov|access-date=August 9, 2009|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141106112435/https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/generic/VP_Charles_Dawes.htm|archive-date=November 6, 2014|url-status=dead}}</ref> Vice President [[Charles Curtis]] regularly attended Cabinet meetings on the invitation of President [[Herbert Hoover]].<ref>{{cite magazine| title=National Affairs: Curtis v. Brown?| date=April 21, 1930| url=https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,739085,00.html| magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time]]| access-date=October 31, 2022}}</ref>