Last modified on November 21, 2023, at 04:30

Vice President of the United States of America

"Vice President" redirects here. For a more general article on vice presidents, please see vice president.

The Vice President of the United States of America is first in the order of succession to the presidency. While the only duty spelled out for the position in the Constitution is to preside over the Senate, other duties have been assumed over time.

Election

Currently, the vice-president is elected together with the president, each elector voting for one man for president and another for vice-president. This system was mandated by the Twelfth Amendment, ratified in 1804. Previously, each elector had voted for two different people for president, and the runner-up had become vice-president. However, this system broke down in the election of 1800, when Thomas Jefferson, the Jeffersonian Republican presidential candidate, tied with Aaron Burr, his running mate.

List of vice-presidents

Vice-presidents have included some "remarkable individuals":[1]

Vice President Years State Party President(s)
1. John Adams 1789-1797 Massachusetts Federalist[2] Washington
2. Thomas Jefferson 1797-1801 Virginia Republican (Jeffersonian)[3] Adams
3. Aaron Burr 1801-1805 New York Republican (Jeffersonian) Jefferson
4. George Clinton 1805-1812 New York Republican (Jeffersonian) Jefferson, Madison
5. Elbridge Gerry 1813-1814 Massachusetts Republican (Jeffersonian) Madison
6. Daniel D. Tompkins 1817-1825 New York Republican (Jeffersonian) Monroe
7. John C. Calhoun 1825-1832 South Carolina Republican (Jeffersonian), Democrat Adams, Jackson
8. Martin Van Buren 1833-1837 New York Democrat Jackson
9. Richard M. Johnson 1837-1841 Kentucky Democrat Van Buren
10. John Tyler 1841 Virginia Whig Harrison
11. George Dallas 1845-1849 Pennsylvania Democrat Polk
12. Millard Fillmore 1849-1850 New York Whig Taylor
13. William King 1853 Alabama Democrat Pierce
14. John C. Breckinridge 1857-1861 Kentucky Democrat Buchanan
15. Hannibal Hamlin 1861-1865 Maine Republican Lincoln
16. Andrew Johnson 1865 Tennessee Democrat[4] Lincoln
17. Schuyler Colfax 1869-1873 Indiana Republican Grant
18. Henry Wilson 1873-1875 Massachusetts Republican Grant
19. William Wheeler 1877-1881 New York Republican Hayes
20. Chester Arthur 1881 New York Republican Garfield
21. Thomas Hendricks 1885 Indiana Democrat Cleveland
22. Levi P. Morton 1889-1893 New York Republican Harrison
23. Adlai Ewing Stevenson 1893-1897 Illinois Democrat Cleveland
24. Garret Hobart 1897-1899 New Jersey Republican McKinley
25. Theodore Roosevelt 1901 New York Republican McKinley
26. Charles Fairbanks 1905-1909 Indiana Republican Roosevelt
27. James S. Sherman 1909-1912 New York Republican Taft
28. Thomas R. Marshall 1913-1921 Indiana Democrat Wilson
29. Calvin Coolidge 1921-1923 Massachusetts Republican Harding
30. Charles Dawes 1925-1929 Illinois Republican Coolidge
31. Charles Curtis 1929-1933 Kansas Republican Hoover
32. John Nance Garner 1933-1941 Texas Democrat Roosevelt
33. Henry Wallace 1941-1945 Iowa Democrat Roosevelt
34. Harry Truman 1945 Missouri Democrat Roosevelt
35. Alben Barkley 1949-1953 Kentucky Democrat Truman
36. Richard Nixon 1953-1961 California Republican Eisenhower
37. Lyndon Johnson 1961-1963 Texas Democrat Kennedy
38. Hubert Humphrey 1965-1969 Minnesota Democrat Johnson
39. Spiro Agnew 1969-1973 Maryland Republican Nixon
40. Gerald Ford 1973-1974 Michigan Republican Nixon
41. Nelson Rockefeller 1974-1977 New York Republican Ford
42. Walter Mondale 1977-1981 Minnesota Democrat Carter
43. George H. W. Bush 1981-1989 Texas Republican Reagan
44. Dan Quayle 1989-1993 Indiana Republican Bush
45. Al Gore 1993-2001 Tennessee Democrat Clinton
46. Dick Cheney 2001-2009 Wyoming Republican Bush
47. Joseph Biden 2009-2017 Delaware Democrat Obama
48. Michael Pence 2017-2021 Indiana Republican Trump
49. Kamala Harris (disputed)[5] 2021- California Democrat Biden

Notes

  1. [1]
  2. While Washington was elected unanimously, by 1792, the two parties were running separate candidates for vice-president.
  3. This was before the Twelfth Amendment; Jefferson was actually the losing candidate for president. President Adams was a Federalist.
  4. Lincoln and Johnson were officially running on a "National Union" ticket, formed of Republicans and War Democrats. Lincoln was a Republican; Johnson a Democrat.
  5. Harris is not legitimately the "vice-president" as she is not legally qualified to hold the office due to not being a natural-born citizen, a legal requirement under Article II, Section 1 of the United States Constitution, also extending to the Twelfth Amendment (which legally disqualifies those ineligible to be President under the Constitution from holding the office of Vice-President); her parents, a Jamaican father and an Indian mother, never obtained US citizenship prior to her birth.