The Ultimate "Vice-Precedence" Vice-Presidents List!

Hey Vice-Precedence Fans!

Sorry its been so long since I have posted a blog. Been very busy working on things for "Vice-Precedence" as well as other things. Life happens you know.

The following is a list I complied in the early days of pitching "Vice-Precedence" to production companies. I recently had the opportunity to go over it again and decided to enhance it a little. Its a list of ALL the veeps who never became President with a few intriguing and/or bizarre facts and even quotes from and about the VP's. Its a great way to familiarize yourself with all the VP's and is also good for a laugh.

The Vice Presidents Themselves:

1.Spiro Agnew - Sued the creator of the "Spiro Agnew Watch."

2.Alben Barkley - While VP at age 71 he married his 38 year old sweetheart - The only VP to marry in office.

3.Joseph Biden- “The one thing I want my kids to remember about me is that I was an athlete. The hell with the rest of this stuff.” Vice-President Joseph Biden on his 40 year political career.

4.John Breckinridge - Indicted for treason when he joined the Confederate Army; he wasn't pardoned until 1958.

5.Aaron Burr – Besides killing Alexander Hamilton in America’s most famous duel while serving as VP, he was also put on trial for treason. Died on his 80th birthday, on the same day that his divorce from his 2nd wife became final, on grounds of HIS adultery.

6.John Calhoun - President Andrew Jackson said he would "hang Calhoun as high as Haman" for his part in the South Carolina revolt of 1832.

7.Dick Cheney - Shot a guy in the face and also has lesbian daughter.

8.George Clinton - Wanted New York to be its own country, and because he was the richest man in the state, he would be king.

9.Schuyler Colfax - Nicknamed "Smiler", he was almost impeached for taking bribes.

10.Charles Curtis - Was 1/8 Native American Indian; his great-grandmother was a Kaw. "1/8 Kaw Indian and 7/8 incompetent," says one historian.

11.George Dallas - Nominated by his brother-in-law. The city is NOT named after him.

12.Charles Dawes - Won the Nobel Peace Prize for the Dawes Plan to rebuild Europe after WWI, but it put such a huge strain on the German economy that it allowed Hitler to seize power in Germany, causing WWII.

13.Charles Fairbanks – Fairbanks, Alaska is named after him. “No public speaker can more quickly drive an audience to despair.” The Nation magazine on VP Fairbanks speaking skills.

14.John Nance Garner - "The Vice-presidency isn't worth a bucket of warm piss." - Vice President Garner

15.Elbridge Gerry -The dirty political trick "gerrymandering" is named after him. At the Constitutional Convention argued that the vice-presidency was pointless and refused to sign.

16.Al Gore - The lead in one of the biggest grossing documentaries of all time. Winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, Grammy, Oscar, and the 2000 popular vote, but not the Presidency.

17.Hannibal Hamlin - While VP served as a cook in Maine Coast Guard for 60 days, peeling potatoes, never rising above the rank of private.

18.Thomas Hendricks - Racist who voted against 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments, the amendments that freed the slaves and gave them citizenship and civil rights.

19.Garret Hobart - Cast deciding vote on Philippine independence, he voted to make them an American colony.

20.Hubert Humphrey - President Johnson dressed him up as a cowboy and in an oversize 10-gallon hat and paraded him in front of the press, laughing at Humphrey the whole time.

21.Richard Johnson - Never married, but had 3 common-law wives, all his former slaves. Sold one after she ran away.

22.William King – Most likely a homosexual. Nicknamed "Aunt Fancy" and "Miss Nancy," he took the oath of office in Cuba. Died 46 days later.

23.Thomas Marshall - "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." - Vice President Thomas Marshall. Should have been made President after Woodrow Wilsons stroke. The First Lady and presidents doctor conspired to make sure Wilson stayed President even though he was incapacitated.

24.Walter Mondale - As the Democratic Presidential candidate in 1984, Mondale won 1 state-his home state. Has been mentioned 3 times on “The Simpsons” and once on "Futurama", most memorably for having the U.S. Navy’s laundry ship named for him.

25.Levi Parsons Morton - Turned down offer to be Vice-President under Garfield, if he had accepted, would have become President within a year, due to Garfield’s assassination. Drove the first rivet into the Statue of Liberty. Died on his 96th birthday.

26.Dan Quayle - Misspelled "potato" at grade school spelling bee,was burned in the most famous VP debate in history with “You’re no Jack Kennedy.”, and argued with fictional TV character Murphy Brown.

27.Nelson Rockefeller – Was so rich he donated his VP salary to charity. Refused to live in official VP residence because his own mansion was nicer. Funded "Citizen Kane" but never had any interest in seeing it. Died of a heart attack while having sex with his 27 year old mistress.

28.James Schoolcraft Sherman – Native Americans gave him a name in their language meaning “Four-Eyes”. Nicknamed "Sunny Jim" he received 3,500,000 votes for Vice-president... after he died.

29.Adlai Stevenson - Not the one you may have heard of, but his grandfather. Nicknamed “The Headhunter”.

30.Daniel Tompkins – Signed the bill banning slavery in New York. Became an alcoholic while VP and a year after he left office died broke and drunk at 51. It turned out the state of New York owed him $100K.

31.Henry Wallace - Invented new strands of corn, strawberries and chickens. Ran as Communist and Progressive Presidential candidate in 1948.

32.William Wheeler - After he received V-P nomination, Presidential candidate Rutherford B. Hayes asked his wife, "Who is Wheeler?"

33.Henry Wilson - Birth name Jeremiah Jones Colbath, changed it at age 27. He was an indentured servant for 11 years. Started his own shoe factory, educated himself by reading 1,000 books, then devoted his life to ending slavery and for workers rights.

Hope you enjoyed this. Happy Holidays from "Vice-Precedence"!

Happy Birthday William Rufus Devane King!

"One of those eminences whose strong impression on their own times has suffered a
gradual erasure upon the tablets of history."
John Updike on VP William Rufus Devane King.

Hey Vice-Precedence Readers!

Today is the birthday of one of our most obscure VP's. This VP is surrounded by speculation. He was so obscure, and his life leading up to and including the Vice-Presidency so bizarre that he was the VP we decided to make our "taster" -- a short video depicting what we want to do with "Vice-Precedence" -- about.

Yes, its the birthday of William Rufus Devane King. Born on April 7th 1786 in North Carolina. Vice-President under Franklin Pierce. Without a doubt, this is one of our most forgotten and obscure President-VP combos. And with good reason. Pierce is considered one of our least effective Presidents; by then the country was bitterly divided over the slavery issue with "Bleeding Kansas" going on in the West with acts of horrible violence that would be a pre-cursor to the Civil War. Pierce was probably an alcoholic, his son had died in a train crash involving the entire Pierce family days before his father took the oath of office, and his wife believed politics and Washington were evil and had prayed her husband would lose the election -- her beliefs she felt were confirmed by that train accident. So it was a rough four years for Mr. Pierce. Not so much for Vice-President King however. He was long gone by then.

King had had a distinguished career in American politics leading up to his election as VP. He had been a Representative from North Carolina, had co-founded the city of Selma, AL, and became one of that states Founders -- helping to write the Constitution for Alabama and help it attain statehood and became one of her first Senators in 1819. He was very popular there, getting re-elected in 1822, 1828, 1834, and 1841. He served as President pro tempore of the United States Senate during the 24th through 27th Congresses.

He was Minister to France from 1844 to 1846. He was appointed and subsequently elected as a Democrat to the Senate to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Arthur P. Bagby and began serving on July 1, 1848. King was a strong moderate in the Senate -- he believed slavery was Constitutional and should go into the territories but was against secession. This balance would be key during the major conflicts in the Senate -- particularly during the Great Compromise of 1850, as he was the President Pro Tempore of the Senate. President Zachary Taylor had died in office and VP Millard Fillmore had become President, but didn't appoint a VP -- so according to the rules of ascension at the time, King was the next in line to be President -- even before he was elected VP.

King was not a talented speaker or a genius, but was known for his even-temper and kind and generous ways and was seen as perhaps the finest moderator in the Senate who kept the Senate in line for decades. This was the "Golden Age" of the Senate with Daniel Webster, John C. Calhoun, Henry Clay, Thomas Hart Benton, Stephen Douglas, Charles Sumner, Sam Houston, and Jefferson Davis among others--and it was King who they looked to, even before his election as President Pro Tempore to keep things in order and to moderate their great debates that would shape the future of the country:

"He possessed, in an eminent degree, that quickness of perception, that promptness of decision, that familiarity with the now complicated rules of congressional proceedings, and that urbanity of manner, which are required in a presiding officer."
Edward Everett

By the time he was elected VP with Pierce in 1852 he was so weak and frail with tuberculosis that he had gone to Cuba in hopes that its tropical climate could aid his health. It didn't. King took the oath of office there in Cuba, making him the only member of the Executive Branch in U.S. history not to take the Oath in the United States. King came back to the U.S. for two days after taking the oath in Cuba, but never made it to D.C., dying at his plantation of Kings Bend in Alabama on April 18, 1853. He had been VP for only 45 days.

All of these things are established. However, what has fascinated some historians are the events involving Kings personal life. King never married, and even though they were decades out of style he was fond of wearing wigs, jewelry and silk scarves -- looking something like a dandy. His style of dress and behavior led President Andrew Jackson to call him such names as "Miss Nancy" and "Aunt Fancy".

Even more intriguing is the fact that for 15 or so years he was roommates with future President James Buchanan. Buchanan had his own troubled past. He had been engaged to be married to an Anne Coleman. Before they were married he paid a call on her and shortly after, Coleman committed suicide. The Coleman family forbade Buchanan from attending the funeral and he never had a relationship with a woman again. It was after that that Buchanan and King met in Washington D.C.

They became very close very fast and moved into together. Sharing living quarters with other politicians was very common at this time--Washington was still not that big a city, and Congressmen and Senators had to keep their cost of living expenses down. All of them had homes and expenses back in their home states, so it was simpler to simply live together as roommates in boarding houses and hotels or homes for rent. So many did. However King and Buchanan seemed a little too close to some. Senator Aaron Brown of Tennessee in a letter to the wife of former President James Polk wrote that he had seen King:

"Aunt Fancy...rigged out in her best clothes."

and he referred to Buchanan and King as: "Buchanan and his wife."

Some of Buchanan and Kings letters to each other are still in existence, including this one from Buchanan to King when he left to be Minister of France in 1844:

"I am now solitary and alone, having no companion in the house with me. I have gone a wooing to several gentlemen, but have not succeeded with any one of them. I feel that it is not good for man to be alone; and should not be astonished to find myself married to some old maid who can nurse me when I am sick, provide good dinners for me when I am well, and not expect from me any very ardent or romantic affection."

King who was lonely and sad in Paris despite all the fashion and extravagance surrounding him wrote back:

"I am selfish enough to hope you will not be able to procure an associate who will cause you to feel no regret at our separation."


All this has led many historians to believe that King and Buchanan were our first homosexual VP and President. Its interesting to note that they often discussed running together for those offices as well. While there is no genuine proof of the sexuality of King and Buchanan, the circumstantial evidence seems pretty solid. When Buchanan died his estate executors retrieved papers kept in a bank in New York that Buchanan claimed would explain the truth about his break-up with Anne Coleman and the real reasons for her suicide. However, when they got the papers they also found a hand-written note from the late President instructing them to not open or read the papers and to burn them immediately. So the truth was tossed in the flames--a mystery forever. One wonders however why more homosexual groups don't make a bigger deal out of King...perhaps because he fits too many stereotypes and because he was a slaveholder?

Anyway, all this made King the perfect person for us to make our "taster" about, and I am very proud of the short we made. I hope you will enjoy it as well. It can be seen on YouTube here.


We also have buttons available with Kings picture reading: "I Fancy Miss Nancy!" that I know you'll want to get. They, along with other Vice-Precedence merchandise can be purchased through our website for the film: www.viceprecedence.com

Be sure to become a FAN on Facebook of Vice-Precedence and to take part in our "Join The Race For Second Place!" Contest to get us more Fans. The person who gets us the most Fans on Facebook wins a Vice-Precedence button AND gets to ask a question of Vice-President Joseph Biden when we interview him! If we get to interview him. So write him and tell him to give us an interview!

Thanks for your support and HAPPY BIRTHDAY AUNT FANCY!

Matt Saxe

Cheney's End of Days and The WORST VP's?

Hey Vice-Precedence Blog Readers! Well, as I posted in my last blog on Monday, there has been a storm of interest over the last week with former VP Dick Cheney what with the renewing of his Secret Service protection for the next 6 months, the revealing of his wanting to send troops into Lackwanna, NY to arrest terrorist subjects, and he and his daughter Liz’s constant criticism of the Obama Administration.

Most of the speculation has been about his and President Bush’s final days in office and their disagreements. It made the cover of TIME Magazine this week with the title-THE FINAL DAYS OF BUSH AND CHENEY. The article called “Legacy Fight: Inside Bush and Cheney’s Final Days” by Massimo Calabresi and Michael Weisskopf is an excellent read full of new information that had not been revealed until now. The article heavily focuses on how Cheney wanted Bush to pardon his former Chief of Staff I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby after his conviction in the Valerie Plame scandal and how Bush ultimately decided not to and the wedge this drove between them. You can read more about it in my previous blog.

In my research, I found that TIME had made a list of who they considered “America’s Worst Vice-Presidents”. Here is their list, which they put in chronological order-they didn’t even bother ranking them in Worst to Least Worst order which shows how little they probably cared about this list.

1.Aaron Burr
2.Elbridge Gerry
3.John C. Calhoun
4.Richard M. Johnson
5.William Rufus King
6.John Breckinridge
7.Hannibal Hamlin
8.Thomas A. Hendricks
9.Thomas Marshall
10.Calvin Coolidge
11.Henry Wallace
12.Richard M. Nixon
13.Spiro Agnew
14.Dan Quayle
15.Richard B. Cheney

I would have to say I disagree with this list quite a bit. Two on the list (Gerry and King) are simply on their because they died very early in their terms. Because you have the misfortune to die it makes you a bad vice-president? Perhaps they should be put in a seperate "No Judgement" category. I've always thought that should be true for William Henry Harrison on the list of "Worst Presidents" too, he's usually included on that list, even though he was sick for his entire term and died 31 days into it. How do you judge a month in office? Or in Kings case, six weeks?

I do agree with the choices of Spiro “The Zero” Agnew who famously said: “If you’ve seen one slum, you’ve seen them all.”, and was forced to resign in disgrace, along with the choice of the virulently racist Democrat Thomas A. Hendricks (whose picture and signature graces this edition of the Blog) who voted against the amendments to free the slaves and give them voting rights, along with a couple of others.

I would disagree greatly with the selection of Thomas Marshall, who served two terms with Woodrow Wilson. They seem to think that Marshall was a negative complainer and hated the office. Most historians (and I) think that Marshall was an intelligent and extremely competent man who truly had a good sense of humor about being the Vice-President with a President who didn’t think much of him. He was always ready with a joke and smile, and famously said: “What this country needs is a good five-cent cigar.” After he retired he was quoted as saying “I don’t want to work, but I wouldn’t mind being Vice-President again.”

I know someone who would disagree with their selection of Henry Wallace: Gore Vidal. In our interview for the documentary, when I asked him who he thought was our best Veep he named Wallace. Just because a man gets the Progressive/Socialist nomination for President, was an admirer of Stalin and fooled into thinking a Soviet slave labor camp was a paradise, and spends his life devoted to raising new strands of corn, strawberries, and chickens doesn’t make you a terrible VP, (hmm, maybe I need to rethink it) although Democratic National Committee chairman Robert Hannegan despised Wallace so much he did everything he could to remove him from the ticket in 1944 and replace him with Truman. Later he said:

“When I die, I would like to have one thing on my headstone: that I was the man who kept Henry Wallace from becoming President of the United States.”

Also, it’s pretty obvious that Burr is on the list simply for the fact that he killed Alexander Hamilton in their famous duel while VP, something that this blog and our film and book will shed some light on. Just because Hamilton is on the ten-dollar bill doesn’t mean he was a better man than Burr, in some ways he was, in others he wasn’t. Hamilton did plenty to get himself in that situation and had plenty of vices as well, as we will reveal. While Burr was Vice-President he was called "one of the best presiding officers the Senate has ever seen."

One of our goals with “Vice-Precedence: Being Number Two in the White House” is to shed more light on all our vice-presidents, to educate people about our VP’s, and separate legend from fact-all while entertaining you. Lists like this are fun to argue about, and while I disagree with some of TIME’s choices and some of their opinions on "Why" a VP made their list, I applaud them just making a list in the first place. What do you think? Who makes your list of Best and Worst VP’s? let us know. Stay tuned for the latest on all our VP’s and thanks for reading.
Matt Saxe