Print |
E-mail to a friend
OPINIONS
William A. Patton Jr.: Vice presidents through history have become commander in chief
The vice president of the United States, per our Constitution, has only two duties to perform. One is to preside over the Senate and only vote a tiebreaker in otherwise deadlocked Senate voting situations. And two, to wait for the president to die. Amendments and statutes have extended this second duty to include presidential disability and putting the vice president on the National Security Council, thus providing continuity in case of the death of the president.
When John Tyler took his oath of office on April 6, 1841, no one knew quite what would happen. President William Henry Harrison, dead one month after his inauguration, was the first president to die in office. Would the vice president be the president or just the "acting" president?
Tyler assumed not only the title of president but the full duties of the office as well. He established the precedent by actually becoming the president.
Eight other vice presidents have also acted accordingly, when elevated to the presidency. These eight were Millard Fillmore, Andrew Johnson, Chester Arthur, Theodore Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge, Harry Truman, Lyndon Johnson and Gerald Ford.
Aside from those who succeeded to the presidency and were then re-elected to the office (Roosevelt, Coolidge, Truman and Lyndon Johnson), John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Martin Van Buren, Richard Nixon and George H.W. Bush managed to use their previous office as a springboard to the White House.
William A. Patton Jr. is a Huntington resident.
