The greatest gift Mitt Romney may have received by
sewing up the GOP primaries at this point is time—not merely time to build
fences to his party’s restless right wing, but to vet his potential
Vice-Presidential running mate. His overriding rule should be to observe the
Hippocratic dictum, “First, do no harm.”
The Democratic-Republican Party of Thomas Jefferson and his allies did not
adhere to this precept. Even the “Father of the Constitution,” James Madison, Jefferson’s lieutenant and eventual successor in the White House, disregarded
it to his peril, paying no
attention to the necessity of stability in the Vice-Presidency, and 200 years
ago this month he experienced some of the consequences of that failure.
The death of 72-year-old George Clinton on April 20, 1812 removed one headache for
Madison—what to do with a running mate, once a workhorse of the party, now more of
a broken-down nag, who could not be counted to take his side. At the same time, this first Vice-President to die in office opened another issue: how to avoid another running mate too old/unfit/unsuited for the job, let alone succeeding to the Presidency in an emergency.
It’s one of the ironies of American history that a
politician who figured in every national election from 1788 to 1808 is now
nearly entirely forgotten by the public. (Quick: Did Trivial Pursuit ever
feature him as the subject of a question? Jeopardy?
Cash Cab?) Say the name “George Clinton”—heck, even type
it into Google—and you’re likely to get all the information you want about a
certain musician, but comparatively less on the man who who inaugurated a
tradition: New York governors who looked in their mirror and
glimpsed a future President. (Maybe a few names will give you the idea: DeWitt Clinton--George's nephew--William H. Seward, Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt, Thomas Dewey, Nelson Rockefeller, Mario and Andrew Cuomo...)
It’s a further irony that, because of the pathological fear of a repetition
of the election of 1800—a Vice-Presidential candidate with enough appeal of his
own to constitute a threat to the ticket’s head in a disputed contest—Jefferson and his party helped mold a
system in which the running mate became a toothless, superannuated nonentity.
The politician who had given Jefferson such a bad
scare, Aaron Burr, could not have
presented a more vivid contrast with his successor. He might have been a rogue
who shot Alexander Hamilton in a duel, but when he bid farewell to the Senate
over which he had presided in his single term as Vice-President, the urbane
Burr left hardly a dry eye in the chamber with his vigor and eloquence.
The Senate couldn’t have been more disappointed by
his successor. There was, for one thing, Clinton's voice—which might have been readily audible on Revolutionary War
battlefields he commanded 30 years before, or in the New York legislatures he
dominated as a governor—but had diminished in volume in the Senate.
Moreover, his social and listening skills were poor, as noted by the inveterate diarist of
the Senate, the Federalist William Plumer of New Hampshire:
“The Vice
President preserves very little order in the Senate. If he ever had, he
certainly has not now, the requisite qualifications of a presiding officer. Age
has impaired his mental powers. The conversation and noise to day in our lobby
was greater than I ever suffered when moderator of a town meeting. It prevented
us from hearing the arguments of the Speaker. He frequently, at least he has
more than once, declared bills at the third reading when they had been read but
once—Puts questions without any motion being made—Sometimes declares it a vote
before any vote has been taken. And
sometimes before one bill is decided proceeds to another. From want of authority, and attention to
order he has prostrated the dignity of the Senate. His disposition appears
good,—but he wants mind and nerve.”
As the election of 1808 approached, Clinton made no
secret that he wanted the Presidency itself. He had gone alone with the
greatest grumpiness in accepting the consolation prize of the
Vice-Presidency when the popular Jefferson ran for reelection in 1804. No such
compunctions stood in his path in 1808.
Jefferson himself, however, would not allow his faithful friend, Madison, now Secretary of State, to be bypassed. The caucus of Democratic-Republicans meeting in early 1808
chose Madison for the Presidency. Clinton, not liking this at all, allowed a boomlet for himself to
rise in New York. With his usual highly amused eye for the spectacle of history,
Henry Adams (great-grandson of the first, comically frustrated Vice-President, John Adams)
related the resulting scene in his History of the United States During the Administrations of Thomas Jefferson:
“Before long, the
public was treated to a curious spectacle. The regular party candidate for the
Vice-presidency became the open rival of the regular candidate for the
Presidency. Clinton’s newspapers attacked Madison without mercy, while Madison’s friends were electing Clinton
as Madison’s Vice-president.”
Clinton was an even worse fit for Madison than he
had been for Jefferson. In 1811, Madison
requested congressional approval for renewing the Bank of the United
States. The vote ended up tied, one of those rare but constitutionally mandated
instances when the Vice-President could vote. Madison was annoyed by Clinton’s
vote against the measure, and that frustration grew worse when the nation found itself in severe difficulties the following year,
when the War of 1812 required massive expenditures.
With Clinton unable to attend any Congressional sessions in early 1812, the possibility loomed larger that his office would be vacant. Candidates began jockeying for position, and Clinton’s
death removed the need for any subtlety in such maneuvers.
At first, the Democratic-Republicans turned to John
Langdon, a former Senator from New
Hampshire, but he declined on the sensible grounds that, at age 70, he was too
old and ill. The caucus then turned to a comparative spring chicken, 67-year-old
Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts.
This was not the office Gerry had wanted. Collector
of the port of Boston was what he had in mind, as it would help him retire the
debts dogging him.
Madison, however, saw not a potential tax collector
but a potential V-P, for several reasons:
1 1) He
had been involved in politics all the way back to the 1770s, when he served on the
Continental Congress;
2 2) Clinton
notwithstanding, Madison thought that Gerry’s advancing years would make it
unlikely he’d want the Presidency himself at this point in his career, thereby
ensuring that the Presidency would pass to another Virginian, James Monroe;
3 3) Again
unlike Clinton, Gerry was sure to provide a favorable vote for the administration.
In fact, he was perceived as so partisan that, when he signed off on an
electoral reapportionment scheme that, some suggested, resembled a salamander,
the “gerrymander” was suggested as an alternative--thus giving rise to an eternal neologism.
Gerry did not help Madison secure Massachusetts in
the election—a fact that the Virginia Dynasty should have anticipated since
Gerry had lost his own re-election bid as governor, necessitating his need for
a different job. But far worse was about to happen.
By the summer of 1813, not
only was Gerry seriously ill, but so, under the pressure of waging a war, was
Madison. The distinct possibility loomed that, with the nation in a struggle
for survival against its old British enemy, both the President and
Vice-President would be either physically incapacitated or dead.
Fortunately, Madison rallied. Gerry, however,
continued to weaken, and in November 1814 he died, just as Clinton had, while
in office.
James Monroe had only marginally better luck with his
running mate. Daniel Tompkins, another former New York governor (see what I just
saying a few minutes ago about seeing a future President in the mirror),
hounded by debt like Gerry, began to drink heavily. Tompkins was out of the
Vice-Presidency for only a few months when he, too, perished.
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