Vice Presidents of The United States Podcast Bruce Carlson

Adlai Ewing Stevenson, Vice President under Grover Cleveland in his second term, has been eclipsed in history by his famous grandson.  This is for reasons of time and memory and TV pictures but not for accomplishment.  For the original Adlai had quite the career, and made it to national office as Congressman, Postmaster and then Vice President.  He was also a story teller and a master compromiser that could bridge the gap between conservatism and populism to help win an election.  We share some of Adlai's stories from his colorful memoirs, and discuss how he could have become President.

President Biden was Vice President first, and ran for President before that.  In this episode, we discuss his first doomed run for President, and his improbable win over a Republican Senator during a Republican landslide election.  

We discuss Charles Fairbanks, Teddy's Roosevelt's Vice President from 1905 to 1909.  Not only did they not see eye to eye, but Roosevelt might have given his career a little shove.  Or maybe not.
And how did a Senator from Indiana get his name on a town in Alaska that he never saw?  
Chris Novembrino of Don't Worry About the Government podcast joins us to discuss all of this.  

The story of John C. Breckinridge, the only vice president to take up arms against the country he served.  A charismatic and skilled speaker, he knew all of the people he ran against in the 1860 election.  He took up the banner of a party associated with disunion, though his own views were far more complicated.  

Grover Cleveland's first vice president barely spoke with him, did not agree on politics and was in office for political reasons.  Hendricks was the bottom half of a ticket that lost the disputed election of 1876.  His position on the martyred ticket that lost after a congressional commission decided for Rutherford B. Hayes would earn him a spot in the hearts of partisan Democrats.  It would also earn him a second shot at the vice presidency, after an attempt to reach the the first office.  Then VP Hendricks would become a martyr again, dying in office.  In this episode we look at Hendricks, the fighter, the partisan, the martyr, his place on the currency and his limited relationship with the younger President he served under.  
 
Music by Lee Rosevere and Chris Novembrino (theme song)
Research conducted by Brian Stolk

A look at Schuyler Colfax, Grant's first Vice President lived a full life but died in obscurity and some shame.  We examine the smiling vice president, former Speaker and friend to Lincoln.