Thank you very much for that kind introduction. Thank you for that. Not just for me, but for all of us. Welcome here i would like to welcome all of you. We love having you here on the most beautiful campus in america. I have been asked to speak about the origins in the early history of the vice presidency up to the 12 amendments. The 12th amendment. You will understand why i end at the 12th amendment by the time i have done, i hope. And that way i hope to answer , some of the wonderful questions that were raised. As a historian, to me thats a sign that i tell a story. So let me begin. In its 1789 origins, the creation of an office of Vice President was an afterthought at the Constitutional Convention and reflected spectacularly little forethought. Some delegates dismissed it as a useless appendage, while others thought it was a constitutional mistake. Even his proponents at the convention did not claim that the office served a significant government purpose, but was rather defended by them as an electoral expedient. Let me explain. The idea of having a Vice President first arose during the closing weeks of the Constitutional Convention after an Ad Hoc Committee of 11 was appointed to resolve outstanding issues with the presidency. The virginia plan, which we all know served as the agreed starting point for the conventions deliberation, did not make any mention whatsoever of a Vice President. Neither did the new jersey plan, nor the alternative proposals for essential government structure offered at the convention by Alexander Hamilton or charles pinckney. Further, during the extensive convention deliberations over the nature and structure of the executive which occurred at various occasions during june, july, and august of 1787, no issue occupied more time than the nature of the presidency. There was no mention whatsoever, any doubt of having a Vice President. On that date, on september 4 when this committee reports, which is scarcely two weeks before the convention adjourned, the committee of 11 recommended a redesigned scheme for electing the president by using electors. That included having a Vice President who would assume the office of the president for the remainder of the fouryear term should the incumbent die or resign from office. More than anything, it was the structure of how the president would be selected and the committee of 11s proposal that resulted in having a Vice President. Though that new office was not essential to that committee structure. The virginia plan had called for that national legislature, congress, to choose the executive for a fixed term. The convention initially accepted that approach. Repeatedly however, delegates raised concerns that having congress choose the president and this was alluded to by the ambassador particularly if the president could soar serve multiple terms in office, it would frustrate the checks and balances among the branches that many delegates following montesquieu thought was essential for preventing tyranny. Nationalists such as pennsylvanias james wilson favored the direct election of the president by voters. But southern delegates feared such an approach would disadvantage their states, whose large slave populations could not vote. Small state delegates worried it would concentrate power to select the president in three or four states. Various alternative methods for selecting a president were proposed. Including assigning the task to some sort of special elect or. Electors. The idea came from how to cope how the pope was chosen. Special electors chosen for that purpose, but none of those proposals could obtain majority support. It remained in the back of the mind of governor morris and others. One problem with electors, some delegates warned, was that they would favor candidates from their own states, no one would have the majority. When the committee of 11 was appointed on august 31, the convention remained committed to choose a president , but many delegates had doubts. Largely under the influence of governor morris, the committee of 11 used a complex method using both state electors and congress. To deal with small states, each state would have the same number of electors as the members of the house and senate. Which assured at least three electors in the smaller states. This would deal with concerns of house ownership and they extended the 3 5 compromise. Assuring more votes for slave states but not as much as under an approach that allocated power to the state based on the whole number of the free and enslaved people. In short, the Electoral College was a compromise. To address concerns expressed by various delegates that electors would favor candidates from their own states, the Committee Proposed that each elector would cast two equal undesignated votes, only one of whom could come from the electors home state. Even if every elector favored only candidates from their own state, this approach forced them to vote for at least one person from another state, thus allowing a National Candidate to emerge. To win the candidate would need to receive one vote from the majority of electors. The candidate receiving the most would become president. If two candidates receiving same number of votes received the same number of votes, congress would choose. The jerryrigged compromise created an anomaly. What principle explanation was there for giving each elector two votes . We know the electoral reason, that what would be the reason for the public. The question could be answered as each elector was selecting two officeholders. The committee added the candidate receiving the second highest number of votes, even if they came from a minority, would hold a new office of Vice President. This was the first suggestion of a Vice President at the philadelphia convention. As james madison, who is a better authority as he later explained when confronted with the question at his states ratifying convention he said, each had two votes because one vote was intended for the Vice President. In this way, the vice presidency was created to serve an electoral, rather than a government purpose. Having concocted a federal office, the committee needed to give its holders something to do. They proposed conferring two principal duties on the Vice President , that taken together proved problematic for some delegates. First the Committee Proposed the Vice President would become president if the office became vacant during the incumbent term. This assumed an executive role for the Vice President , but gave nothing for them to do so long as the president was in office. They proposed the Vice President preside over the senate, with the power to vote in the case of a tie. The second duty suggested a legislative role, when combined with the first role, raised the concern about mixing executive function. Evidently they were more concerned about the method of selecting a president and the creation of a high sounding but insignificant office. Delegates in a Constitutional Convention said remarkably little about the committee of 11 recommendation relating to a Vice President. It passed as part of a whole, but not before a telling change between three very harsh critics. Future Vice President , albert jerry of massachusetts and george mason and edmund randolph. And Roger Sherman of connecticut and north carolinas hugh williams. In his notes, madison summarized the exchange. The third section Vice President shall be ex officio president of the senate, being thus considered. Mr. Jerry, mr. Jerry opposed this regulation. We might as well put the president himself as the head of the legislature. This makes it absolutely improper. He, meaning jerry, is against having any Vice President. Mr. Sherman, member of the committee of 11 he saw no danger in this case. If the Vice President were not president of the senate, he would be without employment. Mr. Randolph, remember, he introduced the virginia plan. Mr. Randolph concurred in opposition. Mr. Williamson from the committee of 11 observed such an office of Vice President was not wanted. He was introduced merely for the sake of the valuable mode of election which required to be two to be chosen at the same time. That is the proponent. Mason thought the office mixed too much of legislative and executive, which ought to be cut kept in separate offices. That is the exchange we have from the convention. And then if the Vice President should be ex officio president of the senate, it past 82. Passed 82. Even one member of the committee of 11 conceded it was merely for the sake of the election. An afterthought at best. No Convention Delegate affirmatively defended the office. At most, sherman saw no danger in it. Jerry, randolph, and mason did. Jerry and mason cited it as one of several reasons why they refused to sign the constitution at the convention. Surviving records of the debates at various state ratifying conventions suggested the members attending those historic enclaves gave at most a scant meaning or attention to the vice presidency, as little as the delegates had at the Constitutional Convention. Little is said about the office. No one attributed importance to it. A few antifederalists did take turns disparaging it. At virginias convention, one future president , james monroe declared the Vice President is an unnecessary officer. I can see no reason for such an officer. Speaking at the same convention, george mason added, the Vice President appears to be not only unnecessary, but dangerous that legislator legislature and executive are mixed i cannot perceive the consequences. I think that, in the course of human affairs, he will be made a tool in order to bring about his own interest in aid in and overturning the liberties of this country. He didnt know how, but he was sure somehow some members attending other state ratifying conventions also expressed concerns about the vice presidency, mixing between the legislative and executive functions. They never said this issue alone was the reason they did not support it. They simply carried this along with the constitution to become part of the new government. That is what we have in origin. We get to the first Vice President , straggling the executive and legislative branches. The first occupant, john adams, was far from impressed. Viewing the vice presidency as a legislative position and put off by adamss puritan officiousness, even adams readily admitted he had no say on patronage and no influence in the administration. He focused his attention on his legislative duties, which he attended to on a daily basis. Adams initially joined and in offering motions in debating majors in the senate. The senators soon tired of his interference and viral limited the Vice President s role to that of presiding officer. As such, adams could not speak to the merit of the matter. In short, as biographer David Mccullough concluded, the role of the Vice President made him a political cipher. After one term, adams concluded, my country has in its wisdom, contrived for me, the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man or his imagination can see. A member of the First Congress joked the office should carry the title, his superfluous excellence excellency. For all practical purposes, the Vice President under the constitution before the 12th amendment had neither executive authority, nor substantial that legislative power. Adams appreciated as Vice President he was as he once put it quote, only one breath away from the presidency. That breath being washingtons of course. In letters during his term, adams referred to himself, and i am quoting as quote, the heir apparent and as americans americas prince of wales. [laughter] although it proves true, if you look back at how the framers had envisioned the vice presidency, rather than forward about what it was becoming. And underscored how poorly they foresaw the future of american politics in their construction of the office. They concede a president ial Selection Process in which independent electors rooted in the politics of their particular state would each vote for two people they viewed as best suited for the president position. The second place serving as Vice President. In such a case, the Vice President would, in a certain sense, be a competitor and possible heir to the president. Even in the First Federal election, and much more so in the second, it became clear that electors implementing the system did so in a manner quite different from what the framers intended. From the outset, they cast one vote per president and another for Vice President rather than two for president. In that 178889 election, every elector surely intended to vote for George Washington as president and adams as Vice President. Indeed, fearful that so many electors might vote for both washington and adams in this manner, that adams could accidentally come out ahead in the final count, federalist leader, Alexander Hamilton actively encouraged some electors to scatter their second vote so as to assure washington won. It is hard to believe that hamilton or any of the many of the federalist to voted for adams actually viewed him as the heir apparent to the presidency, or in any way comparable to washington. Indeed that is inconceivable, especially in the case of hamilton. Quite to the contrary, hamilton, we know from his letters, actually supported adams for Vice President to keep him from getting any more meaningful post such as chief justice. There is no evidence that anyone at the convention for cell using foresaw using the vice presidency as a way to sidetrack rivals, yet hamilton figured out how to use it in precisely that way in the very first election. By the second president ial election, in 1792, a further and unforeseen Political Development carried the electoral system even further from the framers intention. National political factions had began to replace state Political Considerations as a driving force in the election. As in the 178889 election, every elector voted for washington as president. By 1792, all that five of them, out of 132, all that five out of 132 electors cast their other vote for the chosen Vice President ial nominee of their faction, either adams for the nationalist and federalist, or new york governor george clinton, who was a former antifederalist leader, or the states for the state rights minded republicans. Electors had become pawns of National Factions rather than independent agents. The partisan nature of the president ial election became fully apparent in 1798, the third election. After washington declined to go for a third term. Stand for a third term. In that election, a lectors in virtually every state were chosen based on their commitment to vote for the nominee of the Political Party as chosen by their caucuses in congress. The federalist endorsed adams for president in South Carolina and Thomas Pinckney for Vice President. The republicans countered with jefferson for president and aaron burr for Vice President. The already antiquated electoral vote system did not allow electors to designate their votes for president or Vice President. The parties could only obtain their intended outcome by having one or more of their electors gather their second vote to somebody other than the Vice President ial nominee. The outcome was expected to be close in 1792. In the end, the federalist won by a three electoral vote margin, 7168. By this point, alienated totally from adams, hamilton saw in the system an opportunity to bring in pinckney by having having South Carolinas vote for Thomas Pinckney rather than aaron burr. If everything came out plan, Thomas Pinckney would come out first. Even though all of the electors did so with the intention of him being Vice President. You can do the math yourself. Thomas pinckney would have 79 votes to 71 for adams, even though no elector who is voting was voting for him as president. Adams supporters got wind of the plot and scattered so many second votes away from thomas that jefferson had uniform support Thomas Pinckney that jefferson became Vic