One hour. Good evening. Picked up copies of an article from the wall street journal recently as you entered the auditorium on the impact of the Vice President ial nominee on election results. For those of you who did not pick up copies, we will have extras after the program. Tonight, we will be discussing not just the electoral process, but the evolving role of the vice presidency. We have the honor of hosting professor joel goldstein, the author of the newly released book, the white house Vice President scy. Dr. Goldstein is a highly respected scholar of the vice presidency, presidency, and constitutional law. Ishas consistent consistently sought out by Media Outlets for commentary and insight, especially during the president ial campaigns. The new article in york times, he was quoted as saying my wife says i am an exotic plant that blooms every four years. [laughter] professor goldstein is best known for his work on the vice presidency. It came out of his doctoral work, his dissertation, and led to his first book which was modern american vice presidency the transformation of a political institution. He has authored numerous books chapters and articles on the executive branch, constitutional law, and admiralty law. He received a doctorate in Political Science at Oxford University where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar and then a law degree from Harvard Law School where he was a note editor for the harvard law review. After law school, he was a law clerk for a federal judge in massachusetts and then practiced admiralty law for 12 years in st. Louis. He joined the st. Louis University School of law in 1994, was associate dean of the faculty for three years, and was 2005. D a professorship in one scholar commented the american vice presidency is long overdue for a robust reevaluation. Joel goldstein, the premier chronicler of that special office, has done a brilliant job in this book. Please help me join professor goldstein to the four president ial library ford president ial library. [applause] dr. Goldstein thank you so much for that wonderful interdiction. Im delighted to be back at the library. I did research here for my book. It is wonderful to have the opportunity to be here. When most of you think about president ford, you probably think about him as our 38th president , a man who served nearly 25 years in the house of representatives, who was the minority leader of the house for eight years, and was a good and decent public servant. I think about the fact he was our 40th Vice President , a position he held for nine months, and was probably the least happy time of his public service. Ut he was an important figure he was the first Vice President appointed to the position through the 25th amendment which became part of the constitution in 1967. He was the second person to make an appointment of a Vice President under the 25th amendment. He was the most recent Vice President to succeed to the presidency following an unexpected president ial vacancy, and the only one of those people to succeed following a president ial resignation. He is the only president in our seriously consider serving as Vice President after he already serve as president. The presidency and vice presidency came before. He played an important part in developing and creating the office we have today. We live in a time now where we have a very robust vice presidency. What is so striking about that, in addition to the rather checkered history of the vice presidency for most of our history, is that the vice presidency has grown to its current importance at a time when many of our other Major Political institutions are being met with increasing dissatisfaction. If you think about the current situation, Vice President biden is completing the final year of a consequential and involved vice presidency. If you look at what he has done in the past week or so, he traveled to iraq to meet with its embattled Prime Minister and support the military mission against the islamic state. He went to italy where he met with officials of the italian government, and he met with officials of the vatican including pope francis. He spoke at a vatican conference on combating disease. He met privately with president obama numerous times during the past week, including receiving the president s Daily Briefing each day. He had private lunch with the president today and did two other events with him. He joined the president s meeting with secretary kerry within the last week. He met with the leaders of el salvador, guatemala, honduras, and panama to discuss how to advance security and economic matters in central america. If you call Vice President bidens predecessor, dick cheney, who first came to National Attention as president fords chief of staff, during his vice presidency many people said they thought the vice presidency had become too powerful and spoke of an imperial ice presidency vice presidency. Although i think Vice President cheneys power was exaggerated in that he was never president and his influence to client during the second term of president Bush Administration, he clearly was a significant Vice President. But it did not start with biden and cheney. The last six Vice President s over the last 40 years, ever since were for Mondale Walter Mondale was Vice President , have positions. Ufficient the position is institutional, not personal. It has now become one of our governments most important and contributing institutions in the executive branch. Not simply as the first president ial successor, but as a critical instrument of the presidency on an ongoing basis. It was not always this way. Our first Vice President , john adams, said my country has in its wisdom contrived for me the most insignificant office that mans imagination ever conceived. I can do neither good nor evil. Woodrow wilson was a political scientist before he became president. He wrote about the chief embarrassment in discussing these five the vice presidency is when you say how little there is to be said about it, you have said all there is to say about it. His Vice President was thomas marshall. On retirement, mr. Marshalls said i dont want to work anymore. But i would not mind being Vice President again. [laughter] when president ford became our 40th Vice President , when he was sworn into that position in 1973, he referred to the limited powers and duties of the vice presidency. His Vice President , Nelson Rockefeller, disparaged his final office as simply standby equipment in 1976. How did we get from the Office President ford called the limited powers and duties of the vice presidency and rockefeller referred to as simply standby equipment in the mid1970s, to the very different, Robust Office we have today . What i want to do in the next few minutes is give a brief overview of the vice presidency as it existed for most of our history. Then to sketch the office as it exists today, what i have called the white house vice presidency. And then make a few suggestions as to what i think we can learn from this transformation. The vice presidency was not one of the Founding Fathers great successes. It was created for reasons now obsolete. The founders were concerned that after george washington, it would be impossible to elect a national president. They were worried that parochial considerations would force electors in different states to vote for their states favorite son, rather than to elect a national president. In order to combat that concern, they created the original president ial election system. And they gave each elector two votes for president. But they required that one of those votes had to be cast for somebody who was not from the electors home state. What they hoped would happen was the second vote, the boat that was not going to be home state favorite son, would produce a of president. Nsus in essence, they created the vice presidency to provide an incentive for electors to vote seriously so there would be a consequence to their vote. Somebody would be elected to the second office. Hugh williamson from north carolina, a delegate to the philadelphia convention, said the vice presidency was not wanted. It was created to facilitate a valuable mode of president ial election. , who recentlylton has experienced a resurgence, wrote the president ial electoral system, including the vice presidency, is if not perfect at least excellent. I hesitate to take mr. Hamilton on given his current standing. But i think history would demonstrate he was wrong at least in that judgment. By 1796, National Parties have begun to form. What they were doing was slating tickets of one candidate for ticket, one candidate for Vice President. 1800, Thomas Jefferson and ehrenberg were running together with the understanding jefferson was the president ial candidate and burr was the Vice President of candidate. They ended up in a type. Although jeffersons votes were for president and burrs for Vice President , they resulted in a tie. It took the house of representatives 36 ballots to break the tie and elect jefferson as president. After that, the jeffersonians were afraid the federalists in the future could bargain with whoever was jeffersons running mate to make a deal with him and thereby elect jeffersons Vice President joe running mate as president Vice President ial running mate as president. Enacted the 12th amendment to the constitution which separated the election of president and Vice President so the electors would vote not twice for president , but once for president and wants for Vice President. That change eliminated the original reason to have the vice presidency. In discussions of the 12th amendment, some said we should get rid of the vice presidency. But they decided it was simply to keep of it than to get rid of it, so the vice presidency continued. It continued entirely as a legislative office. The Vice President s sole responsibility was to provide over the senate. At the philadelphia convention, Roger Sherman said if the Vice President is not president of the senate, he is not going to have anything to do. They agreed the Vice President would be president of the senate. That is what Vice President s up to Alvin Barkley did. They spent most of their professional time presiding over the senate. But the senate did not elect the Vice President and could not remove the Vice President , so the senate was never interested in letting the Vice President have much control. So the Vice President would preside but really have no power over the senate. The other function of the Vice President was to serve as the president ial successor. But that was an entirely contingent role. For most of our history, the vice presidency was pretty insignificant. Doe president s had little to so they looked for other things to keep themselves busy. Richard johnson, martin van spents Vice President , much of his time when he was not presiding over the Senate Running a tavern in washington. Henry wilson, who was ulysses grants second Vice President , wrote history books during his vice presidency. Theodore roosevelt who did not want to be Vice President said he would rather be just about anything other than Vice President , it was too little work for a man of only 42 years old, thought he might send his vice presidency going to law school. And throughcentury the first third of the 20th century, the president ial candidate did not choose his running mate. The conventions chose the running mate. They generally chose the running mate in order to balance the ticket either on ideological grounds or geographical rounds. Sometimes you would have a president ial candidate and Vice President ial candidate who disagreed and were on opposite sides on major issues of the day. Sometimes the vice presidency was used as part of a deal to secure the president ial nomination for a candidate. Sometimes a politician from a swing state was chosen as the Vice President ial candidate. 1916, there and were eight Vice President ial candidates. Five were from indiana. Oftentimes, the Vice President ial candidates in the 19th century were undistinguished people. Chester arthur, james garfields Vice President before he succeeded president garfield, before he became Vice President , the highest position he ever held was as the collector of customs in the port of new york. Derek hobart, president mckinleys first Vice President , had never held any Public Office other than state legislator in the state of new jersey. William king, who was Franklin Pierce ands Vice President , did have a lot of experience, but he was very sick when he was chosen to be Vice President. So sick that he resigned from the senate because he could not continue to perform his role in the senate, and he died soon after his election. Being Vice President was not a good career move for somebody in most of the 19th century. Only three 19th century Vice President s were elected to a second term. None after 1836. Although five president s from 1828 to 1900 were elected to a second term, none with the same Vice President. The four Vice President s who succeeded to the presidency in the 19th century, none of them were reelected or elected to their own term as president. The vice presidency was not a good president ial springboard. When Daniel Webster was offered a position on the 1848 ticket with sacra taylor, he refused saying i dont propose to be buried until im dead. [laughter] ofwas not the wisest move the great websters career. He always wanted to be president. Some months later, Zachary Taylor died and Millard Fillmore instead became president. From 1836 when Martin Van Buren was elected as the sitting Vice President to succeed andrew when george h1988 w bush was elected to succeed ronald reagan, no Vice President , no sitting Vice President was ever elected to the presidency. Other than John Breckenridge in 1856, none was nominated to seek the presidency by a major party until Richard Nixon in 1960. At the beginning of the 20th century, there was a common joke told about the parents who had two sons. One went off to sea. The other became Vice President. Neither was ever heard from again. [laughter] at the beginning of the 20th century, the vice presidency began to take baby steps forward and towards the executive branch. President harding invited his Vice President , calvin coolidge, to meet with the cabinet. The move was controversial at the time. But Vice President coolidge did cabinet. The party that became something of a tradition. Franklin roosevelt used john garner as a liaison and sent him on foreign trips before they had a falling out during the second term. President roosevelt used his second Vice President , henry wallace, made him the head of Economic Warfare during world war ii. But wallace ran into controversy with members of f. D. R. s cabinet and soon lost that position and was dropped from the 1944 ticket. President roosevelts third