tag:theconversation.com,2011:/id/topics/calvin-coolidge-42562/articlesCalvin Coolidge – The Conversation2023-08-08T19:07:18Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2104442023-08-08T19:07:18Z2023-08-08T19:07:18ZKamala Harris has tied the record for the most tie-breaking votes in Senate history – a brief overview of what vice presidents do<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540877/original/file-20230802-6332-61kj04.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=49%2C21%2C4690%2C3453&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Vice President Kamala Harris arrives to cast a tiebreaking vote in the U.S. Senate.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/vice-president-kamala-harris-arrives-at-the-senate-chamber-news-photo/1500382345">Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>On Jan. 20, 2021, <a href="https://theconversation.com/who-is-kamala-harris-joe-bidens-pick-for-vice-president-144122">Kamala Harris</a> became the <a href="https://theconversation.com/kamala-harris-represents-an-opportunity-for-coalition-building-between-blacks-and-asian-americans-144547">first African American, the first person of South Asian descent</a> and the <a href="https://theconversation.com/before-kamala-harris-became-bidens-running-mate-shirley-chisholm-and-other-black-women-aimed-for-the-white-house-143655">first</a> <a href="https://theconversation.com/call-in-the-women-chrystia-freeland-and-kamala-harriss-new-roles-respond-to-the-times-144896">woman</a> to serve as vice president of the United States.</p>
<p>More recently, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/kamala-harris-tiebreaker-vote-db39d642bc423f4984b0ad7b32139ecb">she made history again</a> by casting her 31st tie-breaking vote in the Senate, matching only one other vice president’s record for such votes. <a href="https://rollcall.com/2023/07/12/harris-ties-calhouns-191-year-old-record-for-breaking-senate-ties/">John C. Calhoun</a>, who was vice president from 1825 to 1832, needed all eight years of his term to reach that number. In contrast, Harris has only been in office for two and a half years.</p>
<p>If her tie-breaking continues, Harris could end up as one of the most <a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/3689844-why-kamala-harris-is-already-among-the-most-consequential-vice-presidents-in-history/">consequential</a> vice presidents in history, casting the deciding votes on several laws, <a href="https://theconversation.com/states-pick-judges-very-differently-from-us-supreme-court-appointments-160142">judicial nominations</a> and spending plans. However, this distinction says more about the Senate than the amount of power the vice president actually wields.</p>
<h2>The ‘most insignificant’ office?</h2>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377394/original/file-20210106-23-4hlt3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="John Adams" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377394/original/file-20210106-23-4hlt3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377394/original/file-20210106-23-4hlt3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=727&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377394/original/file-20210106-23-4hlt3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=727&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377394/original/file-20210106-23-4hlt3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=727&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377394/original/file-20210106-23-4hlt3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=914&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377394/original/file-20210106-23-4hlt3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=914&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377394/original/file-20210106-23-4hlt3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=914&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">John Adams, the nation’s first vice president, called the job ‘the most insignificant Office.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gilbert_Stuart,_John_Adams,_c._1800-1815,_NGA_42933.jpg">Gilbert Stuart, National Gallery of Art via Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
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<p>The role of vice president is only mentioned in the <a href="https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution-transcript">U.S. Constitution</a> a handful of times.</p>
<p>Article I, Section 3 says that the vice president “<a href="https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution-transcript#toc-section-3-">shall be President of the Senate but shall have no Vote</a>” except in the event of a tie. Historically, ties have been rare. Since 1789, only <a href="https://www.senate.gov/legislative/TieVotes.htm">299 tie-breaking votes</a> have been cast, and 12 vice presidents, including current President Joe Biden, <a href="https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/resources/pdf/VPTies.pdf">never cast a single one</a>.</p>
<p>The beginning of Article II, Section 1 explains how vice presidents are elected, which was later revised by the <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/amendmentxii">12th Amendment</a>. The end of that section states that presidential power “<a href="https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution-transcript#toc-section-1--2">shall devolve on the Vice President</a>” in the event of the president’s “Death, Resignation, or Inability to discharge the Powers and Duties of the said Office.”</p>
<p><a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/article-2/section-1/clause-6/succession-clause-for-the-presidency">As written, it is unclear</a> whether this meant that a vice president became the new president or was simply serving in an acting capacity. This was later clarified with the passage of the 25th Amendment, which states that “<a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/amendmentxxv">the Vice President shall become President</a>.” The 25th Amendment also outlines how to fill a vacancy in the vice presidency, and it provides a mechanism for the vice president to serve temporarily as president if a president becomes “<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-the-25th-amendment-says-about-presidents-who-are-unable-to-serve-102825">unable to discharge the powers and duties</a> of his office.”</p>
<p>Finally, Article II, Section 4 states that vice presidents, like presidents, can be “<a href="https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution-transcript#toc-section-4--2">removed from Office</a> on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.” </p>
<p>So, other than <a href="https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/big/1010.html">staying out of trouble</a> to avoid impeachment and waiting around to <a href="https://tbsnews.net/world/what-happens-when-us-president-dies-or-incapacitated-141037">serve as</a> – or replace – the president, vice presidents are really only obligated to <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/mike-pence-casts-tie-breaking-vote-confirm-betsy-devos-education-n717836">occasionally cast a tiebreaking vote</a> in the Senate. This means that the great majority of the time, vice presidents have no real job to do.</p>
<p>John Adams, the first U.S. vice president, once complained to his wife that the vice presidency was “<a href="https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/04-09-02-0278">the most insignificant Office</a> that ever the Invention of Man contrived or his Imagination conceived.” </p>
<p>However, not all have been upset about such inactivity. Woodrow Wilson’s vice president, Thomas Marshall, <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/wilson-thomas-marshall/">quipped after he retired</a>: “I don’t want to work … [but] I wouldn’t mind being Vice President again.”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377397/original/file-20210106-17-109o8zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Will Hays with Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377397/original/file-20210106-17-109o8zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377397/original/file-20210106-17-109o8zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377397/original/file-20210106-17-109o8zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377397/original/file-20210106-17-109o8zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377397/original/file-20210106-17-109o8zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=549&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377397/original/file-20210106-17-109o8zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=549&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377397/original/file-20210106-17-109o8zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=549&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Warren Harding, center, wanted his vice president, Calvin Coolidge, at right, to play an active role in governing.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/chairman-of-the-republican-national-committee-will-h-hays-news-photo/501167655">FPG/Keystone View Company/Archive Photos via Getty Images</a></span>
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</figure>
<h2>The ‘last voice in the room’</h2>
<p>Wilson’s successor as president, Warren Harding, had unconventional views about the importance of the role of the vice president. He thought that “the vice president should be <a href="https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CDOC-104sdoc26/pdf/CDOC-104sdoc26.pdf">more than a mere substitute in waiting</a>,” and he wished for his vice president, Calvin Coolidge, “to be a helpful part” of his administration. Coolidge later became the <a href="https://www.senate.gov/about/officers-staff/vice-president/VP_Calvin_Coolidge.htm">first vice president</a> in history to attend Cabinet meetings on a regular basis. </p>
<p>In 1923, Harding died, likely of a <a href="https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/after-90-years-president-warren-hardings-death-still-unsettled">heart attack</a>, and Coolidge succeeded him as president. “My experience in the Cabinet,” <a href="https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CDOC-104sdoc26/pdf/CDOC-104sdoc26.pdf">Coolidge later recalled</a>, “was of supreme value to me when I became President.”</p>
<p>After Harding and Coolidge, many later presidents reverted back to the tradition of keeping vice presidents an arm’s length away, even on key matters. Franklin D. Roosevelt, for instance, <a href="https://www.atomicheritage.org/history/manhattan-project">kept the atomic bomb a secret</a> from Vice President Harry S. Truman, who <a href="https://www.atomicheritage.org/profile/harry-truman">didn’t find out</a> about it until Roosevelt’s death.</p>
<p>For the 1960 presidential election, two-term Vice President Richard Nixon faced off against Sen. John F. Kennedy. At one point during the campaign, reporters asked then-President Dwight D. Eisenhower: “Can you think of a major contribution that Nixon has made to your administration?” Eisenhower replied: “<a href="https://www.virginiabusiness.com/article/how-many-u-s-vice-presidents-can-you-name/">Well, if you give me a week I might think of one</a>.” Nixon lost that election.</p>
<p>In 1976, Jimmy Carter picked Sen. Walter Mondale as his running mate. In a memo sent to Carter after winning the election, Mondale argued that “[t]he <a href="http://www2.mnhs.org/library/findaids/00697/pdf/Mondale-CarterMemo.pdf">biggest single problem of our recent administrations</a> has been the failure of the President to be exposed to independent analysis not conditioned by what it is thought he wants to hear or often what others want him to hear.” </p>
<p>Mondale’s vision for the role of vice president was “to offer impartial advice” so that Carter wouldn’t be “shielded from points of view that [he] should hear.” <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/07/20/how-the-vice-president-became-a-powerful-and-influential-white-house-player/">Carter agreed</a> and subsequently made Mondale an integral part of his inner circle.</p>
<p>Biden served 36 years in the Senate before leaving to become Barack Obama’s vice president. When he agreed to be Obama’s running mate, Biden said he wanted to be the “<a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2012-09-06-sns-rt-us-usa-campaign-bidenbre8850xj-20120906-story.html">last man in the room</a>” whenever important decisions were being made so he could give Obama his unfiltered opinion. When Biden picked Harris as his running mate, he said he “asked Kamala to be the <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/biden-harris-make-appearance-historic-democratic-ticket/story?id=72327968">last voice in the room</a>,” to “[c]hallenge [his] assumptions if she disagrees,” and to “[a]sk the hard questions.”</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377399/original/file-20210106-21-14f67c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377399/original/file-20210106-21-14f67c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377399/original/file-20210106-21-14f67c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377399/original/file-20210106-21-14f67c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377399/original/file-20210106-21-14f67c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377399/original/file-20210106-21-14f67c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=624&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377399/original/file-20210106-21-14f67c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=624&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377399/original/file-20210106-21-14f67c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=624&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Vice President Walter Mondale, right, was an active part of President Jimmy Carter’s administration.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/CarterMondale/160e66151d984d9fb00f4da936a7252f/photo">AP Photo/Harvey Georges</a></span>
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<h2>An ally in an increasingly divided Senate</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.senate.gov/about/powers-procedures/filibusters-cloture.htm">Under the rules of the U.S. Senate</a>, if just one lawmaker doesn’t want a bill to advance, they can attempt to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HJuaQL3KRI">delay</a> its passage indefinitely via <a href="https://theconversation.com/most-us-states-dont-have-a-filibuster-nor-do-many-democratic-countries-156093">the filibuster</a>. A supermajority of three-fifths of the senators, or 60 of the 100, is required <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-senate-filibuster-explained-and-why-it-should-be-allowed-to-die-123551">to stop the filibuster</a> – or signal that one would not succeed – and proceed to a vote.</p>
<p>Over the years, the Senate has made <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/11/23/13709518/budget-reconciliation-explained">various procedural</a> <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/nuclear-option-what-it-why-it-matters-n742076">changes</a> to the filibuster, limiting when it can be used.</p>
<p>The end result of <a href="https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/filibuster-reform-short-guide">these reforms</a> is that the Senate is now empowered to do more with just a simple majority. In addition, in recent years, the <a href="https://www.senate.gov/history/partydiv.htm">Senate has become increasingly divided</a>. Together, this has created the conditions that have empowered Harris to cast so many tie-breaking votes so quickly, solidifying both her place in history and <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-biden-might-drop-his-vice-president-and-reasons-why-he-shouldnt-199655">her place alongside Biden in the 2024 election</a>.</p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of an <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-does-the-vice-president-do-152467">article</a> initially published Jan. 19, 2021.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/210444/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joshua Holzer does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Kamala Harris is on track to be one of the most influential vice presidents in history. This says more about the Senate than the amount of power the vice president actually wields.Joshua Holzer, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Westminster CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1856672022-06-29T20:29:14Z2022-06-29T20:29:14ZLet’s spare a few words for ‘Silent Cal’ Coolidge on July 4, his 150th birthday<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/471452/original/file-20220628-14646-ondh6m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">President Calvin Coolidge stands with members of a nonprofit group called the Daughters of 1812.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/president-calvin-coolidge-stands-with-members-of-a-group-called-the-picture-id640478979?s=2048x2048"> Library of Congress/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A woman sitting next to President Calvin Coolidge at a dinner party once told him she had made a bet that she could get him to say more than two words. </p>
<p>“<a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/presidents/calvin-coolidge/">You lose</a>,” replied Coolidge, who served as president from 1923 until 1929.</p>
<p>During a White House recital, a nervous opera singer foundered through a performance before Coolidge. Someone asked him what he thought of the singer’s execution. “<a href="https://whatculture.com/offbeat/12-most-impressive-retorts-in-history?page=3">I’m all for it,” he said</a>. </p>
<p>Coolidge was so taciturn that he was known as “Silent Cal.” </p>
<p>Three U.S. presidents – all of them Founding Fathers, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and James Monroe – <a href="https://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/blog/three-presidents-die-on-july-4th-just-a-coincidence">died on July 4.</a></p>
<p>Only one was <a href="https://biography.yourdictionary.com/articles/who-is-the-only-u-s-president-born-on-july-4.html">born on July 4</a>. </p>
<p>Calvin Coolidge <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/presidents/calvin-coolidge/">was born</a> in Plymouth Notch, Vermont, 150 years ago, on July 4, 1872. He died in January 1933. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/471453/original/file-20220628-14748-ptv14g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A black and white photo depicts a man in a topcoat and hat gazing at a truck bearing images of two men and the words 'Two common sense Americans.'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/471453/original/file-20220628-14748-ptv14g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/471453/original/file-20220628-14748-ptv14g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/471453/original/file-20220628-14748-ptv14g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/471453/original/file-20220628-14748-ptv14g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/471453/original/file-20220628-14748-ptv14g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=684&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/471453/original/file-20220628-14748-ptv14g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=684&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/471453/original/file-20220628-14748-ptv14g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=684&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Calvin Coolidge inspects a campaign truck painted with images of himself and his running mate, Charles G. Dawes.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/calvin-coolidge-inspects-a-campaign-truck-painted-with-images-of-his-picture-id104560171?s=2048x2048">FPG/Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>Getting to know Coolidge</h2>
<p>Fireworks rarely followed Coolidge during his political career. </p>
<p>Coolidge was balding, 5-foot-9 with a slight build, and he could walk into an empty room and blend in. He rarely smiled or changed expression. Alice Roosevelt Longworth, the daughter of President Theodore Roosevelt, described Coolidge’s dour expression by saying <a href="https://libquotes.com/alice-roosevelt-longworth/quote/lbn2b5z">he looked as if</a> “he had been <a href="https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=weaned%20on%20a%20pickle">weaned on a pickle</a>.”</p>
<p>Such a description would not have offended Coolidge. “I think the American public wants a solemn ass as a president,” <a href="https://www.loc.gov/item/2010643539/">he said</a>, “and I think I’ll go along with them.” </p>
<h2>Best known for a laugh or two</h2>
<p>The 30th president remains a footnote in the history of U.S. presidents. Coolidge was preceded in the White House by Warren Harding, whose administration was one of <a href="https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-schiller-harding-trump-20180802-story.html">the most corrupt in U.S. history</a>. Coolidge was succeeded by Herbert Hoover, who was in office when the country fell into the throes of the <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/great-depression/great-depression-history">Great Depression</a>, which began with the crash of the stock market in October 1929, several months after Hoover took office. </p>
<p>Coolidge is probably best known for his contributions to books of political humor. I included him in a 2020 book I edited, “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Art-Political-Putdown-Comebacks-Politicians/dp/1452183856">The Art of the Political Putdown: The Greatest Comebacks, Ripostes, and Retorts in History</a>.”</p>
<p>Coolidge, a Republican who believed in <a href="https://coolidgefoundation.org/resources/essays-papers-addresses-17/">small government, low taxes</a>, morality, thrift and tradition, rose quickly – but quietly – in Massachusetts politics, where he became <a href="https://malegislature.gov/VirtualTour/Artifact/90">president of the state Senate in 1914</a>. While serving in this capacity, two senators got into a bitter exchange of words in which one told the other to go to hell. The recipient of the remark demanded that Coolidge take his side. “I’ve looked up the law, Senator,” Coolidge told him, “and <a href="https://coolidgefoundation.org/resources/essays-papers-addresses-17/">you don’t have to go</a>.”</p>
<p>Coolidge was elected <a href="https://malegislature.gov/VirtualTour/Artifact/90">governor of Massachusetts in 1919</a>. He soon earned a national reputation for being decisive by firing striking police officers in Boston and ordering the state militia to bring calm to the city after the strike had left its inhabitants vulnerable to violent mobs in September 1919. </p>
<p>Warren Harding, the Republican presidential nominee in 1920, chose Coolidge as his running mate. Harding and Coolidge won the election. Coolidge then became president when Harding died in 1923. </p>
<p>Early in his term, in December 1923, Coolidge <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/presidents/calvin-coolidge/">spoke to Congress</a> and pressed for isolation in U.S. foreign policy and tax cuts. He believed <a href="https://slate.com/human-interest/2011/11/calvin-coolidge-why-are-republicans-so-obsessed-with-him.html">in small government</a> and also benefited from the country’s strong economic position in the early 1920s. This helped his popularity rise, and he got more than <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/presidents/calvin-coolidge/">54% of the popular vote</a> in the 1924 election.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/471459/original/file-20220628-14286-ejcf8t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Calvin Coolidge eats ice cream off a plate next to his wife, in front of a group of men dressed formally in suits and a Navy uniform in this black and white photo" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/471459/original/file-20220628-14286-ejcf8t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/471459/original/file-20220628-14286-ejcf8t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/471459/original/file-20220628-14286-ejcf8t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/471459/original/file-20220628-14286-ejcf8t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/471459/original/file-20220628-14286-ejcf8t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=558&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/471459/original/file-20220628-14286-ejcf8t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=558&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/471459/original/file-20220628-14286-ejcf8t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=558&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Calvin Coolidge and his wife, Grace Goodhue Coolidge, eat ice cream at a garden party for veterans at the White House in an undated photo.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/president-and-mrs-coolidge-eat-ice-cream-at-a-garden-party-for-at-picture-id640491357?s=2048x2048">Library of Congress/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images)</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A genius for inactivity</h2>
<p>If it was Coolidge’s decisive action that brought him to national attention, it was his inaction as president that defined his presidency and won him the admiration of political conservatives. </p>
<p>Newspaper columnist <a href="https://www.frontporchrepublic.com/2010/06/the-anti-propaganda-of-calvin-coolidge/">Walter Lippmann wrote</a> this about Coolidge in 1926: “Mr. Coolidge’s genius for inactivity is developed to a very high point. It is a grim, determined, alert inactivity, which keeps Mr. Coolidge occupied constantly.”</p>
<p><a href="https://css.cua.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Arnold-Calvin-Coolidge-Classical-Statesman-1.pdf">Historians, however, praise Coolidge</a> for presiding over low inflation, low unemployment and budget surpluses during every year of his presidency. He kept the country at peace and restored confidence in the government after the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Warren-G-Harding/Scandals">scandal-plagued Harding years</a>. </p>
<p>But being president and taking daily naps still apparently left Coolidge with a lot of free time. </p>
<p>Coolidge reportedly liked to <a href="https://nebushumor.wordpress.com/2020/03/26/stray-historical-thoughts-calvin-coolidge-edition/">press the alarm buttons</a> in the Oval Office, and when the Secret Service agents ran into the office to see what was wrong, he would be hiding.</p>
<p>Coolidge decided not to run for reelection in 1928. When reporters asked him why, he answered with characteristic succinctness. “<a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2012/05/01/151762298/the-funniest-presidents-in-history">Because there’s no chance for advancement</a>,” he said.</p>
<p>If Coolidge had been reelected, he would have suffered Hoover’s fate of being president during the Depression. His political timing was as good as his comic timing. </p>
<p>Social critic H.L. Mencken once speculated on how Coolidge would have responded to the collapse of the stock market and the collapse of the nation’s economy. </p>
<p>“He would have responded to bad times precisely as he responded to good ones – that is, by pulling down the blinds, stretching his legs upon his desk, and snoozing away the lazy afternoons,” Mencken wrote. And yet the iconoclastic Mencken had this begrudging praise for Coolidge. “There were no thrills while he reigned, but neither were there any headaches. He had no ideas, <a href="http://www.perno.com/amer/docs/H%20L%20Mencken%20on%20Calvin%20Coolidge.htm">and he was not a nuisance</a>.”</p>
<p>When American writer Dorothy Parker, who, like Coolidge, could say much with few words, learned that the former president had died in 1933, she replied, “<a href="https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/07/04/silent/">How could they tell</a>?”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/185667/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chris Lamb does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>US President Calvin Coolidge hasn’t gone down in history for his triumphs or failures as president during the 1920s – but his dry sense of humor carries on.Chris Lamb, Professor of Journalism, IUPUILicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1581992021-04-19T12:27:57Z2021-04-19T12:27:57ZHas any US president ever served more than eight years?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/392657/original/file-20210330-19-1co58pi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C76%2C5662%2C4431&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Franklin Delano Roosevelt, standing at center and facing left just above the eagle, takes the presidential oath of office for the third time in 1941.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://flickr.com/photos/54078784@N08/6351043453">FDR Presidential Library and Museum via Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption"></span>
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<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/curious-kids-us-74795">Curious Kids</a> is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to <a href="mailto:curiouskidsus@theconversation.com">curiouskidsus@theconversation.com</a>.</em></p>
<hr>
<blockquote>
<p><strong>Has there ever been a president who has served more than eight years? – Joseph, 8, New York, New York</strong></p>
</blockquote>
<hr>
<p>The only president in American history to serve more than two four-year terms was <a href="https://millercenter.org/president/fdroosevelt">Franklin Delano Roosevelt</a>. He actually served three full terms as well as the first three months of a fourth term until his death on April 12, 1945.</p>
<p>The current limits on how long a person can be president come from the 22nd Amendment, added to the U.S. Constitution in 1951, which limits presidents to <a href="https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-22/">two successful presidential elections</a>. The amendment makes one exception: If a president takes office in the middle of someone else’s term – if the president dies, for example, and a vice president takes over and serves less than two years, that person can still run twice for their own election. But if the replacement president serves for more than two years of their predecessor’s term, they can only be elected to one more presidential term of their own.</p>
<p>FDR wasn’t breaking those rules, because the rules did not exist for the first 162 years of the nation’s history, from 1789 to 1951. Even so, in all that time, he was the only president who served more than two terms.</p>
<p>A total of 13 presidents have served exactly two full terms. Eight of them came before Roosevelt. <a href="https://millercenter.org/president/washington">George Washington</a>, <a href="https://millercenter.org/president/jefferson">Thomas Jefferson</a>, <a href="https://millercenter.org/president/madison">James Madison</a>, <a href="https://millercenter.org/president/monroe">James Monroe</a>, <a href="https://millercenter.org/president/jackson">Andrew Jackson</a>, <a href="https://millercenter.org/president/grant">Ulysses Grant</a> and <a href="https://millercenter.org/president/wilson">Woodrow Wilson</a> served their terms consecutively. <a href="https://millercenter.org/president/cleveland">Grover Cleveland</a> served two terms separated by the four-year term of <a href="https://millercenter.org/president/bharrison">Benjamin Harrison</a>.</p>
<p>Some considered third terms: In 1880, four years after he finished out his second term, <a href="http://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198837404.003.0020">Grant pressed his candidacy once again</a> but failed to secure the Republican Party’s presidential nomination. And as Woodrow Wilson finished out his second term in 1920, <a href="https://www.basicbooks.com/titles/david-pietrusza/1920/9780786732135/">he also thought about running for a third term</a>, but ultimately withdrew from consideration.</p>
<p>Five more presidents – <a href="https://millercenter.org/president/eisenhower">Dwight Eisenhower</a>, <a href="https://millercenter.org/president/reagan">Ronald Reagan</a>, <a href="https://millercenter.org/president/clinton">Bill Clinton</a>, <a href="https://millercenter.org/president/gwbush">George W. Bush</a> and <a href="https://millercenter.org/president/obama">Barack Obama</a> – came after the 22nd Amendment was passed, so they had to leave and let someone else take over.</p>
<p>Four additional presidents – <a href="https://millercenter.org/president/roosevelt">Theodore Roosevelt</a>, <a href="https://millercenter.org/president/coolidge">Calvin Coolidge</a>, <a href="https://millercenter.org/president/truman">Harry Truman</a> and <a href="https://millercenter.org/president/lbjohnson">Lyndon Johnson</a> – completed the remaining terms of another president and were elected to their own full term immediately afterward. Under the rules of their times, each of them could have run for one more term. Several chose not to run for reelection; others ran and lost.</p>
<p>For example, Lyndon Johnson, who took over after John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, initially tried for a second full term in 1968. But during the presidential primaries, he withdrew from consideration, in part because his <a href="https://www.history.com/news/lbj-exit-1968-presidential-race">handling of the war in Vietnam was unpopular</a> and threatened his chances.</p>
<p><iframe id="cRKFU" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/cRKFU/3/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>The precedent of serving just two terms was originally established by Washington, the nation’s first president. By all accounts, <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/46099/his-excellency-by-joseph-j-ellis/">Washington would have easily been reelected</a> had he chosen to run a third time.</p>
<p>But he rejected public calls to run for a third term as president in 1796. Washington was concerned that by staying in office longer, <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/46099/his-excellency-by-joseph-j-ellis/">he might send a message</a> that presidents should govern until death or illness drove them away, like a king. The American Revolution had just overthrown a monarchy. Washington thus wanted to lead by example in voluntarily leaving office after his second term, retiring to his Mount Vernon estate in Virginia.</p>
<p>After all, if two terms is good enough for George Washington, isn’t it good enough for everyone else?</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Hello, curious kids! Do you have a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to <a href="mailto:curiouskidsus@theconversation.com">CuriousKidsUS@theconversation.com</a>. Please tell us your name, age and the city where you live.</em></p>
<p><em>And since curiosity has no age limit – adults, let us know what you’re wondering, too. We won’t be able to answer every question, but we will do our best.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/158199/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Yalof does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Only one president has done so – Franklin Delano Roosevelt – but others considered it, and even tried.David Yalof, Professor of Political Science, University of ConnecticutLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1524672021-01-19T17:07:18Z2021-01-19T17:07:18ZWhat does the vice president do?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377391/original/file-20210106-17-lpwkss.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C8%2C5991%2C3979&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">It's a top government job, but what does being vice president mean?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/VirusOutbreakHarris/56ef84b8246447418d250b158f225185/photo">AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>On Jan. 20, <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/harris-makes-history-first-female-black-south-asian-american-vp-n1246916">Kamala Harris</a> will become vice president of the United States – the first woman, the <a href="https://theconversation.com/kamala-harris-represents-an-opportunity-for-coalition-building-between-blacks-and-asian-americans-144547">first person of South Asian descent, and the first African American</a> to do so. Harris will also become the <a href="https://www.marketwatch.com/story/kamala-harris-on-being-a-graduate-from-a-historically-black-college-this-is-what-these-institutions-were-really-built-for-they-were-built-for-this-moment-11597258044">first</a> vice president to have graduated from a <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/historically-black-colleges-and-universities">historically black college or university</a>.</p>
<p>Each of these achievements is significant in its own right. However, the vice presidency itself has traditionally been a relatively insignificant position, though the office has become more influential in recent years.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377394/original/file-20210106-23-4hlt3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="John Adams" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377394/original/file-20210106-23-4hlt3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377394/original/file-20210106-23-4hlt3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=727&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377394/original/file-20210106-23-4hlt3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=727&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377394/original/file-20210106-23-4hlt3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=727&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377394/original/file-20210106-23-4hlt3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=914&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377394/original/file-20210106-23-4hlt3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=914&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377394/original/file-20210106-23-4hlt3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=914&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">John Adams, the nation’s first vice president, called the job ‘the most insignificant Office.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gilbert_Stuart,_John_Adams,_c._1800-1815,_NGA_42933.jpg">Gilbert Stuart, National Gallery of Art via Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The ‘most insignificant’ office?</h2>
<p>The role of vice president is only mentioned in the <a href="https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution-transcript">U.S. Constitution</a> a handful of times. Article I, Section 3 says that the vice president “<a href="https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution-transcript#toc-section-3-">shall be President of the Senate but shall have no Vote</a>” except in the event of a tie. Normally, ties are rare, but the vice president’s power to break them will likely become relevant to Harris as Democrats, and independents who caucus with Democrats, are expected to control only 50 of the 100 Senate seats.</p>
<p>The beginning of Article II, Section 1 explains how vice presidents are elected, which was later revised by the <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/amendmentxii">12th Amendment</a>. The end of that section states that presidential power “<a href="https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution-transcript#toc-section-1--2">shall devolve on the Vice President</a>” in the event of the president’s “Death, Resignation, or Inability to discharge the Powers and Duties of the said Office.” Finally, Article II, Section 4 states that vice presidents – like presidents – can be “<a href="https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution-transcript#toc-section-4--2">removed from Office</a> on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”</p>
<p>So, other than <a href="https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/big/1010.html">staying out of trouble</a> to avoid impeachment and waiting around for the president to <a href="https://tbsnews.net/world/what-happens-when-us-president-dies-or-incapacitated-141037">need a replacement</a>, vice presidents are really obligated only to <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/mike-pence-casts-tie-breaking-vote-confirm-betsy-devos-education-n717836">occasionally cast a tie-breaking vote</a>. This means that the great majority of the time, vice presidents have no real job to do.</p>
<p>John Adams, the first U.S. vice president, once complained to his wife that the vice presidency was “<a href="https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/04-09-02-0278">the most insignificant Office</a> that ever the Invention of Man contrived or his Imagination conceived.” However, not all have been upset about such inactivity. Woodrow Wilson’s vice president, Thomas Marshall, <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/wilson-thomas-marshall/">quipped after he retired</a>: “I don’t want to work … [but] I wouldn’t mind being Vice President again.”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377397/original/file-20210106-17-109o8zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Will Hays with Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377397/original/file-20210106-17-109o8zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377397/original/file-20210106-17-109o8zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377397/original/file-20210106-17-109o8zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377397/original/file-20210106-17-109o8zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377397/original/file-20210106-17-109o8zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=549&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377397/original/file-20210106-17-109o8zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=549&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377397/original/file-20210106-17-109o8zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=549&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Warren Harding, center, wanted his vice president, Calvin Coolidge, at right, to play an active role in governing.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/chairman-of-the-republican-national-committee-will-h-hays-news-photo/501167655">FPG/Keystone View Company/Archive Photos/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The evolution of the vice presidency</h2>
<p>Wilson’s successor as president, Warren Harding, had unconventional views about the importance of the role of the vice president. He thought that “<a href="https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CDOC-104sdoc26/pdf/CDOC-104sdoc26.pdf">the vice president should be more than a mere substitute in waiting</a>,” and he wished for his vice president, Calvin Coolidge, “to be a helpful part” of his administration. Coolidge later became the <a href="https://www.senate.gov/about/officers-staff/vice-president/VP_Calvin_Coolidge.htm">first vice president</a> in history to attend Cabinet meetings on a regular basis. </p>
<p>In 1923, Harding died of a <a href="https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/after-90-years-president-warren-hardings-death-still-unsettled">likely heart attack</a>, and Coolidge succeeded him as president. “My experience in the Cabinet,” <a href="https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CDOC-104sdoc26/pdf/CDOC-104sdoc26.pdf">Coolidge later recalled</a>, “was of supreme value to me when I became President.”</p>
<p>After Harding and Coolidge, many later presidents reverted back to the tradition of keeping vice presidents an arm’s length away, even on key matters. Franklin D. Roosevelt, for instance, kept <a href="https://www.atomicheritage.org/history/manhattan-project">the atomic bomb</a> a secret from Vice President Harry S. Truman, who <a href="https://www.atomicheritage.org/profile/harry-truman">didn’t find out</a> about it until Roosevelt’s death.</p>
<p>For the 1960 presidential election, two-term Vice President Richard Nixon faced off against John F. Kennedy. At one point during the campaign, reporters asked then-President Dwight D. Eisenhower: “Can you think of a major contribution that Nixon has made to your administration?” Eisenhower replied: “<a href="https://www.virginiabusiness.com/article/how-many-u-s-vice-presidents-can-you-name/">Well, if you give me a week I might think of one</a>.” Nixon lost that election.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377399/original/file-20210106-21-14f67c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377399/original/file-20210106-21-14f67c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377399/original/file-20210106-21-14f67c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377399/original/file-20210106-21-14f67c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377399/original/file-20210106-21-14f67c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377399/original/file-20210106-21-14f67c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=624&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377399/original/file-20210106-21-14f67c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=624&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377399/original/file-20210106-21-14f67c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=624&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Vice President Walter Mondale, right, was an active part of President Jimmy Carter’s administration.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/CarterMondale/160e66151d984d9fb00f4da936a7252f/photo">AP Photo/Harvey Georges</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 1976, Jimmy Carter picked Walter Mondale as his running mate. In a memo sent to Carter after winning the election, Mondale argued that “[t]he <a href="http://www2.mnhs.org/library/findaids/00697/pdf/Mondale-CarterMemo.pdf">biggest single problem of our recent administrations</a> has been the failure of the President to be exposed to independent analysis not conditioned by what it is thought he wants to hear or often what others want him to hear.” Mondale’s vision for the role of vice president was “to offer impartial advice” so that Carter wouldn’t be “shielded from points of view that [he] should hear.” <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/07/20/how-the-vice-president-became-a-powerful-and-influential-white-house-player/">Carter agreed</a> and subsequently made Mondale an integral part of his inner circle.</p>
<p>Many vice presidents since Mondale have often offered points of view that didn’t align with that of the president. Bill Clinton and Al Gore, for instance, <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2007/11/clinton200711">disagreed</a> over the amount of power and influence entrusted to first lady Hillary Clinton; they also <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2000/10/20/us/once-close-to-clinton-gore-keeps-a-distance.html">disagreed</a> over the handling of the Monica Lewinsky scandal. George W. Bush and Dick Cheney <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2010/11/03/131035736/bush-considered-dropping-cheney-from-ticket-in-04">disagreed</a>, at times, over Iraq, as well as the use and nonuse of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/jan/23/dick-cheney-george-bush-libby-pardon">presidential pardons</a>.</p>
<p>In contrast, Mike Pence has proved to be a <a href="https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2020/0826/Last-man-standing-How-Pence-s-loyalty-helped-him-survive">loyal ally</a> to a president who has a <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/research/tracking-turnover-in-the-trump-administration/">track record</a> of being unwilling to listen to dissent.</p>
<p>In the wake of the Jan. 6 <a href="https://theconversation.com/was-it-a-coup-no-but-siege-on-us-capitol-was-the-election-violence-of-a-fragile-democracy-152803">insurrection</a>, Democrats <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/house/533112-first-gop-lawmaker-calls-for-invoking-25th-amendment-to-remove-trump">and even a few Republicans</a> called on Pence to <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-does-the-25th-amendment-work-and-can-it-be-used-to-remove-trump-from-office-after-us-capitol-attack-152869">remove Trump from office</a> by invoking the <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/amendmentxxv">25th Amendment</a>. Pence ultimately <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/07/us/politics/pence-opposes-invoking-25th-amendment.html">avoided</a> taking <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/11/politics/trump-pence-25th-amendment/index.html">such action</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377412/original/file-20210106-13-1a5nru2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Vice President Mike Pence presides over the joint session of Congress reviewing Electoral College votes on Jan. 6, 2021." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377412/original/file-20210106-13-1a5nru2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377412/original/file-20210106-13-1a5nru2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377412/original/file-20210106-13-1a5nru2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377412/original/file-20210106-13-1a5nru2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377412/original/file-20210106-13-1a5nru2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377412/original/file-20210106-13-1a5nru2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377412/original/file-20210106-13-1a5nru2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">One key job of the vice president involves presiding over the process of counting Electoral College votes.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/vice-president-mike-pence-presides-over-a-joint-session-of-news-photo/1230451359">Saul Loeb/Pool/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The ‘last voice in the room’</h2>
<p>Following Mondale’s model, when Joe Biden agreed to be Barack Obama’s running mate, he said that he wanted to be the “<a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2012-09-06-sns-rt-us-usa-campaign-bidenbre8850xj-20120906-story.html">last man in the room</a>” whenever important decisions where being made so he could give Obama his unfiltered opinion. </p>
<p>When Biden picked Harris as his running mate, he said he “asked Kamala to be the <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/biden-harris-make-appearance-historic-democratic-ticket/story?id=72327968">last voice in the room</a>,” to “[c]hallenge [his] assumptions if she disagrees,” and to “[a]sk the hard questions.” </p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>As Harris begins her trailblazing term as a vice president of many firsts, she has an opportunity to either follow the past as a vice president who is largely ignored, to follow Pence as a deferential foot soldier, or to pick up Mondale’s mantle by making sure that the president isn’t shielded from points of view that he should hear.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/152467/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joshua Holzer does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The vice president may be second in line for the most powerful job in the nation, but there isn’t necessarily a lot to do besides wait – unless the president wants another adviser.Joshua Holzer, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Westminster CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1468892020-10-08T12:37:41Z2020-10-08T12:37:41ZThere’s nothing unusual about early voting – it’s been done since the founding of the republic<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/362030/original/file-20201006-22-1do4yr8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=129%2C27%2C5978%2C4032&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An early voter waits in line outside the Athens County Board of Elections Office on Oct. 6, 2020 in Athens, Ohio. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/early-voters-wait-in-line-outside-the-athens-county-board-news-photo/1228926910?adppopup=true">Ty Wright/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>With voting in key states <a href="https://www.wgbh.org/news/national-news/2020/10/04/early-voting-already-underway-in-28-states-as-election-day-becomes-election-season">having begun more than six weeks before Election Day</a>, early voting has emerged as a contentious issue. Observing that the country now has more of an election season than an election day, Attorney General Bill Barr lamented that “<a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/09/election-day-season-early-voting.html">we’re losing the whole idea of what an election is</a>.” </p>
<p>I’m a scholar of the presidency. And as many in this field know, early voting periods are not new to the 2020 election. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/362271/original/file-20201007-16-eyh95l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Crowd on Election Day in Philadelphia in 1840." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/362271/original/file-20201007-16-eyh95l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/362271/original/file-20201007-16-eyh95l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=743&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362271/original/file-20201007-16-eyh95l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=743&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362271/original/file-20201007-16-eyh95l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=743&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362271/original/file-20201007-16-eyh95l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=933&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362271/original/file-20201007-16-eyh95l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=933&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362271/original/file-20201007-16-eyh95l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=933&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In 1840, Pennsylvania held its election on Friday, Oct. 30. At the time, most other states held their presidential elections on a Monday or Tuesday.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://libwww.freelibrary.org/digital/item/39568">Artist, Frederic B. Schell/Free Library of Philadelphia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>First presidential election took one month</h2>
<p>There are many historical examples of an election period as opposed to an election day. </p>
<p>At the founding, there was no set national election day. <a href="http://www.mountvernon.org/library/digitalhistory/digital-encyclopedia/article/presidential-election-of-1789/">The first presidential election</a> started on Dec. 15, 1788, and ended almost a month later, on Jan. 10, 1789. </p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.loc.gov/law/help/statutes-at-large/2nd-congress/c2.pdf">1792, Congress passed a law</a> that permitted each state to choose presidential electors any time within a 34-day period before the first Wednesday in December. During this period, states determined what day to hold their presidential elections, resulting in a patchwork of election days. Most states had their election on a single day, but some had elections over the course of two days.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/4624813">From 1789 to 1840</a>, states gradually converged on early November as the time to hold their presidential elections, laying the groundwork for congressional adoption of a uniform presidential election day. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/362176/original/file-20201007-24-1ska6at.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="President Calvin Coolidge filling out his absentee ballot at a desk outside of the White House." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/362176/original/file-20201007-24-1ska6at.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/362176/original/file-20201007-24-1ska6at.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=764&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362176/original/file-20201007-24-1ska6at.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=764&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362176/original/file-20201007-24-1ska6at.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=764&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362176/original/file-20201007-24-1ska6at.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=960&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362176/original/file-20201007-24-1ska6at.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=960&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362176/original/file-20201007-24-1ska6at.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=960&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">President Calvin Coolidge filling out his absentee ballot on Oct. 30, 1924. That year’s election was held on Nov. 4, and Coolidge won.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/american-poltician-us-president-calvin-coolidge-sits-at-a-news-photo/182122292?adppopup=true">PhotoQuest/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The <a href="https://kansaspress.ku.edu/978-0-7006-2945-9.html">1840 presidential electoral season</a> began on Friday, Oct. 30, in Ohio and Pennsylvania and ended on Thursday, Nov. 12, in North Carolina, except for South Carolina, whose state Legislature still chose its electors. </p>
<h2>Limiting voter fraud</h2>
<p>It wasn’t until 1845 that <a href="https://www.loc.gov/law/help/statutes-at-large/28th-congress/session-2/c28s2ch1.pdf">Congress formally adopted a national election day</a> — the Tuesday after the first Monday in November. </p>
<p>With the invention of the telegraph, the rise of two-party competition across most states and record-breaking voter turnout, both parties had an interest in regulating elections and establishing a national election day. </p>
<p>In addition, parties were becoming more concerned about election fraud, especially the “<a href="https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llcg&fileName=013/llcg013.db&recNum=373">the importation of voters from one State to another.”</a> Most of the discussion in Congress focused on which day election day should be, with the prevailing idea that it should be about 30 days before the meeting of the electors, and on a Tuesday, according to a story in The Boston Daily Globe in February of 1915. </p>
<p>The legislators chose Tuesday because most states already held their elections on Monday or Tuesday, and they thought it was generally a good idea to have one day between Sunday and election day, making Tuesday the preferred day over Monday. </p>
<p>But even during this period there remained elements of an election season. According to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0898588X07000193">Scott James</a>, the 1848 congressional elections spanned 15 months, from August 1848 to November 1849. Leading up to the Civil War, a clear split in scheduling congressional elections emerged. </p>
<p>Northern states tended to adopt the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November, the same day as presidential elections, to hold congressional elections. Southern states, in contrast, scheduled congressional elections several months after presidential election day. It wasn’t until 1872 that Congress mandated that all states hold their congressional elections on the same day as the presidential election. </p>
<p>Moreover, a state’s early statewide electoral contests could act as a political laboratory for national elections. The saying “<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2143085">As Maine goes, so goes the nation</a>” originated in the 19th century as Maine’s early statewide election returns, particularly in the governor’s race, often predicted the party of the presidential election winner. Political parties converged on Maine in September to rally their voters in hopes of influencing the November presidential election across the nation. </p>
<p>The establishment of an explicit early voting period rests on the <a href="https://postalmuseum.si.edu/collections/object-spotlight/absentee-voting-in-the-civil-war-ohio-cover">precedent set during the Civil War</a>. There were numerous ways soldiers on the battlefield could cast their vote: mailing proxy votes, ballots or voting in person at camps and hospitals close to the battlefield. </p>
<p>The proxy votes, ballots, and/or tally sheets from the voting sites were then mailed to the soldier’s or sailor’s home state for counting. In Ohio, the absentee military ballots that were considered qualified – from white men over 21 years old – <a href="https://postalmuseum.si.edu/collections/object-spotlight/absentee-voting-in-the-civil-war-ohio-cover">accounted for 12%</a> of Ohio’s votes in the 1864 presidential election. </p>
<p>Since then, multiple forms of early voting have been established. Early voting can happen in person or through voting by mail. In a <a href="https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-9th-circuit/1015046.html">2001 federal appeals case</a> challenging Oregon’s no-excuse absentee voting, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld early voting periods, ruling that the election must only be “consummated” on Election Day. </p>
<p>In other words, voters need to cast their ballots by Election Day, but the law does not prevent them from voting earlier. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/362032/original/file-20201006-20-o2xqq1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Pennsylvania soldiers voting in the presidential election of 1864 in their camp." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/362032/original/file-20201006-20-o2xqq1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/362032/original/file-20201006-20-o2xqq1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362032/original/file-20201006-20-o2xqq1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362032/original/file-20201006-20-o2xqq1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362032/original/file-20201006-20-o2xqq1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362032/original/file-20201006-20-o2xqq1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362032/original/file-20201006-20-o2xqq1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Union soldiers from Pennsylvania voting at their encampment in the presidential election, Army of the James, 1864.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://lccn.loc.gov/2004661229">William Waud/Library of Congress</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Early voting accelerates</h2>
<p>In 1978, California lifted the requirement that a voter provide an approved reason, such as “<a href="https://calmatters.org/explainer/121532/embed/b0e8ab03-bff3-47d1-8ebe-ab0f8c38e5c3">occupation requiring travel or federal or state military or naval service</a>,” to vote by mail, initiating a trend of early voting by mail in several Western states.</p>
<p>In the 1980s, Texas offered its voters early voting in person. The number of <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/ps-political-science-and-politics/article/early-voting-and-turnout/CA26767893568A1B6DB1EA56C49196E2">states adopting early voting periods</a> began to surge in the 1990s and included Florida, Nevada, Georgia, Tennessee and Iowa. After the 2000 presidential election and the controversy over “hanging chads,” many more states adopted early in-person voting periods to help with election administration. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.eac.gov/news/2017/06/29/newly-released-2016-election-administration-and-voting-survey-provides-snapshot">U.S. Election Assistance Commission</a> reports that in 2016 more than 41% of all ballots nationwide were cast before Election Day – with in-person early voting making up 17%, and voting by mail 24%, of all turnout. </p>
<p>Early voting is on its way to break all records in 2020, because of the pandemic, expansion of mail-in voting and voter interest. As of Oct. 7, <a href="https://electproject.github.io/Early-Vote-2020G/index.html">Michael McDonald of the U.S. Elections Project</a> reports that over 5 million voters have already cast their ballots, compared with <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-early-vote-idUSKBN26R1LR">approximately 75,000 voters in 2016</a>.</p>
<p>Does early voting increase voter turnout rates overall, or does it just split the voters who would normally vote on Election Day? </p>
<p>While some scholars contend that early in-person voting periods potentially can <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/24363471">decrease</a> voter turnout, studies that focus on vote-by-mail, a form of early voting, generally show an <a href="https://doi.org/10.1086/322196">increase </a>in voter turnout. <a href="https://uc72f23077aa90e9f37223ab4213.dl.dropboxusercontent.com/cd/0/inline2/BA3I1hwY2TWWAOebQOMdXjSTJNpJCmdK2cZfWww75QAFO8goietIcfmQyabIogj9zMS8_xnA649xp-ZyOQ9_Wu3Fhd0Pq2MzmfY3uIcgmwF7RLj0LHybVO_V0xaJMGAYdE4_pIKRCzB9lV9-8veWMIcyUUdeBJjo5atLdaJlPdb6LhLyHVRc9bvjvjYCtwPFfNB1XG7m8h1JfNiKNA4Iq1TRFl6nPjT3ruVygVqhAhqoH0z6P2T-DIYgI7B_79yt51wKXw-eeU4NobEa_977xfKFmUaynkqe4ghkgYkm-D8HyzC3KOKRXS_xpYPUCrSdZEG4tlSZ3g-s0JKUk2e6gNlRzCn1BWNruGFdJRIZlSol8Q/file#">New research</a> presents evidence that the implementation of all-mail voting in Colorado increased voter turnout by 9.4 percent overall.</p>
<p>Early voting periods may have an effect on who turns out, as well – which may explain Attorney General Barr’s lack of enthusiasm for early voting periods. Although <a href="https://siepr.stanford.edu/news/new-research-voting-mail-shows-neutral-partisan-effects">past studies</a> have shown that early voting did not help one party over the other, the 2020 election may be different. </p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p><a href="https://electproject.github.io/Early-Vote-2020G/index.html">As of early October 2020</a>, Democrats have cast 55.3% of the early ballots, whereas Republicans have cast only 24.2%. Independents have cast 19.8% and voters affiliated with a minor party less than 1%. </p>
<p>But there is still plenty of time for more people to vote early, either by mail or in person, before Election Day.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/146889/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Terri Bimes does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>This year is seeing a high number of absentee and mail-in ballots and voting in the period before Election Day – but early voting periods are not new to the 2020 election.Terri Bimes, Associate Teaching Professor of Political Science, University of California, BerkeleyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1334732020-03-11T20:02:18Z2020-03-11T20:02:18ZHow the fireside chat provided a model for calming the nation that President Trump failed to follow<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/319940/original/file-20200311-116261-cghi6k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=9%2C0%2C1241%2C698&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">President Franklin D. Roosevelt broadcasting his first fireside chat, March 12, 1933. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://catalog.archives.gov/id/6728517">National Archives</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The president of the United States was <a href="https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2020/03/12/donald-trump-coronavirus-address-march-11-2020-sot-vpx.cnn">speaking to the nation live</a>, on television, from the Oval Office. His topic was the new coronavirus, and his mission was clear. </p>
<p>“This is the most aggressive and comprehensive effort to confront a foreign virus in modern history,” <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/11/us/politics/trump-coronavirus-speech.html">he assured the American citizenry</a>, “and we are responding with great speed and professionalism.”</p>
<p>Yet, when the brief address was over, his <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/06/politics/donald-trump-coronavirus-messaging-confusion/index.html">aides needed to quickly clarify</a> what he had said because it failed to align with the reality of the policies his administration planned to take. And the following morning, stock trading was halted 38 minutes into the daily session <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2020/03/12/dow-plunges-trump-speech-fails-quell-coronavirus-fears/5029964002/">when the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 7%</a>, demonstrating that the financial markets he sought to calm remained troubled by his leadership.</p>
<p>In other words: President Donald Trump’s March 11 speech failed to fulfill the most important goals of a live, prime-time broadcast address from the White House.</p>
<p>Since Franklin D. Roosevelt offered his first “fireside chat” 87 years ago today, using broadcasting to calm the nation in times of duress has proven to be one of the most potent tools of the presidency. </p>
<p>But these addresses need to closely hew to the blueprint Roosevelt invented in order to be deemed successful.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/320173/original/file-20200312-111223-1qa9lq9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/320173/original/file-20200312-111223-1qa9lq9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/320173/original/file-20200312-111223-1qa9lq9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=441&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/320173/original/file-20200312-111223-1qa9lq9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=441&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/320173/original/file-20200312-111223-1qa9lq9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=441&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/320173/original/file-20200312-111223-1qa9lq9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=555&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/320173/original/file-20200312-111223-1qa9lq9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=555&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/320173/original/file-20200312-111223-1qa9lq9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=555&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">President Donald Trump is seen through a window in the Oval Office as he addresses the nation on the response to the COVID-19 coronavirus, on March 11, 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/president-donald-trump-is-seen-through-a-window-in-the-oval-news-photo/1211885659?adppopup=true">Getty/Mark Wilson</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Reassuring the nation</h2>
<p>President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his advisers knew he had to do something. </p>
<p>The U.S. banking system faced imminent collapse; depositors around the country waited anxiously in line to withdraw their funds. To stop the run, <a href="http://docs.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/100guide.pdf">on March 6, 1933, the entire banking system was shuttered</a>. Three days later, Congress passed the <a href="https://www.federalreservehistory.org/essays/emergency_banking_act_of_1933">Emergency Banking Act</a>.</p>
<p>By March 12, with the banks ready to reopen, nobody knew what was about to happen. The nation required both information and assurance. </p>
<p>So at 10 p.m. Eastern time, Roosevelt began <a href="http://docs.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/031233.html">his first “fireside chat,</a>” to explain – in clear and accessible terms – precisely what had just occurred, and what was going to happen beginning the next day. </p>
<p>That live address from the White House to an estimated 60 million listeners across the United States proved broadcasting’s power as nothing before or since. As <a href="https://cmj.umaine.edu/faculty-staff/michael-j-socolow/">a scholar of radio history</a>, I’ve analyzed how that first fireside chat inspired both <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0143968042000293856">social psychologists and commercial advertisers</a> to investigate the influential power of broadcasting. </p>
<p>Roosevelt’s address 87 years ago provided the model future presidents would use to inform the American citizenry, calm national anxieties and establish the crucial importance of a moment in time. </p>
<p>The live, prime-time address from the Oval Office became a staple of White House communication. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ZNYmK19-d0U?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<h2>Broadcast’s political potential</h2>
<p>The first president to speak through the new medium of radio was Warren G. Harding, who offered a few words in a brief public ceremony <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2018/06/14/this-day-in-politics-june-14-1922-636844">on June 14, 1922</a>. </p>
<p>But for Harding, and successors Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover, radio broadcasting – and the national communication it offered – was never considered an essential tool of governance. None of the three Republicans used this new medium of mass communication effectively.</p>
<p>In New York state, however, the Democratic governor – Franklin D. Roosevelt – had <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/23183311?seq=1">begun using the state’s small radio network</a> to promote his agenda directly to citizens. </p>
<p>He delivered a series of radio addresses in 1929 and 1930 to counter the intransigence of the state legislature’s Republican majority. His advisers noted both Roosevelt’s natural talent and radio’s remarkable effectiveness in reaching voters directly. The governor could bypass not only his opposition in the legislature, but also the Republican newspapers editorializing against his policies. </p>
<p>By speaking directly to citizens, Roosevelt measurably influenced public opinion and successfully promoted his policies.</p>
<p>Roosevelt and his advisers brought this awareness to Washington after he won the presidential election.</p>
<h2>Calming the panic</h2>
<p>Following his <a href="https://www.whitehousehistory.org/franklin-roosevelts-historic-first-inauguration">March 4, 1933, inauguration during the Great Depression</a>, the Roosevelt administration had to address the cascading series of dire crises facing the nation.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.federalreservehistory.org/essays/emergency_banking_act_of_1933">The banking crisis proved most threatening</a>. At first it appeared to be yet another economic panic of the sort that had occasionally bedeviled the U.S. financial system. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/319954/original/file-20200311-116250-m0aq73.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/319954/original/file-20200311-116250-m0aq73.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/319954/original/file-20200311-116250-m0aq73.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=465&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319954/original/file-20200311-116250-m0aq73.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=465&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319954/original/file-20200311-116250-m0aq73.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=465&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319954/original/file-20200311-116250-m0aq73.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=584&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319954/original/file-20200311-116250-m0aq73.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=584&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319954/original/file-20200311-116250-m0aq73.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=584&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Depositors gathered outside of the Guardian Trust Company and National City Bank after the withdrawals were limited to 5% of deposits, Cleveland, Ohio, Feb. 28, 1933.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/elevated-view-of-depositors-gathered-outside-of-the-news-photo/544748673?adppopup=true">Getty/PhotoQuest</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It soon became obvious that the 1932-1933 crisis was potentially more catastrophic than any earlier panic. Aside from legislation, something less formal but perhaps more important was required: reassuring the American people about the safety of their economic system.</p>
<p>Thus, the informal and informative radio address style that Roosevelt pioneered in Albany was rolled out on the national stage. </p>
<p>“I want to talk for a few minutes with the people of the United States about banking,” <a href="https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/presidential-speeches/march-12-1933-fireside-chat-1-banking-crisis">he began on</a> that Sunday evening. </p>
<p>The address was notable for its stylistic clarity and the way it combined an authoritative discussion of banking with a neighborly, even friendly, tone. </p>
<p>“You people must have faith; you must not be stampeded by rumors or guesses,” he told an estimated 60 million listeners. </p>
<p>“Let us unite in banishing fear. We have provided the machinery to restore our financial system; it is up to you to support and make it work. It is your problem no less than it is mine. Together we cannot fail.” </p>
<p>It worked. It so calmed the nation while slowing (and eventually ending) the bank run that it established the model for all ensuing fireside chats over the next 12 years. Every succeeding president eventually followed the basic Roosevelt model. </p>
<h2>‘Important and historic information’</h2>
<p>The live, prime-time national address from the White House represents a unique opportunity for a presidency. If mishandled or improperly employed, it can backfire. </p>
<p>Among those that didn’t work out: Lyndon B. Johnson surprised the country and much of his Democratic constituency by <a href="https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/presidential-speeches/march-31-1968-remarks-decision-not-seek-re-election">announcing</a> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxWGg3AARnI">his refusal to run for reelection</a> in 1968. President Jimmy Carter addressed what he considered <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kakFDUeoJKM">a “crisis of confidence”</a> in the United States in 1979. That speech remains tarnished by a word Carter never actually uttered – <a href="https://theconversation.com/revisiting-jimmy-carters-truth-telling-sermon-to-americans-97241">it was labeled the “malaise” speech</a> – and it warned future presidents about the format’s rhetorical limits. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/kakFDUeoJKM?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Jimmy Carter’s full ‘crisis of confidence’ speech (July 15, 1979).</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Yet these bad examples do not overshadow the numerous other historical moments when the nation experienced direct presidential addresses via broadcasting. </p>
<p>From President <a href="https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/presidential-speeches/may-8-1945-announcing-surrender-germany">Harry Truman’s addresses announcing the surrenders of Germany</a> and <a href="https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/presidential-speeches/september-1-1945-announcing-surrender-japan">Japan</a> in 1945 to President <a href="https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2011/05/02/osama-bin-laden-dead">Barack Obama declaring the capture and execution of Osama bin Laden</a> in 2011, the American people were given important and historic information direct from the White House through the same basic framework that Roosevelt pioneered 87 years ago.</p>
<h2>The coronavirus and an anxious public</h2>
<p>Several goals characterize the prime-time, scripted, live Oval Office address. </p>
<p>The first is to designate the subject under discussion as historically significant and worthy of the format. The second is to inform the citizenry in order to persuade people to believe or act in specific ways. The third is to reassure the nation. </p>
<p>Underlying those objectives: To establish confidence in presidential authority, which, by itself, should reassure. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/319958/original/file-20200311-116250-14bpeey.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/319958/original/file-20200311-116250-14bpeey.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/319958/original/file-20200311-116250-14bpeey.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319958/original/file-20200311-116250-14bpeey.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319958/original/file-20200311-116250-14bpeey.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319958/original/file-20200311-116250-14bpeey.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319958/original/file-20200311-116250-14bpeey.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319958/original/file-20200311-116250-14bpeey.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Surrounded by members of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, U.S. President Donald Trump leaves the stage after speaking and taking no questions at the White House March 9, 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/surrounded-by-members-of-the-white-house-coronavirus-task-news-photo/1206290262?adppopup=true">Getty/Drew Angerer</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the current public health crisis facing the United States, the White House has preferred a different mass communication approach. President Trump has <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-vice-president-pence-members-coronavirus-task-force-press-conference/">briefly and hastily addressed the media</a> from a podium, but turned over much of his time to his coronavirus response team. He held a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/06/us/politics/trump-coronavirus-cdc.html">photo and video opportunity with government scientists</a> at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. And he continues to tweet.</p>
<p>None of these communication strategies was equal to the moment. So the White House finally decided to try the live address to the nation. </p>
<p>But without respecting it as a structured format, the address failed to achieve its mission of clearly informing, and calming, the anxious nation.</p>
<p>While social media seemingly spreads and inflames our national anxiety, television offered the Trump administration a valuable opportunity to seize the moment and ameliorate a national problem. </p>
<p>Yet, like the earlier presidential administrations that approached the format without the care and practice of the Roosevelt administration, the whole exercise only exacerbated the problem it was ostensibly employed to fix.</p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/133473/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael J. Socolow does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>On March 12, 1933, President Roosevelt addressed the nation from the Oval Office during a time of great crisis. That ‘fireside chat’ proved broadcasting’s power as nothing before or since.Michael J. Socolow, Associate Professor, Communication and Journalism, University of MaineLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1311242020-02-05T17:13:44Z2020-02-05T17:13:44ZTrump’s excess and extravagance turned the State of the Union into an action movie<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313644/original/file-20200205-149738-g2rvg2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">President Donald Trump delivers the State of the Union address at the Capitol on Feb. 4, 2020. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/president-donald-trump-delivers-the-state-of-the-union-news-photo/1198670782?adppopup=true">OLIVIER DOULIERY/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>State of the Union addresses are supposed to be boring speeches. </p>
<p>Actually, they are not required to be speeches at all. <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/articleii">The U.S. Constitution requires only</a> that the president “from time to time give to the Congress information on the state of the Union and recommend to their consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.”</p>
<p>Before Woodrow Wilson, almost every president wrote this all up and then sent the document to Congress. After Wilson decided to deliver his as a <a href="https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/did-you-know-woodrow-wilson-and-state-union%5D(https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/did-you-know-woodrow-wilson-and-state-union">speech to Congress on Dec. 2, 1913</a>, every subsequent president did, too.</p>
<p>But most of these speeches were still boring, mostly lists signaling policy priorities, often organized by what the president had done the previous year, still wanted to do, and would need from Congress in the coming year. </p>
<p>What President Trump did in his State of the Union address was not boring or staid. He departed from some rhetorical traditions of the presidency, as audiences have come to expect from him.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313639/original/file-20200205-149738-1kczxy2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313639/original/file-20200205-149738-1kczxy2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313639/original/file-20200205-149738-1kczxy2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313639/original/file-20200205-149738-1kczxy2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313639/original/file-20200205-149738-1kczxy2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313639/original/file-20200205-149738-1kczxy2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313639/original/file-20200205-149738-1kczxy2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313639/original/file-20200205-149738-1kczxy2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">President Woodrow Wilson giving the 1913 State of the Union address to Congress.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/library_of_congress/2868007239/">Library of Congress, originally from Bain News Service</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Looking presidential</h2>
<p>Because presidents after Wilson addressed members of Congress in person, they tended to say they needed help from all of Congress, and thus this speech became a time when even partisan presidents would be expected to call for bipartisanship. </p>
<p>This way, the speech could be used as evidence that a president was trying to reach across the aisle.</p>
<p>Almost everybody, especially Congress, knew that the reaching across the aisle was coming, even if almost no one, especially Congress, planned to follow through. It was part of the routine. Predictable.</p>
<p>What has been far less predictable has been the effect of the mass media – especially television – on this particular speech. </p>
<p>Calvin Coolidge was the game-changer on this point. In 1923, he became the first sitting president to make a national radio address, and the speech was his <a href="https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/presidential-speeches/december-6-1923-first-annual-message">state of the union</a> that he delivered to a joint session of Congress. </p>
<p>Especially after the rise of television– and even more so in an era of social media’s quick takes and visual focus – the president could increasingly be <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/eloquence-in-an-electronic-age-9780195063172?cc=us&lang=en&">expected to sound and look presidential</a>, including by making calls for bipartisanship. </p>
<p>But the exciting part was to watch the live audience, which is to say, Congress. Today viewers expect a partisan Congress to engage symbolically and act for the screen: to coordinate colors of attire, to stand up, sit down and <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/09/09/joe.wilson/">even talk back to the president</a>, as Republican Congressman Joe Wilson did to President Obama in 2009. </p>
<p>Historically, then, while the speech itself can still expected to be boring and staid, the audience participation is not.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313784/original/file-20200205-149762-g5700q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313784/original/file-20200205-149762-g5700q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313784/original/file-20200205-149762-g5700q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313784/original/file-20200205-149762-g5700q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313784/original/file-20200205-149762-g5700q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313784/original/file-20200205-149762-g5700q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313784/original/file-20200205-149762-g5700q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313784/original/file-20200205-149762-g5700q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sgt. Townsend Williams (R) waves alongside his daughter and his wife Amy (L) after returning from deployment in Afghanistan during the State of the Union.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/sgt-townsend-williams-waves-alongside-his-daughter-and-his-news-photo/1198674116?adppopup=true">MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Hyperbole rules</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hH0a-2Vi3O4">President Trump turned up the volume</a> of his own rhetoric and audience engagement so much so that I would argue he symbolically stepped out from behind the podium and became part of the cheering section. He did this in two main ways.</p>
<p>First, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/05/us/politics/state-of-union-transcript.html">he used his characteristic combination</a> of self-references and superlatives, patterns mastered on the campaign trail. That language made the State of the Union much more excessive linguistically than this speech’s tone typically is. </p>
<p>Dropping in short sentences about what you have accomplished as points for partisan applause is expected. Making these claims drip so heavily with adverbs and adjectives and action verbs is not. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313785/original/file-20200205-149747-mw66z1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313785/original/file-20200205-149747-mw66z1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313785/original/file-20200205-149747-mw66z1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313785/original/file-20200205-149747-mw66z1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313785/original/file-20200205-149747-mw66z1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313785/original/file-20200205-149747-mw66z1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313785/original/file-20200205-149747-mw66z1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313785/original/file-20200205-149747-mw66z1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Rush Limbaugh gestures after being awarded the Medal of Freedom by President Donald Trump as he delivers the State of the Union address.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/radio-personality-rush-limbaugh-gestures-after-being-news-photo/1198673112?adppopup=true">MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images)</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>“From the instant I took office, I moved rapidly to revive the U.S. economy — slashing a record number of job-killing regulations, enacting historic and record-setting tax cuts, and fighting for fair and reciprocal trade agreements,” he said shortly after the speech began. </p>
<p>A few minutes later, when discussing his administration’s impact on the economy, he added, “(and) very incredibly, the average unemployment rate under my administration is lower than any administration in the history of our country.” </p>
<p>Note that nothing here is merely an accomplishment or point of pride for Republicans to share. The tone instead is closer to an action movie, with a hero who “slashes” and “very incredibly” performs feats never before seen in the “history of our country.”</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313648/original/file-20200205-149762-6644wd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313648/original/file-20200205-149762-6644wd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313648/original/file-20200205-149762-6644wd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=931&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313648/original/file-20200205-149762-6644wd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=931&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313648/original/file-20200205-149762-6644wd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=931&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313648/original/file-20200205-149762-6644wd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1170&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313648/original/file-20200205-149762-6644wd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1170&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313648/original/file-20200205-149762-6644wd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1170&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Old days: Page 85 of President Abraham Lincoln’s Second Annual Message to Congress, December 1, 1862, which was read aloud not by Lincoln, but by the Secretary of the Senate.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.archives.gov/legislative/features/sotu/lincoln.html">Records of the U.S. House of Representatives, RG 233.</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This language is characteristic of Trump’s campaign rallies but not State of the Union addresses. </p>
<h2>Extravagance is key</h2>
<p>The second choice he made on Tuesday made clear he wanted to be in and with the crowd and its frenzy rather than behind a podium. </p>
<p>From a symbolic standpoint, he actually went into the crowd to give out amazing, unexpected, and big prizes: an “opportunity scholarship” for Philadelphia fourth-grader Janiyah Davis; the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Rush Limbaugh; and an Army sergeant’s emotional homecoming to his young family, the Williamses of North Carolina. </p>
<p>While Ronald Reagan started the tradition of telling the <a href="https://theconversation.com/look-out-for-the-skutnik-during-trumps-state-of-the-union-109762">stories of invited guests</a> in the gallery, Trump went further, <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/articles/special-guests-for-president-trumps-3rd-state-of-the-union-address/">reaching up into the gallery</a> visually with the presentation of these surprises to make his presence – and his impact – known.</p>
<p>[ <em>Get the best of The Conversation, every weekend.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/weekly-highlights-61?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=weeklybest">Sign up for our weekly newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/131124/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Vanessa B. Beasley does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The self-references and superlatives used by President Trump made his State of the Union much more excessive linguistically than this speech’s tone typically is.Vanessa B. Beasley, Associate Professor of Communication Studies, Vanderbilt UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1113312019-02-15T21:52:31Z2019-02-15T21:52:31ZA brief history of presidential lethargy<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/259333/original/file-20190215-56240-1qpg97p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A television set turned on in the West Wing of the White House.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Trump/edde2492db3f4bcfb93a1ad4678a4376/12/0">AP Photo/Susan Walsh</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>No one doubts the job of president of the United States is stressful and demanding. The chief executive deserves downtime. </p>
<p>But how much is enough, and when is it too much? </p>
<p>These questions came into focus in 2019 after Axios <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1oITCuVsYdhNXtY7GElLelsrbjRRIPJ1ce-_v-8J1X_A/edit#gid=0">released President Donald Trump’s schedule</a>. The hours blocked off for nebulous “executive time” seem, <a href="https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a26285493/trump-executive-time-schedule-tweets/">to many critics</a>, disproportionate to the number of scheduled working hours. </p>
<p>While Trump’s workdays may ultimately prove to be shorter than those of past presidents, he’s not the first to face criticism. For every president praised for his work ethic, there’s one disparaged for sleeping on the job. </p>
<h2>Teddy Roosevelt, locomotive president</h2>
<p>Before Theodore Roosevelt ascended to the presidency in 1901, the question of how hard a president toiled was of little concern to Americans. </p>
<p>Except in times of national crisis, his predecessors neither labored under the same expectations, nor faced the same level of popular scrutiny. Since the country’s founding, Congress had been the main engine for identifying national problems and outlining legislative solutions. Congressmen were generally more accessible to journalists than the president was. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/259328/original/file-20190215-56215-1ija022.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/259328/original/file-20190215-56215-1ija022.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=732&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259328/original/file-20190215-56215-1ija022.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=732&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259328/original/file-20190215-56215-1ija022.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=732&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259328/original/file-20190215-56215-1ija022.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=919&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259328/original/file-20190215-56215-1ija022.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=919&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259328/original/file-20190215-56215-1ija022.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=919&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Teddy Roosevelt’s activist approach to governing shifted the public’s expectations for the president.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9b/Theodore_Roosevelt_laughing.jpg">Library of Congress</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But when <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=zZ4nAQAAMAAJ&q=Lewis+l+Gould+the+presidency+of+theodore+roosevelt&dq=Lewis+l+Gould+the+presidency+of+theodore+roosevelt&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiitYGe6rzgAhUn2oMKHb5cC_cQ6AEIKjAA">Roosevelt shifted the balance of power</a> from Congress to the White House, he created the expectation that an activist president, consumed by affairs of state, would work endlessly in the best interests of the people.</p>
<p>Roosevelt, <a href="https://www.americanheritage.com/theodore-roosevelt-president">whom Sen. Joseph Foraker called</a> a “steam engine in trousers,” personified the hard-working chief executive. He filled his days with official functions and unofficial gatherings. He asserted his personality on policy and stamped the presidency firmly on the nation’s consciousness.</p>
<h2>Taft had a tough act to follow</h2>
<p>His successor, William Howard Taft, suffered by comparison. While it’s fair to observe that nearly anyone would have looked like a slacker compared with Roosevelt, it didn’t help that Taft weighed 300 pounds, which his contemporaries equated with laziness. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/259330/original/file-20190215-56243-f5gg7p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/259330/original/file-20190215-56243-f5gg7p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=751&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259330/original/file-20190215-56243-f5gg7p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=751&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259330/original/file-20190215-56243-f5gg7p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=751&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259330/original/file-20190215-56243-f5gg7p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=944&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259330/original/file-20190215-56243-f5gg7p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=944&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259330/original/file-20190215-56243-f5gg7p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=944&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Taft’s girth only added to the perception that he lacked Roosevelt’s vigor.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://cdn.loc.gov/service/pnp/cph/3c10000/3c19000/3c19100/3c19192v.jpg">Library of Congress</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Taft helped neither his cause nor his image when he snored through meetings, at evening entertainments and, as author Jeffrey Rosen noted, “even while standing at public events.” Watching Taft’s eyelids close, Sen. James Watson <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=Ewo5DwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=Jeffrey+Rosen+William+Howard+Taft&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj3i_fu6bzgAhUIw4MKHYX5C7gQ6AEIKjAA#v=onepage&q=Jeffrey%20Rosen%20William%20Howard%20Taft&f=false">said to him</a>, “Mr. President, you are the largest audience I ever put entirely to sleep.” </p>
<p>An early biographer <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=1RZ3AAAAMAAJ&q=Paolo+Coletta+Presidency+of+William+Howard+Taft&dq=Paolo+Coletta+Presidency+of+William+Howard+Taft&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi409fL6bzgAhVH5IMKHR_0AqIQ6AEIKjAA">called Taft</a> “slow-moving, easy-going if not lazy” with “a placid nature.” Others have suggested that Taft’s obesity caused sleep apnea and daytime drowsiness, a finding not inconsistent with <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=Q1pnPgAACAAJ&dq=The+William+Howard+Taft+Presidency+Lewis+Gould&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiXneKoh7zgAhXLhOAKHe-CAssQ6AEIKjAA">historian Lewis L. Gould’s conclusion</a> that Taft was capable of work “at an intense pace” and “a high rate of efficiency.” </p>
<p>It seems that Taft could work quickly, but in short bursts.</p>
<h2>Coolidge the snoozer</h2>
<p>Other presidents were more intentional about their daytime sleeping. Calvin Coolidge’s penchant for hourlong naps after lunch earned him amused scorn from contemporaries. But when he missed his nap, he fell asleep at afternoon meetings. He even napped on vacation. Tourists stared in amazement as the president, blissfully unaware, swayed in a hammock on his front porch in Vermont.</p>
<p>This, for many Republicans, wasn’t a problem: The Republican Party of the 1920s was averse to an activist federal government, so the fact that Coolidge wasn’t seen as a hard-charging, incessantly busy president was fine.</p>
<p>Biographer Amity Shlaes <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Coolidge.html?id=uvD13ZGXD9MC">wrote that</a> “Coolidge made a virtue of inaction” while simultaneously exhibiting “a ferocious discipline in work.” Political scientist Robert Gilbert <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=FJrWT4jmqfIC&lpg=PR6&ots=OJBlrei3c9&dq=%E2%80%9CThe%20Dysfunctional%20Presidency%20of%20Calvin%20Coolidge%E2%80%9D%20%20robert%20gilbert&pg=PR6#v=onepage&q&f=false">argued that after Coolidge’s son died</a> during his first year as president, Coolidge’s “affinity for sleep became more extreme.” Grief, according to Gilbert, explained his growing penchant for slumbering, which expanded into a pre-lunch nap, a two- to four-hour post-lunch snooze and 11 hours of shut-eye nightly.</p>
<h2>For Reagan, the jury’s out</h2>
<p>Ronald Reagan may have had a tendency to nod off. </p>
<p>“I have left orders to be awakened at any time in case of a national emergency – even if I’m in a cabinet meeting,” <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=S33lCQAAQBAJ&dq=inauthor:%22Jacob+Weisberg%22&source=gbs_navlinks_s">he joked</a>. Word got out that he napped daily, and historian Michael Schaller <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=7UvzZAZcDl4C&printsec=frontcover&dq=reckoning+with+reagan&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi9w9vji7zgAhVBTt8KHcOmAzcQ6AEIKjAA#v=onepage&q=reckoning%20with%20reagan&f=false">wrote in 1994</a> that Reagan’s staff “released a false daily schedule that showed him working long hours,” labeling his afternoon nap “personal staff time.” But some family members <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1990/06/19/the-no-nap-president-reagan/0e54da27-135a-441d-b2c3-fdbcef40d581/?utm_term=.9abb2e59063f">denied that he napped</a> in the White House.</p>
<p><a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=VcvtAAAAMAAJ&q=reagan+as+president+paul+boyer&dq=reagan+as+president+paul+boyer&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjxmeWHjLzgAhVGdt8KHb21BJ4Q6AEIKjAA">Journalists were divided</a>. Some found him “lazy, passive, stupid or even senile” and “intellectually lazy … without a constant curiosity,” while others claimed he was “a hard worker,” who put in long days and worked over lunch. Perhaps age played a role in Reagan’s naps – if they happened at all. </p>
<h2>Clinton crams in the hours</h2>
<p>One president not prone to napping was Bill Clinton. Frustrated that he could not find time to think, Clinton ordered a formal study of how he spent his days. <a href="https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/presidential-oral-histories/marcia-hale-oral-history-assistant-president-and">His ideal</a> was four hours in the afternoon “to talk to people, to read, to do whatever.” Sometimes he got half that much. </p>
<p>Two years later, a second study found that, during Clinton’s 50-hour workweek, “regularly scheduled meetings” took up 29 percent of his time, “public events, etc.” made up 36 percent of his workday, while “thinking time – phone & office work” constituted 35 percent of his day. Unlike presidents whose somnolence drew sneers, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/17/weekinreview/finally-nap-time-for-america.html">Clinton was disparaged</a> for working too much and driving his staff to exhaustion with all-nighters. </p>
<h2>Partisanship at the heart of criticism?</h2>
<p>The work of being president of the United States never ends. There is always more to be done. Personal time may be a myth, as whatever the president reads, watches or does can almost certainly be applied to some aspect of the job. </p>
<p>Trump’s “executive time” could be a rational response to the demands of the job or life circumstances. Trump, for example, only seems to get <a href="https://www.marketwatch.com/story/trump-may-be-playing-with-fire-by-only-getting-4-to-5-hours-sleep-2017-02-08">four or five hours</a> of sleep a night, which seems to suggest that he has more time to tackle his daily duties than the rest of us.</p>
<p>But, like his predecessors, the appearance of taking time away from running the country will garner criticism. Though they can sometimes catch 40 winks, presidents can seldom catch a break.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/111331/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stacy A. Cordery does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Calvin Coolidge, during one stretch of his presidency, was getting 15 hours of shut-eye each day, while William Howard Taft was known for nodding off during public events.Stacy A. Cordery, Professor of History, Iowa State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/803312017-08-31T08:22:42Z2017-08-31T08:22:42ZWhich US presidents actually tried to benefit Native Americans? Here’s what history says<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184036/original/file-20170830-24251-iea1da.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">President Calvin Coolidge meeting with a delegation of Native Americans at the White House. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.loc.gov/item/hec2013013712/">Library of Congress</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The US president, Donald Trump, <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/06/28/remarks-president-trump-and-secretary-energy-rick-perry-tribal-state-and">spoke in June to a delegation of tribal leaders at the White House</a>, claiming that: “Infringements on tribal sovereignty are deeply unfair to Native Americans and Native American communities.” His sincerity was hard to believe. </p>
<p>From his support of the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/dec/02/donald-trump-dakota-access-pipeline-support-investment">Dakota Access Pipeline</a> to his unabashed public appreciation for the mastermind of Indian Removal, <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/03/16/donald-trump-paying-homage-andrew-jackson-comparisons/">Andrew Jackson</a>, Trump has a long way to go before his platitudes become reality. Yet, this is not unique to Trump. </p>
<p>US presidents have an overwhelmingly poor track record when it comes to bettering the position of America’s First Peoples. Thomas Jefferson, the architect of American independence, treated Indian Country <a href="http://nativeamericannetroots.net/diary/368">as an inconvenience during his terms in office</a>. Abraham Lincoln, “the great emancipator”, allowed his generals to commit atrocities against Native American communities throughout the Civil War, leading to massacres at Sand Creek and Bear River. </p>
<p>Even when presidents have been sympathetic towards the plight of the American Indian, <a href="http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/ulysses-grant-launched-illegal-war-plains-indians-180960787/">their actions have often proved contradictory</a>. However, some have endeavoured to follow through on their statements and in light of Trump’s comments, several of them are worth highlighting.</p>
<h2>John Quincy Adams (1825-1829)</h2>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176587/original/file-20170703-32624-1h80yco.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176587/original/file-20170703-32624-1h80yco.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=831&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176587/original/file-20170703-32624-1h80yco.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=831&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176587/original/file-20170703-32624-1h80yco.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=831&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176587/original/file-20170703-32624-1h80yco.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1044&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176587/original/file-20170703-32624-1h80yco.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1044&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176587/original/file-20170703-32624-1h80yco.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1044&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">John Quincy Adams learnt first hand the difficulties of implementing fair Indian policy.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Adams, a former ambassador, secretary of state and son of a previous president himself, may have been the most qualified man to assume the nation’s highest office, yet lacked a cohesive Indian policy at the start of his term. While initially ambivalent, Adams took great interest in the <a href="http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/creek-indians">Creek Indians of Georgia</a> who were being pressured by the state’s governor, George Troup, to give up their lands.</p>
<p>After receiving a delegation of Creeks in the capital, Adams intervened and demanded that Troup give the Indians a fairer deal for their lands, leading to the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/40578419?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">1826 Treaty of Washington</a>. This treaty was agreed upon between Adams and Creek leaders in Washington DC, a stark departure from previous Native American treaties which were often one-sided. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, this was to be but a temporary victory for the Creeks. Troup quickly organised another treaty to take the rest of the Creek lands and, while Adams threatened federal intervention against Georgia, he backed down due to fears of this incident sparking a civil war. </p>
<p>While Adams was ineffective in halting the march towards the calamitous <a href="https://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/Indian.html">Indian Removal</a> of the 1830s, he became a strong and active critic of US Indian affairs for the rest of his life.</p>
<h2>Calvin Coolidge (1923-1929)</h2>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184029/original/file-20170830-24247-1v0prl0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184029/original/file-20170830-24247-1v0prl0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=485&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184029/original/file-20170830-24247-1v0prl0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=485&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184029/original/file-20170830-24247-1v0prl0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=485&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184029/original/file-20170830-24247-1v0prl0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=609&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184029/original/file-20170830-24247-1v0prl0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=609&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184029/original/file-20170830-24247-1v0prl0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=609&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">President Coolidge looked to reverse decades of government neglect towards Indian Country.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Library of Congress</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>“Silent Cal” was to many an unassuming man, but his Indian policy marked a real watershed in government relations with Native America. Before Coolidge, Indian policy had become a low priority of presidential administrations since the <a href="https://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=false&doc=50&page=transcript">Dawes Act of 1887</a>. This act ended up stealing large tracts of land from Native communities and devastated generations of indigenous families. When assuming office, Coolidge looked to set in motion a reorganisation of federal Indian policy.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.nps.gov/jame/learn/historyculture/upload/Native-American-Citizenship-2.pdf">Indian Citizenship Act of 1924</a>, which granted US citizenship to every Native American, was the first step to restricting the effects of the Dawes Act. This act gave Native Americans a political voice, while also giving them a government safeguard against fraudulent land purchases. Later, during Coolidge’s presidency, the Interior Department’s <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meriam_Report">Meriam Report</a> was finally published, which concluded that the Dawes Act had been a failure. </p>
<p>“It is not surprising,” the report claimed, “to find low incomes: low standards of living, and poor health” among the Indians of the United States. The Meriam Report – and Coolidge’s public support for its findings – paved the way for an overhaul of Indian policy.</p>
<p>Coolidge’s Indian policy was not a complete success. His administration started the desecration of sacred Lakota Sioux lands with the construction of the <a href="https://www.nps.gov/moru/index.htm">Mount Rushmore monument</a> and the Indian Citizenship Act was vague on tribal sovereignty. Yet Coolidge’s efforts proved an essential foundation for future policies that improved the Indians’ standing, particularly Franklin Roosevelt’s Indian Reorganization Act of 1934. </p>
<h2>Richard Nixon (1969-1974)</h2>
<p>Nixon, even after his <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/02/us/politics/nixon-tried-to-spoil-johnsons-vietnam-peace-talks-in-68-notes-show.html">underhand Vietnam policy</a> and resigning in disgrace, still retains a glowing record among Native American communities. Against the backdrop of “Red Power” and student protest movements, Nixon assumed office at a time of great anger among Native communities. With this in mind, the policy that Nixon implemented was unique as it was designed to be long lasting and address the core of these grievances: the role of tribal sovereignty.</p>
<p>Nixon showed genuine compassion towards Native communities by returning the ill-gotten sacred lands of the <a href="http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=2848">Blue Lake to the Taos Pueblo</a> in 1970. When signing the bill, Nixon commented that the US was starting on “a new road which leads us to justice in the treatment of those who were the first Americans”, a statement that turned out not to be just an empty platitude. During Nixon’s time in office, he increased the annual funding of the Bureau of Indian Affairs by 214%, ensuring that the bulk of these funds were to be given to tribal governments to do with as they saw fit. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184035/original/file-20170830-24247-peoh0i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184035/original/file-20170830-24247-peoh0i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=888&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184035/original/file-20170830-24247-peoh0i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=888&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184035/original/file-20170830-24247-peoh0i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=888&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184035/original/file-20170830-24247-peoh0i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1116&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184035/original/file-20170830-24247-peoh0i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1116&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184035/original/file-20170830-24247-peoh0i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1116&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">President Nixon returned power to the tribes with an increased budget.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Archives Catalog</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The president’s reforms culminated in one of the most important acts for Indian Country: the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Self-Determination_and_Education_Assistance_Act_of_1975">Indian Self-Determination and Self-Organization Act</a> of 1975, which returned power to the tribes. This was an act his presidency did not survive to see come into law. Motivated by the activism that engulfed America in the early 1970s, Nixon’s Indian policy remains the model example of how a POTUS can make lasting benefits for Native America. </p>
<p>Adams, Coolidge and Nixon are all tied by their genuine conviction to improve the lives of America’s indigenous communities. While their successes varied, they each left a noticeable impact on US Indian policy. Considering President Trump’s dismissive approach to Indian rights and tribal sovereignty, there is little hope of him continuing this infrequent presidential tradition.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/80331/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Edward Mair does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Trump’s promises to Native America have not always been the norm for US presidents. But Richard Nixon had a better record than most.Edward Mair, PhD Researcher in American History, University of HullLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.