Vice President
Gerry was chosen by the Democratic-Republican party congress to be James Madison's vice presidential running mate in the 1812 election. Madison easily won reelection, and Gerry took office in March 1813. At that time the office of vice president was largely a sinecure; however, Gerry's duties included advancing the administration's agenda in Congress, and the securing of loans for the government to assist in funding the nation's prosecution of the War of 1812. He died in office of heart failure in Washington, D.C. and is buried there in the Congressional Cemetery.
Read more about this topic: Elbridge Gerry
Famous quotes containing the words vice and/or president:
“No legislation can suppress nature; all life rushes to reproduction; our procreative faculties are matured early, while passion is strong, and judgment and self-restraint weak. We cannot alter this, but we can alter what is conventional. We can refuse to brand an act of nature as a crime, and to impute to vice what is due to ignorance.”
—Tennessee Claflin (1846–1923)
“I don’t have any problem with a reporter or a news person who says the President is uninformed on this issue or that issue. I don’t think any of us would challenge that. I do have a problem with the singular focus on this, as if that’s the only standard by which we ought to judge a president. What we learned in the last administration was how little having an encyclopedic grasp of all the facts has to do with governing.”
—David R. Gergen (b. 1942)