Why Have There Been 45 Presidents and 49 Vice Presidents?

A brief history of the presidencies and vice presidencies to address the question of why there is a discrepancy between the number of Presidents and the number of Vice Presidents. Of the course of United States history there have been 49 vice presidencies yet only 46 presidencies. This is because not all of the presidential and vice-presidential terms have lined up evenly.

Thomas Jefferson served two terms as the America's president; however his vice president Aaron Burr was VPOTUS for only the first term. He was replaced with George Clinton. As Clinton belonged to the same party as James Madison he also served as Madison's VP.

John C. Calhoun also served under two different presidents, John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson.

The first president to die in office was William Henry Harrison. John Tyler then assumed the presidency. At the time, the Constitution had no provision for a sitting president to assign a new Vice President Intra-term. Therefore, the office remained vacant for the full length of Tyler's term. This would then happen seven more times with the deaths of Zachary Taylor, Abraham Lincoln, James A. Garfield, William McKinley, Warren G. Harding, Franklin D. Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy. Respectively, they were replaced by Millard Fillmore, Andrew Johnson, Chester A. Arthur, Theodore Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge, Harry S. Truman and Lyndon B. Johnson.

For your entertainment.

[michaeltnk]

A moment of silence for the time Lincoln decided to change his VP

[cool_kids_haven]

Fun Fact: Gerald Ford tried to run for VP in 1980, but lost to George Bush. If he won, then he would be the only vice president that USED to be president

[HeadCannon]

"Over the course of his term, Calhoun's relationship with Adams deteriorated"
"Over the course of his term, Calhoun's relationship with Jackson deteriorated"
I feel like I'm starting to see who the problem is

[silverstar]

How is it that almost all VPs had much more unique sounding names compared to the presidents.

[normalguy]

This is a repeat of a older comment I made but, No Person has ever served 2 FULL terms as Vice President AND has also ever served 2 FULL Terms as President

The Closest was Nixon, who was VP for 2 terms (1953-1961) and won 2 Presidential Elections (1968, 1972) but he never FINISHED his second term (He had around 2 and half years left when he left office in August 1974, his second term ended on January 20, 1977)

It’s possible that Biden could be the first to serve 2 full terms as Vice President and 2 full terms as President, IF he wins the 2024 election and does not run into any health issues. He could be the first to do so. He was VP from 2009-2017 and HYPOTHETICALLY speaking could be President from 2021-2029 but for now that will remain unknown

[PopeLando]

Fun fact: For Millard Fillmore's term as President, he had no Vice President, so if he'd died or resigned his successor would have been William R King. Then King stood as Pierce's Vice President, taking the official role of President's replacement that he'd had unofficially for two and a half years. But then when he got elected, he died almost immediately, leaving the Vice Presidency vacant *again* ! From 1850 to 1857 there was no Vice President apart from 6 weeks in 1853, during the whole of which time the Veep was out of the country, in Cuba.

[HundreadD]

For people who knew John C Calhoun’s deal, it really is astonishing now he came within a bullet or virus’s length of becoming president for two separate presidents

[SlyFrye]

It's really interesting to see that for a long time the number of presidents and vice presidents was either even or there were slightly more presidents and vice-presidents but now there are a few more vice presidents than presidents. Times have changed.

[Delphic]

This really just boiled down to “Because of FDR”

[tjosiahhaynes]

I often think about Spiro Agnew, Henry Wallace, and Hannibal Hamlin becoming president

[CookiedoughProductions]

I love this channel as a self proclaimed history nerd I love all these topics.

[marvinicampos]

I find it interesting that Gerald Ford became president without receiving any vote. All others had been elected as either president or vice-president through elections, but Ford was appointed VP after the election.

[hanseinarfuglum]

I gotta say that 25th amendment really did clean things up. I was never aware of how long the office has actually been vacant.

[thejedicounciloffical]

This video has been recommended to me many times. I have decided to watch it now.

[Awww]

Thanks a lot FDR and Nixon...you guys made the VP list way longer!

[Cjnw]

Those that came to say "But, aren't there 46 Presidents?"…

Well, Grover Cleveland was both the 24th and 26th President, because of non consecutive terms.

[TheHylianBatman]

The Vice Presidency is certainly more interesting than John Adams found it, to me!

[michaelmclaughlin]

Let me sum it up in 6 sentences: Some people resigned, changed or died.

[nprnilk]

Lincoln: Andrew Johnson sucks, but he won’t do anything of note. So no worry. Not like he’s gonna be president or anything, right?
Right???

[ryleeroseborough]

Interestingly, there were some calls for Hillary Clinton to choose Joe Biden as VP in 2016, in hopes of shoring up the Obama coalition. While presidents are term-limited at 2 terms, there is no limit for VP. If this did make a difference, it would have made Biden the first 3 and possibly 4 term VP.