William Who?
And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.
It’s actually a remarkable document. It is vaguely simple, but extremely powerful. Its simplicity is often the cause of bitter debates. It is the Constitution of the United States. In Article II, Section 1 it defines the qualifications for President as:
“No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.”
The Vice President’s qualifications are even more vague:
“In Case of the Removal of the President from Office, or of his Death, Resignation, or Inability to discharge the Powers and Duties of the said Office, the Same shall devolve on the Vice President.…”
Other than being on deck if something happens to the President, the Vice President’s only job listed in the Constitution (Article 1 Section 3) is to be the President of the Senate and even there he doesn’t have a vote unless there is a tie.
When I was growing up my least favorite subject was English. I hated reading and I hated writing. I think I made it through high school reading only one or two books. I remember one of my friends telling me she loved to correct all the grammer errors in all my letters (just kidding I know it is grammar). When I was picking a college major I chose engineering. Quite honestly, I had no clue what an engineer was, all I knew was it only required two English classes and lots of math.
When I went to a big university I quickly learned life wasn’t an extension of high school. You might be pretty good in a little high school, but when you get on the big stage it is a much tougher crowd. Those little classes I breezed through in high school never prepared me for the hurricane force winds of a major university. I was now competing with students from all over the world.
He wasn’t a very pretty sight and life hadn’t treated him very fair. He was covered with sores and had to resort to begging for food. His only friends were the dogs that came and licked his sores. The crumbs off a rich man’s table were his feast. The poor man died and was carried to heaven. There he rested with Father Abraham and found the peace that so alluded him on earth. Meanwhile the rich man, whose tables he collected the crumbs from, also died. The rich man didn’t go to the same place. It was so bad where the rich man went that he asked Father Abraham to let the poor man (Lazarus) just bring the water that would fit on his finger tip to him. The request was denied.
The rich man then asked Father Abraham if he could just send Lazarus back to warn his family so they wouldn’t suffer the same fate. Father Abraham probably had to hold back the laugh as he told asked him, “They wouldn’t listen to Moses or the prophets and you think they are going to listen to a beggar?” I bet that rich man was regretting he didn’t invite Lazarus to dinner a few times.
Since the Constitution doesn’t spell out exactly what the Vice President does, each President has used their Vice President in a different way. Some hardly used them at all. Vice President Mondale (Jimmy Carter’s Vice President) once told the story of a man who lived near Three Mile Island (a nuclear plant that had a major leak). “An expert said it was safe because the President was going to visit,” said Mondale. “What makes you think that proves it is safe?” replied the man. “Because,” Mondale continued, “if it wasn’t safe, they would have sent the Vice President.”
There is a story that Teddy Roosevelt could not get to sleep one night because of a twinkling chandelier. He called the butler in and asked him to remove it. The butler asked TR what he should do with it. Roosevelt responded, “Take it to the Vice President, he needs something to keep him awake.”
As I was taking one of the two English classes in college that I was required to take, we were assigned a paper to write. We got to choose our topic. I chose “Who was the worse President?” I did a lot of reading for the research and I got an “A” on the paper. It was then that I learned I had a love inside of me of reading and writing. But that “A” wasn’t one of those, “I got an ‘A’ I need to change my major things.” Still, it didn’t take me long to realize I wasn’t smart enough to be an engineer. But I was stubborn and refused to change my major and I dropped out of college. I think it was perhaps the biggest regret of my life. I could have probably done well in a different major, but I had my eyes only focused on the moment.
Franklin Pierce (the 14th President) used the role of Vice President to balance his party’s ticket in the general election. There was a divide in their party and the convention chose someone in the rival fraction to try to keep everyone happy. This gentleman’s name was William R. King. When Pierce was elected, King realized he would have absolutely no role in the Pierce administration. In fact, there was no communication between them at all.
Just before the inauguration William King became very ill with Tuberculosis. He sought treatment in Cuba. He was so ill that he couldn’t make it back for the inauguration. With a special act of Congress, they permitted him to be sworn in by the American Consul there in Cuba. It is the only time in our nation’s history that either the President or Vice President has been sworn in on foreign soil. He died less than a month later. It wasn’t until the 25th Amendment to the Constitution that there was a line of succession in case something happened to the Vice President, so Pierce went almost his whole term without a Vice President. A strange twist to that story is that Pierce is the only President to go from start to finish in his full term with his whole Cabinet intact.
Most people choose to look at life either by looking straight ahead or constantly looking back. We have issues or bad experiences we keep coming back to. Maybe we were real good in high school only to get knocked down in college. Then there are those who hold out for a better day. A day when there will be more money. The day they retire. That glorious day they find the end of the rainbow and that pot of gold.
Not too many people look to the left or to the right. They miss that child’s school play that is so important to them. They miss that flower that only blooms for a few days. They forget to send that card to that hurting friend. There are things to get done. There are promotions to get. There are meetings to attend. Before you know it you miss the chance to get to know your vice president who is dying in Cuba. I guess there is one word that sums it up: regret.
