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Richard
Mentor Johnson - 9th Vice President
Party: Democrat
Term: March 4 - 1837 - March 3, 1841
Age at First Inauguration: 56
Life Span: Oct 17, 1780 - Nov 19, 1850 [70]
President: Martin Van Buren |
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- For the first and only time in history,
the vice president was chosen by a vote of the senate when no
majority was received in the electoral college
- Johnson was considered by most as
a vulgar mouthed, non-conformist individual whose only claim
to fame was that killed an Indian chief named Tecumseh
- As a congressman he proposed requiring
postal employees to work a seven day week because he enjoyed
receiving mail
- Consistently close to bankruptcy and
heavily in debt, he voted to eliminate debtors prisons, and proposed
numerous pay raises for Congress
- He inherited a slave, Julia Chinn,
from his deceased father and took her as his common-law wife
- He fathered two daughters, raised
them as free persons, and later gave them large tracts of land
when they married - both to white men
- After Julia died in 1833, he took
another slave as his common-law wife who ran away from his plantation
- Johnson found the woman, sold her
at a slave auction, and took her sister as his mistress
- Needless to say, Johnson was not a
respected individual, and in the election of 1836 some states
refused to cast a ballot for him, including his home state of
Kentucky
- He fell one vote short of a majority,
and after the senate began deliberating, Van Buren used his influence
to win the vote in the senate
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