Posted on 07/18/2004 8:57:17 AM PDT by Libloather
History not kind to Veeps from N.C.
7-15-04
By Jim Schlosser Staff Writer
News & Record
If John Edwards becomes vice president, he won't find inspiration from another Tar Heel who won the same job.
William Rufus de Vane King, a Sampson County native who was Franklin Pierce's running mate in the 1852 election, served only 44 days. And all but one was spent outside the United States.
After the Pierce-King ticket won the 1852 election, King was absent from the Capitol steps Inauguration Day, March 4, 1853.
He had contracted tuberculosis and was in Cuba to take advantage of the warmer weather. A special act of Congress allowed him to take the oath there. He returned to the United States 43 days later, but died the next day, April 18, 1853.
If not for one historian, King would be as forgotten today as many other former vice presidents, such as Richard Johnson, Dan Tompkins and Levi Morton.
In his "Lies Across America: What Our Historic Sites Get Wrong," published in 1999, James Loewen argues that bachelor King was gay and was intimate with James Buchanan, the only president who never married. He and King were in the Senate together.
"They lived together for many years," Loewen says from his home in Washington. "They were called the Siamese Twins."
In the book, Loewen quotes from a letter Buchanan wrote in 1844 after King became minister to France. Buchanan related how he missed King.
"I have gone wooing to several gentlemen," he said, "but have not succeeded with any one of them. I feel that it is not good for man to be alone; and should not be astonished to find myself married to some old maid who can nurse me when I am sick, provide good dinners for me when I am well, and not expect from me any very ardent or romantic affection."
Loewen says he doesn't seek to besmirch King, only to make sure historic sites don't cover up the King-Buchanan relationship.
Yes, Loewen concedes, Buchanan was once engaged to be married, but the woman broke it off and complained that Buchanan failed to show the affection she expected.
Sam Slaymaker, a historian at Wheatland, Buchanan's former country home near Lancaster, Pa., believes it unlikely Buchanan was gay. Rooming together in Washington was common practice among political figures of that era, he says. And Slaymaker has yet to see hard facts about Buchanan and King, only gossip and innuendo.
Loewen says he finds Buchanan's views on slavery curious considering he was from Lancaster County, Pa., where anti-slavery sentiment was strong because of Quaker, Amish and Mennonite populations.
Although Buchanan personally opposed slavery, he believed the Constitution allowed each state to decide the matter.
"I think the influence of King is the only answer," Loewen says of Buchanan's stance.
Even though Loewen says political insiders made fun of King and Buchanan's closeness, voters liked King. After King attended UNC and studied law in Fayetteville, he was elected to the state House of Representatives from Sampson County, district attorney of the Wilmington court district in eastern North Carolina and congressman from the same district.
He resigned from the House in 1816 after three terms and went to Russia as head of the American delegation. Three years later he was back in Washington as a senator from the new state of Alabama. He had moved to Alabama to buy land and to further political goals.
After leaving the Senate in 1844 to become minister to France, he returned to his King's Bend Plantation in Alabama in 1846.
Two years later, he returned to the Senate, where he was chosen Senate pro tempore, next in line to become president after Vice President Millard Fillmore became president upon Zachary Taylor's death in 1850.
King's fellow senators admired his knowledge of Senate rules and his ability to keep the Upper Chamber moderately civil at a time of growing bitterness over the slavery issue.
"Probably no other elected representative in American history has equaled his ability as presiding officer of the Senate," wrote historian John M. Martin of Georgia in a 1962 article about King for the N.C. Historical Review.
The other North Carolinian to become vice president, Andrew Johnson, was present in Washington for his own inauguration in 1865, but he may not have remembered it. Witnesses said he was drunk.
Johnson's tenure as vice president also was short: six weeks. He became president when Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in April 1865.
Johnson, born in Raleigh and moving to Tennessee as a young man, is best remembered for being the first president to be impeached.
The Senate acquitted him of violating Constitutional provisions.
As for William King, he's buried in Selma, the Alabama city that he helped found.
Ironically, another King -- civil rights crusader Martin Luther King Jr. -- is more associated today with Selma than William King because of the 1965 Selma-to-Montgomery march to protest the denial of voting rights for blacks.
Martin Luther King Jr. also has eclipsed William King in Washington state.
After William King's death, the new state named a county for the late vice president. King County includes Seattle.
In 1986, the King County government renamed the county for Martin Luther King Jr.
Some honors remain for William King, including William R. King Road in his native Sampson County.
Pretty interesting. A brief reprise of some forgotten men who were probably quite well known back in their day.
Somewhat deceptive-titled story. King and Johnson may have been born in NC, but both were an Alabaman and a Tennessean by the time they attained their offices. Edwards "technically" is a South Carolinian by birth.
Terrific name.
Regarding his original, King William II of England:
There exists no proof as
To who shot William Rufus,
But shooting him would seem
To have been quite a sound scheme.-- E. Clerihew Bentley.
NC ping!
Well, John #2 won't have to worry about being Veep. He can look forward to channelling and bilking insurance companies come Jan 2005.
From "terrific" to this ...
Who’s got the last laugh now?
A woman named Bitten Heine, whom I met while promoting a book in Los Angeles. Isn’t that just the greatest name in the world?
Source
http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/spectrum.cfm?id=814702004
"James Loewen argues that bachelor King was gay and was intimate with James Buchanan"
"They were called the Siamese Twins."
The parallels betwen these two guy's and the Kedwards ticket are frightening.
It'll be a clean sweep if Edwards flees to Cuba after they lose the election.
Edwards has no worries....
And Bill Clinton's whole reason for breathing is because he thinks he will be remembered forever as a "great" man and president. He will fade into obscurity, except for the historical importance of being IMPEACHED!
I JUST LOVE THAT FACT!
Traditions are to be kept alive. Maybe Edwards should pattern himself on A. Johnson, get drunk and continue to be so. This will give him instant deniability should the need arise.
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