Thomas Hendricks
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- Vice President to:
Grover Cleveland - Democrat, from New York.
- Grover Cleveland served 2 non-consecutive terms. He served his first term from 1885 - 1889,
then served his second term from 1893 - 1897. He died in 1908, at the age of 71.
- Dates Served: Hendricks served as Vice President from March - November of 1885.
- Political Party: Hendricks was a Democrat, from Indiana.
- Born: 1819.
- Died: 1885, while in office, at the age of 66.
- The presidential opponent during the 1884 campaign was:
- Campaign issues in 1884:
- Like all great years when there is no issue of substance, this year the
issues were ones of moral leadership. The previous Administration had been
about as exciting as watching ice melt and this year the people wanted a
more colorful leader. The newly confident Democrats ran the Governor of New York,
Grover Cleveland, as a candidate who stood up to special interests. They
smeared James Blaine as a "fat cat" who profitted from back-room deals with
the railroads while he was in Congress, even coming up with a cute rhyming
slogan, "Blaine! Blaine! James G. Blain! Continental liar from the state of
Maine!". The Republicans ran Blaine as a man of moral integrity, focusing
their smear machine on Cleveland's relationship seveal years earlier with
a woman who'd had a child by Cleveland, only to become an alcoholic and end
up in an insane asylum and Cleveland putting the child in an orphanage,
paying child support until the child was adopted. The Republicans
came up with their own rhyming slogan, "Ma, Ma, where's my Pa? Gone to the
White House, Ha, Ha, Ha!". But it backfired when Cleveland openly admitted
to the incident, to broad voter approval who viewed Cleveland as an honest
man willing to admit to past mistakes. That, and some embarassing anti-Catholic
comments associated with Blaine, gave Cleveland the victory and put the
Democrats back in the White House for the first time since before the
Civil War.
- Notable Facts about Thomas Hendricks:
- Religious affiliation: Hendricks was raised a Presbyterian, but as an adult he sold his soul and became an Episcopalian.
- Hendricks was a lawyer, and he began his political career by being elected
to the Indiana Legislature in 1848, and then to the US House of Representatives,
representing Indiana from 1851 - 1855, followed by a term in the Senate from
1863 - 1869.
- During the Civil War he was one of those rare Democrats who remained
pro-Union, also called a "War Democrat".
- While in the Senate he opposed the Emancipation of the slaves and supported
President Johnson's "soft" conciliatory treatment of the South after the Civil
War.
- He ran for Governor of Indiana twice, and lost twice, before finally winning in 1873.
He served from 1873 - 1877, the first Democrat to serve in the North after the Civil War.
- In 1876 Hendricks ran for Vice President on Samuel Tilden's Presidential campaign in the disputed
campaign against Rutherford B Hayes, which he and Tilden officially lost, even though they
probably really won but couldn't muster enough clout against Hayes' wheeling and dealing
skills. The good guys always loose.
- In 1880 Hendricks campaigned for the Democratic nomination for president, but lost to James
Garfield.
- In 1884 Hendricks campaigned again for the Democratic nomination but this time lost out to Grover
Cleveland. He accepted the next-best spot as his Vice.
- Hendricks died of a stroke in his sleep at home, less than 9 months after inauguration. During
the 12 days between his death and the election of John Sherman to president
Pro Tem of the Senate, there was no one in the line of presidential succession.
Notable Events: (all after Hendrick's death)
- President Cleveland (age 49) gets married in the White House, on June 2, 1886 to Frances Folsom
(age 21), the daughter of his old law partner. He is the only sitting President to get married in
the White House. (President John Tyler also got married while in office, but did it in New York,
not the White House).
- Presidential Succession Act, in 1886, which stated that in the event of the
deaths of both the President and the Vice President, the line of succession
fell to the Cabinet in chronological order of each department's creation.
This Act was eventually superceded by the 25th Amendment to the Constitution
in 1967.
- Coca-Cola is invented, by John Pemberton on May 8th, 1886 in Atlanta, Georgia. Pemberton was an
inventer of many syrups, medicines, and elixirs , including a popular drink of the time that he
called "French Wine of Coca", which contained French Bordeux wine, cocaine, and caffeine from the kola nut.
When the city of Atlanta banned all alcohol in 1885, Pemberton had to change the formula of his drink,
so he omitted the French wine. He added sugar, citric acid and "essential oils" of many fruits to the
drink, and the original Coca-Cola was born. The name of the drink refers to its original main ingredients,
cocaine and the kola nut (as in COCAine KOLA). It caught on quickly and was a huge success. Pemberton
formed a partnership and created the company Coca-Cola but soon fought with his business partners,
eventually selling his interest in the company. Cocaine was removed as an ingredient 17 years later,
in 1903, even though cocaine didn't become illegal in the US until 1914.
- Interstate Commerce Act, in 1887, which established the Interstate Commerce
Commission, the first federal regulatory agency. It's job was to ensure that
interstate railroad rates were "reasonable and just" and to try to limit
discriminatory practices by the railroads towards big corporations over small
businesses. It didn't have any enforcement powers however, and didn't have much
real effect until the advent of Teddy Roosevelt's antitrust policies.
- The Dawes Severalty Act, in 1887 which offered citizenship and full titleship
to Reservation lands to any Indians willing to renounce tribal allegiance.
- President Cleveland lost his re-election campaign to Benjamin Harrison, but
began preparing for his return to power four years later.