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The phrase “America’s Greatest Vice President” doesn’t show up much on search engines, with most of the few mentions going to Joe Biden, Dan Quayle, Spiro Agnew, or Hubert Humphrey.
But, really, the more I think about it, the more the title of Greatest Vice President of the Old, Weird America must belong to Dick Johnson, veep under Martin Van Buren in 1837-1841 (not counting the nine month leave of absence he took from the Vice Presidency to manage his tavern in Kentucky).
Richard Mentor Johnson:
– was elected Vice President with the campaign slogan:
Rumpsey Dumpsey, Rumpsey Dumpsey
Colonel Johnson killed Tecumseh
– belonged to a shadowy dynasty in the western cotton belt known as The Family.
– Was backed for the VP job in 1836 by Andy Jackson and Davy Crockett.
– Was dropped from the Democratic re-election ticket in 1840, but ran for re-election anyway. Wikipedia claims that his rambling, incoherent speeches on the re-election trail were poorly received, touching off a riot in Cleveland. But Johnson still won 48 electoral votes in 1840 as an independent candidate for Vice President, which doesn’t sound too bad from a glass part full standpoint. Who else has run for Vice President on his own?
– Failed in re-election to the Senate in 1828 when he tried to introduce his daughters by his octoroon slave wife into polite society. Johnson pointed out, “Unlike Jefferson, Clay, Poindexter and others I married my wife under the eyes of God, and apparently He has found no objections.”
– Johnson’s most visionary project as a United States Senator was his campaign in 1822-23 to fund a U.S. government expedition to explore and conquer the inside of the Earth.
Johnson was an advocate of his friend John C. Symmes’ Hollow Earth theory.
All that is left of this moment in American history is the Hollow Earth Monument in Hamilton, Ohio.
When they bring out the Harriet Tubman double sawbuck, I think they should put a drawing of the Hollow Earth Monument on the back, like the Eyeball Pyramid is on the one dollar bill, just to freak everybody out.
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s philosophy.
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After reading this I’d like to think VP Johnson inspired this song.
Steve, sometimes I’m happily amazed at the tangents your mind wanders off to and therefrom brings back out-of-nowhere articles that delight and enlighten and entertain.
Other times, it worries me for your sanity.
Considering that Agnew resigned, I’m not sure why he would be on the list.
As for who should be on this list, Garner said the Vice-Presidency was “not worth a bucket of warm piss”. So he should get credit for honesty. Ironically, he was very influential in defeating FDR’s Supreme Court packing plan, which is why FDR dumped him in 1940.
>Colonel Johnson killed Tecumseh<
keep cool with tecumseh
http://www.tecumseh.com/en/United-States/Products
RE: Great Unknown Americans Who Should Be On Our Currency Instead Of Tubman,
My vote goes to Josiah Willard Gibbs.Of course, I’m sure that some people think that developing stuff like vector calculus and statistical mechanics pales in significance when compared to Tubman’s achievements…….
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josiah_Willard_Gibbs
Just an hour ago I learned that none other than Charles Manson also believed in the hollow earth and promised to lead his followers into it: http://www.strangehistory.net/2016/09/05/bottomless-pit-californian-desert/
The Firesign Theatre take up the notion of the hollow earth in hysterical fashion on their album Everything You Know Is Wrong.
Another notable aspect of the old, weird America is how common riots and mobs were. If you read 19th century American history, it’s as if every public gathering leads to riots and mob activity. Presumably it’s because people were a lot poorer and rougher back then. This may be why liberals think if you just give blacks enough welfare, they won’t riot, failing to account for the possibility that blacks may be more riot prone than whites regardless of economic standards.
Also if you read local newspapers/advertisements from back then, they read like the sort of literature that targets today's double digit IQ population.
A fascinating story no doubt, but I don’t think it makes Johnson “the greatest.” The “weirdest,” perhaps, or the “oddest,” but then again, he’d have to compete for that title with Aaron Burr.
Burr tied Jefferson in the Electoral College, and when the House voted to choose the president, the House also became tied. The deadlock was only broken after 36 votes, and Burr ended up as Veep. Four years later, Burr, the sitting VP, shot Hamilton in a duel because Hamilton had opposed him for President and also opposed him for Governor of New York. Burr then went to Ohio and built a fort on an island in the Ohio River, and was charged with treason for allegedly trying to form a militia and conquer his own territory out West. Acquitted on the treason charges, Burr high-tailed it for Europe.
Tough to beat a story like that for sheer oddity.
It’s like how on The Simpsons, somebody can always talk the townspeople of Springfield into something through sheer oratory.
Why isn’t there a Broadway play about this guy? Fuck Hamilton, what about Dick Johnson? Just the name itself, mein gott, why isn’t there a Dick Johnson frenzy?
I know, there are so-called brouhahas but WTF? Why no Dick Johnson brouhaha. There is babble, burble, banter, bicker, comments, cliches, commentary, dialogue, dualogue, diatribe, dissention, declamation, double talk, etc. &tc. Why no Dick Johnson expugnations?
The Firesign Theatre take up the notion of the hollow earth in hysterical fashion on their album Everything You Know Is Wrong.Replies: @Hhsiii
Just dry your mukluks by the cellophane…
"Let me handle this Nancy. Far out Catherwood. Just roll a couple of bombers and leave them on the side table."
BREAKING NEWS
Has renowned columnist Steve Sailer finally lost it?
More at 11.
“Tea, madam?”
“Let me handle this Nancy. Far out Catherwood. Just roll a couple of bombers and leave them on the side table.”
And to join a mob complete with pitchforks and torches at a moment’s notice.
This happened in Weehawken, NJ, just across the Hudson from NYC. Weehawken is right next to Hoboken on the river, but hasn’t gentrified as much, probably because it doesn’t have as much public transportation options.
Monorail!
That episode was written by Conan O’Brien.
I am not a fan of them, but their song Holiday has been used in commercials.
They seem to be more popular in England, where their most popular song was Oxford Comma.Replies: @Pat Casey
Why did you choose this song?
I am not a fan of them, but their song Holiday has been used in commercials.
They seem to be more popular in England, where their most popular song was Oxford Comma.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mDxcDjg9P4Replies: @Anonitron2
You left out what Johnson was actually best known for in his own lifetime: supporting the separation of church and state by (successfully) insisting that the mail be transported and delivered on Sunday.
(Yet he also insisted on religious instruction in a government-funded school for Choctaw Indians that a not-very-competent crony of his ran under his direction.)
P.S. Does any reader know anything more Henry Clay and his alleged slave mistress? This was the first I heard that he had one. (Poindexter is apparently obscure Senator George Poindexter.)
I didn’t see anything about Clay in a quick search.
I think a random quizzes on the Old, Weird America should be a requirement in high school and for applying for any long-stay visas or citizenship. So should reading Steve Sailer’s blog.
A not exactly OT assortment:
How did “Poindexter” become an insult for nerds? It was still in infrequent usage into the 90s. What’s the story on that? It’s a pretty uncommon surname.
What was Johnson’s position on the Lost Continent of Lemuria?
It was considered a funny name when I was a child in the 1960s.
I am not a fan of them, but their song Holiday has been used in commercials.
They seem to be more popular in England, where their most popular song was Oxford Comma.Replies: @Pat Casey
It tickled me to be listening to “I’m going down, down, down, down” while reading about excavating the hollow earth or whatever. My understanding is that they are well-liked by the younger bohemian bourgeois of NYC, where they are from. This is their best song and I dare you to say no bueno.
Biden is definitely the greatest VP for saying — in public, in apparently prepared remarks — that Jews control the media and are to be credited with leftist advances in this country such as abortion and, especially, homosexual marriage. He, a liberal, meant it as praise, but you know what Jews say: a philosemite is an antisemite who likes Jews. Thanks for speaking the truth, Mr. Veep! No Republican had the guts to do that.
In the 1960s, girls played a Barbie board game, and Poindexter was one of the undesirable guys that would be voted off the island nowadays.
Poindexter was a nerdy character in Felix the Cat cartoons.
I almost asked the very same question, but then I Googled it and there was an easy and straightforward answer – it was the name of a nerdy character in a Felix the Cat TV series.
ETA: One comment above affirms and one denies! Maybe the Barbie game stole the name from Felix.
Hate to pile on but this is from 1988 (I think), late 80’s
Why would any American freak out that his quintessential sugar & fat confectionery got finally immortalized on a twenty dollar bill?
I bet you dollars to doughnuts that if Homer Simpson is happy with it, the rest will follow.
My favourite factoid about VP Johnson: “After his wife’s death, Johnson began an intimate relationship with another family slave. When she left him for another man, Johnson had her picked up and sold at auction.” (Courtesy of Wikipedia.)
Wow, that was pretty brave of him to diss Jefferson. I thought people didn’t denigrate Jefferson for his affections towards Sally Hemings till 20th century.
What a strange artifact. It wouldn’t be out of place in a corner of Miskatonic University or in a book by John Bellairs as illustrated by Edward Gorey.
“- Johnson’s most visionary project as a United States Senator was his campaign in 1822-23 to fund a U.S. government expedition to explore and conquer the inside of the Earth.
Johnson was an advocate of his friend John C. Symmes’ Hollow Earth theory.”
Cranks always seem to have a theory of geology – The Great Flood, the subsidance of Atlantis, catastrophic crustal shift, etc. Many of the Nazi heirarchy (Hitler and Himmler, for example) were believers in the Welt Eis Lehre (World Ice Theory), which held that “Earth is Ice!”. I don’t know why geology in particular seems to fascinate crackpots so much. Electrodynamics is another area they seem to think worthy of their own particular cogitations. They never seem to have their own crank theory of chemical bonding or structural mechanics, though.
He just wants them to keep digging, but is too clever to reveal his hidden agenda.
When you 're in a hole on your quest to conquer the inside of the Earth, the first rule is to keep digging.
I'm starting to get suspicious about this Sailer guy, too!
Some of the Nazis were into Hollow Earth stuff too.
Winner: most unexpected post of the month.
iSteve: telling you what you didn’t know you needed to know.
Sounds like a real dick.
I was always suspicious about Trump’s newly found affection for the miners.
He just wants them to keep digging, but is too clever to reveal his hidden agenda.
When you ‘re in a hole on your quest to conquer the inside of the Earth, the first rule is to keep digging.
I’m starting to get suspicious about this Sailer guy, too!
Symmes and Johnson were only fifty years out of date scientifically. Before Cavendish measured the mass of the earth, there was no way to rule out its being hollow. People had been fantasising on the subject for centuries.
Edmond Halley came up with a Hollow Earth theory at the end of the 17th Century.
You have an article about the greatest Vice President, and nothing about Nixon in 42 comments? VP to Eisenhower for 2 terms, and elected POTUS twice.
BTW Trump just used Nixonian slightly incorrect statements to great effect:
https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/comments/516nn8/hook_line_and_sinker_msnbc/?st=isq0dkr7&sh=e2a20de9
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mDxcDjg9P4Replies: @Anonitron2
They’re early 2000’s Pitchfork darlings but their popularity pancaked when a) certain people noticed they were ripping off some genre of African music (I don’t remember which) and b) college lacrosse players started listening to them.
Heartiste, call your office!
He also had a redundant name.
Richard Johnson was also the only Vice president elected by the Senate, after failing to get a majority of the electoral votes….Those were the days!
More VP history:
[Franklin Pierce’s VP] William R. King was sworn into office in Cuba, becoming the only executive officer to take the oath on foreign soil. King had gone to Cuba to recuperate from tuberculosis and severe alcoholism, but it didn’t work. He died in 1853 after being vice president for just 25 days.
That might not be the most memorable thing about King, though. It’s widely rumored that the former VP was homosexual. Further still, he’s suspected of being James Buchanan’s lover. Neither King nor Buchanan ever married, and they lived together in Washington for 15 years before Buchanan became president. Of course, King’s predilection for wearing scarves and wigs only fanned the rumors. President Andrew Jackson used to call him “Miss Nancy,”Âť and Aaron Brown, a fellow Southern Democrat, dubbed him “Aunt Fancy.”Âť
Among other Poindexters, there was the late Admiral, a Naval Academy classmate of John McCain. He gained some notoriety for the Iran-Contra Scandal.
I vote for Thomas R. Marshall, VP under Wilson, who uttered the immortal phrase “What this country needs is a good five-cent cigar.”
“Wow, that was pretty brave of him to diss Jefferson. I thought people didn’t denigrate Jefferson for his affections towards Sally Hemings till 20th century.” To the contrary, all newspapers were scandal sheets in those days and that is one reason people loved politics. BTW, ole Tom never did Sally but his brother made up for it, one reason Tom never responded to the accusations.
It’s stuff like that, that illustrates the reality of the Flynn effect to me.
Also if you read local newspapers/advertisements from back then, they read like the sort of literature that targets today’s double digit IQ population.
Edmond Halley came up with a Hollow Earth theory at the end of the 17th Century.
It seems the hollow earth is also a Rosicrucian meme:
(Rosenkreuz may well have been a fabrication.)
Rosicrucianism, whatever it was, released public manifestos starting around 1607. The Rosicrucians wrapped themselves in the aura of astrology and hermetics and wrote of change. Rosicrucians probably had an effect on the Enlightenment (see the Rosicrucian_Enlightenment). From the article on Rosicrucianism:
The hollow earth also shows up in Aleister Crowley’s fake occult/Rosicruicanistic religion, Thelema, which probably has had more influence in California than it should have (“Do what thou wilt.”)
Is this a picture of Steve’s website? The Rosicrucians must have been able to see the future!