Tippecanoe and Agnew Anew
Whoever wins in 2020 faces the Curse of Tippecanoe
Jack Hughes is back with a look at how the Curse of Tippecanoe heightened the stakes at the vice presidential debate.
by Jack Hughes
Across the country and around the world, millions of people sat down this week to watch what most agree was the most important vice-presidential debate in American history. Whatever the outcome of the upcoming election, there’s little doubt Kamala Harris and Mike Pence weren’t auditioning for second place or second spot.
Given their respective ages, Donald Trump and Joe Biden have invited speculation about their health – and that was before COVID. Pence and Harris, then, were under added scrutiny because of the heightened sensitivity around succession – and it sure doesn’t help that whoever wins the election faces the Curse of Tippecanoe.
Also known as the 20 Year Curse or Tecumseh’s Curse, it’s the lore that presidents elected in years divisible by 20 are doomed to die in office. Before you dismiss it, remember it had an unbroken 120-year run starting with William Henry Harrison’s election in 1840 (“Tippecanoe and Tyler too”) and death six months later.
There’s no link between Harrison’s death, the Battle of Tippecanoe, and Tecumseh, but there was anuninterrupted chain of presidents elected every 20 years thereafter who died in office. Lincoln, elected in 1860, later died in office – then Garfield in 1880, McKinley in 1900, Harding in 1920, FDR in 1940, and JFK in 1960.
Three of those presidents died from natural causes, namely Harrison, Harding, and Roosevelt. The others – Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, and Kennedy – died after being shot. The chain was broken in 1980 by Ronald Reagan, but even he came close to being a victim of Tippecanoe’s Curse when he was shot by John Hinkley.
After Reagan was George W. Bush, elected in 2000, who was thankfully never shot – but was once shoed. The closest he came to dying in office was that time when he passed out and hit his head after choking on a pretzel while watching football. While he and Reagan got out alive, I think everyone can agree 2020 seems cursed.
All of those who succumbed to the Curse were succeeded by their then-vice presidents: Tyler, Andrew Johnson, Chester A. Arthur, Teddy Roosevelt, Coolidge, Truman, and LBJ. In total, a full 18% of presidents (8 of 44 with Cleveland counted once) inherited the presidency when their predecessor passed on in office.
One would hope nobody seeks the vice presidency on the belief or expectation that their president will die – but at least one gave it thought. In his masterful biography of Lyndon Johnson, Robert Caro says LBJ had his staff check the odds of presidents dying in office (then 1 in 5) before he’d agreed to be JFK’s running mate.
That got me thinking about a vice president who almost ascended to the top spot: Spiro Agnew. Though Nixon wasn’t elected in a Tippecanoe Curse year, he ran and almost won in 1960. Nixon survived his term but his time in office was cut short and Agnew would’ve succeeded him had he not resigned 47 years ago this week.
Agnew has been getting more attention of late, not least from MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, as the political godfather of Trumpian Republicanism. Much of this ties back to Agnew’s alliterative attacks on the press in the 1970 mid-term elections, but I want to highlight an event that came 25 years later – now 25 years ago.
In 1995, a year before his death, Agnew spoke at the unveiling of his official bust in the Senate wing of the U.S. Capitol commemorating his tenure as vice president. In rare public remarks he admitted he wasn’t “blind or deaf” to critics who felt the event shouldn’t take place and that he was getting an honor he didn’t deserve.
His response to those critics came in the form of a defence of the vice presidency, which Agnew felt had been marginalized and maligned. His argument rested largely on Harry S Truman – one of the Tippecanoe Seven – whom Agnew observed became Commander-in-Chief in a time of war “without warning or preparation.”
Agnew didn’t mention LBJ after JFK’s assassination or, incongruously, Gerald Ford becoming president after Nixon’s resignation instead of himself. Agnew also never directly addressed what was almost surely at the heart of the criticisms being leveled at him, that, by his actions, he had maligned the office of vice president.
Rather, his point was the vice presidency is ‘a heartbeat away’ and deserves greater reverence and respect. To that end, he suggested the bust being unveiled was a tribute to the vice presidency not Spiro Agnew (despite it being an exact likeness of him). In an ironic and unintended way, that message seems incredibly timely.
Agnew’s bust is a fitting reminder of the importance of the vice presidency in that he was kind of a ‘bust’ as vice president. It’s a monument to a near miss. Imagine how the post-Watergate era would have differed if Agnew, not Ford, had succeeded Nixon. And he’s not the only Veep who could’ve changed U.S. history.
Look back at the presidents who’ve died in office and you’ll see that in a number of cases they weren’t succeeded by their first (or second) vice presidents. Had FDR died just a year earlier, he’d have been succeeded by Henry Wallace – who would’ve had a completely different approach to the Soviet Union and Cold War.
Had William McKinley been shot in his first term, and before 1899, he would’ve been succeeded by Garret Hobart instead of the adventurous Theodore Roosevelt. Had Lincoln been shot in his first term, the early post-Civil War Reconstruction would’ve been overseen by Hannibal Hamlin and not Andrew Johnson.
All of this brings us back to Pence and Harris, one of whom will be next in line for the presidency after next January. Agnew was right to say the vice presidency has become increasingly important, but he was wrong to suggest that the institution matters more than the individual. He’s exhibit ‘A’ for why they matter.
The C-SPAN footage doesn’t show us if then-Senator Joe Biden attended Agnew’s speech. If not, it would’ve been a second time their paths hadn’t crossed at a Senate ceremony. Due to the accident that killed his wife and daughter, Biden took his 1973 Senate oath in a hospital as opposed to the Senate floor opposite Agnew.
Even if Biden attended the 1995 speech, it’s unlikely Agnew’s remarks would’ve resonated as much then as they might’ve after he became vice president or more recently when he chose one. (Biden has yet to commission his vice-presidential bust as he’s far more interested in decorating the White House than the Senate.)
It’s also unlikely Biden is worried about Tippecanoe’s Curse. (If Agnew were alive, he might’ve called Biden “supercilious” but likely not “superstitious.”) Still, one hopes Biden and President Trump turned their minds to the possibility of succession when choosing their potential successors. Voters will now do the same.
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