The subject of Franklin Roosevelt and his Vice Presidents came up in another thread.
To briefly recap history, Roosevelt’s first VP was John Nance Garner. Garner was a Southern conservative and by 1940, relations between Roosevelt and Garner had completely broken down. So nobody was surprised when Roosevelt decided to replace Garner when he ran for his third term.
But Roosevelt’s choice as a running mate did surprise people. Henry Wallace was an arch-liberal. More liberal than Franklin Roosevelt. More liberal than even Eleanor Roosevelt. Besides his politics, he had a bunch of personality quirks. Most Democratic Party delegates thought he was a terrible choice. But Roosevelt insisted and as the incumbent President and candidate, he was able to force Wallace’s nomination through.
But why did Roosevelt pick Wallace? Wallace wasn’t part of his inner circle. There’s no indications he really liked Wallace. Wallace didn’t have a political base that Roosevelt needed to win over. And Roosevelt was a smart enough politician to know that Wallace would be a handicap in the election, which was expected to be a close one.
So here’s my theory: Roosevelt was worried about the possibility of impeachment. He knew that opposition to him was growing and worried that it might get strong enough to try to remove him from office. So he put Henry Wallace in the Vice Presidency because he figured that some people might hesitate to remove Roosevelt from office if Wallace was the replacement.
He was liberal, an intervensionist and a progressive New Dealer. He also would have a lot more power than any previous VP in the coming war, being head of the Board of Economic Warfare, and in essence running Domestic policy.
He was bacially FDR, shorn of political necessities. FDR selected him as insurance, but insurance for continuation of policies. And loyalty.
Not at all. As I pointed out, he was far more to the left than Roosevelt was.
Wallace’s power was negligible. Yes, he was given positions in the administration but he didn’t have any authority to set policies. He was just supposed to carry out the policies that other people in the Roosevelt administration were making.
Roosevelt certainly wouldn’t have picked Wallace as his successor to carry out his policies if he died. Roosevelt was a skilled politician and he recognized how bad a politician Wallace was (the Vice Presidency was the only office Wallace was ever elected to). Even if their views had been identical, Roosevelt would have picked somebody more capable, like Jimmy Byrnes or Frank Walker, if he had been looking for a successor.
I doubt that FDR cared that much about his choice of running mate in 1940. Impeachment was hardly a recurring theme regarding the presidency in those days. (Johnson’s impeachment was generally regarded as an embarrassing moment in the nation’s history that should not be repeated until the new, angry Republican controlled Congress decided that it simply could not tolerate Clinton. Nixon’s open dishonesty was a bit different and he was persuaded to resign before he had been impeached.)
It would seem more likely that FDR, having tired of his constant policy battles with Garner, simply sought someone who was closer to his own politics. Despite the pushback of his audacity to run for a third term, FDR won that election rather handily and was not really fearful for his office. Similarly, Wallace was dropped from the 1944 race after having openly fought with a number of other cabinet secretaries.
Wallace was a major figure in the New Deal and had considerable popular support, so it’s not amazing he wound up as FDR’s preferred vice-presidential choice (for awhile, anyway).
It was only later that he demonstrated that he was a “dangerously incoherent politician” (as this article puts it) who equated “American greed” with German militarism and was manipulated by Communists.
I don’t recall hearing that there was ever a serious threat of Roosevelt being impeached in 1940.
Teddy Roosevelt and Grant both tried for third terms (Grant didn’t get the party nomination and Teddy skipped a term in between and had a new party). Though Teddy had only been elected once (taking over after McKinley was killed).
I think 1940 was the year when Roosevelt was most vulnerable as President.
Roosevelt had made two major blunders during his second term. The first was his attempt to “reform” the Supreme Court in 1937. A lot of people, including many who had been supporters, saw this as an unconstitutional power grab.
His second major blunder was doubling down. He tried to influence the 1938 congressional elections. Obviously, Presidents have always done that. But many of the candidates were fellow Democrats who Roosevelt now saw as opponents. He tried to get them replaced by other Democrats who he felt would be more loyal to him. And Roosevelt failed - most of the voters preferred their established Congressmen and Roosevelt’s choices were generally ignored. And those Congressmen weren’t happy about Roosevelt’s attempt to replace them.
Roosevelt was also facing widespread opposition over his foreign policy during his third term. A large number of Americans were isolationists to some degree or another. They didn’t think America had to get involved in the growing war situation and they certainly didn’t think we should choose to. Even those who favored a military build-up thought it should be directed at arming American defenses, not supplying arms to other countries like Britain, France, or China.
A lot of people, including many in the Democratic Party, thought it was time for a new President. Roosevelt had had his two terms; he should retire like past Presidents had. Roosevelt could see that if he ran again and was re-elected (which he didn’t take as a given) he would have more enemies and a lot fewer defenders than he had had in his first eight years.
Then Roosevelt got lucky - although it was at the expense of a lot of other people. His first lucky break was the sudden defeat of France in the summer of 1940. People had been thinking the current war would be a replay of Word War I with years of trench warfare and no significant results. Seeing Germany overrun France in just a few weeks made people realize that there was a much larger danger then there had been thirty years earlier. Roosevelt, who had been warning people about this danger, now looked like a wise choice. He could now take credit for his foreign policy rather than having to defend it.
His second lucky break came after the election in December of 1941. Roosevelt saw Germany as a threat to America that would have to be confronted at some point. But he knew how difficult it would be to get Congress or the public to support a declaration of war. Roosevelt’s luck was when Germany did him the favor of declaring war on the United States after Pearl Harbor. The country immediately rallied behind the war effort which was seen as defensive and Roosevelt didn’t have to spend any political capital.
But none of this was obvious six months before the 1940 election.