The Man Who Might Have Been President

Levi Morton was an interesting fellow. He was vice president of the United States under Benjamin Harrison from 1889 to 1893, but that wasn't what was particularly remarkable about the man.

Permit me to backtrack a little here.

Morton was born in Vermont 185 years ago today. In 1878, when he was 54 years old, he was elected to the House of Representatives from New York, and he was re–elected in 1880.

Earlier in 1880, Morton declined an offer to be the running mate with Republican presidential nominee James Garfield, who ended up choosing another native of Vermont, Chester Arthur, to be his running mate.

Garfield went on to be elected president and appointed Morton to be minister to France, a position he held until 1885. But, if Morton had accepted Garfield's offer to be his running mate — and assuming that all other events would have occurred as they did — Morton would have become the 21st president of the United States because Garfield was assassinated in 1881.

Actually, Morton may have indirectly played a role in Garfield's assassination. Charles Guiteau, the man who assassinated Garfield, supposedly did so because he felt he had been "passed over" as minister to France.

Well, that may or may not have been true. Most people believe that Guiteau was delusional, and he may have been the only person who thought he was being considered for that post. But apparently he did believe it — and, also, felt so strongly about the snub that he took matters into his own hands.

My intention here, though, is not to tell Guiteau's story but Morton's. In October of 1881, about a month after Garfield's death, Morton placed the first rivet in the Statue of Liberty, which was built in France as a gift to America.

In 1888, Morton was elected vice president on Harrison's ticket, but he seems to have fallen into disfavor. During his presidency, Harrison tried to push through legislation that ensured voting rights for blacks in the South. As vice president, Morton was president of the Senate, but he apparently made little effort against a Democratic filibuster and the bill failed.

Reportedly, Harrison blamed Morton for the bill's failure, and he dropped him from the GOP ticket in 1892. Harrison was defeated in his bid for re–election. Was Morton's absence from the ticket a factor? There were several issues and a popular third–party candidate, Populist James Weaver, who carried four states (including one that joined the Union during Harrison's presidency and was participating in its first election). Three of those states had supported Harrison four years earlier.

Harrison also lost Morton's adopted state of New York, which was the largest state in the nation at the time, as well as his home state (Indiana) and the states of Wisconsin and Illinois, all of which had supported him in 1888. In the three–way race that year, no candidate received a majority of the vote in any of those states.

(New York, by the way, also was the adopted state of Harrison's new running mate, Whitelaw Reid, who was the editor of the New York Tribune for many years. Reid was born in Ohio, which voted for Harrison in both elections.)

I suppose it is anyone's guess whether Morton could have salvaged enough states for Harrison to win the election. But if Harrison had carried New York, Indiana, Wisconsin and Illinois, he would have received enough electoral votes to win a second term.

Not long after leaving the vice presidency, Morton was back in politics as governor of New York. When he left that office, he became a real–estate investor.

Morton died on his 96th birthday. So far, he is the only president or vice president who died on his birthday. Only one vice president (John Garner) lived longer than he did, and Morton actually outlived five of his successors, all of whom were much younger.