He was a senator and a diplomat , but William Rufus DeVane King is in all likelihood best known as the 13thvice presidentof the United States . He was also the only person to support high office who was sworn in while not on U.S. soil .
So why did this United States frailty president take his expletive in Cuba ? And what is it about his personal lifetime that is still getting attention ?
The Making of a Vice President
King , who became get it on as a " born intermediator , " was carry on April 7 , 1786 , in North Carolina to a orchard proprietor . He trained as a attorney before joining the U.S. Congress , service from 1811 to 1816 , then reconcile to dish as a diplomat to Russia and the Kingdom of Naples . By 1818 , he had returned to the United States and sink in Alabama , where he was elected as one of the newly formed country ’s United States senators . He went on to serve for nearly 29 years in the U.S. Senate .
Despite his long political avail and report for a calm behavior , King wasnot a political star . One unnamed political compatriot call him a " tall , puritanical , wig topped second-rater . " Others were kind in their approach , if not savourless , writing that King was " singular for his quiet and unobtrusive , but active , pragmatic utility as a legislator . " As the presiding officer of the Senate , he urged members to address each other with decorum , and was known for reconcile disparate sect .
His boost to the vice presidency was drive by the Democrat party , whose member seek a presidential running game married person who was politically experienced , pop and a unspoiled match for presidential hopefulFranklin Pierce . It was to become King ’s highest political inhalation — and his most short - lived . But before delving into King ’s frailty presidency , it ’s deserving investigate an aspect of his personal lifespan less discussed .
Solitary and Alone
Some historians think that more than 150 years ago , before King ’s vice presidential term materialize and as he was progressively intrench in the nation ’s political intrigue , thatan intimate relationshipwith succeeding President James Buchanan emerged .
Buchanan , who was at one clock time engaged to a woman and whose sexuality is both for the most part unknown and irrelevant to his political aptitude , ordered his commensurateness to be fire upon his death . However , a few outlast letters remain , including an 1844 missive that Buchanan addressed to a woman named Mrs. Roosevelt , after King move to Paris to become the American ambassador to France . The letter stated : " I am now ' solitary and alone , ' have no companion in the home with me . I have gone court to several gentlemen , but have not succeed with any one of them . "
Whether they were simply bachelors with a " bromance " or had a more serious kinship may never be determine with any sure thing . What is certain , however , is that King ’s political vocation came to a rather precipitous end after TB set in .
An Oath for the Ages
King combat against his own wellness from the time of his November 1852 election as Franklin Pierce ’s frailty president , to his curse word of billet in March 1853 . A unrelenting and red coughing entrust him emaciated and infirm , prompt an early resignation in December 1852 from his Senate seat in the Bob Hope that warm weather would help his retrieval . He coiffe out for Cuba , and by former February attain Havana , where he remained ill with tuberculosis .
It did n’t take long for King , then 67 , to realize he was too ghastly to make it back to Washington , D.C. in metre to accept the frailty presidency . By the time King was to be sworn in , it literally ask anAct of Congressfor him to enter into office .
Thus , for the first and so far only time in U.S. history , Congress decease legislation allowing the VP - chosen to be blaspheme in outside of the country . On March 24 , 1853 , King take his oath of billet near Matanzas , Cuba , a seaport township 60 miles ( 97 klick ) east of Havana . He was too ailing to digest without help , but he was able to restate the oath and become America ’s thirteenth frailty president .
Within a month , desperate to return to the United States , King set canvas for Alabama — and died April 18 , 1853 , the day after he returned to his Southern estate . He neverpresided over a session of Congressas frailty President of the United States — though in an odd braid of fate , he had act as President pro tempore of the Senate in 1850 , when Zachary Taylor fail and then - VP Millard Fillmore take the administration .
