What this thread is asking about is what Vice President of the United States would do the most damage to the USA if they somehow became president without being elected as president. This also applies to people who went on to become president later by being elected on the top of the ticket. It even applies to vice presidents who became president without being elected becoming the president earlier than OTL. For example, if you think that LBJ would have botched the Cuban missile crisis, you can consider him, as worldwide nuclear war would probably do damage to the USA. You can use an OTL example for your argument if you want to, like Ford. We can assume that the president resigns or something and there is no big reaction from the country or world, the focus is on the VP. You can use long term impacts as well as short term impacts. You can use post 1900 pods. If I didn't clarify anything, I'll edit this post.
 
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Skallagrim

Banned
Andrew Jackson dies, tripping on the stairs or something, some short while before the nullification crisis escalates, before the Tariff of 1832 replaces the one of 1828, and before Calhoun resigns the vice presidency. Calhoun becomes president, refuses to accept the proposed Tariff of 1832 as a compromise, and openly supports nullification-- as president. South Carolina nullifies the Tariff of 1828. Utter chaos ensues, Calhoun refuses to act against South Carolina, and in fact openly supports the state's efforts. Various parties attempt to claim that the vice president, in a case such as this one, is merely acting as president, and should not have full powers.

The coming presidential election will be utterly contentious. Calhoun is immediately nominated by a revived Nullifier Party (or States Rights Party, or whatever they wish to call themselves). Northern opponents of nullification (basically: the National Republican Party) have already nominated Henry Clay, who swears that if elected, he will bring South Carolina back into the fold "by force of arms, if needed". The Democrats are divided. Many southern Democrats want to nominate Calhoun as their candidate. Northern Democrats are less keen on that idea. Their convention proves irreconcilable, leading to a schism. The "Northern Democratic Party" nominates Martin Van Buren, while the main Democratic Party (consisting mostly of the southern wing of the party) nominates Calhoun, who vows to uphold the rights of "these united states, even against the ambitions of the general government itself".

Opponents of nullification have lost willingness to compromise on the tariff by this point. It'll be a fight to the end, now.

In any case, in the escalating turmoil, South Catolina makes it clear that if its "sacred rights" are violated (that is: if anyone other than Calhoun wins the coming election), the state will secede from the Union. Other southern states, although far from as radicalised as South Carolina, view the idea of a hypothetical president Clay sending the army against South Carolina as intolerable. If Clay wins, the Union may well tear itself apart. But many in the north consider Calhoun a traitor to the Union already. If he wins, the effect will be much the same.

As the election draws near, nullification might well turn into secession... and war.
 
Going to be tough to top that one. Any takers?
Well...

Buchanan has a stroke and dies upon finding South Carolina Seceeded... Then Breckinridge becomes active president, instantly recognizing the Independence of South Carolina and shortly afterwards of the fledging Confederate States before Lincoln gets the chance to take office...
 

Skallagrim

Banned
Well...

Buchanan has a stroke and dies upon finding South Carolina Seceeded... Then Breckinridge becomes active president, instantly recognizing the Independence of South Carolina and shortly afterwards of the fledging Confederate States before Lincoln gets the chance to take office...

I will happily (well, for a value of "happily") argue that Calhoun would almost certainly do the same in '32/'33 (assuming he loses, which seems very likely), before Clay takes office. In both cases, it legally means nothing without Congressional support. This means that it makes little difference for the events in 1860... but the thing that makes my scenario so extra troubling is that the earlier you go, the less stark the demographic and technological differences between north and south were... and the better the chances of the south in a civil war. I suspect that the south would win a civil war starting in '33. And that's disregarding the fact that in that case, the whole thing is officially not about slavery in any way. I think European powers would be considerably more likely to recognise - or even support - a breakaway southern confederacy in this case.

Also, the earlier you go, the more people were (especially in the south) opposed to an overbearing central government. If Clay actually attempts to send troops to conquer South Carolina (and he would; he'd have to, or he'd be seen as a powerless failure), one may expect every single state south of the Mason-Dixon line to be up in arms. Clay might have to issue decrees from Philadelphia, even-- DC was very much a "southern town" back then, and I doubt he'd be supported there. At the very least, these states will not allow troops to cross their territory. Clay will have to overrule that. At which point secession of pretty much all southern states becomes an inevitability.

And even though the whole thing is directly about states' rights, and not directly about slavery, the people pushing nullification (and secession, tentatively, even in OTL) in '32 were very much 'the usual suspects', and one may bet that any confederacy emerging from all this will have constitutional guarantees that slavery will be protected by law.
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
Buchanan has a stroke and dies upon finding South Carolina Seceeded... Then Breckinridge becomes active president, instantly recognizing the Independence of South Carolina and shortly afterwards of the fledging Confederate States before Lincoln gets the chance to take office...

I highly doubt that Breckinridge would have done that. While he believed in the constitutional right of a state to secede, he thought it was a very foolish idea and would have tried to negotiate some sort of arrangement to halt the drive towards secession. He was not a man to make rash decisions, but carefully considered his course of action. Moreover, his sense of honor would have forced him to wait upon the incoming President (who, incidentally, was a good personal friend of Breckinridge and his cousin-in-law). And he was also the kind of person who could have set his personal opinions aside and act conscientiously in whatever role was forced upon him.
 
Gerald Ford wasn't bad enough for you? Okay, let's try Ford dying and Rockefeller takes over? Ford falling down a flight of stairs and breaking his neck isn't that big a stretch.
 
Gerald Ford wasn't bad enough for you? Okay, let's try Ford dying and Rockefeller takes over? Ford falling down a flight of stairs and breaking his neck isn't that big a stretch.
Why would Rockefeller be especially bad? (considering he's just going to be primaried in 1976 anyway)
 
Going to be tough to top that one. Any takers?

Roosevelt is assassinated, Garner becomes president, goes hard core for isolationism. Japanese stay in China taking the rape of Nanking nationwide. Soviets win the war in Europe, slowly, rolling all the way to the channel with a deathtoll an order of magnitude greater than OTL. A shellshocked Britain becomes bitter and inward looking focusing on its moribund empire, refusing to let go, and turning French Algeria into an archetype of decolonialism worldwide.

In America, the Democrats are continually divided on civil rights preventing any meaningful movement on either side (Republicans gain more by doing nothing substantive). Court victories go unenforced and a lot of rhetoric leads to nothing which radicalises the civil rights movement. By the 70s, the National Survival-Racial Imperative becomes less a worst case scenario and more something an increasing number of people can see from the corner of the Overton Window.

How's that?
 
Gerald Ford wasn't bad enough for you? Okay, let's try Ford dying and Rockefeller takes over? Ford falling down a flight of stairs and breaking his neck isn't that big a stretch.
You are allowed to make the case for a president who was VP and came to power without being elected president.
 
If Calhoun looses reelection, he is gonna go to South Carolina and immediately secede, do not pass go do not collect 200$. Other southern states are probably gonna distance themselves from Calhoun though refuse to stop him, since at this time it would basically mean that if a state seceded it would become a South Carolinian colony. Most likely SC just gets burned back to the stone age by the Union trying to make a point. Terrified slave owning southerners flee into Louisiana, turning the territory into a collection of de facto slave states. MAW never happens, Texas wins it's war but eventually comes under Belgian(!) dominance, and overall the whole union and democratic experiment thing hits a stalemate as the North wants to centralize more, while the "South" becomes more and more agitated and armed and overall distrusting of any politician not born 100 miles from where they grew up. Eventually Europe takes notice, and that is when the real fun begins for America...
 
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