By Mike Stillman

Collecting presidents is one of the most popular activities for book collectors. Its subjects are usually well-known, material is plentiful, and it can be quite expensive. The same cannot be said for collecting vice-presidents. Except for those who went on to serve as president, or committed some heinous act (Aaron Burr comes to mind here, or Spiro Agnew), few are remembered. John Nance Garner, FDR’s first vice-president, is supposed to have said the vice-presidency is “not worth a bucket of warm spit.” And that comment is about all people remember Garner for today.

Today’s subject is William Rufus DeVane King, vice-president under Franklin Pierce. Pierce himself is not well-remembered (nor well-loved). King is just plain forgotten. Not even in his native Alabama is he a celebrity, despite being the only Alabaman to ever achieve national elective office. If his name comes up at all today, it’s likely to be as the answer to a trivia question, or as part of some obscure controversy. Who was the only president or vice-president sworn into office outside of the United States? Who was the only vice-president never to set foot in Washington during his term of office? Who is subject to rumors of having a homosexual relationship with a president? Who challenged Henry Clay to a duel? Which vice-president had a county unnamed for him? The answer to all of these unimportant questions is William Rufus King.

The controversies to which his name is tied today would probably have saddened King. He was a man who wanted to avoid controversy. He wished to unite his country in a time when its divisions were becoming so deep that a split was all but inevitable. But, two of these issues are ones we still deal with today, and how we look at King now may tell us more about ourselves than about King and his times.

The rumors of a homosexual relationship, by no means confirmed, with president-to-be James Buchanan are instructive in comparing attitudes at the time with attitudes today. Not a big issue in King’s time, gay rights is in the forefront of political issues today.

And then there’s the question of slavery. King, the Alabaman, was, not surprisingly, pro slavery, and owned slaves himself. Of course, he wasn’t the only early American leader to own slaves. Names like Washington and Jefferson also come to mind. Today it is hard to grasp how people who otherwise seem to be good, decent people could ever have supported so indecent an institution. And King appears to be that - a man otherwise liked and admired by his contemporaries, even anti-slavery northerners, who supported this horrific treatment of a race of people. How should we regard these people today? It’s a question that confronts us more starkly with Jefferson, and to a lesser degree, Washington, but it also applies to the obscure King and so many more.