Joanna has taught high school social studies both online and in a traditional classroom since 2009, and has a doctorate in Educational Leadership
The generation to which William Rufus de Vane King was born, grew up in a new nation with freshly won independence. For those individuals like King, wealthy members of the land holding gentry, the possibilities for greatness were limitless. However, King's generation would also be asked to fight Great Britain again and navigate the tumultuous antebellum period.
King was a native North Carolinian born to a wealthy planter in April of 1786. After graduating from the University of North Carolina, he apprenticed to an attorney to read the law which was an acceptable form of attending law school in those days. As a southerner, King was a Jeffersonian Democrat, which meant that he supported state's rights, a limited federal government, and protecting slavery.
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King was quit adept at moving through the ranks of state politics, and at the young age of 22 was elected to the North Carolina House of Commons in 1808. In 1810, the still young King was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives positioned perfectly as a War hawk and pro war with Great Britain who had begun policies of forcing American sailors into forced service in their navy upon capture. As a War hawk and a Jeffersonian, King found himself aligned with the likes of the powerful Congressman Henry Clay as well as a young John C. Calhoun.
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The second war with Great Britain, the War of 1812 began at the end of King's first term in the House. He spent the first years of the war fighting in the House for matters that would support the nation and the Madison administration. His work earned him a commission as diplomat in 1816, and after resigning his position in the House travelled through Europe negotiating the return of American ships seized by England during the war.
When the war ended, new territories in the west and south opened from treaties with Great Britain. King and others followed the new trend of moving south, and thus created new slaveholding states added to the Union. By 1818, King was a wealthy cotton farmer on a 700-acre plantation in Alabama where he helped to found the city of Selma.
With his wealth, status as a Founding Father of the state, and prior experience as a member of Congress and diplomat; King returned to Congress as a Senator from Alabama in 1819.
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When King returned to Congress the primary issues of the day were westward expansion and slavery. King had personal stakes in both issues as a beneficiary of westward expansion and as a slave holder representing a slave holding state. Congress and the nation itself were divided over the issue of how to add new territories to the country in order to keep the balance between slave holding and non-slave holding states. King played the role of moderate peace maker within his party and also between his party and the anti-slavery Whigs in the Senate.
Secondary issues that plagued national politics also played heavily in King's role as peacemaker. As the nation grew it became important to build an infrastructure that connected the vast and rapidly growing country. Also, state's rights had morphed into a debate over protecting the centralized banking system and high tariffs versus protecting the small farmers of the South.
In 1829 Democrat Andrew Jackson became president, supported by King and others like Clay and Calhoun. Calhoun would serve in Jackson's administration for a time, but come to blows with the president over tariffs in his native South Carolina. Clay for his part introduced his American System legislation in Congress that was antithetical to Jackson's, aims and called for improvements to infrastructure and support for the Second Bank of the United States.
As old friends of Clay and Calhoun, King was caught between them and his support for Jackson. For the duration of Jackson's administration, King would successfully and unsuccessfully play mediator between Clay and Jackson and between Calhoun and Jackson-work that would make him very popular in the post Jackson years.
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Martin Van Buren became president in 1837, and considered King for running mate before choosing Richard Johnson instead. When Van Buren lost his re-election bid in 1841, before ending his campaign he considered King for running mate that election year also.
In 1841 Whig candidate John Tyler became president, and under his administration King served as ambassador to France in 1844. Stationed in Paris, King spent his years as diplomat longing to return to the Senate, and by 1846 he was back in Alabama in an unsuccessful battle for the Senate. Luckily, in 1848 he was appointed to fill the seat of an Alabama Senator who had been appointed ambassador to Russia.
In 1850 President Zachary Taylor died in office, which made Millard Fillmore the new executive in chief and found the Senate in need of another presiding officer. Senator King was selected to serve as President Pro Tempore who serves as presiding officer in absence of the vice president. This also meant that because Fillmore had no second, King was now de facto vice president.
Unfortunately, his time in that office would be short.
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King didn't remain de facto vice president for very long. Franklin Pierce selected King for running mate in the Election of 1852, and after winning King settled into the position officially.
As events would have it, by that time King was in the final stages of tuberculosis and needed to move to a warmer climate to hopefully recover. In 1853 King moved to Havana, Cuba (where he took the oath of office) but was determined to return to D.C. Before his full health returned, King made an ill-advised trip home to his plantation in Alabama where he then planned to travel back to D.C. and to work.
The trip home to Alabama was too much for the deathly ill King to undertake. On April 18, 1853 King died at his plantation at the age of 67.
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The life that William King lived was indicative of his time and stature. His wealth granted him access to the North Carolina statehouse and to the U.S. House of Representatives while still young. As a War hawk and Jeffersonian Democrat King embodied the large issues of the day in Congress. His support of Andrew Jackson and friendship with Henry Clay and John Calhoun made him popular enough to become President Pro Tempore of the Senate, and then Vice President at the end of his life.
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