Daniel D. Tompkins was the second vice president to serve two full terms, after John Adams, who was George Washington's vice president from 1789 to 1797. He would be the last to do so for nearly a century, until Thomas R. Marshall, who served under Woodrow Wilson from 1913 to 1921.

James S. Sherman was known as "Sunny Jim". He was not only the first vice president to fly in a plane, but also the first to throw out the ceremonial first pitch at a baseball game.

Fairbanks, a conservative whom Roosevelt once labeled a "reactionary machine politician" (and who had been caricatured as a "Wall Street Puppet" during the campaign), actively worked against Roosevelt's progressive "Square Deal" program.

During the election of 1836, Martin Van Buren was found to have received 170 votes for president, but Richard Mentor Johnson had received only 147 for vice-president. Although Virginia had electors pledged to both Van Buren and Johnson, the state's 23 "faithless electors" refused to vote for Johnson, leaving him one vote short of a majority. On February 8, 1837, the Senate voted strictly along party lines, with Johnson becoming vice-president by a vote of 36, as opposed to 16 for Whig Francis Granger, with three senators absent.

As a man who once served in that very position, Roosevelt was quoted as saying of the job, "It is not a stepping stone to anything" before adding "except oblivion."