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and a concluding chapter in which Professor Shoup summarizes the proofs as to whether the vice-presidential institution has worked true to the plans of the designers.These purposes are treated under three heads first, that the chief and most obvious purpose was to provide a succession to the executive headship of the nation which would be free of legal doubt, and prompt and automatic in action second, that the Framers had in mind in establishing the vice-presidency a way of facilitating the election of a fit man to the presidency and thirdly, "that the vice-president was to provide a presiding officer for that great Council of the States, the United States Senate, and one who should act as an arbiter when the States were equally divided."As seems inevitable in any book some mis-statements of fact appear although they have no material bearing upon the general purpose of the book, as for instance on page 37 "Hayes and Wheeler were strikingly similar in origin and nature. One was born in Vermont the parents of the other was born and bred there, and moved to the Western Reserve of Ohio only four years before his birth." As a matter of fact Hayes was born in Delaware, Ohio, and Wheeler in Franklin County, New York.The book is very readable. The treatment as a whole is illuminating and does in an historical way for the vice-presidency what Edward Stanwood has done for the presidency in his book entitled A History of the Presidency. The book contains eleven selected illustrations of vicepresidents and is printed with a comprehensive index.

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