This essay explores the relationship between the war on terror, the rise in presidential power, and the unprecedented nature of the Dick Cheney vice presidency, which is generally recognized as America's most influential vice presidency. Whereas historically the second office often had been dismissed as too feeble, the Cheney vice presidency sometimes was attacked as too robust. Although the events of 9/11 and the subsequent war on terror certainly contributed in important ways to the rise of presidential and vice presidential power during the presidency of George W. Bush, both developments were under way and would have occurred, although differently, had al‐Qaeda never attacked the United States. The author attributes Cheney's influential vice presidency in large part to a confluence of factors relating to Bush and Cheney that predated 9/11. The essay suggests that these factors produced a unique vice presidency that, for most of Cheney's tenure, allowed Cheney to escape conventional sources of vice presidential accountability.

Long a pilloried office, the vice presidency has become a significant government institution especially since the service of Walter F. Mondale (1977–81). Mondale and President Jimmy Carter elevated the office to a position of ongoing significance through a carefully designed and executed effort that required the confluence of a number of factors. Mondale's service provided his successors a more robust institution with new resources, enhanced expectations, and a successful model for vice presidential service. Subsequent vice presidents have benefited from Mondale's legacy but have exercised the office in different ways depending, to some degree, on the way in which the factors that shaped Mondale's term have played out for each new incumbent.

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Vice President Thomas R. Marshall has been criticized for not acting more aggressively to exercise presidential powers and duties after President Woodrow Wilson suffered a stroke in October 1919 which compromised his ability to discharge his office for much of the remainder of his term. Yet Marshall faced formidable constraints in the constitutional, political, institutional, and factual context in which he operated. This paper examines these constraints on Marshall's political behavior. His conduct becomes understandable when viewed in the context of those inhibiting factors. The paper also considers the impact of the presidential inability provisions of the subsequently ratified Twenty-Fifth Amendment which renowned Wilson scholar Arthur Link suggested would have made no difference. While questioning the practicality of that counter-factual, the paper argues that the Amendment would have been helpful but suggests that a Wilson-like situation, if one could be imagined in modern times, could present a relatively taxing challenge to our constitutional system.