Garret Hobart

Garret Augustus Hobart was a New Jersey lawyer, businessman, state legislator, and Republican political leader who became the twenty-fourth vice president. Before entering the national government, he held several offices in the New Jersey legislature and became one of the state's leading Republican organizers. He served as William McKinley's vice president until his death in 1899.

Hobart was born on June 3, 1844, in Long Branch, New Jersey, to Addison Willard Hobart and Sophia Vanderveer. He attended local schools and Rutgers College, graduating in 1863. He studied law and was admitted to the New Jersey bar in 1869. He married Jennie Tuttle in 1869, and they became an important couple in New Jersey political and social life.

Hobart entered politics as a Republican and served as city counsel in Paterson. He was elected to the New Jersey General Assembly in 1872 and became Speaker in 1874. He was subsequently elected to the New Jersey Senate and became its president in 1879. Alongside his political career, he became a successful businessman and attorney, acquiring interests in railroads, banking, and other enterprises.

By the 1890s, Hobart had become one of New Jersey's most influential Republican politicians. In 1896, the Republican Party nominated William McKinley for president and selected Hobart as his running mate. The McKinley-Hobart ticket defeated Democrat William Jennings Bryan and his running mate Arthur Sewall. Hobart took office on March 4, 1897.

Hobart became a particularly active vice president, working closely with McKinley and frequently presiding over the Senate. During the Spanish-American War in 1898, he strongly supported the administration's policies. His political influence led some contemporaries to regard him as an important participant in the administration rather than merely a ceremonial vice president. He was considered a likely candidate for renomination in 1900, but his health deteriorated during 1899.

Hobart died at his home in Paterson on November 21, 1899, at the age of fifty-five. His death created a vacancy in the vice presidency that lasted until Theodore Roosevelt was inaugurated alongside McKinley on March 4, 1901. Because McKinley was reelected in 1900, Hobart would have remained vice president had he survived, making his death one of the more consequential vacancies in the office's nineteenth-century history.

Hobart's legacy is particularly significant because he helped establish the vice presidency as a more active political position within a presidential administration. His close relationship with McKinley made him an important participant in the administration's political strategy and foreign-policy debates. His death also directly opened the vice presidency to Theodore Roosevelt, whose subsequent succession to the presidency after McKinley's assassination transformed American political history.