Charles W. Fairbanks
American politician
Died when: 66 years 24 days (792 months)Star Sign: Taurus
Charles Warren Fairbanks (May 11, 1852 – June 4, 1918) was an American politician who served as a senator from Indiana from 1897 to 1905 and the 26th vice president of the United States from 1905 to 1909.
He was also the Republican vice presidential nominee in the 1916 presidential election.Had the Republican ticket been elected, Fairbanks would have become the third (and only non-consecutive) vice president to multiple presidents, after George Clinton and John C.
Calhoun.Born in Unionville Center, Ohio, Fairbanks moved to Indianapolis after graduating from Ohio Wesleyan University.He became an attorney and railroad financier, working under railroad magnate Jay Gould.
Fairbanks delivered the keynote address at the 1896 Republican National Convention and won election to the Senate the following year.In the Senate, he became an advisor to President William McKinley and served on a commission that helped settle the Alaska boundary dispute.
The 1904 Republican National Convention selected Fairbanks as the running mate for President Theodore Roosevelt.As vice president, Fairbanks worked against Roosevelt's progressive policies.
Fairbanks unsuccessfully sought the Republican nomination at the 1908 Republican National Convention and backed William Howard Taft in 1912 against Roosevelt.Fairbanks sought the presidential nomination at the 1916 Republican National Convention, but was instead selected as the vice presidential nominee, with former Associate Justice and Governor Charles Evans Hughes, and would have been the third vice president to serve under different presidents (after George Clinton and John C.
Calhoun), and the only one non-consecutively.The Hughes-Fairbanks ticket, however, narrowly lost to the Democratic ticket of President Woodrow Wilson and Vice President Thomas R.
Marshall.