Page "Vice President of the United States" Paragraph 7

As President of the Senate ( Article I, Section 3, Clause 4 ), the Vice President oversees procedural matters and may cast a tie-breaking vote.

There is a strong convention within the U. S. Senate that the Vice President not use his position as President of the Senate to influence the passage of legislation or act in a partisan manner, except in the case of breaking tie votes.

As President of the Senate, John Adams cast twenty-nine tie-breaking votes, a record that no successor except for John C. Calhoun even threatened.

Adams's votes protected the President's sole authority over the removal of appointees, influenced the location of the national capital, and prevented war with Great Britain.

On at least one occasion Adams persuaded senators to vote against legislation that he opposed, and he frequently addressed the Senate on procedural and policy matters.

Adams's political views and his active role in the Senate made him a natural target for critics of George Washington's administration.

Toward the end of his first term, as a result of a threatened resolution that would have silenced him except for procedural and policy matters, he began to exercise more restraint in the hope of realizing the goal shared by many of his successors: election in his own right as President of the United States.