Born near Milledgeville, Georgia, Carl Vinson entered the law school at Mercer University in 1900. Vinson first served in the Georgia House before a defeat thanks to the redistricting plan of 1910.

Service in the U. S. House of Representatives

It was the death of Augustus Bacon that put into action a series of events that promoted Vinson from Baldwin County judge to a member of the U. S. House. Thomas Hardwicke, then Representative of the Tenth District was appointed to fill Bacon's job and Vinson was elected to fill Hardwicke's job. He was 30 years and 11 months when he took his oath of office, making him the youngest man ever to serve in the U. S. House.

He served in the U. S. House for 26 consecutive terms, frequently unopposed for election. One of the toughest battles came in the 1918 Democratic primary, when vitrolic "Tom" Watson ran against the incumbent Vinson.

As a stalwart of the U. S. Armed forces, Vinson was an early and outspoken proponent of the "two ocean" Navy. Vinson's advocacy of a strong Navy was important because he was a member, and later chairman of the House Naval Affairs Committee (he was ranking Democrat from 1923 on, so in years where the Democrats controlled the House, he was chairman) and the Armed Services Committee.

Vinson served as the lone Democrat on President’s Aircraft Board (Calvin Cooledge was President), normally refered to as the "Morrow Board." From this committee came wide-ranging recommendations covering commercial and military air operations, including the formation of the Army Air Corps.

During the post-World War I years several attempts were made to control armaments of the world powers. One of these was the Five-Power Naval Limitation Treaty signed at the London Naval Conference in 1930. Vinson was strongly opposed to the limitations placed on the United States in this treaty, and was even more concerned by the growth of both the Japanese and German Navies beginning in 1933. In 1934, with the support of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Vinson pushed the Vinson-Trammell Act through a Democratic Congress, circumventing many of the stipulations of the 1930 treaty. Vinson can be directly credited with the U. S. Navy's ability to respond to the Japanese following the devastating attack on Pearl Harbor because of his strong support for replacing aging ships.

During World War II the improvements pushed by Vinson gave America the ability to respond quickly with Naval support. One example is the tactical support from U. S. Navy fighters (and the R. A. F. and Free French squadrons) that played a significant role in the invasion of Normandy and the modern gunships easily counteracting the remaining "fast gunboats" (E-boats) of German Navy.

Following World War II, some proposals to create the Air Force included combining the Army Air Corps and the Navy fighters into one group. Vinson saw the Naval air operations as fundimentally different and kept them separate. He also was a strong advocate of a nuclear-powered fleet.

Sam Nuun, a U. S. Senator from Georgia was his grand-nephew.

Carl Vinson: Patriarch of the Armed Forces