“I can never consent to being dictated to.”
Tyler to his inherited Cabinet upon ascending to the Presidency
John Tyler was an accident. Just one month into his term as Vice President, the William and Mary graduate found himself in an unprecedented situation. The president was dead. And nobody knew exactly what to do next. Was Tyler now the president? Or was he just to assume the “Powers and Duties” of the office without actually being Commander-in-Chief? Tyler did what I’d imagine most would do in his position. He took the oath of office immediately and informed everyone that he was now running the show. This would happen SEVEN MORE TIMES before the 25th Amendment was ratified in 1967, spelling out exactly how succession should flow should the president leave office early.
In yet another edition of The American Presidents Series, I found Gary May’s assessment of John Tyler objective, informative and well written. The gratification of learning a lot about each president continued. The arc of His Ascendency, as Tyler’s inherited Cabinet derisively referred to him, has a sort of the Good, the Bad and the Ugly feel to me. On the foreign policy side there was a lot of good (favorable treaties, opening markets, stronger national defense) that keeps him just above the argument for Worst President Ever. On many domestic issues (slavery, multiple vetoes, the annexation of Texas) Tyler looks quite bad to posterity. The ugly is where it really went south. Literally, he went south to Virginia after his term in office to support the Confederacy. You can take the man out of Virginia…
John Tyler had what was becoming a fairly standard federal service resume. He served in the Virginia House Of Delegates, the US House of Representatives, as Governor of Virginia and a US Senator. But disagreements with the Jackson-led Democrats (a Party which, at the time he was a member) led him into the fold of the newly forming Whig Party. More of a loose coalition of lost toys than a true party, the Whigs included National Republicans representing the north and northeast merchants, industrialists and shippers; believers in Henry Clay’s “American System” of federal power; old Jeffersonian state’s righters who opposed the Force Bill; Anti-Masons thinking the elite had usurped the government; and a whole slue of people who just really hated Andrew Jackson. So disorganized were they in 1836, Democrat Martin Van Buren easily won the presidency. But by 1840 they were much more ready for an election. The running mate of William Henry “Tippecanoe” Harrison, Tyler was chosen largely for two reasons. All the other prominent Whigs were too pride-wounded to be second banana and the “northern” candidate Harrison needed a true Southerner to balance to ticket. Unfortunately for the Whig cause, Tyler was never even asked his stance on their platform issues when named VP. Spoiler alert: it differed greatly from theirs.
After ascending to the presidency, Tyler had several foreign policy wins, a common measuring stick for executive success. He promised to do justice to all nations “while submitting to injustice from none.” He pushed for a stronger army and navy. He proclaimed the “Tyler Doctrine” which harkened to the Monroe-like ethos of “don’t touch that shit or we’ll come after you” to the Pacific, including Hawaii and the Sandwich Islands. Through his assigned intermediary, Tyler scored the Treaty of Wangxia, opening five Chinese ports for trade to keep pace with British shipping commerce. His Secretary of State, Daniel Webster, secured the Webster-Ashburton Treaty, formally fixing the border between Maine and Canada, an issue that had almost brought war between the US and UK on several occasions. Tyler was also able to quell both the Second Seminole War and the Dorr Rebellion in Rhode Island, in the latter employing diplomacy rather than federal troops to achieve peace.
The president would not be so successful on various and sundry domestic issues. A native Virginian, Tyler grew up on a plantation with at least 40 slaves and even began his Senate career with the money he received from selling his favorite slave (his financial affairs were out of sorts and he was short on cash). He believed the “peculiar institution” was evil, but owned dozens of slaves and believe the Southern way of life depended upon it and could not be legislated away. He wouldn’t let his slaves be whipped and hated the Washington salve markets, but never freed any of his own. His personal valet, Armistead, was a slave and lived in the White House with him.
More troublesome within his party ranks, Tyler blocked one bill after another. When he vetoed the re-charter of the national bank (a Whig staple issue) a drunken mob gathered at the White House and threw rocks, shot guns in the air, blew horns and beat drums outside while chanting their displeasure and burning Tyler in effigy. His entire Cabinet, save Daniel Webster, resigned over the veto. Additional vetoes over bills setting tariff and distribution rates further enraged the Whigs who, controlling both Congressional houses and the Presidency, had planned to easily push through their entire agenda only to find an obstinate, unwelcomed Virginian suddenly on the throne. Because of his vetoes and general stance contrary to House Speaker (and top Whig) Henry Clay, Tyler was expelled from the party while in office. To add insult to isolation, formal impeachment investigations were launched against Tyler, a first in American history. It is easy to understand why he did not get elected in his own right. (Ed. note: Though the rioting offenders who assailed the White House were later caught and brought to trial, Tyler pardoned them because he thought political protest was integral to a free society).
To end his turbulent run at the top, Tyler would choose the annexation of Texas as his signature legacy issue. He started a propaganda campaign to drum up support for annexation among the public. He offered up all manner of specious arguments, such as it would prevent its becoming a British colony; that slavery would dissipate if America got bigger; and the never-gets-old patriotic pitch of Manifest Destiny. Three days before he left office, Tyler would get his biggest wish. Texas was annexed. It would become a state later that year.
This post would hardly be complete without mention of the end of John Tyler’s political career. As Civil War loomed and Tyler was a long-retired elder statesman, he was assigned chairman of a peace commission to keep the union together. Much like his presidency, he would sorely disappoint those who appointed him. He voted against the very resolution he helped the commission craft, went home to Virginia voted for secession from the Union. In doing so, he even referenced the American Revolution and said he prayed that “Divine Providence would again crown our efforts with similar success.” #treason.
May ends the book this way: “In short, pragmatists, not ideologues, make better presidents, as the best chief executives – Lincoln and FDR – realized. Similarly, Tyler’s belief that he was heir to the Virginia dynasty drove him to act recklessly in pursuit of annexing Texas. Determined not to leave the White House “ignominiously nor soon forgotten,” he helped unleash furies that nearly destroyed his country and tarnished his own reputation. Those presidents who feel compelled to fulfill a familial or spiritual agenda often court disaster.”
Trivia
- First VP to succeed a dead president – set a precedent that was contested due to Constitutional ambiguity
- Youngest so far to hold the office at 51
- First time the Congress overrode a veto by a two-thirds majority (his last day in office)
- First marriage of a sitting president
- First president to have impeachment inquiry launched (He was not impeached)
- Our most virile president: Had 8 children with his first wife and 7 more with his second wife, 30 years his junior
- One of his grandchildren is still alive. You read that correctly.
Follow-up Reading
- President without a Party: The Life of John Tyler by Christopher Leahy
- John Tyler: The Accidental President by Edward Crapol
- The Diplomacy of Annexation: Texas, Oregon & the Mexican War by David Pletcher