You know that John Tyler took over the presidency when William Henry Harrison died in 1841, but what else do you know about “Tyler Too”? Here are five things about our tenth president you might find interesting.
1. He Set Up Presidential Succession as We Know It
You probably remember from history class that Tyler ran for the vice-presidency with William Henry Harrison on the “Tippecanoe and Tyler Too!” slogan. You probably also remember that Old Tippecanoe lasted about a month in office before succumbing to an illness. Harrison’s death brought up an odd situation for the federal government. For the first time ever, a President had died in office, and it wasn’t entirely clear how the succession situation would play out.
Amid the confusion, Tyler declared that he had full presidential powers. He arranged to be sworn in and gave an inaugural address while downplaying any talk of being a “temporary” President. Although opponents dubbed Tyler “His Accidency,” his rise to power would set the basic standard for presidential succession that would eventually be formalized in 1967 with the 25th amendment. Tyler’s plan wasn’t exactly the same as the one we have now, though; he spent the rest of his term without a vice president.
2. He Wasn’t So Popular
When you’ve got a nickname like “His Accidency,” you’re already working behind the 8-ball as a politician. That was actually the least of Tyler’s problems, though. He had been elected as part of a Whig Party ticket, but his actual politics didn’t always mesh well with the actual Whig doctrine. Tyler had strong states’ rights leanings, and these beliefs made him butt heads with party bigw(h)igs like Henry Clay and Daniel Webster.
Thanks to these philosophical differences, Tyler earned a slew of dubious presidential firsts. When Tyler twice vetoed a national banking act that Clay was desperately trying to pass, the Whigs expelled him from their party, a definite first for a sitting president. Then, his entire cabinet except for Secretary of State Webster resigned in retaliation over Tyler’s policies.
It gets better/worse, too. In 1842 Tyler’s former allies introduced the first impeachment resolution against a sitting president over his use of veto powers. Representative John Quincy Adams led a committee that found Tyler had improperly used his veto, but the resolution failed. Congress had the last laugh, though; Tyler became the first president to have his veto overridden by the legislature when Congress overrode him on a minor ship-building bill on his last day in office.
3. He Annexed Texas
Texas declared its independence from Mexico in 1836, so for Tyler’s term in office it was its own independent republic. (Mexico, though, still claimed the Lone Star State as part of its territory.) Tyler pushed hard for the annexation of Texas, and as his term was expiring in early 1845, the Senate finally approved a joint resolution in favor of annexation by a slim 27-25 margin. Tyler signed the Texas statehood bill into law on March 1, 1845, a mere three days before the end of his term. The city Tyler, TX, is named after the president who helped get the state into the union.
4. His Grandchildren Are Still Alive!
Tyler was born during George Washington’s presidency, and his own stay in the White House ended in 1845. Yet somehow he still has two living grandsons. How does that work? First, Tyler was, ahem, prolific. He fathered 15 kids, the most of any president. He didn’t slow down in his golden years, either; his last child didn’t turn up until Tyler was 70 years old. His son Lyon Gardiner Tyler was similarly active in his old age; Lyon fathered Harrison Tyler in 1928 at the ripe old age of 75. Harrison Tyler’s brother, Lyon Gardiner Tyler, Jr., is three years older.
Amazingly, both brothers are still alive and kicking. Lyon is a retired professor of history who formerly taught at the Citadel, and Harrison is a retired chemist who now gives history lectures and helps maintain the family’s old plantation, Sherwood Forest, in Charles City County, Virginia.
(Interesting side note about Sherwood Forest: Tyler gave his spread the Robin-Hood-inspired name because he considered himself to be a political outlaw. The main building is the longest frame house in the U.S. It’s 300 feet long but only one room deep!)
5. He Died a Traitor to the United States
After Tyler’s tumultuous presidency ended, his political career was pretty much shot. His 1862 obituary in The New York Times described Tyler as “the most unpopular public man that had ever held any office in the United States,” and even that depiction might have been a bit charitable. Tyler did manage to maintain some popularity throughout the South, though, so when the Confederacy broke away at the start of the Civil War, Tyler found himself elected to the Congress of the Confederate States of America.
Tyler died in 1862 before he could take his seat, but running for a Confederate office severely hurt his stock in Washington. President Lincoln didn’t issue a proclamation mourning Tyler’s passing, and flags didn’t dip to half-staff on federal properties. The Confederacy, on the other hand, threw a lavish funeral for Tyler in Richmond, including a 150-carriage procession.
Just how reviled in the North was Tyler when he died? Check out the penultimate paragraph of the aforementioned Times obit: “He ended his life suddenly, last Friday, in Richmond — going down to death amid the ruins of his native State. He himself was one of the architects of its ruin; and beneath that melancholy wreck his name will be buried, instead of being inscribed on the Capitol’s monumental marble, as a year ago he so much desired.”
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How did he die a traitor? The “traitor” label is revisionist history.
Someone needs to do some research on secession and the real Lincoln.
“When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. ”
“That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.”
posted by david on 8-27-2010 at 1:27 pm
Hmmmmmmmmmmm…yes, david, SPEAKING of revisionist history. Despite what you think of Lincoln and your leanings on the “War of Southern Seccession,” the defeat of the confederacy sealed the debate on the fright of a state to separate from the Union.
..and, the Consittution and not the Declaration of Independence is the basis for the Union.
posted by Zane on 8-27-2010 at 1:52 pm
I love this series.
I love the fact that Tyler’s grandsons are still alive. But I did already know that thanks to the Floss’s Watercooler newsletter.
Also big(w)higs! LOL!
posted by Brit on 8-27-2010 at 2:39 pm
More interesting Tyler trivia:
USS Princeton accident
Second wife, Julia Gardiner TylerThe last year of Tyler’s presidency was marred by a freak accident that killed two of his Cabinet members. During a ceremonial cruise down the Potomac River on February 28, 1844, the main gun of the USS Princeton blew up during a demonstration firing. Tyler was unhurt, but Thomas Gilmer, the Secretary of the Navy, and Abel P. Upshur, who had succeeded Daniel Webster at the State Department nine months earlier, were instantly killed. Also killed or mortally wounded were Rep. Virgil Maxey of Maryland, Rep. David Gardiner of New York, Capt. Beverly Kennon, Chief of the Navy’s Bureau of Construction, Equipment and Repairs, and the President’s valet, while some 20 others were injured.
Tyler’s future second wife, Julia Gardiner, whom Tyler had met two years earlier at a reception, was also aboard the Princeton that day. Her father, David Gardiner, was among those killed during the explosion. Upon hearing of her father’s death, Gardiner fainted into the President’s arms.[18]
Tyler and Gardiner were married not long afterwards in New York City, on June 26, 1844. This made Tyler the first of three sitting presidents to be married in office. The other two were Grover Cleveland and Woodrow Wilson.
It’s from Wikipedia– but I know that it is true.
posted by harold on 8-27-2010 at 3:28 pm
I USED THIS AS A TRIVIA QUESTION FOR YEARS. WHICH PRESIDENT, WHEN HE DIED, WAS NOT OFFICIALLY MOURNED BY THE US GOV’T?
posted by MIKE on 8-27-2010 at 3:55 pm
Hmmm, I recently learned that I might be distantly related to Tyler. After reading this, I’m not so sure I want to be…
posted by Karen on 8-27-2010 at 4:37 pm
David,
The burden of those who choose to rebel against the government is that, unless they successfully abolish the government against which they are rebelling, they are traitors.
It is the job of the populace to rebel against what they believe to be an oppressive government, but it is the job of the government to try to quell that uprising. If the rebels are successful, the government is considered by history to be tyrannical. If the government is successful, the rebels are considered by history to be traitors.
Winners write history.
posted by Troy H. on 8-27-2010 at 5:42 pm
This is the type of stuff I bring up when people talk about the last three presidents and their political climates. It is actually, much better that it has been.
posted by DaveP on 8-27-2010 at 5:43 pm
First, the Oval Office was constructed during the administration of Theodore Roosevelt, barely over a century ago. Therefore, no President earlier than TR occupied said office.
Second, and far more important, Tyler was not a traitor to the United States. Rather, the United States betrayed the Declaration of Independence. It would be more appropriate to remember Tyler as a loyal Virginian than any kind of traitor. While it remains true that the victors write the history, that doesn’t mean the victors are right. Such a notion presumes that superiority of force equals moral superiority. Is that the idea this society wants instilled in schoolyard bullies? To better understand the War for Southern Independence, I highly recommend two books by Thomas J. DiLorenzo: The Real Lincoln and Lincoln Unmasked.
posted by B-Doc on 8-27-2010 at 6:10 pm
David and B. Doc, speaking as a historian and a Southerner myself, your arguments simply don’t hold any credibility whatsoever. The bottom line is that our ancestors fought to hold an entire race of people into an horrific slavery. They deserved to be defeated. There is not justification for their actions. Accept it and move on.
posted by Tex on 8-28-2010 at 2:10 am
Sounds like one of the best presidents we’ve ever had to me despite the negative spin put on him.
posted by John on 8-28-2010 at 2:53 pm
This is great. I teach history at John Tyler High School in Tyler, TX! This article is DEFINITELY going into the Westward Migration lesson.
@ Harold – A county and its county seat near here are named after those two cabinet members you mentioned. Gilmer, TX is the county seat of Upshur County!
posted by ahi on 8-28-2010 at 8:06 pm
David has it down pat. If anything, John Tyler was a complete Patriot candidate that refused to tow the party line, even when it hurt him politically. The media has always smeared the ones who rock the boat. If you look at history, many of the politicians who were the most freedom loving (except for the founders) tend to be treated unfairly or outright ignored. A few articles demonizing someone doesn’t mean the public agreed- in fact, as we can see in the modern age, the media often completely disagrees with public opinion in matters such as this.
He vetoed a national bank, even to his own political ruin. This says everything. That’s called integrity. The history of national banks in America has always been that of wars and oppression. The only time we’ve had a great amount of freedom is when those banks have been thrown from power (such as with Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson). The truth about the Confederacy is that it had nothing to do with slavery. Lincoln was an ardent enemy of abolititionists. He was a white supremacist who believed black people to be “subhumans” and only agreed to abolishing slavery if they could be forcibly (after generations of living here) deported back to Africa, without any compensation to starve to death. He hated black people with a passion that even slave owners didn’t likely have. He wanted to abolish slavery in the south as a means to make slave labor in the north able to smash the economy of the south because they woudn’t agree to subjucate themselves under his military dictatorship. However, he didn’t even abolish slavery in his lifetime (a speech doesn’t mean legislation), the civil war was fought for government power, and the oligarchs and robber barrons took over the country because of it. The supposed “compensation” that was supposed to go to the slaves from these “do gooders” ended up going to the major railroad monopolies instead. England freed the slaves with a legislative vote – We didn’t need a war. Lincoln wanted to consolidate power, much like Bush, and was willing to use the military illegally to do it. He could have just made it illegal: He did not.
The Confederacy was an attempt to restore the original intent for the constitution, and to make slight changes such as limitations on corporations being able to collude with government, abolishing the commerce clause (which is used by the federal government to do almost everything it currently does illegally), etc.. Among these, you won’t find anything about slavery. In fact, many people in the confederacy fled to other countries after the civil war and erected charities and free schools to educate blacks. The first President of the Confederacy was even an abolitionist with some black heridity.
The north experienced a huge problem with deserters once Lincoln delcared that it was a war to free the slaves. There were also plently of Native Americans who fought on the side of the Confederacy to help free them from the result of the near genocide they had been forced into by the statists.
Revisionist history, indeed. Hooray for John Tyler, even if he was a Whig.
posted by Steve on 8-29-2010 at 2:07 am
Zane: That would be like saying that Hitler justly sorted out what the just way to treat jews was by his barbaric persuits. Robbing and murdering people does not mean you are correct. Might does not make right. It just means that you’re more crminal than anyone else.
The constitution severely limited the federal government to perform specific tasks, and that alone. It did not permit the president to amass troops against states who would not surrender to his decrees, or to comandeer the entities that created it. In fact, as far back as the 1790s we can see legal precidents that showed that the Federal Government did not have such powers.
posted by Steve on 8-29-2010 at 2:14 am
John: I imagine this is the sort of treatment Ron Paul would get in 100 years. They’d take the media spin and act like the people hated him.
Want to buy a bridge?
posted by Steve on 8-29-2010 at 2:17 am
Despite many roads named for presidents, there is no road named for Tyler in Chicago – the road between Van Buren, Harrison, and Polk is instead called Congress Ave.
posted by Mary on 8-29-2010 at 11:22 am
Wow Steve, I guess your buddy John Wilkes Booth needn’t have killed him then.
posted by Brit on 8-30-2010 at 2:34 pm
Steve’s gone past revisionist history into fantasy.
“He [Lincoln] wanted to abolish slavery in the south as a means to make slave labor in the north able to smash the economy of the south”
Except for the near total lack of slave labor in the North.
“He could have just made it illegal.”
Other than the fact that he couldn’t .
“The first President of the Confederacy was even an abolitionist…”
The only President of the Confederacy didn’t think blacks were advanced enough to be free. If he had freed his own slaves, the North would have been deprived of one of its best spies, William Jackson.
Tyler was comitted to states rights, but he was also the last U.S. President to own slaves while in office and was comitted to preserving slavery.
Lincoln did not beleive races were equal, nor that they could coexist equally. But he did not support slavery
“I have always thought that all men should be free; but if any should be slaves it should be first those who desire it for themselves, and secondly those who desire it for others. Whenever I hear any one arguing for slavery I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.”
posted by Phil on 8-30-2010 at 6:01 pm