How many people have ever heard of John Tyler? How many could place him correctly in the order of the Presidents of the United States? Very, very few, I’m sure.
He was our ninth President and the first of eight “accidental” presidents, having assumed the Presidency as a result of the death of General William Henry Harrison after only 30 days in office.
As Jared Cohen writes in his excellent book, “Accidental Presidents: Eight Men Who Changed America,” Tyler was brought on to the Whig party's ticket with the expectation (unfulfilled) that he would help the party win the state of Virginia where Tyler was from.
Immediately after the inauguration, Tyler returned to his home in Virginia, fully expecting to play out a quiet four years. That was not to be.
I never thought I would read about Tyler let alone write about him. Yet his Presidency provides some interesting and unexpected revelations:
- At first, there was heated debate whether he should be called the “President” or rather “Vice President and Acting President.” Daniel Webster and others who were aspiring to assume the next Presidency argued for the weakened position. Tyler stood his ground. They had not expected much strength of character from Tyler. They were fooled.
- To the dismay of the Whig party, Tyler turned out to be more of a Jacksonian Democrat than a Whig, especially in his opposition to the National Bank. He vetoed two bills passed by large majorities to establish the bank. The reaction in Congress to these vetoes makes the congressional mayhem that we see today seem almost tame by comparison.
As described by Cohen and the newspaper accounts he cites, “The House floor degenerated into a street fight with most of the members rushing to the scene of action and crowding around the combatants, some jumping from desk to desk over the heads of other members. People were thrown on their backs against desks. The House Clerk seized the Sergeant-At-Arms mace and ran about the House with a ponderous instrument on his shoulder like a Roman battle axe screaming, order, gentlemen order.”
In protest, five of Tyler’s Cabinet members resigned. Their objective was to get Tyler to resign, but he had no intention of doing so. Later, he wrote, “My resignation would amount to a declaration to the world that our system of government had failed.”
- The rancor went on. In 1842, for the first time in history, impeachment proceedings were launched. They did not reach a guilty verdict.
- As I’ve seen in other leaders, Tyler proved to be his own worst enemy. He assumed, incorrectly, that the harsh critiques were a Washington phenomenon and did not permeate the masses. He was out of touch; he never really spent time with the people. He didn’t know the voters and made no attempts to correct the negative image painted by the anti-Tyler press.
By now, the Whigs had become so focused on denigrating Tyler, they missed the path that would ultimately result in their falling on their sword. It was over the annexation of Texas.
Hoping to duck the debate between southern anti-abolitionists and northern abolitionists, which was dividing both the Whigs and the Democrats, the leading candidates for the 1844 Presidency from both parties opposed the annexation of Texas. They were Henry Clay (Whig) and Martin Van Buren (Democrat). However, Tyler saw Texas as not only a political way to split the parties, hoping to assume a third party victory (a long shot from the start), but he saw this as the right thing for the nation.
- The Republic of Texas, now independent from Mexico, was very concerned that an attack from Mexico would follow annexation. Without any authority from the President, the envoy from Texas to the U.S. assured the Texan government that the U.S. would put forces in place to resist any Mexican attack.
Both Clay and Van Buren lost their leading position as candidates by opposing the annexation of Texas. A dark horse, James Polk from Tennessee ran as a Democrat, supporting the annexation of Texas, and decisively won the election. Texas quickly became part of the United States.
The annexation of Texas undoubtedly would have occurred at some point even without Tyler’s maneuvering, but it happened sooner because he pursued it to combat both the Whigs and Democrats who disavowed him. He hoped, mistakenly as it turned out, that it would be the foundation for a winning third party movement.
There are a number of events in this story that I find to be humbling reminders.
Daniel Webster’s unbounded attacks on Tyler, for his own interest, ended up serving him poorly.
Stories of many individuals, seemingly large and important at the time, are now totally forgotten, reminding us of the transient nature of our lives and the hope that there will be value in it in the values and confidence we pass on to others.
The importance of character: which Tyler displayed, as people tried to take away his power, and as he stood up courageously to disagree with his party on the issue (the National Bank) they felt most important.
The role of pure chance: Tyler was almost killed in the explosion of a gun on the ship, “Princeton,” on a short cruise to display the nation’s growing naval power. His Secretary of State, Abel Ushur, was killed; so were dozens of others, including the father of Julia Gardner, whom he was pursuing. It is said the only reason he was not close to where his Secretary of State was killed was that he was lingering behind to try to woo Julia in the ship's salon. Tyler went on to marry Julia. His first wife had died a few years earlier. Julia was in her mid-20s; thirty years his junior, the youngest First Lady in history. They went on to have seven children. Tyler had already had seven children with his first wife, making a total of fourteen, the largest number of children a President fathered in history.
These are just a few of the unknown vagaries of the life of the ninth President of the United States.
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