John Tyler

John Tyler was born on March 29, 1790, at Greenway, his family’s plantation in Charles City County, Virginia, the same county in which William Henry Harrison was born. His father, John Tyler, owned a plantation of more than a thousand acres worked by enslaved people and was a friend of Thomas JeffersonThomas JeffersonThomas Jefferson (1743–1826) was the author of the Declaration of Independence and the third president of the United States, serving from 1801 to 1809. He had earlier been governor of Virginia, minister to France, secretary of state and vice president.Open the full entry; he had been Speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates in the 1780s and a member of the Convention of 1788, and later served as governor of Virginia from 1808 to 1811 and as a federal district judge from 1811 to 1813. His mother, Mary Armistead Tyler, died of a stroke when he was seven. His parents had eight children.⁠[1][2]

After attending local schools, Tyler entered the preparatory department of the College of William and Mary in 1802 and graduated in 1807 at the age of 17. He read law with his father and an attorney cousin and was admitted to the Virginia bar in 1809. The family then moved to Richmond, where he joined the firm of Edmund Randolph, the nation’s first attorney general.⁠[2][1][3]

In December 1811, at the age of 21, Tyler began the first of five consecutive one-year terms representing Charles City County in the Virginia House of Delegates. He led a campaign to censure legislators who had supported the Bank of the United States, which he regarded as an expansion of national power. Around the time of his election his father died, and he inherited considerable property and enslaved people.⁠[1][2]

During the War of 1812 Tyler supported the war and led a small militia company, which saw no action. On December 8, 1815, the General Assembly elected him to the Council of State.⁠[2][1]

On March 29, 1813, Tyler married Letitia Christian, who came from another prominent Virginia family. She stayed mostly at home and rarely joined him in Washington.⁠[1][2]

Tyler won a special election to the U.S. House of Representatives in November 1816 and was reelected in 1817 and 1819. He opposed the nationalist program of a national bank, tariffs and a strong standing army, and opposed the Missouri Compromise of 1820, objecting to federal limits on slavery. He resigned from the House in 1821.⁠[1][2][4]

In 1823 Tyler was again elected to the Virginia House of Delegates, serving three consecutive one-year terms; there he opposed letting voters choose presidential electors directly. In the 1824 presidential election he supported John Quincy AdamsJohn Quincy AdamsJohn Quincy Adams (1767–1848) was an American diplomat and politician who served as secretary of state from 1817 to 1825 and as the sixth President of the United States from 1825 to 1829, and afterwards sat in the House of Representatives until his death.Open the full entry, mainly to block Andrew JacksonAndrew JacksonAndrew Jackson (1767–1845) was an American soldier and politician who served as President of the United States from 1829 to 1837, after leading U.S. forces to victory at the Battle of New Orleans in the War of 1812.Open the full entry.⁠[1][2]

On December 10, 1825, the Virginia legislature elected Tyler governor, and he was reelected in December 1826. The office carried little real power; he resigned, effective March 4, 1827, to take a seat in the U.S. Senate.⁠[1][2]

The Virginia legislature elected Tyler to the U.S. Senate on January 13, 1827, and he took his seat on March 4, 1827. In the 1828 election he reluctantly backed Andrew Jackson but soon grew disillusioned with Jackson’s “spoils system.” From October 5, 1829, to January 15, 1830, he served as one of four Richmond-area delegates to the Virginia Constitutional Convention.⁠[1][2]

In February 1833 Tyler gave a fiery Senate speech against Andrew Jackson’s threat of force against South CarolinaSouth CarolinaSouth Carolina (officially the State of South Carolina) is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Ocean bordering Georgia and North Carolina; its capital is Columbia and its most populous city is Charleston. One of the original 13 states, it ratified the U.S. Constitution on May 23, 1788, the eighth state to do so. Its population in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) was 5,118,425.Open the full entry and cast the lone Senate vote against the Force Act, even though it was part of a compromise that lowered tariffs. On February 15, 1833, the Virginia legislature reelected him to the Senate.⁠[2][1]

During the Bank War, Tyler condemned Jackson’s actions against the Bank of the United States, calling him “King Andrew” on the Senate floor, supported Henry Clay’s motion to censure Jackson and joined the new Whig Party, which Clay, John C. Calhoun and Daniel Webster helped form.⁠[2][5]

When the Jacksonian-controlled Virginia legislature instructed Tyler to vote to expunge Jackson’s censure from the Senate record, he refused and resigned from the Senate in February 1836. In that year’s election the Whigs ran regional candidates to deny Martin Van BurenMartin Van BurenMartin Van Buren (1782–1862) was an American politician who served as governor of New York, secretary of state and vice president before becoming President of the United States from 1837 to 1841; in 1848 he ran for president again as the Free Soil Party candidate.Open the full entry an electoral majority; Tyler was nominated for vice president on two regional tickets, one of them with Hugh Lawson White, and received 47 electoral votes, while Van Buren won the presidency.⁠[2][1]

In January 1839 Tyler returned to the Virginia House of Delegates. Late that year the Whigs, seeking the votes of Southern states’ rights supporters, made him their compromise nominee for vice president as William Henry Harrison’s running mate, campaigning under the slogan “Tippecanoe and Tyler Too.” In the November 1840 election the ticket defeated Van Buren 234 electoral votes to 60.⁠[1][4][5]

When William Henry Harrison died on April 4, 1841, Tyler was at his Virginia plantation; he was rushed to Washington and took the presidential oath on April 6. Rejecting the idea that he was a temporary president, he claimed the full powers of the office under the Constitution, setting a precedent for later transfers of power; critics mocked him as “His Accidency,” and letters addressed to “Acting President Tyler” were returned unopened. Congress later confirmed that he was president and not merely acting president.⁠[6][5][7][1]

Tyler kept Harrison’s entire cabinet and informed its members, “I, as president, shall be responsible for my administration,” adding that he would accept the resignation of anyone who disagreed.⁠[7]

Tyler vetoed Henry Clay’s bill to create a national bank with branches in several states; when Congress passed a similar bank bill, he vetoed it as well on states’ rights grounds. In September 1841 every member of the cabinet except Secretary of State Daniel Webster resigned, and two days later the Whigs expelled Tyler from the party and demanded his resignation.⁠[4][7][1][8]

Despite the conflict, the Tyler administration and the Whig Congress passed significant legislation. The “Log-Cabin” bill allowed settlers to claim 160 acres before public sale and pay $1.25 an acre later, and in 1842 Tyler signed a tariff that protected Northern manufacturers.⁠[4]

After Tyler vetoed two higher-tariff bills, Whigs in Congress began speaking of impeachment in August 1842; a House committee led by John Quincy Adams concluded that he had misused the veto and adopted a resolution of censure. In January 1843 Representative John Minor Botts of Virginia introduced an impeachment resolution, which failed; it was the first impeachment resolution against a president in the House of Representatives.⁠[7][1][4][3]

On August 9, 1842, Secretary of State Daniel Webster and the British envoy Lord Ashburton signed the Webster-Ashburton Treaty, settling the northeastern boundary dispute with British North America: of the disputed territory, 7,015 square miles went to the United States and 5,012 to Great Britain, and the boundary was fixed through the Great Lakes to the Lake of the Woods. Under the treaty U.S. warships would patrol the African coast to search suspected slavers flying the American flag; the OregonOregonOregon (officially the State of Oregon) is a state on the Pacific coast of the western United States; its capital is Salem and its largest city is Portland. It was admitted to the Union on February 14, 1859, as the 33rd state. Its population in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) was 4,237,256.Open the full entry boundary was left for later.⁠[9][1]

Letitia Christian Tyler, who had suffered a stroke before her husband became president, died in the White House on September 10, 1842.⁠[1][6]

Tyler chose Caleb Cushing, a congressman from MassachusettsMassachusettsMassachusetts (officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts) is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States; its capital and largest city is Boston. One of the original 13 states, it ratified the U.S. Constitution on February 6, 1788, the sixth state to do so. Its population in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) was 7,029,917.Open the full entry, as the U.S. representative in negotiations with China. In 1844 Cushing and his Chinese counterparts signed the Treaty of Wangxia at Wangxia, a suburb of Macau, the first formal treaty between the United States and China. It opened five treaty ports (Guangzhou, Xiamen, Fuzhou, Ningbo and Shanghai), granted Americans in China extraterritoriality and included a most-favored-nation clause.⁠[10]

In the 1844 presidential contest Tyler competed with James K. PolkJames K. PolkJames K. Polk (1795–1849) was an American politician who served as Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives and governor of Tennessee, and as the 11th president of the United States from 1845 to 1849. During his presidency the United States annexed Texas, settled the Oregon boundary with Britain and, through the Mexican-American War, acquired a vast territory in what is now the American Southwest.Open the full entry and Henry Clay; Polk also backed TexasTexasTexas is a U.S. state in the south-central United States, with its capital at Austin and its largest city Houston. It was admitted to the Union on December 29, 1845, as the 28th state, and the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) counted 29,145,505 residents.Open the full entry statehood. Fearing that a split vote would hand the election to Clay, Tyler withdrew.⁠[5]

Texas had declared independence from Mexico five years before Tyler took office. Tyler hoped annexation would revive his political standing, and his supporters adopted the slogan “Tyler and Texas!”; Mexico threatened war, and many Americans objected because Texas would be another slave state. In 1844 Tyler appointed John C. Calhoun, an open defender of slavery, as secretary of state. The administration negotiated an annexation treaty in April 1844, and in June the Senate rejected it, with Martin Van Buren helping to defeat it.⁠[7][1][3]

Five months after Letitia’s death Tyler began courting Julia Gardiner, about 30 years his junior; his children disapproved, and the press covered the romance extensively. They married in New York City on June 26, 1844, when she was 23.⁠[7][1]

After the treaty failed, Tyler turned to a joint resolution, which required only a majority in each chamber rather than the two-thirds Senate vote needed for a treaty. Congress passed the joint resolution in February 1845, and Tyler signed it on March 1, three days before leaving office, admitting Texas to the Union as a slaveholding state.⁠[5][7][1][3]

On Tyler’s last day in office, Congress overrode his veto of a minor bill funding some small government ships, the first override of a presidential veto in U.S. history.⁠[7][5]

After his term ended on March 4, 1845, Tyler and Julia returned to Charles City County, Virginia, and settled at Sherwood Forest, a plantation he had purchased and named. He left office nearly bankrupt; money was often tight afterward, though the couple lived comfortably and their family grew.⁠[6][1][5][11]

In January 1861 the Virginia General Assembly invited the states to a peace conference and elected five delegates, among them Tyler. The conference opened in Washington, D.C., on February 4, 1861, with delegates from 14 free states and 7 slave states that had not seceded, and Tyler served as its president. He voted against the conference’s seven resolutions, which were sent to Congress in late February and failed in the Senate in early March without a House vote. No agreement was reached between Tyler and President-elect Abraham LincolnAbraham LincolnAbraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was the 16th president of the United States (1861–1865). Born to a frontier farming family in Kentucky, he had less than a year of formal schooling, taught himself law, and served in the Illinois legislature and the U.S. House of Representatives before winning the presidency as the Republican candidate in 1860. During the Civil War he preserved the Union, issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 and pushed the Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery through Congress. He was shot by John Wilkes Booth at Ford’s Theatre in Washington on April 14, 1865, and died the next day.Open the full entry.⁠[1][11]

Tyler was elected to the Virginia Convention on February 4, 1861, and the convention first met on February 13. On April 4 he voted for secession, a motion defeated 45 to 90; on April 17 he again voted for secession, which passed 88 to 55. He chaired the committee that negotiated Virginia’s entry into the Confederacy and signed the Ordinance of Secession on June 14.⁠[1]

On June 21, 1861, the Virginia Convention unanimously elected Tyler to the Provisional Confederate Congress, and in November 1861 he was elected to the Confederate House of Representatives, which was to meet in February 1862.⁠[1][3]

Tyler died on January 18, 1862, in his room at the Ballard House hotel in Richmond, before he could take his seat in the Confederate House, and was buried in Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond. In the North he was denounced as a traitor.⁠[1][11]

Tyler and Letitia Christian had three sons and five daughters, one of whom died at birth; with Julia Gardiner he had two daughters and five sons, among them David Gardiner Tyler and Lyon Gardiner Tyler. He fathered his last child at seventy, and that child outlived the presidency of Harry S. Truman. During his presidency he gave his eldest son, John, a salaried post as press secretary, but dismissed him near the end of the term because the son drank heavily and was unreliable.⁠[1][12]

Debt troubled Tyler throughout his life: he spent beyond his means to keep up appearances and advance politically, lent money generously and often unwisely, earned little from public office and could not rely on farming, and he died in debt.⁠[12]

Tyler enslaved between 50 and 60 African Americans at Sherwood Forest, sold at least one person after leaving office, and freed none in his will; at his death, ownership of the enslaved people passed to Julia. The Miller Center’s essay states that he owned seventy slaves, forbade overseers to whip enslaved people or separate families, never attended an auction and was privately uneasy about slavery, and judges that, though a compassionate master, he was still an owner of other people.⁠[6][12]

Sherwood Forest is a National Historic Landmark and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and the Virginia Landmarks Register; it has been continuously occupied by Tyler’s descendants and is owned and operated by the Tyler family. In the Presidents Circle of Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond stands the John Tyler Memorial, a bronze bust of Tyler on a granite shaft by the sculptor Raymond Averill Porter, dedicated on October 12, 1915.⁠[6][13][14]

In 1857 Congress commissioned the painter George Peter Alexander Healy to paint a series of presidential portraits for the White House; in 1859 Healy visited Tyler at his Virginia retirement home and painted a smaller copy of Tyler’s White House portrait, now in the National Portrait Gallery.⁠[8]

The Miller Center’s essay judges that Tyler’s insistence on exercising the full powers of the presidency was his most important contribution, and that while he could not set domestic policy, he could block a congressional majority. The White House biography judges that his administration strengthened the presidency but deepened the sectional divisions that later contributed to the Civil War; by the end of his term he had replaced the original Whig cabinet with Southern conservatives.⁠[7][4]

Sherwood Forest: Official website: https://www.sherwoodforest.org/ (opens in a new window).⁠[13]