John Tyler 20th President of the United States 10th under the US
Constitution
John Tyler 20th
President of the United States
10th under the US Constitution
Vice President under William Henry Harrison
March 4, 1841 until April 4, 1841
John Tyler was born on March 29, 1790 in Charles City County,
Virginia, a member of the tobacco planting aristocracy of Tidewater Virginia.
His father, John Tyler, was an American Revolution patriot who served three
terms as Governor of Virginia from 1808 to 1811. His mother was Mary Armistead.
Tyler was brought up believing that the Constitution was to be strictly
interpreted and he never strayed from that belief. Aspiring to a career in
politics, he attended the College of William and Mary studying law. He graduated
in 1807 and was admitted to the bar in 1809. Devoted to the principles of Thomas
Jefferson of state rights and a strictly limited power for the federal
government he entered politics. Tyler was known as an independent, refusing to
compromise on principles to please political allies. At the age of 21, he was
elected to the Virginia legislature. This was the beginning of a career in state
and national politics lasting until he left the presidency in 1845.
Tyler first married Letitia Christian on March 29, 1813. They had eight
children. Two years after the death of his first wife, Tyler married Julia
Gardiner on June 26, 1844, thus becoming the first president to marry while in
office. They had seven children.
John Tyler was the first Vice President to succeed to the presidency upon
the death of the incumbent. Tyler served only one single term, the term
remaining of predecessor William Henry Harrison. His detractors dubbed him "His
Accidency". He was engaged in bitter struggles with his rivals in
congress.
Throughout his career Tyler displayed a political independence and a
commitment to state rights. He became a member of the House of Representatives
and served from 1816 to 1821. While in the House, Tyler voted against most
nationalist legislation and opposed the Missouri
Compromise. Tyler consistently opposed the Bank of the United States with
state branches throughout the tenure of his career. This he saw as a federal
infringement of the constitutional rights of the states. Tyler served five years
in the state legislature. His first political act was to censure United States
Senators from Virginia for supporting, and in one case, voting to re-charter the
bank. However, in 1836 Tyler sided with bank advocates against President
Jackson when the Senate moved to remove from record the censure of Jackson
for his removal of federal funds from the bank. Tyler resigned his seat rather
than vote as directed and severed his Democratic Party ties. Upon leaving the
House he served in the United States Senate from 1827 to 1836. As Senator, he
supported Andrew Jackson for President reluctantly. Later, Tyler would join with
Henry Clay, Daniel Webster and their newly formed Whig party in opposing
President Jackson. John Tyler, like his father, served twice as Governor of
Virginia.
Hoping to broaden their electoral appeal, The Whig Party nominated Tyler
for Vice President as William Henry Harrison
in 1840. Tyler's admiration of Henry Clay, the Whig leader in the Senate, added
to his appeal. The slogan "Tippecanoe and Tyler Too" became the
'battle cry' of convention members.
Within one short month after his inauguration, the victorious Harrison had
died of pneumonia. John Tyler succeeded him to the Presidency and took the oath
of office as prescribed for the President in the Constitution
on April 6, 1841. Due to the fact that he was the first person to assume the
Presidency without having been elected to the office, many contended that he was
only an acting president. Tyler, however, insisted that he was president in the
full sense of the word. Nationalist Whigs intended to force him to accept their
legislative program. Henry Clay had assumed that the
new president would pass legislation favored by the Whigs. The Whig leadership
and Clay were infuriated when Tyler vetoed two successive Whig-sponsored bills
that would have allowed a national bank to open branches in the states without
state consent. Relations became so strained that Tyler was placed in the
position of vetoing more bills than Jackson had.
Congress for the first time in history overrode a presidential veto. The
most significant domestic measure of Tyler's single term was the Preemption Act
of 1841 giving squatters on government lands the right to buy 160 acres at the
minimum auction price, without competitive bidding. Tyler's greatest successes
came in the realm of foreign policy. He had supported Webster in the talks that
lead to the 1842 Webster-Ashburton Treaty, settling the Maine boundary dispute.
He ended the Seminole War, extended the Monroe Doctrine to Hawaii, and opened
the first American trade mission to China. In 1842, the House adopted a
resolution charging him with offenses justifying impeachment for vetoing a
protective tariff, the first impeachment resolution in history against a
President. A committee headed by Representative John
Quincy Adams reported that the President had misused the veto power, but
without the necessary votes, the resolution failed. When members of his cabinet
quit their positions, Tyler simply replaced them with men of his own choosing. Daniel
Webster, who was Secretary of State, was a holdover.
Tyler pondered between creating a new party or aligning with the Democrats
as their candidate in 1844. He also considered running as an independent,
putting the election into the House, but gave up the idea when the Democrats
nominated James K. Polk and came out for the
annexation of Texas. His last act as president was to sign the bill providing
for the annexation of Texas. Now a man without a party, he did not run for
reelection in 1844. Democrat James K. Polk won the presidency over Henry Clay.
Tyler retired to his Virginia plantation in 1845. He returned to public
life in February 1861 and served as chairman of the peace convention called to
avert civil war. As a member of the Virginia convention elected to consider
Virginia's secession on the eve of the American Civil War, Tyler voted for
withdrawal from the Union. He served briefly in the Confederate Congress and was
elected to its House of Representatives, but died before he could take office.
He died in Richmond, Virginia on January 18, 1862.
TYLER, John, tenth president of the United States, born at Greenway, Charles
City County, Virginia, 29 March, 1790; died in Richmond, Virginia, 18 January,
1862. He was the second son of Judge John Tyler and Mary Armistead. In early
boyhood he attended the small school kept by a Mr. McMurdo, who was so diligent
in his use of the birch that in later years Mr. Tyler said " it was a
Wonder he did not whip all the sense out of his scholars." At the age
of eleven young Tyler was one of the ringleaders in a rebellion in which the
despotic McMurdo was overpowered by numbers, tied hand and foot, and left locked
up in the school-house until late at night, when a passing traveler effected an
entrance and released him. On complaining to Judge Tyler, the indignant
school-master was met with the apt reply, "Sic semper tyrannis!"
The future president was graduated at William and Mary in 1807. At college he
showed a strong interest in ancient history. He was also fond of poetry and
music, and, like Thomas Jefferson, was a
skilful performer on the violin.
In 1809 he was admitted to the bar, and had already begun to obtain a good
practice when he was elected to the legislature, and took his seat in that body
in December, 1811. He was here a firm supporter of Mr.
Madison's administration, and the war with Great Britain, which soon
followed, afforded him an opportunity to become conspicuous as a forcible and
persuasive orator. One of his earliest public acts is especially interesting in
view of the famous struggle with the Whigs, which in later years he conducted as
president. The charter of the first Bank of the United States, established in
1791, was to expire in twenty years; and in 1811 the question of renewing the
charter came before congress. The bank was very unpopular in Virginia, and the
assembly of that state, by a vote of 125 to 35, instructed its senators at
Washington, Richard Brent and William B. Giles, to vote against a re-charter.
The instructions denounced the bank as an institution in the founding of which
congress had exceeded its powers and grossly violated state rights. Yet there
were many in congress who, without approving the principle upon which the bank
was founded, thought the eve of war an inopportune season for making a radical
change in the financial system of the nation. Of the two Virginia senators,
Brent voted in favor of the re-charter, and Giles spoke on the same side, and
although, in obedience to instructions, he voted contrary to his own opinion, he
did so under protest. On 14 January, 1812, Mr. Tyler, in the Virginia
legislature, introduced resolutions of censure, in which the senators were taken
to task, while the Virginia doctrines, as to the unconstitutional character of
the bank and the binding force of instructions, were formally asserted.
Mr. Tyler married, 29 March, 1813, Letitia, daughter of Robert Christian, and
a few weeks afterward, was called into the field at the head of a company of
militia to take part in the defense of Richmond and its neighborhood, now
threatened by the British. This military service lasted for a month, during
which Mr. Tyler's company was not called into action. He was re-elected to the
legislature annually, until in November, 1816, he was chosen to fill a vacancy
in the United States house of representatives. In the regular election to the
next congress, out of 200 votes given in his native county, he received all but
one. As a member of congress he soon made himself conspicuous as a strict
constructionist. When Mr. Calhoun introduced his
bill in favor of internal improvements, Mr. Tyler voted against it. He opposed
the bill for changing the per diem allowance of members of congress to an annual
salary of $1,500. He opposed, as premature, Mr. Clay's proposal to add to the
general appropriation bill a provision for $18,000 for a minister to the
provinces of the La Plata, thus committing the United States to a recognition of
the independence of those revolted provinces. He also voted against the proposal
for a national bankrupt act. He condemned, as arbitrary and insubordinate, the
course of General Jackson in Florida, and
contributed an able speech to the long debate over the question as to censuring
that gallant commander. He was a member of a committee for inquiring into the
affairs of the national bank, and his most elaborate speech was in favor of Mr.
Trimble's motion to issue a scire facias against that institution. On all these
points Mr. Tyler's course seems to have pleased his constituents: in the spring
election of 1819 he did not consider it necessary to issue the usual circular
address, or in any way to engage in a personal canvass. He simply distributed
copies of his speech against the bank, and was re-elected to congress
unanimously.
The most important question that came before the 16th congress related to the
admission of Missouri to the Union. In the debates over this question Mr. Tyler
took ground against the imposition of any restrictions upon the extension of
slavery. At the same time he declared himself on principle opposed to the
perpetuation of slavery, and he sought to reconcile these positions by the
argument that in diffusing the slave population over a wide area the evils of
the institution would be diminished and the prospects of ultimate emancipation
increased. " Slavery," said he, "has been represented
on all hands as a dark cloud, and the candor of the gentleman from Massachusetts
[Mr. Whitman] drove him to the admission that it would be well to disperse this
cloud. In this sentiment I entirely concur with him. How can you otherwise
disarm it? Will you suffer it to increase in its darkness over one particular
portion of this land till its horrors shall burst upon it? Will you permit the
lightnings of its wrath to break upon the south, when by the interposition of a
wise system oflegislation you may reduce it to a summer's cloud?"
New York and Pennsylvania, he argued, had been able to emancipate their
slaves only by reducing their number by exportation. Dispersion, moreover, would
be likely to ameliorate the condition of the black man, for by making his labor
scarce in each particular locality it would increase the demand for it, and
would thus make it the interest of the master to deal fairly and generously with
his slaves. To the objection that the increase of the slave population would
fully keep up with its territorial expansion, he replied by denying that such
would be the ease. His next argument was that if an old state, such as Virginia,
could have slaves, while a new state, such as Missouri, was to be prevented by
Federal authority from having them, then the old and new states would at once be
placed upon a different footing, which was contrary to the spirit of the
constitution. If congress could thus impose one restriction upon a state, where
was the exercise of such a power to end? Once grant such a power, and what was
to prevent a slave-holding majority in congress from forcing slavery upon some
territory where it was not wanted? Mr. Tyler pursued the argument so far as to
deny "that congress, under its constitutional authority to establish
rules and regulations for the territories, had any control whatever over slavery
in the territorial domain." (See life. by Lyon G. Tyler, vol. i., p.
319.)
Mr. Tyler was unquestionably foremost among the members of congress in
occupying this position. When the Missouri
compromise bill was adopted by a vote of 134 to 42, all but five of the nays
were from the south, and from Virginia alone there were seventeen, of which Mr.
Tyler's vote was one. The Richmond "Enquirer" of 7 March, 1820,
in denouncing the compromise, observed, in language of prophetic interest, that
the southern and western representatives now "owe it to themselves to
keep their eyes firmly fixed on Texas; if we are cooped up on the north, we must
have elbow-room to the west."
Mr. Tyler's further action in this congress related chiefly to the question
of a protective tariff, of which he was an unflinching opponent. In 1821,
finding his health seriously impaired, he declined a re-election, and returned
to private life. His retirement, however, was of short duration, for in 1823 he
was again elected to the Virginia legislature. Here, as a friend to the
candidacy of William II. Crawford for the presidency, he disapproved the attacks
upon the congressional caucus begun by the legislature of Tennessee in the
interests of Andrew Jackson. The next year he
was nominated to fill the vacancy in the United States senate created by the
death of John Taylor; but Littleton W. Tazewell was elected over him. He opposed
the attempt to remove William and Mary college to Richmond, and was afterward
made successively rector and chancellor of the college, which prospered signally
under his management. In December, 1825, he was chosen by the legislature to the
governorship of Virginia, and in the following year he was re-elected by a
unanimous vote.
A new division of parties was now beginning to show itself in national
polities. The administration of John Quincy Adams
had pronounced itself in favor of what was then, without much regard to history,
described as the "American system" of government banking, high
tariffs, and internal improvements. Those persons who were inclined to a loose
construction of the constitution were soon drawn to the side of the
administration, while the strict constructionists were gradually united in
opposition. Many members of Crawford's party, under the lead of John Randolph,
became thus united with the Jacksonians, while others, of whom Mr. Tyler was one
of the most distinguished, maintained a certain independence in opposition. It
is to be set down to Mr. Tyler's credit that he never attached any importance to
the malicious story, believed by so many Jacksonians, of a corrupt bargain
between Adams and Clay.
Soon after the meeting of the Virginia legislature, in December, 1826, the
friends of Clay and Adams combined with the members of the opposite party who
were dissatisfied with Randolph, and thus Mr. Tyler was elected to the United
States senate by a majority of 115 votes to 110. Some indiscreet friends of
Jackson now attempted to show that there must have been some secret and
reprehensible understanding between Tyler and Clay; but this scheme failed
completely. In the senate Mr. Tyler took a conspicuous stand against the
so-called " tariff of abominations" enacted in 1828, which
Benton, Van Buren, and other prominent
Jacksonians, not yet quite clear as to their proper attitude, were induced to
support. There was thus some ground for the opinion entertained at this time by
Tyler, that the Jacksonians were not really strict constructionists. In
February, 1830, after taking part in the Virginia convention for revising the
state constitution, Mr. Tyler returned to his seat in the senate, and found
himself first drawn toward Jackson by the veto message of the latter, 27 May,
upon the Maysville turnpike bill. He attacked the irregularity of Jackson's
appointment of commissioners to negotiate a commercial treaty with Turkey
without duly informing the senate. On the other hand, he voted in favor of
confirming the appointment of Van Buren as minister to Great Britain. In the
presidential election of 1832 he supported Jackson as a less objectionable
candidate than the others, Clay, Wirt, and Floyd. Mr. Tyler disapproved of
nullification, and condemned the course of South Carolina as both
unconstitutional and impolitic. At the same time he objected to President
Jackson's famous proclamation of 10 December, 1832, as a "tremendous
engine of federalism," tending to the "consolidation"
of the states into a single political body. Under the influence of these
feelings he undertook to play the part of mediator between Clay and Calhoun, and
in that capacity earnestly supported the compromise tariff introduced by the
former in the senate, 12 February, 1833. On the so-called "force
bill," clothing the president with extraordinary powers for the purpose
of enforcing the tariff law, Mr. Tyler showed that he had the courage of his
convictions. When the bill was put to vote, 20 February, 1833, some of its
opponents happened to be absent, others got up and went out in order to avoid
putting themselves on record. The vote, as then taken, stood: yeas, thirty-two;
nay, one (John Tyler).
As President Jackson's first term had witnessed a division in the Democratic
party between the nullifiers led by Calhoun and the unconditional upholders of
the Union, led by the president himself, with Benton, Blair, and Van Buren, so
his second term witnessed a somewhat similar division arising out of the war
upon the United States bank. The tendency of this fresh division was to bring
Mr. Tyler and his friends nearer to co-operation with Mr. Calhoun, while at the
same time it furnished points of contact that might, if occasion should offer,
be laid hold of for the purpose of forming a temporary alliance with Mr. Clay
and the National Republicans. The origin of the name "Whig," in
its strange and anomalous application to the combination in 1834, is to be found
in the fact that it pleased the fancy of President Jackson's opponents to
represent him as a kind of arbitrary tyrant. On this view it seemed proper that
they should be designated "Whigs," and at first there were some
attempts to discredit the supporters of the administration by calling them "Tories."
On the question of the bank, when it came to the removal of the deposits, Mr.
Tyler broke with the administration. Against the bank he had fought, on every
fitting occasion, since the beginning of his public career. In 1834 he declared
emphatically: "I believe the bank to be the original sin against the
constitution, which, in the progress of our history, has called into existence a
numerous progeny of usurpations. Shall I permit this serpent, however bright its
scales or erect its mien, to exist by and through my vote?" Nevertheless,
strongly as he disapproved of the bank, Mr. Tyler disapproved still more
strongly of the methods by which President Jackson assailed it. There seemed at
that time to be growing up in the United States a spirit of extreme unbridled
democracy quite foreign to the spirit in which our constitutional government,
with its carefully arranged checks and limitations, was founded. It was a spirit
that prompted mere majorities to insist upon having their way, even at the cost
of overriding all constitutional checks and limits. This spirit possessed many
members of Jackson's party, and it found expression in what Benton grotesquely
called the "demos krateo" principle. A good illustration of it
was to be seen in Benton's argument, after the election of 1824, that Jackson,
having received a plurality of electoral votes, ought to be declared president,
and that the house of representatives, in choosing Adams, was "defying
the will of the people."
In similar wise President Jackson, after his triumphant re-election in 1832,
was inclined to interpret his huge majorities as meaning that the people were
ready to uphold him in any course that he might see fit to pursue. This feeling
no doubt strengthened him in his determined attitude toward the nullifiers, and
it certainly contributed to his arbitrary and overbearing method of dealing with
the bank, culminating in 1833 in his removal of the deposits. There was ground
for maintaining that in this act the president exceeded his powers, and it
seemed to illustrate the tendency of unbridled democracy toward despotism, under
the leadership of a headstrong and popular chief. Mr. Tyler saw in it such a
tendency, and he believed that the only safeguard for constitutional government,
whether against the arbitrariness of Jackson or the latitudinarianism of the
National Republicans, lay in a most rigid adherence to strict constructionist
doctrines. Accordingly, in his speech of 24 February, 1834, he proposed to go
directly to the root of the matter and submit the question of a national bank to
the people in the shape of a constitutional amendment, either expressly
forbidding or expressly allowing congress to create such an institution.
According to his own account, he found Clay and Webster
ready to co-operate with him in this course, while Calhoun held aloof.
Nothing came of the project; but it is easy to see in Mr. Tyler's attitude at
this time the basis for a short-lived alliance with the National Republicans,
whenever circumstances should suggest it. On Mr. Clay's famous resolution to
censure the president he voted in the affirmative. In the course of 1835 the
seriousness of the schism in the Democratic party was fully revealed. Not only
had the small body of nullifiers broken away, under the lead of Calhoun, but a
much larger party was formed in the southern states under the appellation of "state-rights
Whigs." They differed with the National Republicans on the fundamental
questions of tariff, bank, and internal improvements, and agreed with them only
in opposition to Jackson as an alleged violator of the constitution. Even in
this opposition they differed from the party of Webster and Clay, for they
grounded it largely upon a theory of state rights which the latter statesmen had
been far from accepting.
The "state-rights Whigs" now nominated Hugh L. White, of
Tennessee, for president, and John Tyler for vice-president. The National
Republicans wishing to gather votes from the other parties, nominated for
president General William H. Harrison as a more colorless candidate than Webster
or Clay. The Democratic followers of Jackson nominated Van Buren, who received a
large majority of both popular and electoral votes, in spite of the defections
above mentioned. There was a great deal of bolting in this election.
Massachusetts threw its vote for Webster for president, and South Carolina for
Willie P. Mangum. Virginia, which voted for Van Buren, rejected his colleague,
Richard M. Johnson, and cast its twenty-three electoral votes Smith, of Alabama,
for vice-president. Mr. White obtained the electoral votes of Tennessee and
Georgia, twenty-six in all, but Mr. Tyler made a better showing ; he carried,
besides these two states, Maryland and South Carolina, making forty-seven votes
in all. The unevenness of the results was such that the election of a
vice-president devolved upon the senate, which chose Mr. Johnson.
In the course of the year preceding the election an incident occurred which
emphasized more than ever Mr. Tyler's hostility to the Jackson party. Benton's
famous resolutions for expunging the vote of censure upon the president were
before the senate, and the Democratic legislature of Virginia instructed the two
senators from that state to vote in the affirmative. As to the binding force of
such instructions Mr. Tyler had long ago, in the ease of Giles and Brent, above
mentioned, placed himself unmistakably upon record. His colleague, Benjamin
Watkins Leigh, was known to entertain similar views. On receiving the
instructions, both senators refused to obey them. Both voted against the Benton
resolutions, but Mr. Leigh kept his seat, while Mr. Tyler resigned and returned
home, 29 February, 1836. About this time the followers of Calhoun were bringing
forward what was known as the "gag resolution" against all
petitions and motions relating in any way to the abolition of slavery.
Mr. Tyler's resignation occurred before this measure was adopted, but his
opinions on the subject were clearly pronounced. He condemned the measure as
impolitic, because it yoked together the question as to the right of petition
and the question as to slavery, and thus gave a distinct moral advantage to the
Abolitionists. On the seventh anniversary of the Virginia colonization society,
10 January, 1838, he was chosen its president. In the spring election of that
year he was returned to the Virginia legislature. In January, 1839, his friends
put him forward for re-election to the United States senate, and in the
memorable contest that ensued, in which William C. Rives was his principal
competitor, the result was a deadlock, and the question was indefinitely
postponed before any choice had been made.
Meanwhile the financial crisis of 1837--the most severe, in many respects,
that has ever been known in this country--had wrecked the administration of
President Van Buren. The causes of that crisis, indeed, lay deeper than any acts
of any administration. The primary cause was the sudden development of wild
speculation in western lands, consequent upon the rapid building of railroads,
which would probably have brought about a general prostration of credit, even if
President Jackson had never made war upon the United States bank. But there is
no doubt that some measures of Jackson's administration--such as the removal of
the deposits and their lodgment in the so-called "pet banks,"
the distribution of the surplus followed by the sudden stoppage of distribution,
and the sharpness of the remedy supplied by the specie circular --had much to do
with the virulence of the crisis. For the moment it seemed to many people that
all the evil resulted from the suppression of the bank, and that the proper cure
was the reinstatement of the bank, and because President Van Buren was too wise
and clear-sighted to lend his aid to such a policy, his chances for re-election
were ruined. The cry for the moment was that the hard-hearted administration was
doing nothing to relieve the distress of the people, and there was a general
combination against Van Buren. For the single purpose of defeating him, all
differences of policy were for the moment subordinated.
In the Whig convention at Harrisburg, 4 December, 1839, no platform of
principles was adopted. General Harrison
was again nominated for the presidency, as a candidate fit to conciliate the
anti-Masons and National Republicans whom Clay had offended, and Mr. Tyler was
nominated for the vice-presidency in order to catch the votes of such Democrats
as were dissatisfied with the administration. In the uproarious canvass that
followed there was probably less appeal to sober reason and a more liberal use
of clap-trap than in any other presidential contest in our history. Borne upon a
great wave of popular excitement, "Tippecanoe, and Tyler too,"
were carried to the White House. By the death of President Harrison, 4 April,
1841, just a month after the inauguration, Mr. Tyler became president of the
United States. The situation thus developed was not long in producing startling
results. Although no platform had been adopted in the nominating convention, it
soon appeared that Mr. Clay and his friends intended to use their victory in
support of the old National Republican policy of a national bank, a high tariff,
and internal improvements. Doubtless most people who voted for Harrison did so
in the belief that his election meant the victory of Clay's doctrines and the
reestablishment of the United States bank. Mr. Clay's own course, immediately
after the inauguration, showed so plainly that he regarded the election as his
own victory that General Harrison felt called upon to administer a rebuke to
him. "You seem to forget, sir," said he, "that it is I
who am president."
Tyler, on the other hand, regarded the Whig triumph as signifying" the
overthrow of what he considered a corrupt and tyrannical faction led by Jackson,
Van Buren, and Benton; he professed to regard the old National Republican
doctrines as virtually postponed by the alliance between them and his own
followers. In truth, it was as ill-yoked an alliance as ever was made. The
elements of a fierce quarrel were scarcely concealed, and the removal of
President Harrison was all that was needed to kindle the flames of strife. "Tyler
dares not resist," said Clay; "I'll drive him before me."
On the other hand, the new president, declared: " 1 pray you to believe
that my back is to the wall, and that, while I shall deplore the assaults, I
shall, if practicable, beat back the assailants"; and he was as good as
his word. Congress met in extra session, 31 May, 1841, the senate standing 28
Whigs to 22 Democrats, the house 133 Whigs to 108 Democrats. In his opening
message President Tyler briefly recounted the recent history of the United
States bank, the sub-treasury system, and other financial schemes, and ended
with the precautionary words : "I shall be ready to concur with you in
the adoption of such system as you may propose, reserving to myself the ultimate
power of rejecting any measure which may, in my view of it, conflict with the
constitution or otherwise jeopardize prosperity of the country, a power which I
could not part with, even if I would, but which I will not believe any act of
yours will call into requisition."
Congress disregarded the warning. Tile ground was cleared for action by a
bill for abolishing Van Buren's sub-treasury system, which passed both houses
and was signed by the president. But an amendment offered by Mr. Clay, for the
repeal of the law of 1836 regulating the deposits in the state banks, was
defeated by the votes of a small party led by William C. Rives. The great
question then came up. On constitutional grounds, Mr. Tyler's objection to the
United States bank had always been that congress had no power to create such a
corporation within the limits of a state without the consent of the state
ascertained beforehand. He did not deny, however, the power of congress to
establish a district bank for the District of Columbia, and, provided the
several states should consent, there seemed to be no reason why this district
bank should not set up its branch offices all over the country. Mr. Clay's
so-called "fiscal bank" bill of 1841 did not make proper
provision for securing the assent of the states, and on that ground Mr. Rives
proposed an amendment substituting a clause of a bill suggested by Thomas Ewing,
secretary of the treasury, to the effect that such assent should be formally
secured. Mr. Rives's amendment was supported not only by several "state-rights
Whigs," but also by senators Richard It. Bayard and Rufus Choate, and
other friends of Mr. Webster. If adopted, its effect: would have been
conciliatory, and it might perhaps have averted for a moment the rupture between
the ill-yoked allies. The Democrats, well aware of this, voted against the
amendment, and it was lost. The bill incorporating the fiscal bank of the United
States was then passed by both houses, and on 16 August was vetoed. An attempt
to pass the bill over the veto failed of the requisite two-third majority.
The Whig leaders had already shown a disposition to entrap the president.
Before the passage of Mr. Clay's bill, John Minor Botts was sent to the White
House with a private suggestion for a compromise. Mr. Tyler refused to listen to
the suggestion except with the understanding that, should it meet with his
disapproval, he should not hear from it again. The suggestion turned out to be a
proposal that congress should authorize the establishment of branches of the
district bank in any state of which the legislature at its very next session
should not expressly refuse its consent to any such proceeding; and that,
moreover, in case the interests of the public should seem to require it, even
such express refusal might be disregarded and overridden. By this means the
obnoxious institution might first be established in the Whig states, and then
forced upon the Democratic states in spite of themselves. The president
indignantly rejected the suggestion as "a contemptible subterfuge,
behind which he would not skulk."
The device, nevertheless, became incorporated in Mr. Clay's bill, and it was
pretended that it was put there in order to smooth the way for the president to
adopt the measure, but that in his unreasonable obstinacy he refused to avail
himself of the opportunity. After his veto of 16 August these tortuous methods
were renewed. Messengers went to and fro between the president and members of
his cabinet on the one hand, and leading Whig members of congress on the other,
conditional assurances were translated into the indicative mood, whispered
messages were magnified and distorted, and presently appeared upon the scene an
outline of a bill that it was assumed the president would sign. This new measure
was known as the "fiscal corporation" bill. Like the fiscal
bank bill, it created a bank in the District of Columbia, with branches
throughout the states, and it made no proper provision for the consent of the
states. The president had admitted that a "fiscal agency" of
the United States government, established in Washington for the purpose of
collecting, keeping, and disbursing the public revenue, was desirable if not
indispensable; a regular bank of discount, engaged in commercial transactions
throughout the states, and having the United States government as its principal
share-holder and Federal officers exerting a controlling influence upon its
directorship, was an entirely different affair--something, in his opinion,
neither desirable nor permissible.
In the "fiscal corporation" bill an attempt was made to
hoodwink the president and the public by a pretence of forbidding discounts and
loans and limiting the operations of the fiscal agency exclusively to exchanges.
While this project was maturing, the Whig newspapers fulminated with threats
against the president in ease he should persist in his course ; private letters
warned him of plots to assassinate him, and Mr. Clay
in the senate referred to his resignation in 1836, and asked why, if
constitutional scruples again hindered him from obeying the will of the people,
did he not now resign his lofty position and leave it for those who could be
more compliant ? To this it was aptly replied by Mr. Rives that "the
president was an independent branch of the government as well as congress, and
was not called upon to resign because he differed in opinion with them."
Some of the Whigs seem really to have hoped that such a storm could be raised
as would browbeat the president into resigning, whereby the government would be
temporarily left in the hands of William L. Southard, then president pro tempore
of the senate. But Mr. Tyler was neither to be hoodwinked nor bullied. The "fiscal
corporation" bill was passed by the senate on Saturday, 4 September,
1841; on Thursday, the 9th, the president's veto message was received; "on
Saturday, the 11th, Thomas Ewing, secretary of the treasury, John Bell,
secretary of war, George E. Badger, secretary of the navy, John J. Crittenden,
attorney-general, and Francis Granger, postmaster-general, resigned their
places. The adjournment of congress had been fixed for Monday, the 13th, and it
was hoped that, suddenly confronted by a unanimous resignation of the cabinet
and confused by want of time in which to appoint a new cabinet, the president
would give up the game. But the resignation was not unanimous, for Daniel
Webster, secretary of state, remained at his post, and on Monday morning the
president nominated Walter Forward, of Pennsylvania, for secretary of the
treasury; John McLean, of Ohio, for secretary of war; Abel P. Upshur, of
Virginia, for secretary of the navy; Hugh S. Legare, of South Carolina. for
attorney-general; and Charles A. Wickliffe, of Kentucky, for postmaster-general.
These appointments were duly confirmed.
Whether the defection of Mr. Webster at this moment would have been so fatal
to the president as some of the Whigs were inclined to believe, may well be
doubted, but there can be no doubt that his adherence to the president was of
great value. By remaining in the cabinet Mr. Webster showed himself too
clear-sighted to contribute to a victory of which the whole profit would be
reaped by his rival, Mr. Clay, and the president was glad to retain his hold
upon so strong an element in the north as that which Mr. Webster represented.
Some of the leading Whig members of congress now issued addresses to the people,
in which they loudly condemned the conduct of the president and declared that "all
political connection between them and John Tyler was at an end from that day
forth." It was open war between the two departments of government.
Although many Whig mere-bets, like Preston, Talmadge, Johnson, and Marshall,
really sympathized with Mr. Tyler, only a few, commonly known as "the
corporal's guard," openly recognized him as their leader. But the
Democratic members came to his support as an ally against the Whigs. The state
elections of 1841 showed some symptoms of a reaction in favor of the president's
views, for in general the Whigs lost ground in them. As the spectre of the
crisis of 1837 faded away in the distance, the people began to recover from the
sudden and overmastering impulse that had swept the country in 1840, and the
popular enthusiasm for the bank soon died away.
Mr. Tyler had really won a victory of the first magnitude, as was
conclusively shown in 1844, when the presidential platform of the Whigs was
careful to make no allusion whatever to the bank. On this crucial question the
doctrines of paternal government had received a crushing and permanent defeat.
In the next session of congress the strife with the president was renewed : but
it was now tariff, not bank, that furnished the subject of discussion.
Diminished importations, due to the general prostration of business, had now
diminished the revenue until it was insufficient to meet the expenses of
government. The Whigs accordingly carried through congress a bill continuing the
protective duties of 1833, and pro riding that the surplus revenue, which was
thus sure soon to accumulate, should be distributed among the states. But the
compromise act of 1833, in which Mr. Tyler had played an important part, had
provided that the protective policy should come to an end in 1842. Both on this
ground, and because of the provision for distributing the surplus, the president
vetoed the new bill. Congress then devised and passed another bill, providing
for a tariff for revenue, with incidental protection, but still contemplating a
distribution of the surplus, if there should be any. The president vetoed this
bill. Congress received the veto message with great indignation, and on the
motion of ex-President John Q. Adams it was
referred to a committee, which condemned it as an unwarrantable assumption of
power, and after a caustic summary of Mr. Tyler's acts since his accession to
office, concluded with a reference to impeachment. This report called forth from
the president a formal protest; but the victory was already his. The Whigs were
afraid to go before the country in the autumn elections with the tariff question
unsettled, and the bill was accordingly passed by both houses, without the
distributing clause, and was at once signed by the president. The distributing
clause was then passed in a separate bill, but a "pocket veto" disposed
of it. Congress adjourned on 31 August, 1842, and in the elections the Whig
majority of twenty-five in the house of representatives gave place to a
Democratic majority of sixty-one.
On the remaining question of National Republican policy, that of internal
improvements, the most noteworthy action of President Tyler was early in 1844,
when two river-and-harbor bills were passed by congress, the one relating to the
eastern, the other to the western states. Mr. Tyler vetoed the former, but
signed the latter, on the ground that the Mississippi river, as a great common
highway for the commerce of the whole country, was the legitimate concern of the
national government in a sense that was not true of any other American river. An
unsuccessful attempt was made to pass the other bill over the veto. The rest of
Mr. Tyler's administration was taken up with the Ashburton treaty with Great
Britain, the Oregon question, and the annexation of Texas. Texas had won its
independence from Mexico in 1836, and its governor, as well as the majority of
its inhabitants, were citizens of the United States. From a broad national
standpoint it was in every way desirable that Texas, as well as Oregon, should
belong to our Federal Union.
In the eastern states there was certainly a failure to appreciate the value
of Oregon, which was nevertheless claimed as indisputably our property. On the
other hand, it was felt, by a certain element in South Carolina, that if the
northern states were to have ample room for expansion beyond the Rocky
mountains, the southern states must have Texas added to their number as a
counterpoise, or else the existence of slavery would be imperiled, and these
fears were strengthened by the growth of anti-slavery sentiment at the north.
The Whigs, who by reason of their tariff policy found their chief strength at
the north, were disposed to avail themselves of this anti-slavery sentiment, and
accordingly declared themselves opposed to the annexation of Texas. In the mean
time the political pressure brought to bear upon Mr. Webster in Massachusetts
induced resignation of his portfolio, and he was succeeded in the state
department by Hugh S. Legare, 9 May, 1843. In a few weeks Legare was succeeded
by Mr. Upshur, after whose death, on 28 February, 1844, the place was filled by
John C. Calhoun. After a negotiation extending over two years, a treaty was
concluded, 12 April, 1844, with the government of Texas, providing for
annexation. The treaty was rejected by the senate, by a vote of 35 to 16, all
the Whigs and seven Democrats voting in the negative. Thus by the summer of 1844
the alliance between the Whig party and Mr. Tyler's wing of the Democrats had
passed away. At the same time the division among the Democrats, which had become
marked during Jackson's administration, still continued; and while the
opposition to Mr. Tyler was strong enough to prevent his nomination in the
Democratic national convention, which met at Baltimore on 27 May, 1844, on the
other hand he was able to prevent the nomination of Mr. Van Buren, who had
declared himself opposed to the immediate annexation of Texas.
The result was the nomination of James K. Polk,
as a kind of compromise candidate, in so far as he belonged to the "loco-foco
" wing of the party, but was at the same time in favor of annexation.
On the same day, 27 May, another convention at Baltimore nominated Mr. Tyler for
a second term. He accepted the nomination in order to coerce the Democrats into
submitting to him and his friends a formal invitation to re-enter the ranks ;
and accordingly a meeting of Democrats at the Carleton house, New York, on 6
August, adopted a series of resolutions commending the principal acts of his
administration, and entreating that in the general interests of the opposition
he should withdraw. In response to this appeal, Mr. Tyler accordingly withdrew
his name. The northern opposition to the annexation of Texas seemed to have
weakened the strength of the Whigs in the south, and their candidate, Henry
Clay, declared himself willing to see Texas admitted at some future time. But
this device cut both ways ; for while it was popular in the south, and is
supposed to have acquired for Clay many proslavery votes, carrying for him
Tennessee, North Carolina, Delaware, and Maryland by bare majorities, it
certainly led many anti-slavery Whigs to throw away their votes upon the "Liberty"
candidate, James G. Birney, and thus surrender New York to the Democrats.
The victory of the Democrats in November was reflected in the course pursued in
the ensuing congress.
One of the party watchwords, in reference to the Oregon question, had been "fifty-four
forty, or fight," and the house of representatives now proceeded to
pass a bill organizing a territorial government for Oregon up to that parallel
of latitude. The senate, however, laid the bill upon the table, because it
prohibited slavery in the territory. A joint resolution for the annexation of
Texas was passed by both houses. Proposals for prohibiting slavery there were
defeated, and the affair was arranged by extending the Missouri
compromise-line westward through the Texan territory to be acquired by the
annexation. North of that line slavery was to be prohibited; south of it the
question was to be determined by the people living on the spot. The resolutions
were signed by President Tyler, and instructions in accordance therewith were dispatched
by him to Texas on the last day of his term of office, 3 March, 1845. The
friends of annexation defended the constitutionality of this proceeding, and the
opponents denounced it.
After leaving the White House, Mr. Tyler took up his residence on an estate
that he had purchased three miles from Greenway, on the bank of James river. To
this estate he gave the name of "Sherwood Forest," and there he
lived the rest of his life. In a letter published in the Richmond "
Enquirer" on 17 January, 1861, he recommended a convention of border
states--including New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Iowa,
as well as Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Missouri--for
the purpose of devising some method of adjusting the difficulties brought on by
the secession of South Carolina. The scheme adopted by this convention was to be
submitted to the other states, and, if adopted, was to be incorporated into the
Federal constitution. In acting upon Mr. Tyler's suggestion, the Virginia
legislature enlarged it into a proposal of a peace convention to be composed of
delegates from all the states. At the same time Mr. Tyler was appointed a
commissioner to President Buchanan, while Judge
John Robertson was appointed commissioner to the state of South Carolina, the
object being to persuade both parties to abstain from any acts of hostility
until the proposed peace convention should have had an opportunity to meet and
discuss the situation. In discharge of this mission Mr. Tyler arrived on 23
January in Washington. President Buchanan declined to give any assurances, but
in his message to congress, on 28 January, he deprecated a hasty resort to
hostile measures. The peace convention, consisting of delegates from thirteen
northern and seven border states, met at Washington on 4 February and chose Mr.
Tyler as its president. Several resolutions were adopted and reported to
congress, 27 February ; but on 2 March they were rejected in the senate by a
vote of 28 to 7, and two days later the house adjourned without having taken a
vote upon them.
On 28 February, anticipating the fate of the resolutions in congress, Mr.
Tyler made a speech on the steps of the Exchange hotel in Richmond, and declared
his belief that no arrangement could be made, and that nothing was left for
Virginia but to act promptly in the exercise of her powers as a sovereign state.
The next day he took his seat in the State convention, where he advocated the
immediate passing of an ordinance of secession. His attitude seems to have been
substantially the same that it had been twenty-eight years before, when he
disapproved the heresy of nullification, but condemned with still greater
emphasis the measures taken by President Jackson to suppress that heresy. This
feeling that secession was unadvisable, but coercion wholly indefensible, was
shared by Mr. Tyler with many people in the border states. On the removal of the
government of the southern Confederacy from Montgomery to Richmond, in May,
1861, he was unanimously elected a member of the provisional congress of the
Confederate states. In the following autumn he was elected to the permanent
congress, but he died before taking his seat.
His biography has been ably written by one of his younger sons, Lyon Gardiner
Tyler, " Letters and Times of the Tylers" (2 vols., Richmond,
1884-'5). See also " Seven Decades of the Union," by Henry A. Wise
(Philadelphia, 1872).-
His wife, Letitia Christian Tyler, born at Cedar Grove, New Kent County,
Virginia, 12 November, 1790; died in Washington, D. C., 9 September, 1842, was
the daughter of Robert Christian, a planter in New Kent county, Virginia. She
married Mr. Tyler on 29 March, 1813, and removed with him to his home in Charles
City county. When he became president she accompanied him to Washington; but her
health was delicate, and she died shortly afterward. Mrs. Tyler was unable to
assume any social cares, and the duties of mistress of the White House devolved
upon her daughter-in-law, Mrs. Robert Tyler. She possessed great beauty of
person and of character, and, before the failure of her health, was especially
fitted for a social life.
--Their son, Robert, born in New Kent county, Virginia, in 1818: died in
Montgomery, Alabama, 3 December, 1877, was educated at William and Mary, and
adopted the profession of law. He married Priscilla, a daughter of Thomas
Apthorpe Cooper, the tragedian, in 1839, and when his father became president
his wife assumed the duties of mistress of the White House till after Mrs. John
Tyler's death, when they devolved upon her daughter, Mrs. Letitia Semple. Mr.
Tyler removed to Philadelphia in 1843, practiced law there, and held several
civil offices. In 1844 he was elected president of the Irish repeal association.
A little later he became prothonotary of the supreme court of Pennsylvania, and
in 1858 he was chairman of the Democratic executive committee of the state. He
removed to Richmond at the beginning of the civil war, and was appointed
register of the treasury. After the war he edited the "Mail and
Advertiser" in Montgomery, Alabama He published "Ahasuerus," a
poem (New York, 1842) ; "Death, or Medora's Dream," a poem (1843) ;
"Is Virginia a Repudiating State? and the States' Guarantee," two
letters (Richmond, Virginia, 1858).-
-President Tyler's second wife, Julia Gardiner Tyler, born on Gardiner's
island, near Easthampton, New York, in 1820, was the eldest daughter of David
Gardiner, a descendant of the Gardiners of Gardiner's island. She was educated
at the Chegary institute, New York city, spent several months in Europe, and in
the winter of 1844 accompanied her father to Washington, D.C. A few weeks
afterward he was killed by the explosion of a gun on the wear-steamer
"Princeton," which occurred during a pleasure excursion in which he
and his daughter were of the presidential party. His body was taken to the White
House, and Miss Gardiner, being thrown in the society of the president under
these peculiar circumstances, became the object of his marked attention, which
resulted in their marriage in New York city, 26 June, 1844. For the succeeding
eight months she presided over the White House with dignity and grace, her
residence there terminating with a birth-night ball on 22 February, 1845.
Mrs. Tyler retired with her husband to " Sherwood Forest" in
Virginia at the conclusion of his term, and after the civil war resided for
several years at her mother's residence on Castleton Hill, Staten island, and
subsequently in Richmond, Virginia She is a convert to Roman Catholicism, and
devoted to the charities of that church.
--Her son, Lyon Gardiner Tyler, born in Charles City county, Virginia, in
August, 1853, was graduated at the University of Virginia in 1875, and then
studied law. During his college course he was elected orator of the Jefferson
society, and obtained a scholarship as best editor of the "Virginia
University Magazine." In January, 1877, he was elected professor of
belles-lettres in William and Mary college, which place he held until November,
1878, when he became head of a high-school in Memphis, Tennessee He settled in
Richmond, Virginia, in 1882, and entered on the practice of law, also taking an
active interest in politics. He was a candidate for the house of delegates in
1885, and again in 1887, when he was elected. In that body he advocated the
bills to establish a labor bureau, to regulate child labor, and to aid William
and Mary college. In 1888 he was elected president of William and Mary. He has
published "The Letters and Times of the Tylers " (2 vols.,
Richmond, 1884-'5).
Presidents of the Continental
Congress
United Colonies of The United States
Peyton
Randolph September
5, 1774 to October 22, 1774
and May 20 to May 24, 1775
Henry Middleton October 22, 1774 to October 26, 1774
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