Author Tyler John

Texas in 1845. Tyler was the first president born after the adoption of the U.S. Constitution, the only president to have held the office of President pro tempore of the Senate, and the only former president elected to office in the government of the Confederacy during the Civil War (though he died before he assumed said office). John Tyler was born on March 29, 1790, in Charles City County, Virginia (the same county where William Henry Harrison was born).[1] Tyler's father was John Tyler, Sr., and his mother was Mary Armistead Tyler.[1] Tyler was raised, along with seven siblings, to be a part of the region's elite gentry, receiving a very good education.[1] Tyler was brought up believing that the Constitution of the United States was to be strictly interpreted, and reportedly never lost this conviction.[2] While Tyler was growing up, Tyler Sr., a friend of Thomas Jefferson, owned a tobacco plantation of over 1,000 acres (4 km2) served by dozens of slaves, and worked as a judge at the U.S. Circuit Court at Richmond, Virginia; Tyler Sr.'s advocacy of states' rights maintained his power.[1] When Tyler was seven years old, his mother died from a stroke, and when he was twelve he entered the preparatory branch of the College of William and Mary, enrolling into the collegiate program there three years later.[1] Tyler graduated from the college in 1807, at age seventeen.[1] John Tyler went on to study law with his father, who became Governor of Virginia (1808–1811). Tyler was admitted to the bar in 1809 and started practice in Charles City County. Tyler supported the United States' fight against Britain during the War of 1812, and he took command of a small militia company, though he saw no action.[1] He became a member of the Virginia House of Delegates in 1811, and in 1816 was named a member of the council of state. John Tyler was elected as a Democratic-Republican to the Fourteenth Congress to fill the vacancy caused by the death of John Clopton. Reelected to the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Congresses, Tyler served in the House of Representatives from December 17, 1816, to March 3, 1821. While in Congress, Tyler was a leader in opposing the Missouri Compromise. Tyler declined to be a candidate for renomination to Congress in 1820 because of impaired health. Instead, he became a member of the Virginia House of Delegates from Charles City County, serving from 1823 to 1825. Tyler was then elected to be the Governor of Virginia (1825-1827). He was popularly known as voting against nationalist legislations. In 1829 and 1830, he served as a member of the Virginia state constitutional convention. During this period, a major realignment of American politics was taking place. Following the 1824 election, the dominant Democratic-Republican party, of which Tyler was a member, split into two factions. The Andrew Jackson faction would shortly evolve into the Democratic party. The John Quincy Adams-Henry Clay faction would eventually coalesce into the Whig party. Tyler had supported Adams in 1824. Afterwards, however, because Adams supported nationally funded internal improvements, Tyler joined the Jackson faction and became a Democrat. Tyler was elected as a Jacksonian to the United States Senate in 1827. He was reelected in 1833 and served from March 4, 1827, to February 29, 1836, when he resigned. Tyler supported Jackson in both the 1828 and 1832 elections, and backed him when he vetoed the Bank of the United States recharter in 1832. However, starting with the Nullification Crisis of 1832-33, Tyler drifted away from the Jacksonian Democrats. During the Nullification Crisis, Tyler opposed the force bill allowing Jackson to use armed force to collect tariff revenues in South Carolina. While other senators opposing the bill abstained, Tyler cast the only opposing vote and the bill passed 32-1. By 1836, Tyler was closer to Henry Clay's newly formed Whigs than Jackson's Democrats. That year, Virginia's legislature instructed its senators to vote to expunge the Senate's 1834 censure of Jackson from the record. Rather than do so, Tyler resigned his seat.[3] In the Senate, Tyler served as President pro tempore of the Senate during the Twenty-third Congress (the only President to have served as President pro tempore of the Senate), and was chair of the Committee on the District of Columbia (Twenty-third and Twenty-fourth Congresses), as well as the Committee on Manufactures (Twenty-third Congress). In 1836, the new Whig party was not organized enough to hold a national convention and name a single ticket against Jackson's chosen successor, Martin Van Buren. Instead, Whigs in various states proposed three regional candidates, Daniel Webster, William Henry Harrison, and Hugh White. Tyler was named as a vice-presidential candidate and ran with Harrison in some states and White in others.[3] He finished third, receiving 47 electoral votes. After leaving the U.S. Senate, Tyler served as a member of the Virginia House of Delegates in 1838 from Williamsburg. He was elected Speaker of the House in 1839. At the Whigs' convention, Tyler supported Henry Clay's presidential candidacy. After Clay was passed over for William Henry Harrison, Tyler was named as Harrison's running mate. Their opponent was Democratic incumbent Martin Van Buren. The Whigs' 1840 campaign slogans of "Log Cabins and Hard Cider" and "Tippecanoe and Tyler too" are among the most famous in American politics. "Tippecanoe and Tyler too" not only offered the slight sectionalism that would further be apparent in the presidency of Tyler, but also the nationalism that was imperative to gain the American vote. Harrison and Tyler won the election by an electoral vote of 234-60 and a popular vote of 53%-47%. On March 4, 1841, Tyler was inaugurated as the tenth Vice-President of the United States. Largely ignored by the men who were pressuring Harrison to give them jobs, Tyler stayed in Washington, D.C. only long enough to be inaugurated Vice President on March 4 and to preside over the next day's Senate confirmation of Harrison's cabinet. On March 5 he returned to his home in Williamsburg, Virginia, not even staying through the close of the Senate's session.[4] Harrison sought little of Tyler's advice, and Tyler reportedly offered none.[4] Secretary of State Daniel Webster sent word to Tyler of Harrison's illness on April 1; two days later, Richmond attorney James Lyons wrote with the news that the President had taken a turn for the worse, remarking that "I shall not be surprised to hear by tomorrow's mail that Gen'l Harrison is no more."[5]. Tyler determined not to travel to Washington, not wanting to appear unseemly in anticipating the President's death. However, at dawn on April 5, two couriers from the State Department — one of them Webster's son — arrived at Tyler's home bearing the message that Harrison had died the day before.[4][6] Harrison's unprecedented death in office caused considerable disarray regarding his successor. The Constitution of the United States stated only that: In Case of the Removal of the President from Office, or of his Death, Resignation, or Inability to discharge the Powers and Duties of the said Office, the same shall devolve on the Vice President. This led to the question of whether the office of the presidency itself "devolved" upon Vice President Tyler, or merely its powers and duties. The protocol was so uncertain that Secretary of State Daniel Webster discreetly requested the counsel of Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger B. Taney (who declined, citing concerns about the separation of powers).[7] By the time Tyler arrived in Washington at 4:00 a.m. on April 6, he had firmly resolved that he was now, in name and fact, the President of the United States, and acted on this determination by taking the oath of office in his hotel room with the cabinet looking on, then immediately calling them into a meeting where he asserted his authority by terminating Harrison's practice of making policy by cabinet consensus.[7] Tyler's claim was not immediately accepted by opposition members in Congress such as John Quincy Adams, who argued for Tyler to assume a role as a caretaker under the title of "Acting President", or remain Vice President in name. Among these was Whig leader Henry Clay, who had intended to be a "power behind the throne" and exercise great influence over his fellow Whig Harrison and now transferred that ambition onto his close friend, Tyler. Once Harrison was dead, Clay was even more determined to hold sway over his successor. Amidst the constitutional uncertainties, Clay, "kept refering to Tyler as 'the Vice-President' and insisted that his administration would be more in the nature of a regency...[Tyler] quickly set the constitutional standard for later presidential successions by asserting that he was not merely "acting president" but had in fact acquired the full powers of the presidency...Tyler thundered at Clay: "Go you now, Mr. Clay, to your end of the avenue, where stands the Capitol, and there perform your duty to the country as you shall think proper. So help me God, I shall do mine at this end of it as I shall think proper."[8] On June 1, 1841, impressed by his authoritative actions, both houses of Congress passed resolutions declaring Tyler the tenth President of the United States. Tyler had thus become the first U.S. vice president to assume the office of president upon the death of his predecessor, establishing a precedent that would be followed many times in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Yet it was not until 1967 that Tyler's action of assuming full powers of the presidency was legally codified in the Twenty-fifth Amendment.[9]