University of Virginia Library

JOHN TYLER,

Tenth President of the United States, was born March 29, 1790, and died
January 17, 1862, in his 72d year.

He was born in Charles City county, Virginia, the second son of John
Tyler, a patriot of the Revolution, and governor of Virginia, 1808-11.
John Tyler, sr., was also made a judge of admiralty for Virginia, and was
holding that office at the time of his death, in 1813. His wife, the mother
of the subject of this sketch, was Mary, only child of Robert Armstead,
whose ancestors emigrated to Virginia from Hesse-Darmstadt, in early
colonial days.

John Tyler received a collegiate and legal training, being graduated
from William and Mary College in 1807, and admitted to the bar in 1809.
He was never in active practice of his profession, entering public life in
1811, when he was elected to the State legislature.

He served five years in the legislature, or until his election, in 1816, to
fill a vacancy in Congress. To this position he was twice re-elected. In
the House he was a member of what was becoming known as the Southern
party. He voted in favor of the resolutions of censure on Jackson's conduct
in the Seminole war; and his negative vote is recorded against internal
improvements; against United States banks; against a protective
policy; and he strongly opposed and voted against any restriction on the
extension of slavery into the territories. In 1819 he resigned, on account
of ill health.

1823-5, he was a leading member of the Virginia legislature, and in
December, 1825, was chosen governor of that Commonwealth, serving two
terms of one year each.

In March, 1831, Tyler was chosen to succeed John Randolph of Roanoke,
as United States Senator, and in 1833 he was re-appointed. During
his term in the Senate he was one of the most active members of that body.
His vote was almost invariably recorded against any act favored by Adams
and his cabinet. As in the House, he now set himself against internal
improvements, and a protective tariff. He voted against the tariff bill of
1828, and during the debate on Clay's tariff resolutions, session of 1831-32,
Tyler spoke three days on the question. He opposed direct protection,
and argued for a tariff for revenue, with incidental protection to home industry.

---

540

In 1832, he was in sympathy with the nullification movement of South
Carolina, and spoke against the "force bill." The bill passed the Senate
with only one negative vote recorded. Calhoun and others of its opponents
retired from the chamber when the motion was to be put, and only
John Tyler voted against it. He also voted for Clay's "compromise bill,"
by which the trouble was adjusted.

Receiving from his constituents a request that a vote of his should be
expunged from the records, Tyler resigned and returned to Virginia
before the expiration of his second term of service in the Senate. He
removed to Williamsburg, James City county, and became affiliated in
politics with the Southern Whig movement. From this party he received
the nomination for vice-president in 1836, and for that office the electoral
vote was given him in the States of Maryland, Georgia, South Carolina
and Tennessee.

In 1838, the James county Whigs elected him to the State legislature,
where he served until he received the nomination for vice-president in
1839. The Whig delegates convened at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania,
December 4, 1839, and Tyler was present as a member of the convention
from Virginia. They nominated Harrison and Tyler, and these candidates
were elected in the following year, entering upon their respective
offices March 4, 1841.

On the death of President Harrison, one month later, John Tyler became
his constitutional successor. He was called to Washington from his home
in Williamsburg, by Harrison's cabinet, on the 4th of April (the day on
which the president died), and he reached the national capital at four
o'clock on the morning of the 6th. At noon the ministers called upon him
in a body, and Judge Cranch administered to him the oath of office. To
the supporters of the administration gathered about him, Tyler said:
"You have only exchanged one Whig for another."

His course as chief executive of the nation was not in consonance with
this assurance. Before a year had elapsed he had lost the confidence of
the Whig party, principally by his veto of the bank bill, which was strictly
a Whig measure. When the bill had been amended so as, it was thought,
to meet his approval, and had been again vetoed, his entire cabinet (the
one chosen by Harrison) resigned, with the exception of Daniel Webster,
Secretary of State, who was then engaged in important negotiations with
England, and who resigned as soon as those negotiations were completed.
During the three remaining years of his administration, Tyler was three
times compelled to form a new cabinet.

In May, 1844, a Whig convention assembled at Baltimore, Maryland,
nominated Tyler for the presidency, and the nomination was accepted.
But the convention was not a voice of the people, being composed principally
of office holders under Tyler, and the president, finding that his
defeat at the polls was certain, withdrew his acceptance of the nomination,
and at the end of his four years retired to private life.

---

---

542

Mr. Tyler's administration had been a stormy one, as the many
cabinet changes sufficiently indicate. Sincere in his attachment to
the Whig party, he was no sooner surrounded by its leaders, than he
saw that the policy they would have dictated was one not for the
country's interests. However painful his position was made by that
knowledge, however much his consequent actions, necessarily antagonistic
to party ends, were condemned, he was faithful to his own
more statesmanlike views. In less than twenty years his course was
justified. In less than twenty years the party he had endeavored to
hold in check had become, under another name, a party bent upon
plunging the country into civil war.

In February, 1861, he presided over the Peace Congress which was
convened in Washington, pursuant to a call from the Legislature of
Virginia, but he had no hope of good results from its deliberations.
In a public speech in Richmond, Virginia, the day following that on
which the Congress closed its session, he stated that the South had
nothing to hope, but in separation. Acting upon his convictions, Mr.
Tyler renounced his allegiance to the government, and entered upon
active labors in behalf of the Southern Confederacy. He was one of
the committee who, in April, 1861, transferred to the service of the
Confederate government, the military forces of Virginia, and when
the seat of that government was established at Richmond, Virginia,
he was a member of its Congress. In that capacity he was serving
when his death occurred.