John Tyler Biography

Dromo's Den

TYLER, John (1790–1862). The tenth President of the United States. He was born at Greenway, Charles City Co., Va., March 29, 1790, the son of Judge John Tyler, who was Speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates, Governor of Virginia, and a judge of State and Federal courts. The son graduated at William and Mary College in 1807; was admitted to the bar in 1809; and became a member of the Legislature in 1811, where he acted with the Republicans and supported the war with Great Britain. He was elected to the Legislature five times in succession until 1816, when he went to Congress. In the House of Representatives, during the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Congresses, he acted with the States-Rights Republicans, condemned General Jackson's course in Florida, and opposed the United States Bank and the Missouri Compromise. In 1823 he was again a member of the Virginia Legislature. In 1825 he was elected Governor of Virginia by the Legislature, and was unanimously reëlected the following year. At the close of his second term as Governor he was elected over John Randolph to the United States Senate, in which he opposed the tariff measures of 1828 and 1832, opposed nullification, but condemned Jackson's nullification proclamation, although he supported Jackson for the presidency in 1832 and stood alone among the Senators in voting against the Force Bill of 1833. He was chosen for a second term in the Senate, and in 1834 made a report censuring President Jackson for removing the deposits from the United States Bank, and voted for Clay's resolution of censure. Having subsequently been instructed by the Legislature of Virginia to vote for the expunging of the resolution of censure, he refused to obey, and in February, 1836, resigned his seat and retired to private life. Tyler was a leading member of the new Whig party, and an unsuccessful candidate for the vice presidency in 1836. In 1840 he was elected Vice President on the Whig ticket with General W. H. Harrison (q.v.). President Harrison died April 4, 1841, one month after his inauguration, and was succeeded by Tyler, who completely broke with the party that had elected him. He vetoed the bill to recharter the Bank of the United States, and when it was modified partly in accordance with his suggestions and repassed he vetoed it again. The bill to revise the tariff met a similar fate. Thereupon, on Sept. 11, 1841, all the members of the cabinet except Webster, who was then engaged in negotiations with Great Britain concerning the boundary between the United States and Canada, resigned, and a year later Webster followed. Shortly thereafter some of the leading Whigs issued a public address declaring that "all political connection with them and John Tyler was at an end from that day henceforth." The chief events of Tyler's administration were the conclusion of the Webster-Ashburton Treaty (q.v.) with Great Britain and the annexation of Texas. In 1845 he retired to his estate in Charles City Co., Va., where he remained until 1861, when he was called to preside over the Peace Convention at Washington. Failing in his efforts at compromise, he gave his adhesion to the Confederate cause, voted for secession in the Virginia convention, served in the Confederate Provisional Congress, and was elected to the Confederate House of Representatives, but died at Richmond, Jan. 18, 1862, before he could take his seat.

The New International Encyclopaedia, Vol. XXII (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1920) 601.