Tyler, JOHN

Tyler, JOHN, tenth president of the United States, was born in Charles City county, Virginia, March 29, 1790, graduated at William and Mary College in 1807, and two years later was admitted to the bar. He sat in the state legislature from 1811 till 1816, when he was chosen to fill a vacancy in congress. He was returned in 1817, and again in 1819, and distinguished himself as a strict constructionist, opposed protection, and, on the Missouri question, denied the right of congress to limit the extension of slavery, or to control it at all in the territories. In 1825-26 he was elected governor of Virginia, and in December 1826 a United States senator—partly by the votes of Clay's supporters; but in the senate he pursued an independent course, and, while in 1832 he supported Jackson rather than Clay for the presidency, in February 1833 he was the only senator who recorded his vote against the 'force bill' granting extraordinary powers to the president in dealing with South Carolina (see JACKSON). And yet Tyler disapproved of Nullification (q.v.); only he disapproved still more of arbitrary and unconstitutional action on the part of the federal executive. This motive accounts for his action also in the case of the United States Bank (see JACKSON). He had denounced its existence from his first entrance on a public career; but he resented the despotic methods by which Jackson overthrew it, and he supported Clay's motion to censure the president, and, declining to obey instructions to vote for expunging this motion from the minutes, in 1836 resigned his seat. In 1840 he was elected vice-president of the United States, with General Harrison as president. President Harrison died April 4, 1841, a month after his inauguration, and by this event Tyler became president. In the first year of his administration he had to face a struggle with the Whig majority in congress and the senate, headed by Clay, who regarded the result of the election as a victory for them and for the project of a re-established national bank. Two bills were passed to this end, and both, in spite of the storm raised, were vetoed by the president. After the second veto, in September 1841, all his cabinet except Daniel Webster resigned; and Webster followed the rest in 1843, his place being taken in 1844 by John C. Calhoun. But victory lay with the president, whose firmness utterly and finally destroyed the project, and with it the notion of paternal government. In 1842 he vetoed two protective bills providing for a distribution of the surplus revenues among the states. Besides the Ashburton (q.v.) treaty, the most important act of his administration was the annexation of Texas, in March 1845. At the close of his term of office he retired to Virginia and to private life until 1861, when he was president of a peace convention at Washington. Failing in his efforts at a compromise, he gave his adhesion to the Confederate cause, and was a member of the Confederate congress until his death, at Richmond, January 18, 1862. See his son's Letters and Times of the Tylers (2 vols. Richmond, 1884-85).