John Tyler (29 March 1790-18 January 1862) was President of the United States from 4 April 1841 to 4 March 1845, succeeding William Henry Harrison and preceding James K. Polk. He previously served as a member of the US House of Representatives (DR-VA 23) from 17 December 1816 to 3 March 1821 (succeeding John Clopton and preceding Andrew Stevenson), Governor of Virginia from 10 December 1825 to 4 March 1827 (succeeding James Pleasants and preceding William Branch Giles), a US Senator from 4 March 1827 to 29 February 1836 (succeeding John Randolph of Roanoke and preceding William Cabell Rives), and Vice President of the United States from 4 March to 4 April 1841 (succeeding Richard Mentor Johnson and preceding George M. Dallas).
Biography[]
John Tyler was born in Charles City County, Virginia in 1790 to a prominent Episcopalian Virginia family, the son of John Tyler Sr.. He became a lawyer in 1809, and he served in the House of Delegates from 1811 to 1816 and in the US House of Representatives from 1816 to 1821; he was affiliated with the "War Hawks" during the War of 1812. While he was serving in the US Congress, he was a strict originalist with regard to the US Constitution, opposing internal improvements and supporting the destruction of the national bank. He went on to serve as a US Senator from 1827 to 1836, but his opposition to President Andrew Jackson during the Nullification Crisis and the Bank War led to him switching his party affiliation from Democrat to Whig.
Presidency[]
A prominent southern supporter of states' rights, he was selected as William Henry Harrison's running mate for the 1840 presidential election to win southern support for the party. The party won in a landslide. One month after taking office, Harrison died from pneumonia and typhoid fever. Tyler became the first vice president to assume the presidency upon the president's death. He then assumed full presidential powers, setting a precedent for future vice-presidents. However, Tyler angered his own party by vetoing his party's bills to create a national bank and to raise the tariff rates. He held the Jacksonian belief in presidential supremacy over the US Congress. Much of his cabinet resigned in protest and dubbed him "His Accidency". The enraged Whigs called him a traitor, expelled him from his party and even tried unsuccessfully to have him impeached; John Tyler was notorious for being the first president ever to be threatened with impeachment charges that failed and the only president to officially be kicked out of his party. Congress and the Whigs also have the last laugh; he was the first president to have his veto overridden by Congress. Despite his disagreements with the Whigs, he had limited foreign policy achievements such as the Webster-Ashburton Treaty with the United Kingdom and the Treaty of Wanghia with Qing China. Tyler was also a firm believer in Manifest Destiny and supported the annexation of Texas as a slave state, but he failed to gain the support of either party in Congress, and was not renominated for re-election in 1844 and endorsed James K. Polk. Tyler signed a bill to annex Texas three days before leaving office. During the American Civil War, he was elected to the Confederate Congress and became the only former American President to be declared an enemy of the nation. He died of a stroke in Richmond on January 18, 1862 at the age of 71.