John Tyler

John Tyler (1790-1862) was the tenth president of the United States, serving from 1841 to 1845. Elected vice president on the 1840 Whig ticket, he was the first vice president to succeed to the presidency, on the death of William Henry Harrison.

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Biography

John Tyler was born in 1790 into a prominent slaveholding Virginia family and graduated from the College of William and Mary in 1807. He practised law and at 21 was elected to the Virginia House of Delegates. He served in the U.S. House from 1816 to 1821, as governor of Virginia from 1825 to 1827, and in the U.S. Senate from 1827 until he resigned in 1836.

A firm advocate of states' rights, Tyler began as a Jacksonian Democrat but broke with Andrew Jackson over the nullification crisis and his use of executive power, and allied with the Whigs. In 1840 he was elected vice president on William Henry Harrison's ticket under the slogan "Tippecanoe and Tyler Too." When Harrison died a month into his term, Tyler took the presidential oath and full powers, setting the precedent that a vice president becomes president.

As president he vetoed Whig bills for a national bank and higher tariffs; most of his cabinet resigned and the Whigs expelled him. His administration concluded the Webster–Ashburton Treaty with Britain and the Treaty of Wanghia with China, and just before leaving office he signed the measure offering statehood to Texas. He briefly ran for re-election in 1844 before endorsing James K. Polk.

On the eve of the Civil War he sponsored and chaired the Peace Conference of 1861 in Washington. When it failed he sided with the Confederacy, served in its Provisional Congress and was elected to the Confederate House of Representatives, but he died in Richmond in January 1862 before it met.