The Presidency of John Tyler
The President Who Helped Destroy the Whigs
John Tyler, though elected Vice President as a Whig candidate, did much after ascending to the highest office, to destroy the Whig agenda in Washington.
The decision of John Tyler to set a new constitutional precedent by taking over the office of the Presidency from the deceased William Henry Harrison (the first President to have died in office, having served a grand total of 31 days) is generally regarded as having been a good and necessary one.
Just about everything he did after this, however, remains open to debate.
Break With the Whigs
Upon arriving in office, Tyler retained the entire Whig cabinet of William Henry Harrison. The former President had, to the perspective of some, ceded many decisions to the leader of the Whig party; but Henry Clay, Tyler could not be seen as having been a traditional Whig.
He disagreed with his cabinet and party leadership from the very beginning, openly unwilling to succomb to the will of his cabinet in making policy decisions, and if they didn't like it, they were free to resign.
The hatred of Tyler felt by the cabinet quickly spread to the congress as soon as Tyler began exercising his Presidential veto power. One after another bill passed by the Whig congress ended up on Tyler's desk, summarily vetoed.
He vetoed a bill resurrecting the Bank of the United States (the dismantling of which by Andrew Jackson played a large role in leading the nation toward the Panic of 1837) - which seemed to go against his anti-Jacksonian stance, but this was one of the few areas where he agreed with the former President.
Enraged, his entire cabinet resigned in protest (save for Secretary of State Daniel Webster, who stayed on in order to continue important negotions with England over the proper boundary between England and the United States in Maine, resulting in the important Webster-Ashburton Treaty, one of the few successes of Tyler's term) and John Tylar was summarily kicked out of the Whig party.
Presidential Authority
Undaunted, Tyler continued to exercise his power to override the U.S. Congress (who, for their part, did not have the necessary votes to override his vetoes - especially after the Democrats regained congressional control in 1842).
He vetoed two tariff bills in a row (as a southern slave-owner this was natural) as well as an internal improvement bill, in general doing all that he could to undermine the Whig agenda in congress.
While congress did attempt to draw up impeachment papers against the embattled President, they did not have the votes to do so, and so the federal government continued in stalemate. The President, not having congressional support, could not pass his own agenda, and congress could not get theirs by the President.
The Texas Issue
The one issue that President Tyler wanted desperately to become his legacy after leaving office was the annexation of Texas from Mexico. Unfortunately, even this was handled poorly, in the last year of his term (1844), Tyler appointed John C. Calhoun as secretary of state (the same who had been Vice-President under Jackson, and who had defended South Carolina during the nullification crisis).
Because of Calhoun's pro-slavery views, his negotians with Mexico did not go over well with northern abolitionists and the proposal for Texas statehood did not make it through the Senate.
In the end, however, Tyler proposed an annexation bill which only had to recieve a simple majority vote in the house and senate, passing just before Tyler was scheduled to leave office. Texas was thus made a state by Tyler on March 1, 1845 - three days before James K. Polk was to to take office as Tyler's successor.
Fortunately, Tyler no longer belonged to a political party, and was thus not offered a nomination in the 1944 Presidential election. He retired to his Virginia plantation, where he would live in peace until becoming involved in confederate politics in the early 1860's, urging the secession of Virginia and being elected to the Confederate congress, though he died of bronchitus before taking office.
Today, John Tyler is still seen as being one of the worst Presidents America has seen, thanks in part to an utter lack of accomplishment.
See Also:
The Early Politics of John Tyler
References:
"John Tyler." American Presidents: An Online Reference Resource.
"John Tyler." The White House.
