John Tyler, the Accidental President

Edward P. Crapol

• Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9780807882726
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Political Biographies
• Index: Politics & International Relations

The first vice president to become president on the death of the incumbent, John Tyler (1790-1862) was derided by critics as "His Accidency." In this biography of the tenth president, Edward P. Crapol challenges depictions of Tyler as a die-hard advocate of states' rights, limited government, and a strict interpretation of the Constitution. Instead, he argues, Tyler manipulated the Constitution to increase the executive power of the presidency. Crapol also highlights Tyler's faith in America's national destiny and his belief that boundless territorial expansion would preserve the Union as a slaveholding republic. When Tyler sided with the Confederacy in 1861, he was branded as America's "traitor" president for having betrayed the republic he once led.

1 Forewarned, Forearmed

We will vote for Tyler therefore, without a why or wherefore.

Whig campaign verse, 1840

The Constitution never designed that the executive should be a mere cipher.

John Tyler, July 2, 1842

In presenting the foregoing views I can not withhold the expression of the opinion that there exists nothing in the extension of our Empire over our acknowledged possessions to excite the alarm of the patriot for the safety of our institutions.

John Tyler, June 1, 1841

After just under a month in office, President William Henry Harrison died of pneumonia at 12:30 A.M. on April 4, 1841. Popular legend has it that Vice President John Tyler was momentarily stunned when Fletcher Webster, a State Department official and son of the secretary of state, pounded on the door of his Williamsburg, Virginia, home at sunrise on April 5 to awaken him with the news of President Harrison’s death. Another tale about that momentous day, delightful for its rustic simplicity and republican innocence, had the fifty-one-year-old aristocratic Virginian playing marbles with his sons in front of his home when the young Webster arrived from Washington.

Tyler initially may have been startled by the dispatch from Harrison’s cabinet announcing the president’s death, but surely the marbles tale is apocryphal. It surfaced decades later in the early twentieth century, long after the principal parties involved had died, in a breezy and unreliable collection of personal reminiscences about former presidents.¹ Whatever the case, and however shocked Tyler may have been at receiving the news, he was not totally unprepared. He had been alerted days beforehand of Harrison’s grave illness and probably anticipated receiving word at any moment that the ailing sixty-eight-year-old president had died. James Lyons, a Richmond attorney and Tyler’s political ally and frequent correspondent, had apparently written him several days earlier, passing on news appearing in the public presses that Harrison’s condition had worsened. He also wrote on April 3, again telling Tyler of the seriousness of Harrison’s condition. Although we do not know the date and time this letter arrived at the vice president’s Williamsburg home, in all likelihood Tyler received Lyon’s message late on Saturday evening, or sometime on Sunday, April 4, the day Harrison died. In his letter, Lyons informed Tyler that the president was at death’s door and confided to his friend that “I shall not be surprised to hear by tomorrows mail that Genl Harrison is no more.”²

Upon learning of the president’s life-threatening illness, the courtly Virginian abided by the dictates of his age and did not rush to Washington to hover over Harrison’s deathbed in anticipation of succeeding to the nation’s highest office. Such behavior would have been unseemly for a man of Tyler’s refinement, gentility, and aristocratic sensibilities. But having been alerted to the president’s grave condition, Tyler had time to prepare himself—emotionally, psychologically, and intellectually—for the almost certain eventuality of Harrison’s death. He also later acknowledged that a premonition from his friend Littleton Waller Tazewell that the elderly Harrison would die in office had led him to contemplate the possible constitutional consequences of the president’s death.

After his inauguration as vice president, John Tyler had returned to Williamsburg to consider how to respond if an anticipated presidential succession crisis arose. There was no precedent to instruct him because no previous president had died in office. Also of little guidance was the wording of the Constitution, which was vague and ambiguous on the question of succession. It was unclear whether the vice president became president in his own right, or whether he was to be the acting president until a new chief executive was duly elected.

Although Tyler prided himself on being a strict constructionist, in this instance he opted for a loose interpretation of the language of the Constitution and decided that the vice president in fact became the president outright. By decisive action and adroit political maneuvering during his first weeks in office, Tyler forever made moot any future constitutional objections and established by usage the precedent for the vice president to become president on the death of an incumbent. As one perceptive historian of the United States’s first presidential succession crisis has observed, “Tyler’s whole course of conduct in the first few days after he arrived in the capital demonstrated plainly that he acted with conscious deliberation to establish himself as a President in his own right and not as a mere caretaker for the departed Harrison.”³

From the outset, John Tyler used his foreknowledge to full advantage. Shortly after receiving the official cabinet notification of Harrison’s death, pointedly addressed to Vice President Tyler, he calmly informed his family at breakfast of the breathtaking turn of events that now placed him in the nation’s highest office. Tyler next consulted his Williamsburg neighbor, Nathaniel Beverley Tucker, a law professor at the College of William and Mary. Among other things, Beverley Tucker, as he was known to friends, advised the new president to follow Harrison’s example and announce immediately that he intended to serve only one term and would not seek election in his own right in 1844. Only through such a disclaimer, Tucker argued, would Tyler have any success in leading Congress and the American people.

Tyler politely granted the wisdom of Professor Tucker’s suggestion but made no commitment about a second term before hastily proceeding to the capital. He and his entourage made the 230-mile trip in twenty-one hours—a remarkable feat in that early age of steam transportation—first by taking a boat on the James River to Richmond and then going by train to Washington.

Once he reached the nation’s capital at 4:00 A.M. on April 6, Tyler executed what can only be described as a master stratagem to win unqualified acceptance as president of the United States from friend and foe alike. Crucial to this scheme was Tyler’s unwavering certainty that he was now the nation’s president, possessing all the powers and privileges of that office, and not “Acting President,” as John Quincy Adams and several other members of Congress would have it. Even three years later, when some of his detractors and enemies persisted in addressing letters to him at the White House as “Vice-President-Acting President,” Tyler routinely returned the offensive mail unopened.

On the morning of his arrival, Tyler immediately met with the six cabinet members he had inherited from Harrison. When informed by Secretary of State Daniel Webster that under his predecessor the cabinet had made decisions on the basis of majority vote, Tyler rejected that method because he did not believe cabinet members were co-equals of the president. As the chief executive Tyler said he would listen to their counsel, but would “never consent to being dictated to” by his cabinet advisers. He and he alone bore responsibility for his administration, and they were welcome to remain in the cabinet on that understanding of executive prerogative. When and if they found such a procedure untenable, their resignations would be accepted.⁴

Perhaps awed by President Tyler’s unexpected decisiveness, the entire cabinet agreed to his stipulations and remained on board to serve their new chief. Upon learning of this decision to retain the entire Harrison cabinet, a handful of the new president’s closest allies decried it as a serious early blunder that subsequently would jeopardize Tyler’s desire to steer an independent political course. As the new president would quickly learn, being forewarned did not guarantee immunity from the harsh political consequences of hasty miscalculation and human error.

The next step in Tyler’s well-orchestrated plan involved taking another oath to certify his claim to the presidential office. Although he believed a second swearing-in ceremony was unnecessary because his previous vice-presidential oath qualified him “to perform the duties and exercise the powers and office” of the president, Tyler took a new oath in the presence of the cabinet on April 6, the day of their initial meeting. As the federal judge who administered the oath explained Tyler’s reasoning and action, the new president, “yet as doubts may arise, and for greater caution, took and subscribed the foregoing oath before me.”

Three days after the symbolic oath-taking, John Tyler issued an inaugural address to further buttress the legitimacy of his presidency. In a somber and forthright manner the new chief executive informed Congress and the American people that for the first time in the nation’s brief history, an individual elected as vice president “has had devolved upon him the Presidential office.” Referring to himself several times as “Chief Magistrate” or “President,” Tyler left no room for doubt that he had assumed the mantle and accompanying powers of the presidency.

To calm any fears about possible foreign threats in this moment of uncertainty, President Tyler promised his fellow citizens that in dealing with other nations, “my policy will be justice on our part to all, submitting to injustice from none.” To ensure that the nation’s honor “shall sustain no blemish,” the newly minted president pledged to improve “the condition of our military defenses.” He hailed the army as one of fame and renown, and declared the navy to be “the right arm of the public defense.” Betraying his abiding belief in America’s destiny and national greatness, Tyler also proudly singled out the navy for already having “spread a light of glory over the American standard in all the waters of the earth.”⁵

The inaugural message next addressed an apprehension shared by many Americans since the founding of the republic, the tendency of all human institutions “to concentrate power in the hands of a single man.” To avoid the dangers of consolidated executive power, Tyler believed that “a complete separation should take place between the sword and the purse.” Tyler’s promise of a separation of executive and legislative powers was consistent with his republican faith that the legislative branch “was the direct agent of the people and the mainspring of the constitutional system.” In fact, the prevailing Whig orthodoxy espoused by Senator Henry Clay and his supporters called for legislative supremacy and a servile chief executive. Prior to becoming president, Tyler had adhered to this view of government and saw himself as a protector of republican virtue and defender of legislative autonomy.

It was arguable whether Tyler fully agreed with Abel P. Upshur, who later would serve in his cabinet as secretary of the navy and secretary of state, that the “most defective part of the Constitution” was “the loose and unguarded terms in which the powers and duties of the President are pointed out.” But in the early 1830s, while serving as a U.S. senator, John Tyler had been alarmed by President Andrew Jackson’s abuse of executive power and ultimately resigned his Senate seat rather than vote to rescind a censure of “King” Andrew. Ironically, and despite the disclaimer in the inaugural address and his previous record in the Virginia legislature and U.S. Congress, Tyler’s actions over the next four years demonstrated a preference for enhancing the power of the executive office. In wielding executive power, Tyler later explained to his constituents, he was in reality preserving the separation of powers. As would prove to be the case a number of times during his presidency, John Tyler talked the talk of republicanism, but did not always walk the walk.⁶

On the day that he released his inaugural address, Tyler confided to Senator William C. Rives his innermost feeling about the succession crisis and the emotions he felt upon being placed in the chief executive’s chair. Tyler thanked his fellow Virginian and occasional political rival for his kind expressions of support and encouragement in these difficult times. He then confessed that, despite having been forewarned, the “death of our late patriotic president, while it has devolved upon me the high office of President of the United States, has occasioned me the deepest pain and anxiety.” “I am,” Tyler explained, “under Providence made the instrument of a new test which is for the first time to be applied to our institutions. The experiment is to be made at the moment when the country is agitated by conflicting views of public policy, and when the spirit of faction is most likely to exist. Under these circumstances, the devolvement upon me of this high office is peculiarly embarrassing.”

Summarizing his tangled feelings on a note of optimism and hope, Tyler promised Rives, who throughout 1841 proved to be the only member of the Senate who consistently supported the new president, that he would govern upon the principles and teachings of Jefferson and Madison and to rely on “the virtue and intelligence of the people.” Tyler’s emphasis on following the principles of old republicanism, by which he meant states’ rights, a strict construction of the Constitution, restrictions against consolidation of federal power, and corresponding limitations on federal programs such as the national bank and high protective tariffs, became the mantra of his administration for the next four years. Despite his best intentions, President John Tyler was not entirely faithful to the republicanism of the founding fathers.⁷

Tyler rounded out his busy public campaign to establish his legitimacy as president by immediately moving into the White House. He also called for a public day of prayer and fasting to honor the memory of William Henry Harrison, which the new president believed would enable the American people to express their grief and reaffirm the national purpose. To alleviate whatever international concerns existed about this unprecedented transfer of power, the new chief executive next officially met with the ministers of foreign nations at a ceremonial gathering and proclaimed that “the people of the United States regard their own prosperity as intimately connected with that of the entire family of nations.”

By June 1, the second day of the special session of Congress originally called by the late president, both the House and the Senate easily passed resolutions acknowledging John Tyler as president of the United States, putting to rest any lingering doubts among the press and the public that he was merely an acting president. This confirmation came after only minimal debate and without division in the House. When one House member questioned whether the Constitution sanctioned Tyler’s claim that he was president, he was silenced by Representative Henry Wise of Virginia, who asserted that John Tyler believed “he was by the Constitution, by election, and by the act of God, President of the United States.” When similar constitutional objections were raised in the Senate, Robert J. Walker of Mississippi, overcoming his own initial misgivings, argued that Tyler rightly had succeeded to the presidency. The Senate concurred with Walker’s assessment by a vote of 38-8.

Tyler’s plan had worked to perfection. What was potentially an extremely controversial and bitterly contested transition of power in the nation’s highest executive office was deftly handled and smoothly finessed by a states’ rights southerner known for his strict constructionist interpretation of the Constitution. If for nothing else, John Tyler’s place in history was secure as the author of the precedent that established vice-presidential succession to the presidency.⁸

Why had this transfer of executive power gone so smoothly and uneventfully without any historical precedent or clear constitutional mandate? John Tyler proved to be tenacious and cool under pressure and was able to establish what became known as the “Tyler precedent” because he had ample time to plan his course of action. The early April forewarnings from James Lyons that President Harrison was dying were important in the immediate sense, but Vice President Tyler knew much beforehand that he might succeed to the presidency.

After making a campaign trip to Ohio and Pennsylvania in the fall of 1840, which included major speeches in Columbus and Pittsburgh, the Whig vice-presidential candidate returned to his home state of Virginia and was immediately confronted with the succession issue by the political opposition. A committee of Virginia Democrats from Henrico County who foresaw the possibility that the elderly Harrison might die in office cleverly raised that question publicly in October 1840. Undoubtedly, the main goal of the Democratic questionnaire was not to get Tyler’s thoughts on the succession question but to trip up Harrison’s running mate on highly contentious issues such as the national bank and the tariff, and thereby aid the reelection campaign of President Martin Van Buren, a Democrat who was Andrew Jackson’s protégé.

In a thoughtful reply to his Democratic antagonists, Tyler denied any ambition or desire to hold the highest office in the land, made clear his opposition to a national bank, and expressed his belief in a tariff for revenue only. Tyler concluded by reiterating his adherence to republican principles and candidly announcing, “You see I am a Jeffersonian Republican.” His answers initially appeared in the Richmond Enquirer and were rapidly reprinted in newspapers throughout the Union. Tyler’s political consistency aside, it was clear that people throughout the country were thinking that if elected, Old Tippecanoe could die before completing his term. That fact was not lost on John Tyler. The Henrico query, along with extended conversations with his friends, put Tyler in the frame of mind that he might succeed to the presidency and he had best be ready for that contingency.⁹

The widespread public speculation about the prospects for Harrison’s longevity in the White House if he were elected was accompanied by private advice to Tyler about the wisdom of running as the vice-presidential candidate on the Whig ticket. His friend Littleton Waller Tazewell, a fellow William and Mary alumnus who had represented Virginia in the Senate with Tyler during the Jackson administration, and after whom Tyler had named one of his sons, warned him prior to the election in the fall of 1840 of the possible consequences if Harrison died in office. As Tyler remembered the episode in a letter to Tazewell a year later, “I have had frequent occasion to call to mind the last conversation which I had with you in Williamsburg at my house, in which you indulged in certain anticipations, which have received all the fulfillment of actual prophecy. I well remember your prediction of Gen. Harrison’s death, and with what emphasis you enquired of me whether I had thought of my own situation upon the happening of that contingency. You declared in advance much of the difficulty by which I have already been surrounded.”

Shortly after reminding Tazewell of his prophecy of Harrison’s death, President Tyler once again sought his friend’s advice and good counsel. In a note studded with literary allusions, the president asked: “Do, my dear sir, turn over your Sibyl leaves and read to me their recorded prophecies. If they augur very badly for me, I may by being forewarned...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Praise for John Tyler, the Accidental President
• JOHN TYLER the Accidental President
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• CONTENTS
• MAP & ILLUSTRATIONS
• FOREWORD
• Introduction
• 1 Forewarned, Forearmed
• 2 Visions of National Destiny
• 3 Defending Slavery
• 4 Avoiding War & Preserving Peace
• 5 Pacific Visions
• 6 Texas
• 7 Retirement & Secession
• Conclusion: Precedents & Legacies
• NOTES
• BIBLIOGRAPHY
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
• INDEX