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The Last Time We Had an Insurrectionist President
The BulwarkBorn in 1790 to one of Virginia’s oldest clans, John Tyler’s upbringing embodied many of the classic traits associated with the Southern gentry: wealth, land, honor, education, and slavery. The son of a Revolutionary War veteran and judge of a U.S. district court in Virginia, Tyler attended William and Mary before passing the bar. After barely one year of practicing law, Tyler turned to politics and successfully ran for a seat in the Virginia House of Delegates. Like most other Southern politicians of that day, Tyler resented banks, supported states’ rights, and remained dubious of federal power. Following in his father’s footsteps, he became a governor of Virginia and U.S. senator.
With the rise of Andrew Jackson and the Democratic party in the 1820s and 1830s, Tyler struggled to find his place in the emerging political order. He had initially opposed Jackson in 1824, only to support him reluctantly in 1828. But Jackson’s actions as president only further validated Tyler’s distrust. As a Southerner, he was appalled by Jackson’s militant hostility toward South Carolina throughout the nullification crisis, and he viewed Jackson’s war against the Second Bank of the United States as an abuse of executive power. Such experiences led Tyler to break with the Democrats and make common cause with the emerging anti-Jacksonian alliance, the Whig party.
Because of his status as of prominent Democratic defector from the South, Tyler was twice nominated by the Whigs for the vice presidency. Led by William Henry Harrison, the elderly hero of the battle of Tippecanoe, Tyler and the Whigs unseated Martin Van Buren in 1840. Following Harrison’s sudden death a mere 31 days after his inauguration, Tyler was elevated to the presidency and found himself at odds with most of his Whig compatriots: After he vetoed a bill to establish a National Bank, his whole cabinet resigned (except for Daniel Webster) and the Whig party expelled him. Now a president without a party, Tyler continued to feud with Congress to the point that a faction of Whigs attempted to impeach him. Because of his unpopularity and the way in which he had become president, Tyler was often mockingly called “His Accidency.” When his term ended in 1845, he left office spurned and politically homeless.
Out of the public eye, Tyler spent his retirement attempting to repair his reputation, particularly in promoting himself as the progenitor of Texas annexation. But as the country drifted toward civil war over slavery, Tyler joined his fellow Southerners in decrying the rise of abolitionism. At the same time, though, he also expressed concern over Southern radicals who spoke of reopening the slave trade and breaking up the Union. Although initially hopeful for compromise, his pessimism grew with each passing election. Following James Buchanan’s pyrrhic victory over the anti-slavery Republican party in the election of 1856, Tyler remarked in an August 1860 letter to his son Robert that “the Country is undoubtedly in an alarming condition. . . . Let things result as they may, I fear that the great Republic has seen its best days.” The election of Abraham Lincoln, in Tyler’s mind, sealed the nation’s doom. Writing again to Robert in November 1860, Tyler lamented that “all is over and Lincoln elected. S. Carolina will secede.”
Though Tyler was horrified by Lincoln’s victory, he did not immediately join the cause of the secessionists. Yet secessionism did attract his sympathies: “sometimes,” he wrote a few days later in November 1860, “I think it would be better for all peaceably to separate.” Even so, he remained hopeful that the Union could be saved through more negotiations, and he proposed a convention of free and slave states to hash out a compromise. Although he presided over the Virginia Peace Conference, he fought for peace on the South’s terms and opposed all the conference’s resolutions. Despite his hopes, Tyler maintained that the South had “the right of Secession in the Constitution.” Tyler then joined the Virginia Secession Convention, voting in favor of quitting the Union. Before the convention, he raged against the “aggressions” of the Republican party, citing them as just cause for secession. Tyler then went on to link the struggle to create an independent slaveholding confederacy with “the cause of our forefathers in the Revolution of 1776.” In an April 1861 letter to his second wife, Julia Gardiner Tyler, he triumphantly declared, “Virginia has severd her connexions with the Northern hive of abolitionists and takes her stand as a soveriegn and independant State.” Tyler was then unanimously elected to the Provisional Confederate Congress and later the Confederate House of Representatives.
With the rise of Andrew Jackson and the Democratic party in the 1820s and 1830s, Tyler struggled to find his place in the emerging political order. He had initially opposed Jackson in 1824, only to support him reluctantly in 1828. But Jackson’s actions as president only further validated Tyler’s distrust. As a Southerner, he was appalled by Jackson’s militant hostility toward South Carolina throughout the nullification crisis, and he viewed Jackson’s war against the Second Bank of the United States as an abuse of executive power. Such experiences led Tyler to break with the Democrats and make common cause with the emerging anti-Jacksonian alliance, the Whig party.
Because of his status as of prominent Democratic defector from the South, Tyler was twice nominated by the Whigs for the vice presidency. Led by William Henry Harrison, the elderly hero of the battle of Tippecanoe, Tyler and the Whigs unseated Martin Van Buren in 1840. Following Harrison’s sudden death a mere 31 days after his inauguration, Tyler was elevated to the presidency and found himself at odds with most of his Whig compatriots: After he vetoed a bill to establish a National Bank, his whole cabinet resigned (except for Daniel Webster) and the Whig party expelled him. Now a president without a party, Tyler continued to feud with Congress to the point that a faction of Whigs attempted to impeach him. Because of his unpopularity and the way in which he had become president, Tyler was often mockingly called “His Accidency.” When his term ended in 1845, he left office spurned and politically homeless.
Out of the public eye, Tyler spent his retirement attempting to repair his reputation, particularly in promoting himself as the progenitor of Texas annexation. But as the country drifted toward civil war over slavery, Tyler joined his fellow Southerners in decrying the rise of abolitionism. At the same time, though, he also expressed concern over Southern radicals who spoke of reopening the slave trade and breaking up the Union. Although initially hopeful for compromise, his pessimism grew with each passing election. Following James Buchanan’s pyrrhic victory over the anti-slavery Republican party in the election of 1856, Tyler remarked in an August 1860 letter to his son Robert that “the Country is undoubtedly in an alarming condition. . . . Let things result as they may, I fear that the great Republic has seen its best days.” The election of Abraham Lincoln, in Tyler’s mind, sealed the nation’s doom. Writing again to Robert in November 1860, Tyler lamented that “all is over and Lincoln elected. S. Carolina will secede.”
Though Tyler was horrified by Lincoln’s victory, he did not immediately join the cause of the secessionists. Yet secessionism did attract his sympathies: “sometimes,” he wrote a few days later in November 1860, “I think it would be better for all peaceably to separate.” Even so, he remained hopeful that the Union could be saved through more negotiations, and he proposed a convention of free and slave states to hash out a compromise. Although he presided over the Virginia Peace Conference, he fought for peace on the South’s terms and opposed all the conference’s resolutions. Despite his hopes, Tyler maintained that the South had “the right of Secession in the Constitution.” Tyler then joined the Virginia Secession Convention, voting in favor of quitting the Union. Before the convention, he raged against the “aggressions” of the Republican party, citing them as just cause for secession. Tyler then went on to link the struggle to create an independent slaveholding confederacy with “the cause of our forefathers in the Revolution of 1776.” In an April 1861 letter to his second wife, Julia Gardiner Tyler, he triumphantly declared, “Virginia has severd her connexions with the Northern hive of abolitionists and takes her stand as a soveriegn and independant State.” Tyler was then unanimously elected to the Provisional Confederate Congress and later the Confederate House of Representatives.
3 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
even though Tyler himself died in January of 1862.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Ruffin_Tyler
