John Tyler - A Presidency of Firsts
The Tyler Precedent
When President William Henry Harrison died in 1841, Vice President John Tyler became the first to assume the full powers of the presidency—establishing a precedent that 7 other vice presidents used before the 25th Amendment was ratified in 1967.
Expulsion by His Own Party
In 1841, the Whig Party formally expelled Tyler after he vetoed their proposed national bank legislation—twice. He remains the only U.S. President ever removed from his own political party.
Firsts in Politics
Tyler was the first president to face formal impeachment proceedings. He was also the first president to have a veto overridden by Congress.
First in Personal Loss
Tyler was the first president to lose his wife while serving in office.
Subsequently, he was the first to be married while serving in office.
An 11th-Hour Triumph
In the final days of his administration, Tyler secured the annexation of Texas—an achievement he regarded as the crowning accomplishment of his presidency.
A Remarkable Family
Tyler married twice and fathered fifteen children—the largest family of any American president. Sherwood Forest, the home to which he retired when he left office, has been continuously occupied by his descendants.
"I am the President"
John Tyler became tenth president of the United States amidst a potential constitutional crisis. As the nation’s first vice-president to assume the presidency due to the incumbent’s death, he entered uncharted territory on the morning of April 6, 1841, when he took the oath of office in the reception room at Brown’s Indian Queen Hotel in Washington. Article II, Section 1, paragraph 6 of the US Constitution asserts that “In case of the removal of the President from office, or of his death, resignation, or inability to discharge the powers and duties of the said office, the same shall devolve on the Vice President.” Tyler interpreted this to mean that he had inherited the office of president once William Henry Harrison had died, and that he could now exercise the powers and assume the duties of the presidency. He would be no placeholder, no “Vice President acting as President,” as some would propose. To reinforce the point, he made clear to Harrison’s cabinet—which he kept in place—that he would not accept any diminution of his power or authority. “I am the President, and I shall be held responsible for my administration,” he declared.
Tyler’s assertiveness on the day he took office established what historians call the “Tyler precedent.” By taking the oath of office and assuming the powers of the presidency outright, he initiated what would become commonly accepted practice. Subsequent vice presidents who succeeded to the presidency upon the death of the chief executive all followed what Tyler had done on the day he took office. His actions staved off a constitutional crisis that might have clogged the wheels of government and undermined the authority of the executive branch.
Formative Years in Virginia
Perhaps no American president had been better prepared to occupy the White House than John Tyler. He was born in Charles City County, Virginia, on March 29, 1790, at the home his family called “Greenway,” not far from the James River. When he was seven years-old, his mother died, which made his father, also John Tyler, a minor figure in the American Revolution and a prominent judge, the most important influence on his life. Judge Tyler instilled in his son a love of learning, the virtue of public service, and the political creed of small government and strict construction of the Constitution championed by Thomas Jefferson and the Democratic-Republican Party. The future president’s education at the College of William and Mary reinforced what he had learned at home. By the time young Tyler graduated in 1807, he had become confident enough in his own abilities to believe that the career path to which he had been steered appeared not only possible, but likely.
President Tyler's birthplace, Greenway Plantation, Charles City County, Virginia. Library of Congress Photo.
Tyler pursued a career in the law as a springboard to a life of public service. Spurred on by a conversation with Jefferson, who assured him of the soundness of his plans, Tyler passed the Virginia bar exam in 1809 (as a nineteen-year-old), and, within two years, had become a fixture in the legal community of Charles City County and the surrounding area. Working primarily as a defense attorney, and no doubt aided by the reputation of his father, he excelled in the courtroom, and by the time he was twenty-five, he was earning a lucrative income. More importantly, he was laying the groundwork for his entrance into politics.
Leticia Christian Tyler. John Tyler and Letitia Christian married in 1813. She died in the White House in 1842, making John Tyler the first president to lose a spouse while in office. Library of Congress image.
In 1811, at just twenty-one years of age, Tyler won election to the Virginia House of Delegates representing Charles City County. He was re-elected four times. On March 29, 1813, his twenty-third birthday, he wed Letitia Christian in an Episcopal ceremony. Sidetracked by the War of 1812, Tyler became captain of a militia company that saw no action. After the war, he sought higher office, and in 1816, won a seat in the US House of Representatives as an “Old Republican.” An advocate of free trade, and an outspoken opponent of both the national bank and federally sponsored internal improvements, he served until March 1821, when he retired, pleading ill health and expressing a desire to take part in raising his children. He and Letitia would ultimately have eight children, seven of whom lived to adulthood.
Political Destiny
The life of a county lawyer and planter, however, left Tyler unfulfilled. In April 1823, he re-entered the political arena and again won a seat in the House of Delegates. Two years later, the Virginia legislature elected him governor, a post he would hold until his election to the U.S. Senate in 1827. Tyler became a wary and lukewarm supporter of Andrew Jackson, who won thenpresidency in 1828. Aligning with the new Democratic Party, he eventually broke with Jackson and became a Whig over what he argued was the president’s abuse of power. Tyler resigned from the Senate on February 29, 1836, rather than vote to expunge a resolution of censure against President Jackson. Re-entering politics yet again, he won election to the House of Delegates in April 1838. He became a delegate to the December 1839 Whig national convention in Harrisburg, which met to nominate the party’s standard bearer for the 1840 presidential election. Ironically, Tyler had gone to the convention as a Henry Clay partisan. He secured second place on the ticket, and after the Whig victory in November, prepared for his duties as vice president. Congress was not in session on April 4, 1841, when Harrison died, so Tyler was at his home in Williamsburg when two messengers arrived at dawn the next day with news of the president’s death and instructions for him to make his way to Washington as quickly as possible.
President without a Party
Congress met in a special session during the summer of 1841, with the sole purpose of producing legislation that would help alleviate the effects of the still lingering Panic of 1837. Clay led the Whigs in the Senate and crafted a bill chartering a new national bank (Jackson had killed the previous bank). President Tyler vetoed this bill, so Congressional Whigs tried again. When Tyler vetoed the second bill that would have created a national bank, the Whigs formally expelled him from their ranks, making him a “president without a party”—the only time in the nation’s history that a chief executive has been excommunicated from the party to which he belonged. Henry Clay called Tyler “His Accidency.” The cabinet—with the exception of Secretary of State Daniel Webster—resigned.
Webster remained with Tyler in large part to facilitate negotiations with the British that he hoped would settle a long-standing dispute over the boundary between Maine and Canada. The resulting Webster-Ashburton Treaty brought satisfaction to both nations and provided President Tyler with a significant achievement. In fact, he played a crucial role in the negotiations. As a president without a party, Tyler found more success in foreign affairs than he did in the domestic policy realm, constrained as he was by the Congressional Whigs. The Tyler Doctrine asserted America’s interest in preserving Hawaii’s independence and warned world powers that the U.S. would not tolerate colonization efforts there. Tyler also began to develop a formal American policy in East Asia with the Treaty of Wangxia between the US and China.
A Complex Legacy
It is the annexation of Texas, however, for which Tyler is best known. After failing to secure Senate ratification of a treaty that would have made the Lone Star Republic part of the United States, the president won approval for annexation through a joint-resolution of Congress in the last week of his presidency. The annexation of Texas was controversial and galvanized
both proponents of slavery’s expansion and those who sought to stymie it.
Tyler’s pursuit of Texas annexation coincided with a momentous change in his personal life. Letitia had died in the White House in September 1842. Tyler wasted little time in courting native New Yorker Julia Gardiner, a woman some thirty years his junior. The courtship accelerated after the tragic explosion on board the USS Princeton on February 28, 1844, which killed Julia’s father and several others. Their wedding—the plans for which were largely kept secret—occurred on June 26, 1844, in New York City. Julia served as first lady for eight months. The couple returned to Charles City County after Tyler’s term expired on March 4, 1845, and lived at an estate the president named Sherwood Forest.
Tyler enslaved between fifty and sixty African Americans at Sherwood Forest. On at least one occasion after his retirement from the presidency, he sold an enslaved person. His will freed none of the enslaved labor force. Upon his death on January 18, 1862, ownership of his enslaved people passed to Julia.
At the time of his passing, Tyler was in Richmond, preparing to take his seat in the new Confederate Congress. He had played an instrumental role in bringing about Virginia’s secession from the Union in May 1861 and sought once again to enter the political arena. The decision was a costly one. His reputation plummeted and he became known as the “traitor president,” one who had violated his oath of office and sided with the enemy of the nation he once led. The repercussions were enormous for his family, and Julia struggled to win a pension from the federal government because of his direct ties to the Confederacy.
Dr. Christopher J. Leahy
Professor of History, Keuka College
Author - President Without a Party: The Life of John Tyler (2020, Louisiana State University Press)
Co-author - Presidentess: The Life of First Lady Julia Gardiner Tyler (2026, University Press of Kansas)
Historian of the Tyler Presidency
Political Timeline
1811
1816
1825
1827
1834
1836
1840
1841
1842
1844
1845
1861
January 1862
Elected to the Virginia House of Delegates at age 21, beginning his career in public service.
Receives first Washington post as he is elected to the US House of Representatives.
Elected Governor of Virginia.
Appointed to the U.S. Senate for Virginia.
Tyler joins the Whig party. He resigns his Senate seat rather than vote to expunge a censure of Pres. Andrew Jackson.
Ran as a Vice Presidential candidate for the Whigs with Presidential candidate, Hugh White.
Elected Vice President on the Tippecannoe & Tyler, Too ticket with General William Henry Harrison.
Sworn in as President after William Henry Harrison dies 30 days into the term. After vetoing the second of two National Bank bills the Whigs presented, Tyler is kicked out of the Whig party and most of his Whig cabinet resigns.
Becomes the first President to have articles of impeachment written against him. Signs the Webster/Ashburton Treaty. First Lady Leticia Christian Tyler passes away.
President Tyler loses two key cabinet members during an explosion on the U. S. S. Princeton. Marries New York socialite, Julia Gardiner. Supports presidential candidate James Polk in exchange for assistance from the Democrats in the annexation of Texas.
Signs legislation annexing Texas in the final days of his term. Becomes first President to have a veto overridden. Retires to Sherwood Forest with wife Julia Gardiner Tyler to raise his second family.
Chaired the unsuccessful Peace Conference in Washington D. C., subsequently supporting Virginia secession. Elected to Confederate Congress.
On the eve of his inauguration to the Confederate Congress, John Tyler has a stroke and dies at the Exchange Hotel in Richmond. He receives a full Confederate state funeral and is buried in Hollywood Cemetery alongside James Monroe. The White House does not acknowledge his death.