John Tyler

John Tyler (1790-1862) was a Virginia planter and enslaver who served as governor of Virginia and U.S. senator. A states' rights Democrat who broke with Andrew Jackson, he joined the Whigs and was elected vice president in 1840. When William Henry Harrison died in April 1841, Tyler took the oath as president rather than acting president, settling the question of succession. He soon vetoed the Whig program for a new national bank, and his cabinet resigned and the party expelled him. His administration settled the Maine boundary with Britain, opened treaty relations with China and ended the Second Seminole War, and in his last days in office he signed the joint resolution to annex Texas.

Historians credit Tyler with a lasting constitutional precedent: by insisting that he was president in full, he ensured orderly transfers of power after later presidents died, a rule eventually confirmed by the 25th Amendment. Some also give his administration credit for a capable foreign policy, largely the work of Secretary of State Daniel Webster. Critics, including most scholars who rank presidents, judge his term as divided and unproductive, with a president who had no party behind him and used the veto against the program he had been elected on. His push for Texas annexation was closely tied to expanding slavery, and he enslaved people throughout his life. After failing to broker a compromise at the 1861 Peace Convention, he supported Virginia's secession and was elected to the Confederate House of Representatives, but died before it met.