John Tyler is the first Vice President to ascend to the presidency upon the death of a predecessor, earning him the mocking nickname "His Accidency." His stubborn refusal to accept the title of "Acting President" set the "Tyler Precedent," establishing that a Vice President becomes the President in full, not just a temporary caretaker.
He was a man without a party. Although elected on the Whig ticket (as the "Tyler Too" in "Tippecanoe and Tyler Too"), he was a lifelong Democrat at heart who opposed the Whig agenda. After he vetoed his own party's banking bills, the Whigs famously expelled him from the party while he was still in the White House.
His presidency achieved significant territorial expansion, most notably the Annexation of Texas. Tyler ruthlessly pursued Texas as a legacy achievement, signing the annexation resolution just three days before leaving office, setting the stage for the Mexican-American War.
Tyler’s life had a shocking second act: he is the only U.S. President to die as a sworn enemy of the United States. In 1861, he joined the Confederacy and was elected to the Confederate House of Representatives. When he died in 1862, his coffin was draped in a Confederate flag, and he is the only president whose death was not officially recognized by the U.S. government.
He holds the record for the most children of any President (15 children between two wives). His second marriage to Julia Gardiner—who was 30 years his junior and younger than some of his daughters—caused a massive social scandal in Washington but also introduced the custom of playing "Hail to the Chief" to announce the President's arrival.
"His own party expelled him, his cabinet resigned in protest, and the newspapers called him 'His Accidency.' John Tyler didn't just inherit the presidency; he seized it."
John Tyler: The Man Without a Party
John Tyler was never supposed to be President. He was put on the 1840 Whig ticket solely to attract Southern states' rights voters who hated Andrew Jackson. The Whigs assumed he would be a quiet, ceremonial Vice President. They were wrong. When William Henry Harrison died 32 days into his term, the Cabinet informed Tyler that he was merely the "Vice President Acting as President." Tyler essentially said, "No." He took the oath of office, moved into the White House, and returned any letter addressed to "Acting President" unopened. By sheer force of will, he established the constitutional norm that the Vice President becomes the President—a precedent not formally written into the Constitution until the 25th Amendment in 1967.
Once in power, Tyler declared war on the party that elected him. The Whigs, led by Henry Clay, tried to pass a new National Bank. Tyler, a strict constitutionalist who hated banks, vetoed it. Enraged, the Whigs held a caucus and formally expelled the sitting President from their party. His entire cabinet (except Secretary of State Daniel Webster) resigned in a coordinated protest to cripple his administration. Tyler didn't blink; he simply appointed a new cabinet of Southern conservatives.
His administration was defined by tragedy and scandal. In 1842, his wife Letitia died in the White House. Two years later, while cruising on the USS Princeton, a ceremonial cannon called the "Peacemaker" exploded, killing the Secretary of State and the Secretary of the Navy. Tyler survived because he was below deck flirting with Julia Gardiner, a 24-year-old socialite. He married her months later, sparking gossip across the capital.
Despite the chaos, Tyler was an effective foreign policy president. He concluded the Webster-Ashburton Treaty with Britain, settling the border between Maine and Canada. But his obsession was Texas. Viewing it as the key to preserving Southern power (and slavery), he maneuvered around Congress to secure the annexation of the Lone Star Republic in his final days, handing his su...
