![]() In the immediate aftermath of Harrison’s death, there was confusion about whether Tyler would assume the full powers and salary of the presidency as if elected to the office, or remain vice president acting as president. He died a month later, on April 4, from pneumonia. The 68-year-old Harrison was inaugurated on March 4, 1841. The Harrison-Tyler ticket won the White House with an electoral vote of 234-60 and approximately 53 percent of the popular vote. In fact, he came from humble roots while Harrison and Tyler were well-educated and hailed from prominent families. Harrison’s Democratic opponent, President Martin Van Buren (1782-1862), who was unpopular with Americans for his mismanagement of the financial crisis known as the Panic of 1837, was painted by the Whigs as an out-of-touch, wealthy elite. The Whigs positioned Harrison as a symbol of the common man and promoted his image as an Indian fighter on the American frontier, using the campaign slogan “Tippecanoe and Tyler too” (a reference to Harrison’s military leadership against a coalition of Indian forces at the 1811 Battle of Tippecanoe in Indiana). In 1840, the Whigs selected Ohio politician William Henry Harrison to run for president and chose Tyler as their vice presidential nominee in an attempt to attract states’ rights Southerners. The ex-senator became affiliated with the Whig Party, which was established in the early 1830s in opposition to Jackson Tyler Assumes the Presidency Two years later, in 1836, Tyler resigned from the Senate to avoid complying with the Virginia legislature’s instructions to reverse the censure vote. ![]() In 1834, the Senate censured Jackson over issues surrounding his removal of government funds from the Bank of the United States. During this time, he grew unhappy with the policies of President Andrew Jackson (1767-1845), a Democrat who was in the White House from 1829 to 1837. Tyler represented his home state in the U.S. ![]() (In this role, he delivered the state’s official eulogy for Jefferson, America’s third president, who died on July 4, 1826.) He returned to the Virginia legislature from 1823 to 1825 and was governor of Virginia from 1825 to 1827. Constitution and opposed policies granting additional power to the federal government. Elected to Congress as a Democratic-Republican, the party founded in the early 1790s by Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) and James Madison (1751-1836), Tyler favored states’ rights and strict adherence to the U.S. House of Representatives from 1817 to 1821. Tyler served in the Virginia legislature from 1811 to 1816 and was a member of the U.S. ![]() With a total of 15 offspring from his two marriages, Tyler fathered more children than any other U.S. The couple went on to have seven children. In 1844, John Tyler became the first president to marry while in office when he wed Julia Gardiner (1820-89), a wealthy New Yorker 30 years his junior. In 1842, Letitia Tyler suffered a second stroke and died at age 51, becoming the first president’s wife to pass away while her husband was in the White House. Her daughter-in-law, Priscilla Cooper Tyler (1816-89), a former actress, assumed the role of official White House hostess. In 1839, Letitia suffered a stroke that left her partially paralyzed and incapable of handling the responsibilities of first lady when her husband became president two years later. In 1813, the 23-year-old Tyler married fellow Virginian Letitia Christian (1790-1842), with whom he would have eight children. The home, which the president bought in 1842, remains in the Tyler family today and is open to the public for tours. He began his political career in 1811, when he was elected to the Virginia legislature at age 21.ĭid you know? President Tyler reportedly named his Virginia plantation Sherwood Forest because he identified with the legendary character Robin Hood and saw himself as a political outlaw. The younger Tyler graduated from the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, in 1807, then studied law under private tutors. (1747-1813), a prosperous planter and Virginia politician, and Mary Armistead (1761-97). John Tyler was born on March 29, 1790, at his family’s plantation, Greenway, in Charles City County, Virginia.
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