Heritage History Month Day Nineteen: John Tyler

Happy John Tyler Day!

On this nineteenth day of Heritage History month, it happens to be Presidents Day and I decided to go ahead and write on my favorite US president. I won’t make the full case here for Tyler as the greatest, but certainly one can see in Tyler a presidential character who represents a world we have lost.

Tyler of course became president when William Harrison died, just over a month into his term. As Tyler was the first VP to take the reigns upon the death of the President, it was unclear exactly what this would mean: should he assume the duties and be the Acting President, or be sworn into the office and take up the presidential title? While some wanted otherwise (John Quincy Adams never referred to him as the legitimate President), Tyler ignored the critics and was sworn in.

Tyler represents probably the most constitutionally purist President in a world where that was both politically possible, and socio-politically wise. Tyler was an uncompromising believer in the restraints of his own office, and Congress’ as well. He stood firm against various forms of economic nationalization, especially as it concerned the creation of a central bank. Tyler spent his presidency saying “no” to one of the nineteenth century’s most ruthless political characters in the person of Henry Clay, brainstormer of the “American System” and architect of economic and structural centralization.

Clay was so ruthless in the machinations of political dynamics that at one point, trying to put intense pressure on Tyler to comply with his economic program, he literally accomplished the mass resignation of Tyler’s entire cabinet. Tyler responded by simply stacking the entire administration with His Guys. Based.

In addition to refusing to participate in various schemes of economic centralization, he also held a traditional non-intervention view of foreign policy. As such he was able to slash the budget by shrinking the expenditures on the maintenance of American soldiers and refusing to be engaged in prolonged military adventures where it did not concern actual American interests. He was a realist on foreign policy though, and applied the Monroe Doctrine to the kingdom of Hawaii, warning Britain to keep its hands off, as doing otherwise would be interpreted as a threat to American security.

Finally, Tyler, a southerner, was a defender of his homeland in a context where tensions were heightening. He supported Calhoun’s nullification doctrines against Jackson in the Nullification crisis and always recognized that the Union was a product of the voluntary participation of sovereign states. He saw the American system in an originalist sense where the states formed a general government to achieve certain purposes which could only be sustained if the federal government adhered to these purposes. His commitment to the well-being of his region as a priority even to the well being of the union was a clear reflection of the anti-federalist spirit in the eighteenth and nineteenth century.

Tyler should be remembered for his fierce commitment to the restraints of his own office and for constantly thwarting schemes of Progressive transformation. I don’t think Tyler is the man we need at the moment—his world has already been conquered—but we should see Tyler as a counter signal to the disastrous twentieth century.