Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1889, volume 6).djvu/225

Rh the Whigs in the south, and their candidate, Henry- Clay, declared himself willing to see Texas admit- ted at some future time. But this device cut both ways ; for while it was popular in the south, and is supposed to have acquired for Clay many pro- slavery votes, carrying for him Tennessee, North Carolina, Delaware, and Maryland by bare majori- ties, it certainly led many anti-slavery Whigs to throw away their votes upon the " Liberty" candi- date, James G. Birney, and thus surrender New York to the Democrats. The victory of the Demo- crats in November was reflected in the course pur- sued in the ensuing congress. One of the party watchwords, in reference to the Oregon question, had been " fifty-four forty, or fight," and the house of representatives now proceeded to pass a bill or- ganizing a territorial government for Oregon up to that parallel of latitude. The senate, however, laid the bill upon the table, because it prohibited sla- very in the territory. A joint resolution for the annexation of Texas was passed by both houses. Proposals for prohibiting slavery there were de- feated, and the affair was arranged by extending the Missouri compromise-line westward through the Texan territory to be acquired by the annexa- tion. North of that line slavery was to be pro- hibited ; south of it the question was to be deter- mined by the people living on the spot. The reso- lutions were signed by President Tyler, and in- structions in accordance therewith were despatched by him to Texas on the last day of his term of office, 3 March, 1845. The friends of annexation defended the constitutionality of this proceeding, and the opponents denounced it.

After leaving the White House, Mr. Tyler took up his residence on an estate that he had purchased three miles from Greenway, on the bank of James river. To this estate he gave the name of " Sher- wood Forest," and there he lived the rest of his life. (See illustration on page 196.) In a letter Jublished in the Richmond " Enquirer " on 17 an., 1861, he recommended a convention of border states— including New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Iowa, as well as Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Mis- souri — for the purpose of devising some method of adjusting the difficulties brought on by the seces- sion of South Carolina. The scheme adopted by this convention was to be submitted to the other states, and, if adopted, was to be incorporated into the Federal constitution. In acting upon Mr. Ty- ler's suggestion, the Virginia legislature enlarged it into a proposal of a peace convention to be com- posed of delegates from all the states. At the same time Mr. Tyler was appointed a commissioner to President Buchanan, while Judge John Robert- son was appointed commissioner to the state of South Carolina, the object being to persuade both parties to abstain from any acts of hostility until the proposed peace convention should have had an opportunity to meet and discuss the situation. In discharge of this mission Mr. Tyler arrived on 23 Jan. in Washington. President Buchanan declined to give any assurances, but in his message to con- fress, on 28 Jan., he deprecated a hasty resort to ostile measures. The peace convention, consist- ing of delegates from thirteen northern and seven border states, met at Washington on 4 Feb. and chose Mr. Tyler as its president. Several resolu- tions were adopted and reported to congress, 27 Feb. ; but on 2 March they were rejected in the senate by a vote of 28 to 7, and two days later the house adjourned without having taken a vote upon them. On 28 Feb., anticipating the fate of the resolutions in congress, Mr. Tyler made a speech on the steps of the Exchange hotel in Richmond, and declared his belief that no arrangement could be made, and that nothing was left for Virginia but to act promptly in the exercise of her powers as a sovereign state. The next day he took his seat in the State convention, where he advocated the immediate passing. of an ordinance of secession. His attitude seems to have been substantially the same that it had been twenty-eight years before, when he disapproved the heresy of nullification, but condemned with still greater emphasis the measures taken by President Jackson to suppress that heresy. This feeling that secession was unad- visable, but coercion wholly indefensible, was shared by Mr. Tyler with many people in the border states. On the removal of the government of the southern Confederacy from Montgomery to Richmond, in May, 1861, he was unanimously elected a member of the provisional congress of the Confederate states. In the following autumn he was elected to the permanent congress, but he died before taking his seat. His biography has been ably written by one of his younger sons, Lyon Gardiner Tyler, " Letters and Times of the Tylers " (2 vols., Rich- mond, 1884-'5). See also " Seven Decades of the Union," by Henry A. Wise (Philadelphia, 1872).— His wife, Letitia Christian, b. at Cedar Grove, New Kent co., Va., 12 Nov., 1790 ; d. in Washing- ton, D. C, 9 Sept., 1842, was the daughter of Rob- ert Christian, a planter in New Kent county, Va. She married Mr. Tyler on 29 March, 1813, and re- moved with him to his home in Charles City coun- ty. When he became president she accompanied him to Washington ; but her health was delicate, and she died shoi'tly afterward. Mrs. Tyler was unable to assume any social cares, and the duties of mistress of the White House devolved upon her daughter-in-law, Mrs. Robert Tyler. She possessed great beauty of person and of character, and, before the failure of her health, was especially fitted for a social life. — Their son, Robert, b. in New Kent county, Va., in 1818: d. in Montgomery, Ala., 3 Dec, 1877, was educated at William and Mary, and adopted the profession of law. He married Pris- eilla, a daughter of Thomas Apthorpe Cooper, the tragedian, in 1839, and when his father became president his wife assumed the duties of mistress of the White House till after Mrs. John Tyler's death, when they devolved upon her daughter, Mrs. Letitia Semple. Mr. Tyler removed to Phila- delphia in 1843, practised law there, and held sev- eral civil offices. In 1844 he was elected president of the Irish repeal association. A little later he became prothonotary of the supreme court of Pennsylvania, and in 1858 he was chairman of the Democratic executive committee of the state. He removed to Richmond at the beginning of the civil war, and was appointed register of the treasury. After the war he edited the "Mail and Adver- tiser " in Montgomery, Ala. He published " Ahas- uerus," a poem (New York, 1842) ; " Death, or Me- dora's Dream," a poem (1843); "Is Virginia a Repudiating State? and the States' Guarantee," two letters (Richmond, Va., 1858).— President Ty- ler's second wife, Julia Gardiner, b. on Gardi- ner's island, near Easthampton, N. Y, in 1820, was the eldest daughter of David Gardiner, a descend- ant of the Gardiners of Gardiner's island. She was educated at the Chegary institute. New York city, spent several months in Europe, and in the winter of 1844 accompanied her father to Washington, D. C. A few weeks afterward he was killed by the explosion of a gun on the war-steamer "Prince- ton," which occurred during a pleasure excursion in which he and his daughter were of the presi-