Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 14.djvu/385

 Letters and Times of the Tylers. 379

said the Whigs had, in England, been a party opposed to power, and asked, in one of his speeches against the Jackson party, what shall we call ourselves ? We are Whigs ; and it was on the floor of the Senate that he gave the name Whi^ to what was truly the American Democratic party. This is history, and it is well treated in bio- graphical notices and on philosophic principles as history, free from mere political bias, by the writer of the work under consideration.

Tyler had approved the choice of Adams in preference to Jackson, by the House of Representatives, but perceiving in the very first message of Adams "an almost total disregard of the federative prin- ciple," he took steps in the Senate with the opposition to Adams, which was composed of the followers of Jackson, Crawford, and Calhoun. He made, during the debate on Clay's tariff resolutions in i83i-'32, a three days' speech, of much force, against a tariff for pro- tection, yet he advocated a tariff for revenue, with incidental pro- tection.

" He voted against the tariff of 1832, and sympathized deeply with the sufferings of South Carolina, but did not approve either the expe- diency or the principle of nullification; condemning also, in even severer terms, the principles enunciated in the celebrated proclama- tion of President Jackson, which attacked, not alone nullification, but also the right of secession and the sovereignty of the States. Mr. Tyler's vote was the only one cast against the ' Force Bill ' on its final passage, and he was mainly instrumental in securing the passage of the Compromise Tariff of 1833, whose principle he suggested to Mr. Clay, its patron."

In 1833 '34 he sustained Clay's resolutions of censure upon Presi- dent Jackson for the removal of the deposits, which he thought an unwarrantable exercise of power, though he considered the bank unconstitutional.

In relation to the famous expunging resolution, introduced by Mr. Benton into the Senate, to relieve President Jackson of a just censure, passed on him some years before, Mr. Tyler— receiving instructions from resolutions adopted by the Virginia Legislature, to vote for those resolutions — resigned his seat and returned home. Mr. Tyler may be considered a firm and decided Whig. In 1836, as a Whig candidate for the Vice-Presidency, he obtained the votes of Mary- land, Georgia, South Carolina, and Tennessee. In 1838 he was a member of the Legislature from James City county, and lully co-ope- rated with the Whig party.

In relation to the Whig party, in its position to the second term of