Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 10.djvu/237

 TYLER

TYLER

bank with the same national powers, passed the senate, Sept. 4, 1841, and the President's veto was read, Sept. 9, 1841. On Sept. 11, 1841, the entire cabinet with the exception of Daniel Webster, secretary of state, resigned, and on Sept. 13, 1841, the President appointed "Walter Forward of Penn- sylvania, secretary of the treasury, John McLean of Ohio, secretary of war, Abel P. Upshur of Virginia, secretary of the navy, Charles A. Wickliffe of Kentucky, postmaster-general, and Hugh S. Legare of South Carolina, attorney- general. At the next session the President pro- posed to congress a financial system which he called the exchequer, but congress would not agree to it, although it was highly endorsed by Mr. Webster, and thus the revenue continued in the hands of the President throughout his ad- ministration. At the second session of congress the tariff was the important subject under dis- cussion. Tlie revenue had steadily diminished since 1837, and the States were in debt $200,000, 000. A bankrupt bill, a loan bill for isll 3.000,000, and a bill distributing the proceeds of the sales of the public lands were passed at the extra session in 1841, the distribution bill providing that the distribution should suspend when the tariff was raised above the twenty per cent, provided in the compromise tariff act. On June 25, 1842, a bill providing for a tariff above twenty per cent., and yet containing the distribution clause, passed congress, but the President vetoed it as contrary to the policy of the extra session. Another bill passed with the same objectionable features, and the President vetoed that also. A committee ap- pointed by congress condemned this veto as an •'unwarrantable assumption of power," and re- ferred to the impeachment of the President. But after this the distribution clause was dropped, and the tariff bill, unencumbered with this provision, received the President's approval as a revenue measure. Congress passed the dis- tribution bill, but the President disposed of it by a pocket .veto, and on Aug. 31, 1842, congress ad- journed. The elections in the fall resulted in a general roiit of the Whigs, and after this time the condition of the country rapidly improved. The revenue soon exceeded the expenses, and the national debt was reduced. At the last congress of President Tyler's administration, the question of internal improvements was taken up, to which he had been opjsosed as he had been to the bank and protective tariff. Then two bills passed, the first of which, being for merely local improve- ments, he vetoed, and the second, being for the Mississippi river, the great common highway of the nation, he approved. The principal state af- fairs of his administration were the Ashburton treaty of 1842, by which an arbitrary line was adopted for the northeastern boundary, the Ore-

gon question, and the annexation of Texas, March 1, 1845. In 1843, after closing the Ashbur- ton treaty, Daniel Webster resigned the portfolio of state and Hugh S. Legare of South Carolina was appointed, May 9, 1843. On June 16, 1843, Mr. Legare died, and the office was filled by Abel P. Upshur of Virginia, who served until Feb. 28, 1844, when John C. Calhoun of South Carolina succeeded. Other cabinet appointments made by President Tyler were : John C. Spencer of New York, to succeed John McLean of Ohio as secre- tary of war in 1841, and upon Spencer's appoint- ment to succeed Walter Forward as secretary of the treasury in 1843, was succeeded by James M. Porter, and the latter by William Wilkins in 1844. George M. Bibb succeeded Spencer in the treas- ury, 1844 ; David Henshaw of Massachusetts suc- ceeded Abel P. Upshur, as secretary of the navy, in 1843, and was succeeded by Thomas W. Gil- mer of Virginia, and John Y. Mason of Virginia, in 1844, and John Nelson of Maryland succeeded Hugh S. Legare as attorney-general in 1843. During President Tyler's administration the fol- lowing diplomatic appointments were made : Edward Everett of Massachusetts, minister to Great Britain ; Lewis Cass of Ohio, minister to France, until 1842, when Henry Ledyard of Michigan became charge d'affaires, serving until the appointment of William R. King of Alabama, in 1844 ; Daniel Jenifer of Maryland, minister to Austria ; Charles S. Todd of Kentucky, minister to Russia ; Waddy Thompson, minister to Mexico ; Washington Irving of New York, minister to Spain, and Caleb Cushing, minister to China. Mr. Tyler was nominated for President by a con- vention of his friends, held in Baltimore, May 27, 1844, and at the same time James Knox Polk was nominated for President, by the Democratic national convention held in the same city, for the purpose of securing the success of the Texas question. Mr. Tyler withdrew from the presi- dential contest in August, 1844, and threw his influence in favor of Polk, and after Polk's in- auguration he removed to his estate "Sherwood Forest " on the James river. He was married, secondly, June 26, 1844, to Juha, daughter of David Gardiner of New York, and Juliana Mac- Lachlan, his wife. A son by this marriage, Lyon Gardiner Tyler (q.v.), wrote " The Letters and Times of the Tylers " (3 vols., 1884-1896). In 1861 Mr. Tyler was appointed a commissioner from Virginia to visit President Buchanan and delay if possible any acts of hostility until the Wash- ington peace congress, called for Feb. 4, 1861, had met, and he was chosen president of the con- vention. When that convention adjourned with- out any satisfactory solution of the troubles, Tyler, despairing of peace, advocated secession of the state in the convention of Virginia, held in