Abstract
Until 1841, the nation seems to have been blessed with either great or good presidents. According to rankings of presidential scholars, three of the first eight presidents were placed in the first quartile (Washington, Jefferson, and Jackson), four in the second (John Adams, Madison, Monroe, and John Quincy Adams). Only one, Marin Van Buren, has received assessments in the third quartile. John Tyler, however, who took the oath of office on April 6, 1841, has been consistently ranked in the fourth. Was Tyler the first bad president? Was he, as one of his contemporaries, concluded, “among the most inept politicians ever to occupy the White House”? 1 Or should Tyler’s performance instead be judged in terms of his status as the first “accidental” president? Without precedents to guide him, and as a president effectively without the support of either party, did Tyler act boldly and imaginatively? Did Tyler sacrifice his presidency so that other accidental presidents could govern better than he could?
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Notes
John Mayfield, Rehearsal for Republicanism (Port Washington, NY: Kennikat Press, 1980), p. 8.
Dan Monroe, The Republican Vision of John Tyler (College Station, TX: Texas A&M University, 2003), p. 63.
For narratives of Tyler’s first months as the first accidental president, see, Robert J. Morgan, A Whig Embattled: The Presidency under John Tyler (Lincoln, NB: University of Nebraska Press, 1954), pp. 1–21; Monroe, The Republican Vision of John Tyler, pp. 78–86.
Jeffrey Tulis, The Rhetorical Presidency (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987).
Michael F. Holt, The Rise and Fall of the Whig Party (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 142.
Justin H. Smith, The Annexation of Texas (New York: AMS Press, 1971), p. 189.
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., “On Presidential Succession,” Political Science Quarterly 89 (1974): 475–505.
Hugh Williamson of North Carolina explicitly made this point. Max Farrand, ed., The Records of the Constitutional Convention (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1966), vol. II, p. 537.
Joel K. Goldstein, however, contends that there was no compelling reason for the creation of the office on these terms. The Modern Vice Presidency (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1982), p. 5.
See, Ruth C. Silva, Presidential Succession (New York: Greenwood Press, 1968), p. 13.
Bernard Bailyn, ed., The Debate on the Constitution (New York: Modern Library, 1993), pp. 347, 359.
Richard P. McCoemick reviews these “uncertain rules for a hazardous game” in The Presidential Game: The Origin of Presidential Politic s (New York: Oxford University Press, 1882).
Henry Adams, ed., The Writings of Albert Gallatin (Philadelphia, 1879), vol. I, p. 51.
Jody C. Baumgartner, The American Vice President Reconsidered (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2006), pp. 14–16.
See, Ruth C. Silva, Presidential Succession (New York: Greenwood Press, 1968), p. 27;
Akhil Reed Amer, America’s Constitution: A Biography (New York: Random House, 2005), p. 448.
Richard M. Pious, “John Tyler,” in James M. McPherson, ed., “To the Best of My Ability”: The American Presidents (New York: Dorling Kindersley, 2000), p. 82.
David Zaretsky, “John Tyler and the Rhetoric of the Accidental Presidency,” in Martin J. Medhurst, ed., Before the Rhetoric of Presidency (College Station, TX: Texas AandM Press, 2008), p. 64.
Wilfred E. Brinkley, President and Congress (New York: Knopf, 1947), p. 99.
Edward P. Crapol, John Tyler the Accidental President (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2006), pp. 3, 6.
George H. Reese, ed., Proceedings of the Virginia State Convention of 1861 (Richmond, VA: Virginia State Library, 1965), vol. I, p. 653.
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© 2013 Philip Abbott
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Abbott, P. (2013). The First Bad President?: John Tyler. In: Bad Presidents. The Evolving American Presidency Series. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137306593_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137306593_2
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