John tylers biography

Dubbed "His Accidency" by his detractors, John Tyler was the first Vice President to be elevated to the office of President by the death of his predecessor.

Born in Virginia in , he was raised believing that the Constitution must be strictly construed. He never wavered from this conviction. He attended the College of William and Mary and studied law.

Serving in the House of Representatives from to , Tyler voted against most nationalist legislation and opposed the Missouri Compromise. After leaving the House he served as Governor of Virginia. As a Senator he reluctantly supported Jackson for President as a choice of evils. Tyler soon joined the states' rights Southerners in Congress who banded with Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and their newly formed Whig party opposing President Jackson.

The Whigs nominated Tyler for Vice President in , hoping for support from southern states'-righters who could not stomach Jacksonian Democracy. The slogan "Tippecanoe and Tyler

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John Tyler: Life Before the Presidency

John Tyler's rise to the highest office in the nation signaled the last gasp of old Virginia aristocracy in the White House. Born a few years after the American Revolution in to a family that traced its roots back to the s in the Old Dominion, Tyler was the gods President of the nineteenth century raised there. The man to whom his fate would be tied, William Henry Harrison, was born in the same county, and both their fathers served as governor of Virginia.

John and Mary Armistead Tyler raised each of their eight children to be part of the region's elite gentry, and their boys received the best education available. The senior John Tyler, a close friend of Thomas Jefferson, owned a tobacco plantation of over a thousand acres, tended by dozens of slaves. He also served as a judge in the U.S. Circuit Court at Richmond. A fervent advokat of states' rights, which would preserve his power, he vigorously opposed the Constitution and the rights it

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John Tyler (–)

Early Years

Tyler was born on March 29, , at Greenway, his family&#;s plantation in Charles City County. His father, John Tyler, had been Speaker of the House of Delegates during the s and a member of the Convention of His mother, Mary Armistead Tyler, died of a stroke when he was seven years old. Five years later Tyler entered the preparatory department of the College of William and Mary and at age fourteen began his college coursework. After completing his studies in , he read law with his father (who served as governor of Virginia from to and as a federal district court judge from to ) before being admitted to the bar in On March 29, , Tyler married Letitia Christian. They had three sons and five daughters, one of whom died at birth.

The House of Representatives, –

Tyler embarked on his long public career in December when he began the first of fem consecutive one-year terms representing Charles City County in the House of Delegates. Despite his ungdom, on De