John Tyler: Tenth President of the United States

by Dee Lillegard

A biography of the Virginian who became tenth president of the United States upon the death of William Henry Harrison. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0516013939
• ISBN13: 9780516013930
• Release Date: January 1987
• Publisher: Children's Press(CT)
• Length: 100 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 7.3" x 9.3"
• Age Range: 10 to 13 years
• Grade Range: Grades 5 to 8

Customer Reviews

John Tyler

Tippecanoe and Tyler too! That whig slogan swept the country in the outlandish campaign of 1840

The troubled presidency of "Honest John" Tyler

"Tippecanoe and Tyler, too!" is one of the most famous political slogans in American history, even if the two Presidents who are forever linked by it are among the lesser known occupants of the White House. In the Encyclopedia of Presidents series the opening chapter is always a pivotal moment in the history of its subject, after which we go back to the beginning and tell the story of how they became President of the United States. However, what Dee Lillegard provides in the first chapter of this informative juvenile biography of John Tyler, 10th President of the United States, is more of a situation. The Whigs won the election for the first time in 1840 in a campaign that focused on personality (William Henry Harrison as a military hero) rather than on issues; in fact, the candidates took no stand on slavery or any other issue. However, a month after his inauguration, Harrison died of pneumonia, the first president to die in office. Strange as it will sound to younger readers today, who probably learned as much about the rules of Presidential succession from "The West Wing" than they have from their history books, there was actually a question as to what happened at that point. The Constitution did not exactly say, and as Lillegard points out, nobody was left who had drawn up the Constitution to ask (James Madison had died five years earlier). With the Cabinet deciding Tyler should "beat the title of 'Vice-President, Acting President,'" Tyler had himself sworn in as President and refused to listen to the leaders of his party. The result was that Tyler established the precedent that the vice president would take the office with the full power of the chief executive and endured a remarkably troubled term as President.Lillegard makes a point of giving Tyler his own identity as "Honest John," a man who was as "obstinate as a bull" when he thought he was right. Tyler was the first President born after the Revolutionary War and this volume traces his political rise through the U.S House of Representative and the Senate to being the choice of the Whigs for the second spot on the title two elections in a row. But the strength of this volume is the detail that Lillegard goes into for Tyler's years as "The Veto President." Having also done the volumes in this series on James K. Polk, James A. Garfield, and Richard Nixon, she shows a flair for providing information and putting it into appropriate contexts, including a look at Tyler's efforts on behalf of President James Buchanan in 1861 to try and keep the Union together. Tyler then served as a member of the Virginia convention that voted to secede from the Union and was elected to the Confederate Congress. However, Tyler died before the South was devastated by the war, and for years was considered a traitor to the Union. The volume is filled with black & white historic drawings, paintings, and etchings, including a few choice political cartoons and some early photographs. The back of the