Texas or Bust: John Tyler Fans the Flames of the Civil War

ECW welcomes back Jarred Marlowe.

John Tyler isn’t known for too many things in the course of American history, and what little he is known for isn’t too flattering of a legacy. Most people know Tyler as the man who succeeded William Henry Harrison as president after Harrison succumbed to illness just a month into his term. The latter half of “Tippecanoe and Tyler Too” soon became known informally as “His Accidency” because he was the first president who was never elected to the office. Besides that, he is a mere footnote of history; forgotten about and overshadowed by other American leaders who have accomplished bolder things or have been bogged down by scandals and crises. But, it could be argued that Tyler’s decisions and desires as president became a catalyst that would further divide the nation and lead to the Civil War.

The 1820 Missouri Compromise decreed that all land purchased in the 1803 Louisiana Purchase above the 36°30’ parallel would prohibit slavery, while land below would allow slavery. This was troublesome for those who were pro-slavery, as the purchased land below the 36°30’ parallel consists of only the modern day states of Arkansas, Louisiana, and Oklahoma. The purchased land above the 36°30’ parallel contains what we now know as Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska, North and South Dakota, and large parts of Montana, Minnesota, Colorado, and Wyoming. It was obvious that there was a land area mismatch between the two, but nothing more could be done because the entirety of the southwest from Texas to California was owned by Spain.

Following Mexican independence from Spain in 1821, the newly formed Mexican government encouraged American immigration to Texas to foster a harmonious relationship with their new neighbors to the north. By 1836, the relationship had soured, and the Republic of Texas declared its independence. The United States, under President Martin Van Buren, agreed to recognize the Republic of Texas in 1837, but chose not to annex Texas due to the desire to avoid conflict with Mexico.

When John Tyler assumed the presidency in 1841, he made the annexation of Texas the top priority of his administration, much to the chagrin of those who supported and elected William Henry Harrison to the presidency. Daniel Webster, the only member of Tyler’s cabinet who did not resign in protest to Tyler’s lack of Whig party ideals, urged Tyler to focus on the Oregon territory as it was less tumultuous and an easier sell to the American people. The back-to-back violent episodes at the Alamo and the Goliad were fresh in the memories of many Americans, whereas Oregon was essentially an afterthought. Thus, Tyler pushed forward for Texas, and with the assistance of Secretary of the State Abel P. Upshur covertly negotiating with Republic of Texas President Sam Houston, plans to admit Texas as a state were close to being a done deal.

In February 1844, annexation plans took an unexpected turn for the worst. While aboard USS Princeton to see the debut of the world’s largest naval gun on the world’s first screw-propelled steamship, Upshur and several others were killed when the gun malfunctioned and sent large pieces of shrapnel into many of the onlookers. President Tyler was also on Princeton that day, but was below deck and was unharmed. With Upshur no longer in communication with Houston though, the plan to annex Texas before Tyler’s term ended was becoming unreachable.

Because of his lack of regard for Whig ideals and troubled relationships with key members of the Democratic party (led by Andrew Jackson), Tyler found himself as an independent candidate in his re-election bid in 1844. “The Man Without A Party” became one who embodied the lame duck period, as neither side was willing to support his plans or ideas. Nevertheless, he was still the president of the United States and still had the power that comes with the office. On his last day in office, Tyler signed into law the bill that would annex Texas and make it the 28th state to join the Union. Upon hearing of this, Mexico broke off all diplomatic relations with the United States and started to mobilize for war. Tyler, of course, left his successor James K. Polk to handle this crisis.

The fallout from Tyler pushing the annexation of Texas was the nearly two year-long Mexican-American War which resulted in Mexico ceding the majority of the southwest to the United States. A sizeable portion of this land addition was below the 36°30’ parallel, therefore thrusting the slavery-in-territories debate back to the forefront and leading to the Compromise of 1850 and later the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854, the latter of which would be the launching point for John Brown and violence-oriented abolitionist activity.

Though the start of the American Civil War was 16 years after John Tyler left office, his actions as president can be seen as tipping one of the first dominoes that would lead to the conflict. It should be noted that Texas was not added to the United States solely for the purpose of adding balance to the slave state/free state equation, but rather for protection and security for the southern border. However, the fallout from adding Texas did cause the issue of slavery to be a stronger point of contention.

The question could be asked if James K. Polk planned on annexing Texas when he assumed office. All signs point to him planning to do so, and he hoped to do so with much haste. However, Polk could have handled the annexation in a more diplomatic way that could have possibly avoided a war with Mexico, whereas Tyler pushed and forced the decision while his bags were being packed at the White House. If there is no war with Mexico, then many of the soldiers and prominent names we know from the Civil War do not gain that war experience and reputations. But that is a hypothetical rabbit hole we will not go down.

Early on in the Civil War years, John Tyler took a controversial stance. Though he had served as president from 1841 to 1845, by the time of the war, Tyler’s loyalties were firmly with the Confederate States of America. As a Virginian and a staunch supporter of states’ rights, he opposed secession at first, advocating for compromise to avoid conflict. However, after Abraham Lincoln’s election and the subsequent secession of Southern states, Tyler shifted his position. He became a delegate to the Peace Conference of 1861, an unsuccessful attempt to prevent war. When Virginia seceded, Tyler fully aligned with the Confederacy, serving in the Provisional Confederate Congress. He was even elected to the Confederate House of Representatives, though he died in 1862 before taking his seat. Tyler remains the only U.S. president to have openly supported the Confederacy, which led to his legacy being largely tarnished in the North. Because of that, his death in January 1862 was largely ignored in Union-controlled regions.

 Bibliography

-Borneman, Walter R. Polk: The man who transformed the presidency and America. New York, New York: Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2009.

-Crapol, Edward P. John Tyler, the Accidental President. Chapel Hill, North Carolina: UNC Press, 2006.

Jarred Marlowe is a historian who currently lives in Collinsville, Virginia. He has a bachelor’s degree in history from the Virginia Military Institute and master’s degree in education from Johnson University. Jarred is the president of the Col. George Waller Chapter of the Sons of the American Revolution and serves as the membership director of the Blue & Gray Education Society.