JOHN TYLER (W) - 1841-1845
I'll start with what the 10th president did well. When Pres. Harrison died a few weeks after his inauguration, the country questioned what exactly this meant for leadership. Vice-President Tyler, who didn't talk much with Harrison, established that it meant he was President now. Not Acting President, and not Vice-President. Some in Congress and in the nation tried to resist this, but his strength on the issue set the example for succession.
He also tried to annex Texas. Eventually that was a good thing, but at the time, it increased the sectionalism in the US that was dividing the North and South. Texas allowed slavery, and Tyler appointed staunch pro-slavery advocate John Calhoun as his Secretary of State to seal the deal.
Tyler had been a compromise as a VP pick, switching parties to the Whigs to get the nomination. After Harrison died, he went against his party on most issues and policies, veoing almost every bill put before him. Former president turned Congressman John Quincy Adams led a movement to impeach Tyler, finding his use of the veto power abusive, but it never got off the ground. Despised by the Whigs he'd joined and the Democrats he'd abandoned, Tyler tried to win re-election on a third party ticket. Once it was clear he had no chance, he threw his endorsement to James Polk.
Later in life he supported the Confederacy in the Civil War and was elected to the CSA's House of Representatives but died before he could take office. It meant he's the only President in US history to not have his death officially mourned in Washignton DC.
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