The USA in the Time of John Tyler
1841-1845
By Mike Donovan
"Tyler Too" - No VP - The only Independent in the White House, he finished his term without any Party affiliation - Lawyer – Son of a Governor - William and Mary – Played the Violin - Slaveowner – 51 years old when sworn in as President – The Corporal’s Guard - Second wife, Mrs. Gardner 30 years younger – Sharpshooter - Sherwood Forest – Greenway – Confederate – Johnny Ty
"The Presidency is a bed of thorns."
Virginian John Tyler was a Whig in name only and was booted out of his own party while in office!
Tyler was in fact a former Democrat who dropped out his Party because he was fed up with Andrew Jackson. The Whigs had only included Tyler on the 1840 ticket in order to help win the South and thereby the election. They were trying to woo Democratic votes with an ostensibly Whig VP candidate.
No president had died in office and this possibility was not factored in.
The Whigs had their hands full dealing with the "Whig" Tyler. Tyler vetoed two banking bills sponsored by his own Whig Party. He finished his term partyless and with a Secretary of State from the opposition party.
Tyler was another of our slaveholder presidents.
Tyler had a canary in the White House named Johnny Ty. Between the two of them, the human had the more pronounced nose.
Tyler's cabinet (I never include the Postmaster General.)
Sec. State --- Daniel Webster-----1841-1843
H.S. League (W)----1843
A.P. Upshur (W)----1843-1844 Killed in action.
J.P. Calhoun (D)----------1843-1845
Sec. of War
John Bell (W)--------1841
John McLean (W)---1841
J.C. Spencer (W)----1841-1843
J.M. Porter (W) ------1843-1844
William Wilkins (W)-1844-1845
Sec of Treasury
Thomas Ewing-----(W)-1841
Walter Forward----(W)-1841-1843
J.C. Spencer-(W)----1843-1844
George Bibb -(W)-----1844-1845
Attorney General
J.J. Crittenden (W)---1841
H.S. Legare- (W)-----1841-1843
John Nelson (W)------1843-1845
Tyler is one of the obscure Presidents, mostly because he never led America into a war. But his era was not uneventful. His first Secretary of State, the famous orator extraordinaire Daniel Webster negotiated the all-important Webster-Ashburnton Treaty with Great Britain, which settled peacefully several important outstanding boundary disputes. JT was deeply involved in the Texas controversy and unsuccessfully tried to get that independent nation annexed to the United States. There were settler's rights issues as well as the hot Oregon territory dispute on his plate also.
And of course there was slavery.
BIO
‘Tyler too’ was a Washington baby. He was born on March 29, 1790 in Charles City County, Virginia. Harrison was also from that county. It was the only time in American history when both the president and the VP were from the same county.
There were no cities in Charles City County, but Tyler was born at Sherwood Forest, where the town of Greenway stands today.
His father Big John Tyler was Governor of Virginia from 1809 to 1811 so all his life, Little John Tyler was an aristocrat. He was the Martin Van Buren of the Whig party.
Tyler’s mother Mary Armistead died when he was only seven. The child naturally became close to his father. Big John played music for the boy and told him stories of history and politics.
In 1802 the future prez began prep school for admittance to William and Mary. He was only 12. In 1807 he graduated from William and Mary, the same alma mater as Tom Jefferson and Jackie Gleason.
Tyler passed the bar in 1809, unlike my father in 1969.
Tyler’s wedding day, hopefully as happy as my own, was on March 29, 1813. He from now on celebrated his birthday and his anniversary on the same day. His first wife was named Letitia Christian. They had 8 children. Letitia died in 1842 while he was President. They had been married almost 30 years.
In 1844 he remarried. The new bride was Julia Gardiner (Mrs. John Gardiner,) who was younger than him by almost 30 years. It was Julia who incidentally started the tradition of having the band play 'Hail to the Chief' when a President enters a room. Hmm.
Jack Tyler walked the typical political path to the American Presidency. He was a State Legislator, and then a US Representative. In 1819 Rep Tyler took the pro-slavery side in the controversy over the admission of Missouri. Tyler became a Governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia at the age of 35, and at 36, United States Senator.
Tyler supported nullification and voted against the Force Bill, the only senator to do so. He was anti-Jacksonian to the core. John voted for censorship of Andrew Jackson over his closure of the Bank of The United States in 1833.
Then in 1836 his Virginia legislature instructed Tyler to support a resolution to reverse the censorship of President Jackson. When he received the written instruction to vote this way he exclaimed from his senate seat, “They shall have my resignation as soon as my hand can write it!.” Tyler stormed out of the Capitol Building and resigned as promised. He also resigned from the Democratic Party. He also resigned from the Elks Lodge.
The Whigs saw the chance to recruit another apostate from the Democratic Party. They had quite a few in their ranks. They enticed the disgruntled Tyler to turn Whig and run as the VP in 1836. The Whigs lost to Van Buren but Tyler had a good run (47 electoral votes) and made the Tyler name famous for a future run. And John had made new friends. Tyler was soon serving again in the Virginia legislature as a Whig Rep. Then he lost a close race for the US Senate, again as a Whig.
In 1840 it was paydirt. The Vice Presidency as a Whig and succession to the White House.
EVENTS;
DEATH OF HARRISON
MCLEOD TRIAL
MUTINY ON THE SOMERS
MUTINY ON THE CREOLE
PRINCETON EXPLOSION
CAROLINE AFFAIR
WEBSTER-ASHBURTON TREATY
WEBSTER RESIGNATION
TEXAS ANNEXATION CONTROVERSY
PHILADELPHIA ANTI-CATHOLIC RIOTS
NEW PRESIDENT?
Many people were angry with Tyler for assuming the title of President. He received many death threats in the mail.
Why were they so mad at Tyler?
It was understood that the Vice President would assume the duties of President, but it was not understood that he would take the full title of President. Some felt that a president should be elected, and that the title should thusly be earned. The Constitution only said that the duties would devolve on the VP. It said nothing about swearing in the VP as the new President.
But John Tyler refused to perform under the title of “acting Vice-President” and demanded that he be sworn in and made the real deal. He was given the oath of office. Our national system of the Vice President becoming President is based on the Tyler precedent. It could easily have gone the other way.
Tyler retained the Harrison cabinet but lost his cool when these dogs tried to limit his power. They tried to float the idea that all of the President’s decisions would be put to a majority vote by the cabinet. Tyler told them off. From then on, whether or not they supported him, they knew that he was the Prez.
VETO VETO VETO
Nick Biddle put through a bill for a new Bank of the United States. Tyler used the veto.
His own Whig Party tacked on some amendments and passed it again.
Tyler vetoed it again. He also vetoed the Whig tariff. He vetoed the Whig bills for internal improvements. Tyler felt that building dams and clearing trees was the job of the states. With friends like Tyler, the Whigs didn’t need enemies. They controlled Congress but they couldn’t control their own President. Tyler had rejected the Democrats but he never embraced the Whigs. John Tyler was the only genuine independent President we ever had.
The Whigs had taken all they could stand from this man. Finally on September 11 1841 the Whig cabinet of President John Tyler all up and resigned as a group. Foreign Secretary Dan Webster remained, but would resign later. He was working on a treaty with Great Britain and wanted to finish it first, and then resign. The Whigs in Congress held a caucus and emerged with a pronouncement to the effect that they were no longer associated politically with this WINO, this 'Whig in Name Only.' Then Henry Clay topped it all off by having Tyler officially read out of the Whig Party. So for most of his term Tyler was a man without a party The history books list him as a Whig. Yes and no.
So Tyler was whigged out of his own party. Tyler said ‘Good riddance. I hope you'll be very unhappy without me.’
JT used his new freedom joyfully. He appointed new and friendly Southerners to take over the empty shelves in the cabinet. These FOJ’s (Friends of John) became derisively known as ‘The Corporal’s Guard.’
SLAVERY
Tyler brought some of his Virginia slaves to D.C. to keep the House White tidy. The Abolitionists obviously couldn’t look to Tyler for any help.
During these years the South was beginning to defend slavery through its intellectuals. Writers like Tom Dew and George Fitzy began writing and publishing bold explanations for the Biblical justification of slavery. It was proven that not once did Jesus Christ ever speak out against slavery as an evil (a disturbing truth indeed, but proving the imperfection of the Bible more than the perfection of slavery.) No, slavery was not only not an evil, it was now an actual good.
Saint Paul it was told, had actually once returned a fugitive slave because it was the right thing to do, and a passage was found in which the same Paulie said that slaves had a duty to remain obedient. Well then! Lets fill up those slave ships because a guy from 2,000 years ago said it was ok and someone else wrote his words down a century later.
MCLEOD TRIAL:
Tyler was the third president plagued by the good ship Caroline, sent over the Niagara Falls in 1839 and along with it good relations between the US and British Canada. Britain was threatening a new sort of War for Jenkins’s Ear, in this case a War for McLeod’s Beer.
To review; In 1837 an insurrection in Canada led to a band of rebels holding out on Lashua Island in the Niagara River, in Canadian Territory. But some Americans in New York were sending the Canadian rebels supplies by shuttle on the Caroline, a large boat. Canadian authorities raided the Caroline while it sat at bay in NY state, set on fire and sent it over the falls.
No one perished on the Caroline, but one American was shot in the back on land. No one was ever arrested for the crime. There was a big international dispute over the entire incident. It was beginning to simmer down when a Canadian drunk in a New York bar bragged that it was he that had killed that guy the night they burned the Caroline. The man, Bubba McLeod, was arrested and charged with murder one.
Britian demanded that McLeod be turned over to the Canadian courts. Canada said that he was acting at the time under military orders of the Canadian government and should not be subject to murder charges at all. They wanted the Governor of New York to pardon McLeod. The National Government in Washington was powerless to interfere with a state case. The fact that the case had international implications had no bearing. This was where matters stood when Tyler took over.
Governor Seward wouldn’t budge on a pre-trial pardon and the case went forward. The stock markets slumped in both countries, as war seemed possible.
Fortunately for everyone, McLeod turned out to be a lying braggart. He had a firm alibi for where he really was the night of the shooting, and was acquitted. The War of 1812 would not have to be resumed over the shooting of one man after all.
U.S. laws were soon changed so that a similar situation could not happen again where the federal government had no power to act on a case with international implications. Better still, as a direct result of the McLeod fiasco the laws regarding extradition of criminals were beefed up in favor of law enforcement all over the world. The USA signed extradition treaties with many nations in the immediate aftermath of the Caroline affair.
Secretary of State Webster still wanted an apology for the original attack on the Caroline by Canadian citizens on US soil. It seemed a possibility. A new administration was in place in England and wanted things improved between the countries. But the best Webster could get was this slick half-hearted excuse for an apology, “it was perhaps most to be regretted that some explanation and apology for this occurrence was not immediately made.”
That’s about as soothing as the ubiquitous classic non-apology, “I’m sorry that you took it the wrong way.
THE CREOLE 11/41:
Loose lips sink ships and good relations between nations. We go from the Caroline now to the Creole.
Relations with Britain were troublesome on many matter not the least of which was the international slave trade. The UK had abolished slavery and was militant in its opposition to the international slave trade. The USA had also abolished the slave trade, but not slavery (and also not inter-state slavery within the USA.) Britain wanted to search American vessels off the coast of Africa to make sure America complied with its own laws regarding the oceanic slave trade. Americans were naturally opposed to this for reasons of pride, or because they wanted to smuggle slaves. Greedy American sea captains had a clear motive to try and evade the British blockade. They could make a lot of dough selling black people on the black market.
In November of 1841 some Africans who did not want to become African-Americans took matters into their own hands. The ship Creole was bound for New Orleans with domestic slaves from Virginia. The slaves broke out of their chains and mutinied, killing one crew-member. Then they steered the brig to the British Bahamas. The US demanded the return of the mutineers. The English said no. They tried a few of cargo-mutineers for murder and set the rest free. Most Americans were angered by this British action. Even most of those who were against slavery were still resentful about what it saw as a British affront.
A movie about the Creole affair was made for TV in 1978 starring Robert Wagner as the ship's captain.
MUTINY ON THE SOMERS
The troublemaker ship stories continue in 1842 with a mutiny on an American training ship. In our story of the USS Somers, the role of Captain Bligh is played by Captain Al MacKenzie. One sanctimonious prig naval historian had the hypocritical nerve to refer to Mackenzie as a “sanctimonious prig.”
The most bizarre twist to this story is that it was a schoolteacher on board who drew the wrath of the mutiny. The young sailor-students weren't studying enough to make the grade in the book department, even thought hey were doing fine as sailors. When three men decided to beat up their teacher, Al Mac tried them summarily on ship and sentenced two to death. When their bodies were condemned to the sea the rest of the students mutinied.
TEXAS TYLER
The independent Lone Star Republic of Texas wanted nothing more than to be annexed to the United States. More than 80% of the Texas Congress had been born in the USA. But there was strong opposition in the United States among conservative and northern groups who saw in Texas a dangerous new ground for growing slavery. There was also a fear that Texas would be carved up into several states leading to a reduction in the power of the smaller, older states in Congressional representation. This of course meant opposition to Texas admission by the old guard states for purely selfish reasons, and that was just for starters.
Former President Jackson was a strong proponent of Texas acquisition and implored John Tyler on the point. Tyler too, wanted Texas and saw the friendly acquisition of the Lone Star Republic as a chance to enhance his personal reputation. With a great foreign policy achievement like Texas, JT felt he could then run for President in 44 in his own right on the ticket of his own choice, instead of riding on Harrison’s epaulettes.
Texas meanwhile was caught between the magnets of annexation and international recognition. Texas wanted recognition from England and France and these countries were willing to grant it but under two tough conditions that turned out to be too tough to accept.
First, Texas would have to abolish slavery. That was a long tall Texan of an order. Second Texas would have to agree not to ever become annexed to the United States. That one was even taller.
England was against slavery for moral reasons, and selfish ones too. The UK had abolished slavery in 1833. The gesture was selfless in that English West Indian island crops under free labor would now have to compete with Southern rice, sugar and cotton grown under slave labor. It was going to be hard to compete.
A Republic of Texas with slavery made the problem worse for the British West Indian colonies. British wanted to abolish slavery morally and to abolish its tough competition. Britain also did not want to see the USA grow more powerful for any reason. The little island empire was watching its offspring grow into a continental monster, threatening to upset the old international balance of power (something that finally did occur after World War One.)
Texan agents in Washington pleaded the case for annexation. Tyler and company were alarmed at the prospect of an UK-Texas alliance, especially one free of slavery. Such a Texas would be a tempting safe haven for runaway slaves. Texas was a shorter hike for fugitive slaves than the Underground Railroad to Canada. An independent Texas would also block US expansion dead in the water due west and southwest.
Things were looking good for a vote on annexation until John Calhoun opened his big inkwell. JC wrote an intemperate letter to a friend extolling the merits of Texas as a slavery stronghold for the future. By so publicly identifying the annexationist movement with the slave interests, Calhoun woke the sleeping dogs, everywhere, especially in the Whig and liberal Democrat North. The undecided swung against Texas. The treaty of Texas annexation was defeated in the Senate. There were many swing voters who favored expansion but were against slavery and these were crucial to the decision. Calhoun lost Texas for the United States (for now) with his stupid letter.
Even Whig leader Henry Clay came out against annexation on the grounds that it would mean war with Mexico and he didn’t want that. The original ‘War Hawk’ had come a long way back the other way since shouting ‘On to Canada!’ in 1811.
Texas was put to the vote in the Senate on June 8, 1844. Annexation was defeated, 35 for the nays and 16 for the ayes.
Just before the vote on Texas, the Democrats nominated Polk for President. James Polk was a big time expansionist. Clay was the choice for the Whigs and he was not an ardent expansionist. When Polk won an overwhelming victory in the 1844 fall election, the Congress reconsidered its position on Texas. Tyler could still approve Texas as a lame duck.
As 1845 began it was clear that Americans wanted Texas. The Senate agreed to a joint resolution for annexation. A joint resolution only required a majority, not a two-thirds margin and this was managed. On March 1, 1845, thee days before becoming a private citizen, Tyler signed the resolution admitting Texas to the Union. Texas became instant state on that date. It never had to pass through a territorial phase.
Tyler gets credit for acquiring Texas, but it was the incoming Polk who convinced the Congress to approve of it. Polk’s expansionist legacy is large enough without adding Texas, but you could easily argue that Polk took Texas, not Tyler.
OPIUM WAR - TREATY OF NANKING
The British defeated the Chinese in the Opium War and won the right to dump demonic drugs on the mass of Chinese people when the Chinese government was weeping and begging them not to do that. The two belligerents signed the Treaty of Nanking in 1842 ending the war and granting many concessions to the dope-pushing victors.
In 1840 and 1841, before the Opium War ended, the English merchants in Canton and Nanking defended their nefarious actions with the argument that if they didn’t carry the opium to the Chinese people, the Americans would. Yankee clipper ships were supposedly waiting to step in, so if the British took a high moral plane and abandoned the opium trade, it would do nothing to stop the evil, would hurt the British economy, and would only help the Americans.
Another argument by the British merchants was that if the opium trade were banned, then Britian would be responsible for preventing others from bringing it in, and this would require an expensive police fleet.
The argument was weak because virtually all the opium came from British controlled stashes. Britian was bringing in opium from it’s own colonial possessions in India and elsewhere. Great Britian had even invaded Afghanistan in 1839 largely to get a new source of O.
The outward excuse for the Queen invading Afghanistan in 1839 was to stop the Russians from taking it, always this contrived logic. In 1841 the Afghanis rebelled and killed thousands of English civilian opium dealers trying to get out of Dodge.
In settling the Opium War on its own terms Britian didn’t colonize China outright, but established unfair trade relationships at gunpoint. John Bull bullied the Chinese into trading on British unilateral terms in the mass trafficking of an illegal and debilitating drug, a substance even worse than Zoloft. Post war Britian 'leased’ enormous areas of China and parts of important port cities. The lease part made the Brits feel better. By paying China they assuaged their conscience, even though the price of the lease was about seven quid a year.
US public opinion ran strongly against the opium trade and against the British in the Opium War. The British trade ministry in Boston was sending back reports that Massachusetts Senator Caleb Cushing was publicly tearing into Tyler for not having done enough to try and stop the British in this unjust war. Massachusetts politics contradicted the fact that clippers ships of New England were depending on opium for economic survival.
The Chinese meanwhile tried to cut off the Americans at the pass they weren’t heading to. They told the American government that if Yankees entered the opium trade, then all other trade between the US and China would be banned. The Americans responded that there was nothing to worry about on this score and reminded the Chinese government that the US had just signed a formal pledge not to participate in the opium trade, (an occasional rogue ship captain notwithstanding.)
The United States grew nervous over the British victory in China and made loud noises in 1844 about wanting a guarantee from Britain and all other European powers that China trade in all commodities would be open to all nations (meaning the USA). Thus began the famous “most favored nation” tradition in the Far East, which meant, at least in its first application, that any vulture with a healthy set of wings must be allowed to help eat the carcass even if they hadn’t killed the prey.
TRAGEDY ON THE PRINCETON - FEBRUARY 28, 1844
One of the most explosive incidents in American History took place on a bright sunny day in February of 1844 on board the USS warship, the Princeton.
Princeton took an excursion down the Potomac with a stellar guest list that included President Tyler, Secretary of State William P. Upshur, Secretary of the Navy Tom Gilmer, several members of Congress, and the elderly yet still hot former First Lady Dolly Madison.
On board the Princeton was a newly developed weapon of mass destruction, a 12-inch barreled cannon called "the Peacemaker." This cannon fired a 235-pound ball. By the standards of the era it was a state of the art nuke. In fact the whole point of the excursion was to show off to the gilded guests the 'peace through strength' monster gun. Peacemaker demonstrated its prowess with several astounding shots throughout the trip as the celebrities oohed and aahed.
Princeton cruised downriver and then turned back towards Washington. Peacemaker was loaded up for one final extra impressive shot. Just then President Tyler was called below to speak with someone. The act of going below decks saved the President’s life.
The last shot from Peacemaker's next shot was its last, a terrible misfire. It blew the ship half out of the water and killed 12 people. Peacemaker became the piece-maker, blasting several people to pieces on the Princeton. The body bags included the Secretary of State, the Secretary of War and a United States Senator! A Mr. Gardner, who would later have been Tyler's son-in-law, was also killed.
The Peacemaker changed history. Calhoun the new Secretary of State had some ideas about foreign policy that were different from the perished Upshur, particularly on the Texas issue. The peacemaker helped trigger the Mexican War. Calhoun did not want to even become Secretary of State but he took the job just so he could help get Texas for the USA.
Senator Thomas H. Benton of Missouri was knocked almost unconscious by the peacemaker blast. Andrew Jackson later said he believed that the explosion had affected Benton's mind, and when Andy Jackson says that you're soft as a grape, you know you've got problems.
PHILLY ANTI-CATHOLIC RIOTS;
Anti-Catholicism was a serious problem for the country in this era. The Protestant Reformation Society formed a political party to oppose the cult of the Pope. They called it the American Republican Party. The ARP found themselves in physical conflict with angry Irish Catholic mobs in Philadelphia. A controversy about the school system and the rights of Catholics to worship in their own way erupted into a full riot in May of 1844, even worse than the one that swept the city when the Phillis won the Series in 2008.
Philly in 44 became the City of Brotherly Hate. The ARP mob burned down 30 homes, two Catholic churches, and had to fight the Pennsylvania militia before it calmed down. 30 people died in the rioting and more than 100 were injured seriously.
The riot of May '44 discredited the extremist anti-Catholic movement and the ARP had to keep a low profile after that, although they still harass me with junk mail every week asking me to join. No... come to think of it, that's the AARP.
IRISH FAMINE INVASION
During the Tyler/Polk era, the Irish invaded America in droves. The driving force behind this wave of the 40’s was a severe potato famine on the Emerald Isle, plus a desperate need to get away from that awful dancing. Irish People were starving and even St. Patrick couldn’t save them. So they came to America.
The Irish were treated very badly in America. People used the ‘M’ word on them. A mick majority was forced to live in slums. was a common sign in the window of merchants was, “Irish need not apply.”
Very few of the bourgeoisie wanted to hire the green. But shrewd politicians were not so cold to Sean. They were very much interested in their patronage. By the time the mania of Irish immigration subsided, to be replaced by an invasion from Eastern and Central Europe, a sea change had taken place in the American political structure. The eastern seaboard cities were now dominated by the important, if not decisive, Irish voting block.
These were times of change and a 'leveling' of America and the Irish cashed in on the political freedom. There were no longer prohibitive property requirements to vote and the ubiquitous Irish were more than willing to register. Politicians learned to help out the Irish 364 days a year in return for a dependable payoff on Election Day. The pure English blooded aristocrats who used to dominate the finance and politics of cities like Boston, were reduced to the realms of finance and high culture. They lost control of their eastern cities at the working class level and in an ironic full circle, their political domination. Politics became the art of controlling the working class, replacing the old way of ignoring them as essentially irrelevant. The new powerful ‘city bosses’ had dirty boots, but at the end of the day they had them cleaned at their mansions.
How bad were things for the Irish when hey first arrived? Bad, but not as bad as things were in Ireland where there was no food. All my life I heard racist whites scoff (usually privately to me personally) at the black historical complaint against the cross they bore under slavery, by comparing it to the plight of the Irish. I can’t tell you how often I have heard whites tell me how the Irish suffered too, you know. “Blacks weren’t the only ones who have been oppressed. The Irish suffered too.” Then they quote the famous fact of the “Irish need not apply” in storefront windows.
Big deal. This is a ridiculous comparison and I am appalled every time I hear it and thought it was illogical by the time I was about 14 years old and had a brain for the first time. How can anyone even dream of comparing employment and housing discrimination with slavery? It defies all logic and is usually just a cloak for a racist that wants to minimize the special suffering of the group they hate, the blacks, by maximizing their own. Plus, the residual hate of the Irish in 1840 did not carry over to all of society for the next 150 years as was the case with blacks. Irish need not apply was over by the time my father was born. But the searing prejudice against blacks was still around even after President Obama was Inaugurated yesterday as I write.
Get real. The Irish had it tough but they came over here voluntarily, were not whipped and lynched, were never taken away from their families, had the right to move west and start over, had the right to vote, and were not bought and sold at a public market while merchants boasted that “This one has fine teeth and will work the whole day through. Who will give me 100 dollars for Katy O'Brien?” One black slave in Richmond with tears rolling down her eyes, being sold to a master, never to see her husband or mother again, is equivalent to about 7,000 Irish being denied employment in a Boston waterfront. Its an offensive comparison.
TIN-HORN REBELLION IN NEW YORK STATE 1844
Historian Dennis Lynch calls it “the only peasant uprising in American history.” In 1844 the farmers of the lower Hudson River rebelled against the high rents imposed by the Dutch aristocracy on both sides of the Hudson in and around Columbia County NY.
There was a tinge of socialist revolution and it was egged on by Robert Owens Jr., the son of the founding father of American socialism.
Bobby O Jr., was active in New York City politics and had helped to organize the mechanics Party there. The Mechanics only elected one Alderman from an unimportant district in NYC but the showing at the polls alarmed the powerhouse Dems and Whigs.
The ideas of the lefty mechanics spread north along the Hudson River and one man who took these ideas to heart was a Dr. Clarence Boughtham. The Dr. was a popular man in the Dutchess/Columbia county region and when he organized meetings to rebel against the high rents charged by the snobs of privilege in FDR-land he found an exited and helpful response.
The Hudson valley farmers called to each other like Vikings through tin-horns, a sort of oral Indian smoke-signal system for the ear rather than the eye. The tin-horns called out for rebellion. Meetings of agitated tenant-farmers decided to resist and refuse to pay the high rents.
Sheriffs working for the rich went to many houses to collect on overdue bills only to have guns fired through their hats as a warning to stay away. More than one man on both sides was murdered, earning the conclusion from Lynch that this was a genuine rebellion.
The Doctor was brought to trial and convicted of several minor charges and was given a life sentence for sedition. During the trial a major brawl between lawyers busted out in the court-room and spilled out into the streets of Renssalaer. Why couldn't I have been there to see that?
The Tin-Horn Rebellion wasn't as big a deal as it seemed to many at the time, and I draw this conclusion because, until today, when I came across it accidentally in a book about Boss Tweed, I had never even heard of it and I have been studying general American history on a daily basis since April of 1991 and today is December 21 2010. It couldn't have been all that serious if it basically isn't in any of the short histories of the United States.
The Doc did not have to serve out a life sentence, and the matter was settled down gradually over the next few years.
The story is more about the anomaly of the bastion of Dutch aristocracy in the Hudson region of one state. Tin-Horn 44 is not famous because it is more properly a matter of New York State history, than any representation of a national trend towards peasant revolt.
ONE TERM PREZ
In 1844 Tyler was nominated for re-election by a special convention, the result of the unusual political situation. But Tyler made a formal withdrawal so that the more popular Polk could run for the Dems. It was a noble gesture as Johnny T. wanted the job very much.
AFTER OFFICE
In the early months of 1861, Tyler led a delegation from the South to a meeting in Washington to try to avert war and find another Compromise of 1850. Tyler was strongly against secession.
But an angry Senate rejected the Tyler plan drafted at this so-called "Washington Peace Conference." Tyler returned South as a secessionist and immediately became a member of the Virginia Secessionist Convention. John Tyler died in 1862 as a Member of the Confederate Congress. The bastard.
I once joked on stage on a February Boston night that "Today we are celebrating President's Day, where we honor all our Presidents …. Except Tyler." The crowd laughed.
SOURCES
The American Pageant, A History of the Republic, by Thomas A. Bailey of Stanford – c) 1961 – Second Edition D.C. Heath
Many of his contemporaries thought that Bailey wrote a little too popularly, a little too jazzy for a professional historian. I was disappointed to read this because I thought I had especially connected with an advanced scholarly work. Turns out I only love Bailey because he writes for regular street people and not for academics.
The Complete Book of U.S. Presidents, by DeGregorio – c) 2002 - I never would have known that John Tyler had a canary if not for this book.
A Diplomatic History of the United States, by Samuel Flagg Bemis of Yale, c) 1936 Henry Holt
The great Bemis is no flag waving fool, but he does flash a defensive streak now and then about the perception of the United States as an evil bully slaying its way cravenly across the continent in the name of lustful racist expansion (the George Carlin 'I hate my country' version of US history)
“We must remember that American expansion across a practically empty continent despoiled no nation unjustly, and that there is no American today who would want to see that expansion undone. Manifest Destiny might much better be described as Manifest Opportunity.”
Obviously SFB is not counting the Indians as a nation, and we may cringe a little on that one, but the point about no one would want to give the land back is rite on. It is especially apt for rich lefty entertainer/preachers wearing jeans and a t-shirt on stage spouting rage against the aristocrats, as if they aren't one of them. I'd like to see Chief White Cloud bang on their door and grab them by the lapel.
“Me read your article and hear your act. OK, Me in, you out!” then hurl them onto the sidewalk and walk in.
Empire for Liberty, by Malone and Rauch
The Extremists, by Jules Archer c)1969 provided the story of the Philly riot
Graphic Story of the American Presidents, by David C. Whitney
The Great Republic, A History of the American People, by Bailyn-Dallek-Davis-Donald-and Wood – c) 1992 – Heavy book by heavyweights.
A History of the American People, by Norman A. Graebner (University of Virginia,) Gilbert C. Fite (University of Oklahoma,) and Philip L. White (University of Texas.) – c)1970 – Including the index its 1,403 pages. Its about 40 pounds. You could kill someone with this book. There is virtually no sense of chronology. Its all over the road with chapters on art, science, social trends, and sidebars on liberal issues. The events of American history are in there somewhere, but you need Columbus to find them.
History of a Free People by Henry W. Bragdon and Samuel P. McCutchen of Phillips Exeter and NYU respectively – c) 1954 MacMillan
These are a couple of smart stern cold dudes. They write of the “mountain men”
“Their whiskey, as well as the white man's diseases they carried with them,
so corrupted and so weakened the Indian tribes that they became less formidable enemies of the whites.”
History of the United States of America, by Elson – A truly admirable book. Went through about 20 different successful revised editions.
A History of United States Foreign Policy, by Julius Pratt, c) 1965 – One of the best book ever.
A New American History, by W. Woodward – A truly not very admirable book.
Out of Many, A History of the American People, by John Mack Faragher (Yale); Mary Jo Buhle (Brown), Daniel Czitrom (Mount Holyoke); and Susan Armitage (Washington State), c)1994 – This is the Bible of PC.
Oxford History of the American People, by Samuel Eliot Morison – c) 1965 Oxford University Press
This guy is highly cultured and condescending about it. He does not cut the mustard on the slavery test. His treatment of it is not acceptable to me, and this is the toned down version, compared to the history he wrote with Hank Commager.
Slavery in the South, edited with an introduction by Harvey Wish, - c) 1964 – A valuable collection of writings from the time period. Many accounts of life under slavery written by slaves.
A Short History of the American Nation, by John A. Garraty of Columbia - c) 1966 Harper & Row
I have the supposedly 'revised' 1977 edition but the spirit of 1977 is nowhere to be found in these racist redneck pages. This guy hates the Abolitionists 25 times more than he hates the people who own and whip slaves. That's all you need to know about this no-good bum. His always misdirected moral anger is a running tragedy throughout the book.
The United States to 1865, by Michael Kraus – c) 1959 University of Michigan Press. Volume Four of the University History of Michigan History of the Modern World.
Michael Kraus wrote The History of American History in 1937, and wrote a revised edition renamed The Writing of American History in 1953.
In 1990 a new edition was released with a co-author by the name of Davis P. Joyce.
If I actually finish a book from cover to cover with underlines and marginal notes I always give it a simple 1-10 grade at the end of the last paragraph. I read this about 15 years ago and gave it an 8. I'd take an 8 on anything anytime.
The United States, From Colony to World Power, by Oliver Perry Chitwood, Frank Lawrence Owsley, and H. C. Nixon – c)1954 – Owsley is the world's authority on King Cotton. This is one of the most offensive history books I have ever read. These guys are pro-South, or maybe they just gave the Civil War era to Owlsey.
The United States: The History of a Republic, by Richard Hofstadter of Columbia, William Miller co-author of The Age of Enterprise, and Daniel Aaron of Smith – c) 1956 Prentice-Hall
Hofstadter died at 54 so we never got to see how far he could go in the one profession where being elderly is an asset. Aaron is still alive at 98 years of age as of this writing in 2010. This is a solid and fine book of 757 slow yet fun pages.
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