Today in 1790, future president of the United States John Tyler was born. Mockingly called “His Accidency” by his political rivals, Tyler’s strict devotion to the Constitution made him made enemies, including his own party. Former Mayor of New York Philip Hone wrote in 1842 that Tyler’s administration had consisted of “one year of the…
Tyler faced a near coup by his cabinet and was expelled from the Whig Party for vetoing their crappy legislation. What did he do? He gladly accepted their resignations, appointed his "state's rights" buddies to his cabinet and moved on.
One student at the recently concluded Abbeville Institute Summer School asked me to do a show on Southern Whigs. I decided to do more than that. Students usually get the cartoon version of most concepts, issues, or events in American history. In this case, the Whigs are the party of Henry Clay, the nationalists who…