1790
John Tyler is born
On this day in 1790, future President John Tyler is born in
Charles City County, Virginia. Tyler was the last president to hail from the
colonial Virginia planter class that also produced George Washington, Thomas
Jefferson, James Madison and James Monroe. Through influential family ties,
Tyler gained a seat in the Virginia House of Delegates in 1811, and then went
on to serve in the army during the War of 1812 and in the U.S. House of
Representatives from 1816 to 1821.
Tyler was elected as William Harrison’s vice president in 1841
and was suddenly thrust into the role of acting president when Harrison died
one month into office. (Tyler was often referred to as His Accidency.) He was
the first vice president to immediately assume the role of president after a
sitting president’s untimely exit and set the precedent for succession
thereafter.
Tyler’s planter background made him a natural proponent of
states’ rights and the perpetuation of slavery, and, as such, a threat to his
own political party. When Tyler vetoed his fellow Whigs’ attempt to reestablish
the National Bank, most of his cabinet resigned and he was thrown out of the
Whig Party. He also alienated the Democrats by denouncing the policies of
former President Andrew Jackson, a popular Democrat. As a result, Tyler was a
president without a party who received death threats from both sides and earned
the enmity of Congress. His four years in office were contentious, although he
is credited with settling American and Canadian border disputes with Britain and
beginning the annexation of Texas.
Though politically despised, Tyler was a devoted husband and
father. He holds the record for the most children sired (legitimately, at
least) by a president. Tyler fathered 15 children: eight with his first wife,
Letitia (who died early into his presidency) and 7 with his second wife, Julia,
who was 30 years his junior. He was 70 years old when his last child was born.
The extended nature of his family and his penchant for overspending left Tyler
perpetually in debt.
After his tenure as president, Tyler tried to broker a Peace
Convention between the north and south on the eve of the Civil War, but failed
to reach an agreement with Abraham Lincoln on key issues. Denounced as a
traitor by the North, Tyler fell in line with southern secessionists and in
1861 was elected to the Confederate House of Representatives. Tyler died on
January 16, 1862, in Richmond, Virginia, a few days before the first meeting of
the Confederate Congress.
1929
Herbert Hoover has telephone installed in Oval Office
On this day in 1929, President Herbert Hoover has a phone
installed at his desk in the Oval Office of the White House. It took a while to
get the line to Hoover’s desk working correctly and the president complained to
aides when his son was unable to get through on the Oval Office phone from an
outside line. Previously, Hoover had used a phone located in the foyer just
outside the office. Telephones and a telephone switchboard had been in use at
the White House since 1878, when President Rutherford B. Hayes had the first
one installed, but no phone had ever been installed at the president’s desk
until Hoover’s administration.