Whig Nostalgia, cont.: The Best Thing You'll Read About John Tyler Today

John Tyler (U.S. President 1841-1845) is memorable for the following reasons:

1.) The Whig V.P. was playing marbles when he learned of his promotion to the presidency. (President William Harrison died after only a month in office.)

2.) His wife, Julia, was the only First Lady who insisted on being called, “Mrs. Presidentress.” While living in the White House, Julia received guests while seated on a raised platform with a wreath of flowers on her head.

3.) As president, Tyler was vilified for being a flip-flopper. To illustrate, this detail from an 1844 cartoon shows a tiny Tyler being held aloft in a procession. The man holding him up complains, "Bedad, I can't carry you [Tyler] if you turn with every flaw of wind."

How willing was Tyler to reverse course? He was the only president ever elected to political office for both the United States and an opposing government: The Confederacy.

Fifteen years after leaving the White House, Tyler threw in his support with the rebels and was elected to a seat in the Confederacy’s newly formed House of Representatives.

Then he died. Bedad!

My sources are here.

Campaign Blast from the Past: Trapped by the Whigs

As previously noted, America’s Whig Party made liberal use of libations at election time. This strategy did not always go down smoothly; this anti-Whig woodcut from Louisiana mocks the Whigs’ predilection for “entrapping” voters with free alcohol. (The log cabin was a Whig symbol.)
What an innocent age! Of course, today's voters are WAY too sophisticated to fall for traps of this primitive nature. (Although if one were to substitute a free cell phone for the cider...) The text below accompanied the anti-Whig woodcut:
"Tip. and Ty." were William Henry Harrison (aka, Tippecanoe) and John Tyler (Ty), the Whig candidates of 1840. They won, and both men got to be President of the United States. Score one for free hard cider.
Images from the Library of Congress, Rare Book and Special Collections Division