As President, Tyler soon became a man without a party. The Whig program clashed with many of Tyler's lifelong beliefs. He vetoed almost every important bill. Angry Whigs tried to impeach him, the first such move against a President. They failed, but the resulting friction destroyed the Whig program.
For more than 75 years after the courteous, soft-spoken Tyler left office, historians dealt harshly with him. President Theodore Roosevelt summed up this opinion when he said: "Tyler has been called a mediocre man, but this is unwarranted flattery. He was a politician of monumental littleness."
Many historians today take a different view. They regard Tyler as a President of exceptional courage and imagination who displayed great devotion to the principles of Thomas Jefferson. He inherited a political situation he had never expected, and could not support. He could not have acted other than the way he did.
Historians also point to Tyler as the man who firmly established the right of the Vice-President to succeed completely to the Presidency. When Harrison died, many Whig leaders suggested that Tyler be called only "Acting President." Tyler, with a patience that irritated his enemies even further, took over the presidency in fact as well as in name.
During Tyler's administration, many regions began to show signs of their future importance. Pittsburgh was becoming the home of busy ironworks. Cincinnati boasted of its well-paved streets and its schools that required children from 6 to 10 years old to learn algebra. Texas won its long fight to join the Union. Fighting with the Seminole Indians in Florida ended in 1842. Just two days after he signed the billapproving statehood for Texas, Tyler signed a bill making Florida a state. In New York City, stylish young men turned their shirt collars down and let their chin whiskers grow.
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