John Tyler (jr)
John Tyler was the original “how did this guy end up in charge?” president. He slid into the White House not on a wave of popular support but because fate (and pneumonia) cleared the path. A states’ rights purist with a serious gold fixation and an instinctive distrust of banks, Tyler was basically the Whig Party’s emotional support problem. He was technically their guy, but only in the way a cat technically lives in your house, there on paper, utterly uncooperative in practice.
Once in power, Tyler quickly made it clear he was not about to be anyone’s party puppet. He vetoed Whig bills, torched alliances, and left a trail of political wig-flipping chaos in his wake. By the end of his accidental presidency, the Whigs had booted him from the party, Congress was over him, and America was left with a man who’d redefined “presidential drama” before reality TV was even a thing.
-
Before he was sitting in the Confederate Congress (yep, we’re going there eventually), John Tyler was making waves for his very loud opinions on banking, money, and how the U.S. economy should run. Spoiler alert: the man did not trust banks. Like… at all.
Kyle and Eric unpack Tyler’s anti-banking brain: his obsession with “incorruptible value,” his absolute horror at fractional reserve systems, and the way he basically walked around Virginia like, “You guys know banks lend out your money, right?!” Tyler didn’t just oppose banking schemes, he didn’t seem to get how banks worked in the first place.
But it wasn’t all financial facepalms. Tyler also managed to bridge Northern and Southern Whigs by pushing for restricted government spending and economic recovery, building the coalition that would eventually make him a viable national figure. Which makes it all the more wild that his story ends where it does.
It’s a ride full of hard money, no margin trading, confused gold logic, and a whole lot of political irony. Buckle up.
-
John Tyler is back — and he is Whigging Out. In Part II, our favorite accidental president cranks the drama to eleven: he’s vetoing Whig bills like it’s a competitive sport, picking tariff fights with Congress just to watch them squirm, and telling Europe to keep its powdered paws off Hawaii. (Because nothing says “serious foreign policy” like staking a claim to pineapples you can’t actually defend.)
This is the episode where Tyler leans all the way into the chaos: the Tariff of 1842 sparks a brawl between the branches, Daniel Webster does his diplomatic best to keep everyone from setting something on fire, and Manifest Destiny gets its messy soft launch. Florida joins the Union, Texas starts texting at 2 a.m., and the Whigs are one veto away from a group nervous breakdown.