John Tyler by Paul Raymond Audibert, Paris.

Additional information on Audibert pending.

John Tyler, Tenth President of the United States, Born Greenway, Charles City County, VA., March 29, 1790, died Richmond, Va., January 18, 1862. The following is excerpted from the coverleaf of the engraving:

"Mr. Tyler's adminsitration was unpopular for a time. The party which elected him was false to its professed principles, and tried to cover their own treachey by clamoring treason against him; and the party which he had aided in crushing came not, of course, to his assistance, but chuckled that their opponents were guilty of suicide, by ostracizing for the time their best men and by preventing the best of measures, the credit of which they might have secured. Every question that the administration disposed of was of the highest importance, and was managed with the utmost ability yielding the richest fruition. The administration added to the reputation of every member of it councils.*** What reputation was ever blighted by the shadow of an administration which wisely and well settled the Northeastern Bounday question, the Caroline question, the Bank and Tariff question, the Southwestern Texas question?--Which overthrew its revilers and revived Democracy, crushing both old Federalism and Locofocoism?"***

"The patience, equanimity and smiling consciousness of rectitude which composed him all the time of his darkest trials, and kept him firm in the righteousness of his course, were more than any ordinary human virtue. He was calm, cautious, forbearing, forgiving, hopeful and cheerful all the time, and no bitterness disturbed his placid contemplation of his exact situation and duty. His only weakness was that he could hardly say "no" to a friend, and was ever ready to try to appease a foe. He was unlimited in his confidence to the one, and ever charitable and gracious to the other."***

"As if to mock his retirement from the presidency, and to express contempt for his course, he ws appointed overseer of one of the worst roads in lowland Virginia. Instead of resenting the indignity, intended to belittle him, he was tickled with the appointment, took it cheerfully, ordered out the hands, very much against the wishes of the proprietors,*** and so sturdily set to rights the mortar of clay and the jackstraws of corduroy, that the whole country around rode unjolted in praise of his industry and skill. But he work the roads so well and so often that he turned the joke upon the jokers, and convinced his neighbors that he was fit at least for the highway, if not for the high place of the presidency. By usefulness, kindness, utter abnegation of himself, attention to every want and feeling around him, and cheerfulness, he won all hearts, and made a social circle in his neighborhood worthy of his retirement, and tender to him and to his memory."--HENRY A. WISE, (1806-1876) Governor of Virginia elected 1856, in his book Seven Decades of the Union, a Memoir of John Tyler 1881.
Effective published copyright,©Mickey Cox 2002. All Rights Reserved.