Latest news with #Whig
New York Post
28-05-2025
- Politics
- New York Post
Grandson of 10th US President John Tyler, who left the White House 180 years ago, dies at 96
The grandson of the 10th President of the United States, John Tyler, has died at 96 — 180 years after his grandfather was last in the White House. Harrison Ruffin Tyler, the son of President Tyler's 13th child, Lyon Gardiner Tyler, died on Sunday evening at a Virginia nursing home, ending the last living link to an 18th-century presidential administration. When he was born on Nov. 9, 1928, his father was 75 years old. Having children into old age was a family trait, as President Tyler was 63 when Lyon he was born. President Tyler would go on to have two more children before he died in 1862 age 71. 4 Harrison Ruffin Tyler, the last living grandson of President John Tyler, has died at 96. WTVR Born into a prominent slaveholding Virginia family in 1790, John Tyler served as President William Henry Harrison's vice president on the Whig ticket in 1840. He became president after Harrison died just 31 days into his term. While in office, Tyler was a believer in manifest destiny, and signed a bill offering Texas statehood shortly before leaving office. 4 Tyler, the 10th US President, was born in 1790 and served one term in the White House between 1841 and 1845. Getty Images But he fell out with the Whig Party, who chose not to nominate him for reelection, instead opting for Henry Clay, who lost to the Democrat James K. Polk. He fathered more children than any other American president, including eight with his first wife, Letitia Christian, and seven with his second, Julia Gardiner, whom he married in 1844 — two years after Letitia died of a stroke. Harrison Ruffin Tyler was a feature of curiosity from a young age due to his ties to America's past. 4 President Tyler was 63 when his wife gave birth to Harrison's father, Lyon Gardiner Tyler. Getty Images At age 8, he was invited to the White House to meet FDR, and Lady Nancy Astor paid his $5,000 tuition fees at William & Mary College even though the two had never met. He also had a historic lineage on the side of his mother, Susan Ruffin Tyler, and was a direct descendant of Pocahontas. But despite that, he grew up poor during the Great Depression and, after graduating, he continued his education at Virginia Tech due to a lack of employment opportunities. In 1968, he founded the industrial water treatment company ChemTreat with his business partner William P Simmons, serving top clients such as Kraft and Philip Morris. 4 Harrison had been living in a Virginia nursing home when he died on Sunday. WTVR In 1975, he bought his grandfather's former home, Sherwood Forest Plantation, from relatives and restored it along with his wife, Francis Payne Bouknight Tylor. The property is now open to the public and operated by a foundation. It boasts not only 'the longest frame house in America' but is also home to a ghost known as the Gray Lady, who visitors claim to have heard for over 200 years. In 1996, Tyler bought and financed the preservation of Fort Pocahontas, a Civil War-era earthwork close to Sherwood Forest built by black Union soldiers. In 2001, he donated thousands of papers and books, along with $5 million of his own money, to William & Mary's history department, which was renamed in his honor in 2021, The Richmonder reported. Tyler's wife died in 2019, and he had been living in a nursing home in Richmond at the time of his death. He is survived by three children and numerous of grandchildren.
Boston Globe
16-02-2025
- Politics
- Boston Globe
Franklin Pierce lusted for foreign territory — and squandered his presidency
Upon taking the oath of office in 1949, for example, Get The Gavel A weekly SCOTUS explainer newsletter by columnist Kimberly Atkins Stohr. Enter Email Sign Up The last time a newly sworn president Advertisement 'My administration will not be controlled by any timid forebodings of evil from expansion,' said Pierce, a handsome 48-year-old New Hampshire Democrat whose political climb had been so rapid that he was, at the time, the youngest man ever elected president. 'Our attitude as a nation and our position on the globe,' he declared, 'render the acquisition of certain possessions not within our jurisdiction eminently important for our protection.' In fact, Pierce claimed, it was 'essential' that the United States acquire new territory for the sake of its commercial rights and world peace. More than 180 years later, Trump would use similar arguments to bolster his demands for the Panama Canal and Greenland. Advertisement As Pierce took office, the wind was at his back. In the election, he had easily beaten his Whig opponent, the Mexican-American War hero Winfield Scott. Though he had experienced deep personal pain — his three sons all died young, and the accumulation of grief had plunged his wife into depression — Pierce's political rise seemed charmed. Democrats controlled both houses of Congress, and Pierce intended to enforce party loyalty, especially with regard to slavery, the most controversial issue of the day. He supported the Compromise of 1850, which included the Fugitive Slave Act that was widely reviled in the North. Despite his New England roots, Pierce sympathized with Southern interests in preserving chattel slavery. He had been effective in suppressing antislavery sentiment among New Hampshire Democrats and was determined, now that he was president, to implement the same policy in the party as a whole. Speaking at his inauguration, Pierce staunchly defended the legality of 'involuntary servitude' and called on Americans to 'cheerfully' uphold the legal rights of Southern enslavers. Henceforth, he said, debate on the matter should be considered settled. To divert attention from the roiling issue of slavery — which was, of course, anything but settled — Pierce embarked on an aggressive program of attempted expansion. He launched discussions on acquiring Formosa (present-day Taiwan), Santo Domingo in the Caribbean, and even the so-called 'guano islands' of the Pacific. His administration schemed without success to annex Hawaii, which was then an independent kingdom. For many Northerners, all this fueled a suspicion that Pierce's real goal was to secure new territories into which slavery could be expanded. That suspicion exploded into scandal in 1854, with the publication of a confidential document in which three US diplomats laid out a plan to acquire Cuba from Spain — with or without Spain's assent. Advertisement Southerners had long coveted Cuba, where slavery was already entrenched. Transferring the great island from Spain to the United States would effectively add another slave state to the union, and Pierce's secretary of state, William Marcy, directed the US ministers to Spain, France, and England to consult together and formulate a plan. Meeting at Ostend, Belgium, the trio drafted When the Ostend Manifesto, as it came to be known, was published, it triggered a furious backlash, deepening the growing rift between North and South. The newborn Republican Party began gaining strength as Northern voters recoiled from the Pierce administration's willingness to accommodate Southern pressure for more slave territory. The White House was compelled to repudiate the manifesto, but Pierce's interest in territorial expansion persisted. In 1855, the American soldier of fortune William Walker led a private force of marauders into Nicaragua where, with the financial backing of Southern planters, he fomented a revolution, set himself up as ruler, and declared the country open to slavery. 'Walker hoped to gain Nicaragua's entry into the Union as a slave state,' Advertisement In the end, Pierce's expansionist schemes met with success only once. For $10 million, the United States bought a strip of land from Mexico, adding about 30,000 square miles to southern New Mexico and Arizona. Known as the Far from uniting the nation under a banner of vigor and outward growth, Pierce's expansionism only added fuel to the flames of domestic animosity and sectional bitterness. At a time when the Union was fraying, he channeled executive energy into trying to acquire foreign lands — a classic case of misdirected priorities that backfired badly. America under Trump is vastly different from the nation over which Pierce presided. But the legacy of the 14th president is a cautionary tale from which the headstrong 47th might benefit. Expansionist ambitions abroad can lead to negative consequences at home. Franklin Pierce could have tried to unify a nation that was polarized over domestic policy. Instead, he dismissed the legitimacy of principled opposition, demanded total fealty from his party, and sacrificed goodwill on the altar of territorial ambition. Trump may imagine that his aggressive territorial claims will have no ill effects. Pierce probably imagined the same thing. Jeff Jacoby can be reached at
Yahoo
26-01-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
What Is Trump Thinking With Canada? Ask the Whig Party.
'It was a pleasure to have dinner the other night with Governor Justin Trudeau of the Great State of Canada,' President Donald Trump posted last month on Truth Social. 'I look forward to seeing the Governor again soon so that we may continue our in depth talks on Tariffs and Trade, the results of which will be truly spectacular for all! DJT.' The taunting post was just one in a recent string of comments from Trump suggesting that the United States annex Canada and make it the 51st U.S. state. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau posted an unambiguous response on X: 'There isn't a snowball's chance in hell that Canada would become part of the United States.' Of course, Trudeau is right. But there's more to Trump's jibing — and his expansionist rhetoric about buying Greenland or reclaiming the Panama Canal — than geopolitical swagger. History suggests the issue is not so much Canada, as dueling visions of what makes America great. Trump, after all, is not the first president to entertain fever dreams of conquering our neighbor to the north. Credible presidents and statesmen articulated the same aspirations throughout the early 19th century. At issue was not Canada, per se, but whether the U.S. should grow over space, expanding its geographic territory, or over time, investing in its infrastructure and industries to accelerate progress. It became a defining divide between the Whig and Democratic parties in the antebellum era, and in some fashion, appears to have reemerged as a lens through which we can understand the Democratic and Republican parties today. America's hunger for Canada goes back to before the founding of the U.S. itself. Canada, of course, originated as one part of British North America, similar to the 13 colonies that eventually rebelled and formed the United States. Canada did not join those colonies in their rebellion due to cultural, political and strategic factors. After Britain took control of Canada from France in 1763 following the Seven Years' War, it enacted the Quebec Act of 1774 to secure the loyalty of French-speaking inhabitants by granting them religious and legal freedoms. While American revolutionary leaders such as George Washington and Benjamin Franklin hoped that parts of Canada, especially Quebec and Nova Scotia, might join the revolution, these hopes were largely unmet. The Continental Army launched an invasion of Quebec in 1775, aiming to rally support from French Canadians. However, the campaign ended in defeat due to harsh winter conditions, logistical challenges and the population's reluctance to support the largely Protestant rebellion. In Nova Scotia, which had economic ties to New England, strong British military control and local Loyalist sentiment prevented any significant revolutionary movement. The Continental Congress also attempted to persuade Canadians diplomatically but failed to sway public opinion. After the Revolution, the British maintained a firm grip on Canadian territories through strategic military presence and policies that appeased the local population, which continued to prefer British rule over the uncertainty of American governance. The War of 1812, which in a theoretical world might have led to Canadian annexation, instead, solidified Canada's separate identity and reinforced its population's loyalty to the British Crown. This affinity for London over Washington, D.C. persisted as Canada developed its own institutions and governance, culminating in the creation of Canada as a self-governing dominion in 1867. None of this prevented American statesmen from dreaming. As early as George Washington, who in 1775 expected that Canada would fall like 'easy prey,' U.S. leaders cast an acquisitive eye northward. During the War of 1812, Henry Clay assured President James Madison that 'the militia of Kentucky are alone competent to place Upper Canada at your feet.' Former President Thomas Jefferson echoed this sentiment, eagerly anticipating that 'the acquisition of Canada this year, as far as the neighborhood of Quebec, will be a mere matter of marching; & will give us experience for the attack of Halifax the next, & the final expulsion of England from the American continent.' John Quincy Adams, who served as James Monroe's Secretary of State and subsequently as president, harbored interest in annexing Canada as early as 1811, when he envisioned U.S. dominion over the entire continent, 'one nation, speaking one language, professing one general system of religious and political principles, and accustomed to one general tenor of social usage and customs.' In 1822, while in Monroe's cabinet, he affirmed that the 'world should become familiarized with the idea of considering our proper dominion to be the entire continent of North America,' by which he meant both Canadian and Mexican annexation. While some hawks retained these dreams as late as the 1830s and 1840s, when it seemed plausible that uprisings in Canada and Mexico might destabilize both nations and make them ripe for the picking, mainstream attention gradually shifted west and South, as Manifest Destiny came to embrace a vision of America's presence from the Atlantic to the Pacific, including the present day Southwest — but ending at the fixed northern border between the U.S. and British North America. As is likely the case today, in the 19th century, the impulse to fold Canada into the growing United States may have been less about Canada, per se, and more about dueling ideas about American greatness. This difference became especially pronounced by the 1830s, when a growing divide between Andrew Jackson's Democratic party and the opposition Whig party came to define the American political debate. During the antebellum period, the rift between the Whigs and Democrats over national policy can be understood through the framework of expansion over 'space' versus expansion over 'time.' It's a framework that historians later imposed, and not rooted in contemporary political discourse of the time. But it's a helpful lens for understanding how the parties envisioned American expansion. The Democrats were the party of space. They prioritized territorial expansion, believing that national strength and prosperity lay in acquiring new lands across North America. This perspective, often associated with the doctrine of Manifest Destiny, viewed the expansion of agricultural lands, particularly for white Southern slaveholders and Western settlers, as essential to maintaining economic and political stability. According to conventional thinking, land acquisition would ensure the perpetuation of a land-owning, self-sufficient and politically independent white yeomanry. Democrats, particularly in the South and West, pushed for policies that facilitated westward expansion, such as the annexation of Texas (1845), the Oregon boundary settlement, which established the 49th parallel as the official boundary between the U.S. and Canada (1846), and the war with Mexico (1846-1848), which added vast new territories to the nation. They saw expansion as a means of providing economic opportunities for white settlers, often at the expense of Native Americans and indigenous Mexican residents. By contrast, the Whig Party believed that national progress should come through expansion over time — focusing on internal economic development rather than territorial expansion. Taking their cue from Henry Clay, who dubbed his policy program the American System, Whigs argued that the U.S. should consolidate its existing territories by investing in infrastructure (roads, bridges, railroads and, eventually, a telegraph system), education and industrial growth to create a more unified and economically self-sufficient nation. By reducing the amount of time needed to transmit capital, labor and ideas, these investments would actually collapse space and bind the already geographically disparate nation together in a web of common culture, interests and outlook. These two visions of American greatness were not without contradiction. During the Mexican American War, most Northern Whigs, including then-Congressman Abraham Lincoln, staunchly opposed the Polk administration's policy of conquest and annexation, but many Southern Whigs favored it, perceiving an opportunity to expand slavery into new southwest territories. During the Civil War, the governing Republican party — top-heavy with ex-Whigs like Lincoln — pursued vast railroad construction that ultimately opened the far-flung West to white settlement and resource extraction, thereby ensuring the conquest of Native American populations and de facto expansion of the nation across space. But these two ideals — one focused on land, one on perfection — embodied the prevailing debate in the decades before the Civil War. And in some ways, it defines political debates today. Democrats and Republicans have long debated the extent to which government should invest in education, infrastructure and commerce. In a 21st-century context, that means federal funding for schools and universities; the construction of highways, wind and solar energy facilities and rural broadband; and support for industry, including nascent green energy sectors like electric vehicles. On a base level, Democrats are the inheritors of Henry Clay's and Abraham Lincoln's Whig party. They eagerly embrace and promote an idea of American greatness that rests on the quality of the nation's human and physical capital, rather than the quantity of its land mass. The Republican party has embraced an opposite idea of American greatness, one mirroring Andrew Jackson's and James Polk's aspirations to double or triple the country's land mass. According to this vision, a nation's strength correlates to the amount of real estate it takes up on a map, not the quality of its infrastructure or the health and prosperity? of its people. It's perhaps fitting that the first real estate developer to become president should view the world in such stark territorial terms. But the question for voters will increasingly become the same issue that Americans in the 19th century faced. Does your family's future and well-being rest on investments in America as it is, or do the acquisition of Canada, Greenland and Panama create the best path forward? Whether we grow over time or space is once again a burning question.
Politico
26-01-2025
- Politics
- Politico
What Is Trump Thinking With Canada? Ask the Whig Party.
'It was a pleasure to have dinner the other night with Governor Justin Trudeau of the Great State of Canada,' President Donald Trump posted last month on Truth Social. 'I look forward to seeing the Governor again soon so that we may continue our in depth talks on Tariffs and Trade, the results of which will be truly spectacular for all! DJT.' The taunting post was just one in a recent string of comments from Trump suggesting that the United States annex Canada and make it the 51st U.S. state. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau posted an unambiguous response on X: 'There isn't a snowball's chance in hell that Canada would become part of the United States.' Of course, Trudeau is right. But there's more to Trump's jibing — and his expansionist rhetoric about buying Greenland or reclaiming the Panama Canal — than geopolitical swagger. History suggests the issue is not so much Canada, as dueling visions of what makes America great. Trump, after all, is not the first president to entertain fever dreams of conquering our neighbor to the north. Credible presidents and statesmen articulated the same aspirations throughout the early 19th century. At issue was not Canada, per se, but whether the U.S. should grow over space, expanding its geographic territory, or over time, investing in its infrastructure and industries to accelerate progress. It became a defining divide between the Whig and Democratic parties in the antebellum era, and in some fashion, appears to have reemerged as a lens through which we can understand the Democratic and Republican parties today. America's hunger for Canada goes back to before the founding of the U.S. itself. Canada, of course, originated as one part of British North America, similar to the 13 colonies that eventually rebelled and formed the United States. Canada did not join those colonies in their rebellion due to cultural, political and strategic factors. After Britain took control of Canada from France in 1763 following the Seven Years' War, it enacted the Quebec Act of 1774 to secure the loyalty of French-speaking inhabitants by granting them religious and legal freedoms. While American revolutionary leaders such as George Washington and Benjamin Franklin hoped that parts of Canada, especially Quebec and Nova Scotia, might join the revolution, these hopes were largely unmet. The Continental Army launched an invasion of Quebec in 1775, aiming to rally support from French Canadians. However, the campaign ended in defeat due to harsh winter conditions, logistical challenges and the population's reluctance to support the largely Protestant rebellion. In Nova Scotia, which had economic ties to New England, strong British military control and local Loyalist sentiment prevented any significant revolutionary movement. The Continental Congress also attempted to persuade Canadians diplomatically but failed to sway public opinion. After the Revolution, the British maintained a firm grip on Canadian territories through strategic military presence and policies that appeased the local population, which continued to prefer British rule over the uncertainty of American governance. The War of 1812, which in a theoretical world might have led to Canadian annexation, instead, solidified Canada's separate identity and reinforced its population's loyalty to the British Crown. This affinity for London over Washington, D.C. persisted as Canada developed its own institutions and governance, culminating in the creation of Canada as a self-governing dominion in 1867. None of this prevented American statesmen from dreaming. As early as George Washington, who in 1775 expected that Canada would fall like 'easy prey,' U.S. leaders cast an acquisitive eye northward. During the War of 1812, Henry Clay assured President James Madison that 'the militia of Kentucky are alone competent to place Upper Canada at your feet.' Former President Thomas Jefferson echoed this sentiment, eagerly anticipating that 'the acquisition of Canada this year, as far as the neighborhood of Quebec, will be a mere matter of marching; & will give us experience for the attack of Halifax the next, & the final expulsion of England from the American continent.' John Quincy Adams, who served as James Monroe's Secretary of State and subsequently as president, harbored interest in annexing Canada as early as 1811, when he envisioned U.S. dominion over the entire continent, 'one nation, speaking one language, professing one general system of religious and political principles, and accustomed to one general tenor of social usage and customs.' In 1822, while in Monroe's cabinet, he affirmed that the 'world should become familiarized with the idea of considering our proper dominion to be the entire continent of North America,' by which he meant both Canadian and Mexican annexation. While some hawks retained these dreams as late as the 1830s and 1840s, when it seemed plausible that uprisings in Canada and Mexico might destabilize both nations and make them ripe for the picking, mainstream attention gradually shifted west and South, as Manifest Destiny came to embrace a vision of America's presence from the Atlantic to the Pacific, including the present day Southwest — but ending at the fixed northern border between the U.S. and British North America. As is likely the case today, in the 19th century, the impulse to fold Canada into the growing United States may have been less about Canada, per se, and more about dueling ideas about American greatness. This difference became especially pronounced by the 1830s, when a growing divide between Andrew Jackson's Democratic party and the opposition Whig party came to define the American political debate. During the antebellum period, the rift between the Whigs and Democrats over national policy can be understood through the framework of expansion over 'space' versus expansion over 'time.' It's a framework that historians later imposed, and not rooted in contemporary political discourse of the time. But it's a helpful lens for understanding how the parties envisioned American expansion. The Democrats were the party of space. They prioritized territorial expansion, believing that national strength and prosperity lay in acquiring new lands across North America. This perspective, often associated with the doctrine of Manifest Destiny, viewed the expansion of agricultural lands, particularly for white Southern slaveholders and Western settlers, as essential to maintaining economic and political stability. According to conventional thinking, land acquisition would ensure the perpetuation of a land-owning, self-sufficient and politically independent white yeomanry. Democrats, particularly in the South and West, pushed for policies that facilitated westward expansion, such as the annexation of Texas (1845), the Oregon boundary settlement, which established the 49th parallel as the official boundary between the U.S. and Canada (1846), and the war with Mexico (1846-1848), which added vast new territories to the nation. They saw expansion as a means of providing economic opportunities for white settlers, often at the expense of Native Americans and indigenous Mexican residents. By contrast, the Whig Party believed that national progress should come through expansion over time — focusing on internal economic development rather than territorial expansion. Taking their cue from Henry Clay, who dubbed his policy program the American System, Whigs argued that the U.S. should consolidate its existing territories by investing in infrastructure (roads, bridges, railroads and, eventually, a telegraph system), education and industrial growth to create a more unified and economically self-sufficient nation. By reducing the amount of time needed to transmit capital, labor and ideas, these investments would actually collapse space and bind the already geographically disparate nation together in a web of common culture, interests and outlook. These two visions of American greatness were not without contradiction. During the Mexican American War, most Northern Whigs, including then-Congressman Abraham Lincoln, staunchly opposed the Polk administration's policy of conquest and annexation, but many Southern Whigs favored it, perceiving an opportunity to expand slavery into new southwest territories. During the Civil War, the governing Republican party — top-heavy with ex-Whigs like Lincoln — pursued vast railroad construction that ultimately opened the far-flung West to white settlement and resource extraction, thereby ensuring the conquest of Native American populations and de facto expansion of the nation across space. But these two ideals — one focused on land, one on perfection — embodied the prevailing debate in the decades before the Civil War. And in some ways, it defines political debates today. Democrats and Republicans have long debated the extent to which government should invest in education, infrastructure and commerce. In a 21st-century context, that means federal funding for schools and universities; the construction of highways, wind and solar energy facilities and rural broadband; and support for industry, including nascent green energy sectors like electric vehicles. On a base level, Democrats are the inheritors of Henry Clay's and Abraham Lincoln's Whig party. They eagerly embrace and promote an idea of American greatness that rests on the quality of the nation's human and physical capital, rather than the quantity of its land mass. The Republican party has embraced an opposite idea of American greatness, one mirroring Andrew Jackson's and James Polk's aspirations to double or triple the country's land mass. According to this vision, a nation's strength correlates to the amount of real estate it takes up on a map, not the quality of its infrastructure or the health and prosperity? of its people. It's perhaps fitting that the first real estate developer to become president should view the world in such stark territorial terms. But the question for voters will increasingly become the same issue that Americans in the 19th century faced. Does your family's future and well-being rest on investments in America as it is, or do the acquisition of Canada, Greenland and Panama create the best path forward? Whether we grow over time or space is once again a burning question.
