The Montgomery advertiser., 1907-12-22
PRESIDENTS PRO TEMPORE
By SAVOYARD

John Tyler. tenth President of the United States and the most viciously underestimated man ever in that sta ton. was President pro tempore of the United States Senate during the ufe of the Twenty-four Congress. He was a very able, very pure man and a very considerable statesman; a thor ough patriot. know it is the fashion for the ignorant and the malignant to traduce John Tyler, but history will do him justice. It would be profit and pleasure to any pereeptive and candid mind to read "seven Decades" :" by Henry A. Wise. There is an im- mense deal of very valuable American history narrated in that volume. in a style exceeding captivating. It deals much with John Tyler.
 | John Tyler was born when the Con- | situation of the United States was less less than one year old. He was edu- cated at William and Mary, studied and practiced law. and the year he at- | tained to his majority in 1911 he was returned to the Virginia House of Del egates. He was elected member of the Fourteenth Congress to supply a vacancy. and took his seat in Decem- I Der, 1s16. before he was 27 years of age. He sat in several other Con- gresses. and was United States Sen- ator from Virginia 1s29-1s36. and re- signed sooner than obey the instruc- tions of the Legislature of his State to vote for something or other "Old Hickory" insisted on. as I now remem- Der. In those. days the State was a sovereignty very generally recognized, in so far as instructing Senators was concerned. Tyler's case of resignlng rather than casting a vote his con- science did not approve. was not singu- lar. and it was by no means rare.
 | But the election was left to the Sem l ator to obey the Legislature of his State, to resign. or to defy the man. date. We have seen that Tyler re- signed. Some twelve years later Ste- phen A. Douglas obeyed and voted for the wilmot proviso, to which he was opposed. and was applauded for the act by Jefferson Davis. who abominated the proviso. but reverenced the princk | pie that States rights extended so far as that the Legislature might control the vote of the Senator, who was but the ambassador of the State at the grand inquest of the Republic. viz, the | Congress. In 1878, l.. o. O.. Lamar, | in defiance of instructions of the Mis- sissippi Legislature, voted against the celebrated Stanley Matthews resolu- tions touching the silver question.
 Tyler was nominated for Vice-Pres- l ident because he was Clay man, ana Clay had just been humiliated in the Harrisburg convention by the nomfna. tion of old William Henry Harrison as l the Whig candidate for President.
 William R. King succeeded John Ty- Ter as President pro tempore of the United States Senate and continued in that office five years-1sS6-1S41. He was the first man to hold seat in the Senate more than thirty years, though there was a hiatus in his service of | two years when he was Minister to l Russia As now recall King was anti-CaIhoun ,and Dixon H. Lewis was | his rival for political supremacy in Alabama. William L.. Yancey came on the stage just as these veterans were 1 getting ready to retire. and Yancey sided with Lewis. the radical States rights man. King was elected Vice President in 1852, but never presided over the Senate in that capacity. The oath of office was administered to him in Cuba, where he had gone in search of health, and he died at his home in
 Alabama the following April at the age of 67.
 Samuel l.. Southard came next. and was President pro tempore 1S41-1S42, when he was succeeded by Wilie r. Mangum of North Carolina, one of the leading Whig/statesmen of that epoch when Harry of the West" was Capt n of every crowd he got into" And what . fine old party 1t was--the "sil- yer gray whigs," little given to aris- l tocracy, to coaches and fours and foot men and outriders and body servants, gold fob chain. broadcloth, fine boots, silk hats. and all that, but it was grand old party in it's day, and never forgot, nor did 1t allow anybody else to forget, that 1t was a perfect gentle Eman. There are very old men now in Kentucky who tell you something like this: q am an old-line Henry Clay Whig, by -, sir.
 | David A. Achison came next, serv- l inc from 1s46 to 1S49, when he was suc- ceeded by William R. King. but when King was elected Vice-President, Atchi-