34 2 HARRISON, TYLER 



New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, Ohio, 

 and Indiana, in all 73 votes. The opposition had 

 hoped that, with so many candidates in the field, 

 there would be enough bolting and scattering to 

 prevent a choice by the people, and throw the election 

 into the House of Representatives. But Mr. Van 

 Buren won an easy victory. He received 170 electoral 

 votes, a majority of 46 over the other candidates taken 

 together. The result of the canvass for the vice- 

 presidency was curious. Colonel Richard Johnson, 

 the Democratic candidate, obtained exactly half the 

 number of votes in the electoral college, so that there 

 was no choice. For the only time in our history the 

 election devolved upon the Senate, which proceeded 

 to choose Colonel Johnson. What more especially 

 concerns us here is the vote for Mr. Tyler. He 

 failed to carry his own state, for Virginia was now 

 firmly Democratic, and remained so until 1860; but 

 he ran ahead of his fellow-candidate, Mr. White, and, 

 besides Tennessee and Georgia, he received the votes 

 of Maryland and South Carolina. 



The result of this election left Mr. Tyler for the next 

 two years in retirement, but one opinion of his, very 

 clearly pronounced at this time, is worth quoting as 

 an illustration of the independence of judgment which 

 he sometimes manifested. The followers of Calhoun 

 were bringing forward in Congress what was known 

 as the " gag resolution " against all petitions and mo- 

 tions relating in any way to the abolition of slavery. 

 Mr. Tyler condemned this measure as impolitic on the 

 part of the slaveholders, because it yoked together the 

 question as to the right of petition and the question 

 as to slavery, and thus, by presenting the slave power 



