| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 93.4

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| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 93.4 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

John Tyler: The Accidental President. By Edward P. Crapol. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006. 332 pp. $37.50, ISBN 978-0-8078-3041-3.)

In the summer of 1842, James Campbell of Philadelphia penned an angry letter to a friend of John Tyler, damning the president as "a miserable, paltry, third rate country court scoundrel" (letter to Caleb Cushing, July 16, 1842, Caleb Cushing Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress). Campbell determined that castration would be a suitable punishment for the chief executive's misdeeds. More than 150 years later, most Americans, who have largely forgotten Tyler, would be puzzled that the Virginian could generate such vitriol. Edward P. Crapol reassesses Tyler's standing, bringing him out of the historical twilight and putting his presidency—particularly regarding foreign affairs—into sharper focus.

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