6. A former President led another attempt to impeach John Tyler
One of the reasons Henry Clay tabled the Botts resolution was the activity of a House Select Committee which was chaired by former President John Quincy Adams. Adams was a noted abolitionist, who had argued against the Van Buren administration during the Amistad affair. Tyler was, as noted, from Virginia and a slaveholder, with slaves serving his administration in the White House. Adams used the committee to both question the legality of the tariff vetoes and the morality and character of the President, and the committee released a report to the full House which was endorsed by that body in August 1842. Though it did not call for impeachment directly, it indicated the possibility.
That fall in the mid-term elections, the Whig party retained the majority in the Senate, but lost it in the House, and the ability to charge Tyler with the constitutionally mandated “High Crimes and Misdemeanors” was lost. Throughout his Presidency he was at odds with the Whigs in the Senate, submitting three different candidates for two vacancies on the Supreme Court, all of which were denied by the Senate multiple times. The rejections of Tyler’s nominees were motivated by the hope of a Whig victory in the Presidential election of 1844. Tyler finally succeeded in having a nominee confirmed by the Senate in February 1845, with less than a month remaining in his single term.