President Tyler was rather successful, especially when you consider the political circumstances he entered office with; he was dubbed his accidency by opponents due to the fact that he was the first Vice President to succeed a sitting President who died in office. The prior President, William Harrison has the distinct place in American history of being the only President who only served for 40 days after dying in office due to pneumonia that he caught while giving his inaugural address in the pouring rain for 2 hours; indeed many have speculated that the 70 year old President, the oldest elected up until that time, was trying to demonstrate his vigor to the country. Regardless of, Tyler began his Presidency by essentially vetoing his own parties entire agenda, beginning with the re-chartering of a national bank, which Andrew Jackson had revoked famously 10 years earlier and which (arguably) lead to great economic instability during the late-1830's. The Whig party disowned him and his entire cabinet which had been inherited from Harrison had resigned except one. Most of his Presidency was politically deadlocked as a result of these events, thus he was unable to run for re-election in his own right. However, one of the most important legacies of his Presidency was formed near the end. In 1845, he signed a bill which formally annexed the Republic of Texas into the Union. This act essentially shook the balance which was established in the Missouri compromise of 1820 between slave states and free states. Arguably this event set into motion the series of crises throughout the next decade that would lead up to the Civil War. More immediately, it lead to the Mexican-American War, which his successor James Polk would have to deal with. After his Presidency, Tyler went on to retirement, briefly making a political comback in 1861 to serve on the Confederate House of Representatives. Tyler was a slaveowner for life who believed that the decision to be a 'slave' or 'free' was up to the individual states. He was president during some critical times, but the poltical gridlock created by his ascension to office made it difficult for him to govern effectively, thus diminishing his rating somewhat.