John Tyler's presidency was largely defined by what happened in those first few months after he assumed the office.
In September of 1841, a special session of Congress was called to address the ongoing financial crisis.
Twice during that session, Henry Clay and the Whigs passed bills to create a national bank that they believed was needed to write the economic ship and twice they were stymied when President Tyler vetoed the bill.
As a result, nothing was done, and the Whigs looked impotent.
This enraged Clay whose electoral landslide was now falling to pieces all around him.
But in hindsight, it hardly seemed surprising since Tyler had always been opposed to a central bank.
The real question is why the Whigs would have risked putting him on the ticket in the first place.
Harrison was 68 years old, an old man by 19th century standards. There was always a risk of him dying in office.
It seems the only answer to this is that nobody thought of it as a possibility.
Eight presidents had come and gone before Harris, and all of whom completed their terms without issue.
