president, was a recent convert from the Democrats to the Whigs. He was expelled by the Whig party (controlled by Henry Clay, who had presidential ambitions) not long after he became president, leaving him with no party base in Congress. Two Supreme Court vacancies opened near the end of his single term, one in December 1843, the other in April 1844. After a combined eight nominations and renominations of four candidates over 13 months, he was finally able to fill the first vacancy by nominating a Democrat after James K. Polk and his fellow Jacksonian Democrats won the 1844 elections. Tyler failed twice on the other vacancy, so it was held open for President Polk (whose first choice was also rejected).

A similar fate to Tyler’s befell Millard Fillmore,another “accidental” Whig president, who had three nominees shot down by the Democrat-controlled Senate for a vacancy that opened in July 1852. That vacancy was held open for the next president, Democrat Franklin Pierce, who promptly filled it. Another Democratic appointment followed in 1857, when the sole Whig-appointed justice, Benjamin Curtis, resigned in protest over Chief Justice Taney’s opinion in Dred Scott v. Sandford. By this point the Whig party was a thing of the past.

James Buchanan had a second vacancy open in May of the election year of 1860, and unwisely waited until February to fill it. By that time the Senate had tipped to the Republicans after Southern Democrats withdrew to join the Confederacy. Republican senators, by a 26–25 vote, held the seat open to be