In his Ideas piece on President John Tyler (“The president without a party,’’ Feb. 14), Jeff Jacoby attempts to resurrect Tyler’s reputation as a principled politician. However, let us remember that Tyler’s extreme states’-rights views led him to support the secession of Virginia from the Union, making him the only former president in the history of the United States to commit what was essentially treason against his country and the Constitution he swore to uphold.

Perhaps African Methodist Episcopal Bishop Daniel Payne’s assessment of the slaveholding Tyler was more on the spot. He recalled the cold and disdainful reception President Tyler accorded him when he went to the White House to preach a funeral sermon for one of Tyler’s slaves. Payne compared it with the cordial reception he was accorded by Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War.

Manisha Sinha

Sturbridge

The writer is a professor and graduate program director of Afro-American studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.