Two vacancies occurred on the Supreme Court during Tyler's presidency, but Congress, ever at odds with Tyler, refused to confirm his first four nominees. With less than a month remaining in his term, Tyler's nomination of Samuel Nelson, a Democrat with a reputation as a careful and noncontroversial jurist, was finally confirmed by the Senate. The other seat, however, remained vacant until James K. Polk's nominee, Robert Grier, was confirmed in 1846.

The Republic of Texas separated from Mexico in 1836. Tyler was a firm believer in manifest destiny and saw its annexation as providing an economic advantage to the United States, so he worked diligently to make it happen. He initially sought election to a second term as president, but failing to gain the support of either Whigs or Democrats, he withdrew in support of Democrat James K. Polk, who favored the annexation of Texas. Polk won the election, Tyler signed a bill to annex Texas three days before leaving office, and Polk completed the process.

His neighbors, largely Whigs, appointed him to the minor office of overseer of roads in 1847 in an effort to mock him. To their displeasure he treated the job seriously, frequently summoning his neighbors to provide their slaves for road work, and continuing to insist on carrying out his duties even after his neighbors asked him to stop.

In November 1861, he was elected to the Confederate House of Representatives but he died of a stroke in his room at the Ballard Hotel in Richmond before the first session could open in February 1862.

John Tyler fathered fifteen children--more than any other American president. He had eight children with his first wife, Letitia Christian, and seven children with his second wife, Julia Gardiner.

Tyler's death was the only one in presidential history not to be officially recognized in Washington, because of his allegiance to the Confederate States of America. He had requested a simple burial, but Confederate President Jefferson Davis devised a grand, politically pointed funeral, painting Tyler as a hero to the new nation. Accordingly, at his funeral, the coffin of the tenth president of the United States was draped with a Confederate flag; he remains the only U.S. president ever laid to rest under a flag not of the United States.