Martin Van Buren

Martin Van Buren (born December 5, 1782, Kinderhook, New York, U.S.—died July 24, 1862, Kinderhook) was the eighth president of the United States (1837–41) and one of the founders of the Democratic Party. He was known as the “Little Magician” to his friends (and the “Sly Fox” to his enemies) in recognition of his reputed cunning and skill as a politician.

Early life

Van Buren was the third of five children born to Abraham Van Buren, a farmer and tavern keeper, and Maria Hoes Van Alen, both of Dutch descent; he also had one half sister and two half brothers on his mother’s side from her previous marriage. Martin, whose childhood nickname was “Little Mat,” began his education at the village school and later attended the Kinderhook Academy. After classes, he often helped in his father’s tavern, which was frequented by prominent lawyers and politicians, including Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr. In 1796 he was apprenticed to the lawyer Francis Silvester, and at age 15 he participated in his first court case, which he won. After completing his legal studies in New York City, Van Buren returned to Kinderhook, where he opened a practice with his half-brother James Van Alen in 1803. In 1807 he married his cousin Hannah Hoes (Hannah Van Buren), with whom he had four children; Hannah died in 1819, and Van Buren never remarried.

Political career: Senate and vice presidency

In 1812 Van Buren ran for a seat in the New York Senate; on the campaign trail, he opposed the Bank of the United States and supported the impending war with Great Britain over maritime rights. He was narrowly elected and served two terms (1812–20). During his tenure he was also appointed state attorney general, holding that post from 1815 to 1819.

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Van Buren developed a reputation as a gifted politician, and his skill was apparent when he created the Albany Regency, an informal political organization in New York state that was a prototype of the modern political machine. It became a powerful force in state politics and helped ensure Van Buren’s election to the U.S. Senate in 1821. Van Buren, who regarded himself as a disciple of Thomas Jefferson, was a member of the Jeffersonian faction of the Republican Party. He supported the doctrine of states’ rights, opposed a strong federal government, and disapproved of federally sponsored internal improvements. After John Quincy Adams was elected president in 1824, Van Buren brought together a diverse coalition of Jeffersonian Republicans, including followers of Andrew Jackson, William H. Crawford, and John C. Calhoun, to found a new political party, which was soon named the Democratic Party.

In 1828 Van Buren resigned his Senate seat and successfully ran for governor of New York. However, he gave up the governorship within 12 weeks to become Pres. Andrew Jackson’s secretary of state. In this role he was criticized for expanding the system of political patronage, though some later historians considered the criticism unfair. Resigning as secretary of state in 1831 to permit reorganization of the cabinet, he served briefly as minister to Great Britain.

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In 1832 Van Buren was nominated for the vice presidency by the first national convention of the Democratic Party; he replaced John C. Calhoun as Pres. Jackson’s running mate. The two men ran on a platform that opposed the continued operation of the Bank of the United States. They easily defeated the National Republican ticket of Henry Clay and John Sergeant.

At a glance: the Van Buren presidency

Presidency

With Jackson’s endorsement, Van Buren was unanimously nominated for president in May 1835. In the election the following year, Van Buren defeated three candidates fielded by the splintered Whig Party, collecting 170 electoral votes to his opponents’ 124. A deadlock in the electoral college over the vice president ended with Jackson nominating Richard M. Johnson.

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When Van Buren took office in 1837, he became the first president who was born as a U.S. citizen. Almost immediately he faced a national financial panic brought about in part by the transfer of federal funds from the Bank of the United States to state banks during Jackson’s second term. In 1840 Van Buren’s proposal to move federal funds from state banks to an “independent treasury” was passed by Congress after a bitter struggle in which many conservative Democrats deserted to the new Whig Party.

•Read more: The “October surprise” of the 1840 election.

Van Buren’s popularity was further eroded by the long and costly war with the Seminole Indians in Florida (the second of the Seminole Wars) and by his failure to support the proposed annexation of the newly independent state of Texas; Texas would have been admitted as a slave state, and Van Buren wanted to avoid any sectional conflicts that would further divide the country over the issue. In 1839, after a series of armed clashes between Americans and Canadians in disputed territory along the Maine–New Brunswick border (the Aroostook War), Van Buren dispatched Gen. Winfield Scott to restore order, and a permanent settlement was negotiated in the Webster-Ashburton Treaty of 1842. In an effort to win the proslavery vote in the election of 1840, Van Buren sided against enslaved Africans on trial in the United States for their part in the Amistad mutiny in 1839. However, the enduring economic crisis and the denial of statehood to Texas contributed to Van Buren being overwhelmingly defeated by the Whig candidate William Henry Harrison, 234 to 60. One of Van Buren’s last acts before leaving office was to order that no person should work more than 10 hours a day on federal public works.