#8: Martin Van Buren (1782-1862)

I can’t say that I’ve honestly thought about Martin Van Buren before in my life. I mean I know I must have at one point, having taken long hours of American history, but for all I know, he never existed. No—wait a minute—that’s not true. I have thought about Martin Van Buren before but I’m almost embarrassed to admit that it was more due to a popular television sitcom rather than anything that he may have done. One of the more hilarious Seinfeld episodes is about the Van Buren boys and Kramer’s accidental discovery of their existence by holding 8 fingers in the air! So now I remember—Van Buren must be the eighth President of the United States 

There was not much going on for him, book-wise, at the library so I was forced to read the American Presidents Series book, Martin Van Buren by Ted Widmer (New York: Times Books, 2005). However, this time I was more excited about it because they had done such a good job on John Quincy Adams that I was no longer in apprehension over its size (it’s only 172 pages.) Ted Widmer, the author, was a senior advisor to Clinton and although he has not written very many books, I was curious to see how he would treat this practical non-entity.

Martin Van Buren was born at the tail end of the Revolutionary War on December 5, 1782 in Kinderhook, NY. Martin’s parents were of Dutch origin, his father being a tavern keeper, and they had a total of eight children altogether. Martin was very conscious of his place in Kinderhook society and ended up dropping out of school at age 13 due to financial considerations. He would never go back to school and would never attend college. He got into the law profession though and due to his excellence there, was apprenticed to some of the most prominent men in his area, including the wealthy Van Nesses. “His nose for research, his memory, and his shrewd common sense endowed him with a formidable ability in the courtroom” (p. 33). In 1807, he married Hannah Hoes, a worthy Dutch lady, who then proceeded to give him four sons.

Slowly, and this was so true for many lawyers of this age, he drifted into politics on the side of Jefferson and the Anti-Federalists. Now here was an arena in which the little man would shine (he was only 5’6” and quite dapper.) “Preparation, hard work, and plain language—those were the earthy ingredients in the Little Magician’s alchemical brew” (p. 35). By 1812, he was elected to the state senate where he threw his support behind the incipient War of 1812. “After the war broke out, Van Buren quickly threw himself into the defense of New York, America, and democracy—and an address he gave in 1813 shows that he considered all three to be one and the same” (p. 41).

Behind the scenes, Van Buren was also working on giving his political party some structure. “Van Buren set about building a disciplined political organization, driven by strict loyalty, careful working out of positions, and reasonable meritocracy” (p. 44) which would, in turn, be known as the Albany Regency. Gradually, he revolutionized the Anti-Federalists in his state into the yet-nascent Jacksonian Democrats and propelled himself into New York’s Attorney General office in 1815.

Continuously working on the efficiency and diligence of his political party, Van Buren’s life was momentarily turned upside down when his wife, Hannah, died of TB in 1819. Bereft, Van Buren nearly gave up politics altogether but in 1821, he was voted in as a United States Senator from New York. He traveled down to Washington DC where he would proceed to make his place in the wider political world. “Within seven years, he created the modern Democratic Party, anointed Andrew Jackson as its standard-bearer and revolutionized American politics forever” (p. 53).

But first, he hit a hiccup when he decided to throw his political weight (and the support of the state of New York) behind William Crawford in the 1824 election. Van Buren was aware that his state was quickly becoming the most powerful state in the Union and used his power accordingly. However, Crawford was an unfortunate choice. In the race between Crawford, JQA, and Henry Clay, Crawford suffered a severe stroke, which almost made it impossible for him to speak, stand or even, move! Van Buren went ahead anyway, tendering Crawford’s bid for the presidency which threw the vote into the House of Representatives and ultimately gave JQA the presidency.
Temporarily bested, Van Buren immediately began plotting for the 1828 election in which he joined forces with the highly popular military hero, Andrew Jackson. “Van Buren planned a campaign for Jackson that was no less uproarious, and across the Union there were deafening parades, gaudy souvenirs, and drunken songs without end. The dour Adams never had a chance” (p. 71). Andrew Jackson did win the presidency and appointed Van Buren, as a reward, to his most important cabinet position, Secretary of State.

Before Jackson was elected though, Van Buren served a brief stint as Governor of New York but quickly gave it up to follow Jackson into the White House. However, all was not well and within the first few weeks of the Jackson presidency, it was obvious that the entire cabinet was in league against each other. The Eaton Affair was the newest scandal with Andrew Jackson determined to stand by his Secretary of War. In a prescient bid for presidential approval, Van Buren, disregarding the gossips and the wives of the other cabinet members, made friends with Peggy Eaton and thereby, cemented his place in the President’s esteem. He and Jackson became quite close, edging out the increasingly tense John Calhoun in the process.

It was Van Buren who concocted the plan to resign from office so that Jackson would have the chance to get rid of other undesirable elements. In gratitude, Jackson appointed Van Buren as ambassador to the Court of St James. Van Buren immediately left for London, but in a backhanded maneuver, Calhoun, as the head of the Senate, managed to defeat Van Buren’s appointment, leaving him stranded across the Atlantic. Popular sentiment veered strongly toward Van Buren from this treatment and he returned the United States knowing that he would soon be included in Jackson’s government once again. Sure enough, during the 1832 election, Jackson had Van Buren join him on the presidential ticket as Vice President.

With Jackson’s endorsement and as his sanctioned successor, Van Buren, in the 1836 election, ran on his own and won the eighth presidency of the United States, becoming the youngest president thus far at 56 years old. It was a major coup by this pleasant, easygoing dandy and the attainment of all that he desired. After all the hard work on creating a national political party, he reaped the benefits and stood supreme.

However, the honeymoon was short-lived. Due to some questionable financial strategies by Jackson (the death of the Bank of the United States and the Species Circular act), an economic maelstrom was brewing and would hit only weeks after Van Buren’s accession. It was the Panic of 1837 and would be the worst economic disaster for the United States until the Great Depression of 1929. Banks closed, unemployment ran rampant, money was scarce, many were starving and angry, and Van Buren was the target. Although he tried to help, he would never really recover from these devastating economic effects. “Bad luck always seems to attract more bad luck, and the Panic weakened him in two particular ways. It brought the Whigs exactly what they had been lacking—a unifying idea (that the Democrats had ruined the economy). And it chipped away at the adhesion that was so important to the Democratic cause” (p. 103).

Not only that but Van Buren frustrated many Americans due to his political chameleon act, leaving the voters with no idea how he felt on many important issues of the day. For instance, the issue of slavery was becoming increasingly incendiary but Van Buren insisted on walking the tightrope between the North and the South by not proclaiming his allegiance either way. “The central problem that now lay before him was brutally difficult: how to preserve the great Democratic coalition and move beyond the slavery debate, while assuring followers that ‘democracy’ actually meant something, and that dissenting views were taken seriously; how to show people that America stood for meaningful ideals while, there in broad daylight, slaves were sold as chattel within shouting distance of Congress” (p. 116-17). Van Buren couldn’t help but notice the slavery paradox operating right outside his door but he also did not want to offend his fellow Southern democrats.

All these problems would add up to a major loss in the 1840 presidential election. The Whigs accused Van Buren of being pro-slavery (even though he didn’t want to admit Texas to the Union since they were a slave state), of being anti-slavery (because he prosecuted the Amistad case), of being extravagant during the Panic (because he liked nice clothes and wanted to improve the White House), of being a slick politician (for maneuvering his way into the White House), of being immoral, and of being a pro-Catholic supporter. Van Buren did not care and he let the whole nation know that he wanted another crack at the presidential job. “For the first time, a president was striving openly for reelection, breaking a taboo that would remain in place until the early twentieth century” (p. 139). Van Buren had also extended voting suffrage so the election of 1840 was to be the largest so far with William Henry Harrison coming out the clear winner.

This was probably of no surprise whatsoever to Martin Van Buren. “The result, which came in November, was a foregone conclusion” (p.139) with Van Buren winning on six states total. He concluded his term though with gentlemanly tact and dignity worthy of a former president. He returned back to New York City and then Kinderhook with plenty of fanfare and admiration from the people of his home state. Years earlier, he purchased the family home of the Van Nesses which he renamed Lindenwald to which he retired sooner than he had expected.

But retire he didn’t. Soon enough he had determined to try again for the presidency in the 1844 election and so took himself off for a long tour of the United States to generate support. For the time period, it was an amazing journey, even encompassing the city of Chicago, which would make Van Buren, the first (or in this case former) president to visit this great city. “Van Buren finally returned home on July 28, 1842, having traveled more than seven thousand miles and shaken two hundred thousand hands. He had shored up his credentials, renewed his interest with local bosses, and emerged deeply energized by his contact with the far-flung American people” (p. 147).
However, the election of 1844 was to be even dirtier than the last for it was the Democratic Party itself, Van Buren’s brainchild, which turned its back on its creator and chose James K Polk as its representative. Van Buren’s lack of backing however was probably due to the fact that he decided to finally speak out against slavery and thus lose all his southern support. Polk, on the other hand, took a firm stand with the slave states and advocated annexation of Texas. And you know Americans—we can’t withstand the promise of more land!

Van Buren ran one last time for president and surprisingly, he did so under as a third party candidacy, now eschewing the Democratic Party of his own making. Under his son, John’s, influence, Van Buren ran as the Free Soil party candidate with Charles Francis Adams, JQA’s youngest son, as VP, where he spoke out broadly against slavery but for economic opportunity. “Free Soil, Free Speech, Free Labor, and Free Men!” Van Buren would also lose this election but what he couldn’t know at that time was that the Free Soil party would, in turn, become the modern Republican Party. So you can say that singlehandedly, Martin Van Buren had a hand in inventing both political parties that we see today.

After this Martin really did retire. He returned to Lindenwald where he took up farming and other rustic pursuits. He traveled to Sorrento Italy with another son and wrote his Memoirs. Martin Van Buren died in the midst of the Civil War, even as he had arrived during the Revolution, on July 24, 1862. Abraham Lincoln, even in the middle of a horrendous war of secession, honored the old president with cannon fire and flags at half mast. “For six months following his death, through some of the bloodiest fighting of the war (Second Bull Run, Antietam, Fredericksburg), all officers in the US Army and Navy wore black crape on their left arms in tribute to the eighth president” (p. 165).

“In certain ways, he had brought the future into existence, removing the old-fashioned politicians who failed to get it and helping America grow from infancy into something like adolescence—a perfect word to convey the turbulent mood swings, lingering pustules of animosity and general bad hair of the Van Buren era” (p. 17).