The States and Union. [volume] (Ashland, Ohio) 1868-1872, 1869-06-30

said in those times, that General Jack
son had named his own successor.
Mr.. Van Buren, was his elected, and
in his inaugural address promised to
walk in the footsteps of his distin-
guished predecessor. To this declara-
ton he was true. The fact was that
most of General Jacksoa's prominent
acts had previously Van Buren's APP
proval. He was accused of having a
large share in the composition of
Jackson's messages and State papers.
The financial cloud which had been
gathering upon the horizon broke in
Mr.. Van Buren's Administration.
Every bank in the Union suspended
payment. Labor was dificnlt TO be
obtained, produce became of little
value, no money was to be had, hard
ly on any credit, and the times in ev-
cry respect were hard. This state of
things, justly chargeable upon the
bank of the United States and its
specializing allies, was attributed by
Interested partisan prejudices to Mr.
Van Buren,, and he fell a victim to it.
He was defeated for reelection by
General Harrison, in 1910. HeIeir-
ed to his home, at Lindenwald, NeM
York, where he spent a quarter of a
century with great dignity and pro-
priety. In 1874, but for his letter
opposing the annexation of Texas, he
would have been renominated for
President, and perhaps reelected. In
1913 he committed the only great mis-
take of his life, viz !: in allowing the
use of his name to the Free-soil Con
~vention which had met in Buffalo to
designate a third candidate for Presi-
dent. 1t was generally believed that
the only motive for this condnct was
his personal hostility to General Cass,
who had defeated his Presidential no
miAation four years before.
This was perhaps the only time in
his life when MIR. Van Buren, acted
from motives of private resentment
In a public transaction, and it is
worthy of note that he had then moth
ing to lose, have already attained
the measure of an Americans ambi-
ton. Mr.. Van Buren, was a most ex-
tra~ordinary man. No person who aver
filed the Presidential office possessed
finer manners or a more Talleyrand
mode of address. He was diplomatic
and elegant courtesy p~ersoniied. He
was called non-committed because that
no one understood better the uses of
the English language and knew how
to clothe a negative in more refined
and unobiectionable language. He
was complete a master of Anglo-Sax-
on expression when it was reduced to
writing, and his State papers are
among the best ofany in our archives.
But like Mr.. Jefferson, he was no
speaker, and left no recorded NANTES
tations of that description. His son
John was renowned as an orator, but
was deficient in the caution and adj
dress of his father, and was in almost
all respects his direct antipode in char
acter. Mr.. Van Buren, was the au-
thor of the present caucus system,
which, though denounced in its incep-
ton, has been adopted by all parties
and seems to be ~inseparable from re-
preventative government with which
parties are necessarily associated. He
was a sagacious and, perhaps we may
add, a cunning man. His opponents
were not so far wrong when they car
featured him as a fox, to which, in
deed, his general profile bears not a
little resemblance. He never believ-
ed in obtaining that by force and viru-
lence which could be got by other
means. His maxims were, in his OVID
case, eminently successful. He held
every high position in the Govern
ment, and graduated as President with
more signal triumph than any man
who ever filed that office. In one re-
spect partisan frenzy did him an i'm
mense injustice. A plebeian, and the
son of a plebeian, he was widely re-
presented as a patrician in his last
Presidential struggle, while his oppon-
ent, General Harrison, a scion of one
of the first families of Virginia, was
declared to be a log cabin or peoples
candidate. The representation was a
monstrous reversal of the facts in the
case. Mr.. Van Buren, made an adj
mirable President, both in his man.
agement Of the foreign and domestic
relations. General jackson is consi-
dered to have had an intutive knowl-
edge of men, and there were zone up
on whom the hero of the Hermitage
set a higher store then upon his sue
cessor. The intimacy begun twenty
years before continued to his death.
The administrative reforms of Jack
son were continued by Van Buren,,
and to the end of time their names
should be identified. No man was
ever more the victim of obloquy, and
none ever less deserved it. Among
the great men of the last generation,
he, when we consider his genius, his
calm and imperturbable temper, which
he never lost, and his remarkable wis
dom and sagacity, will always appear
| among the most eminent.