Martin Van Buren

8th President of the United States

### Political party

Democratic-Republican (1799-1825); Free Soil (1848-1852); Democratic (1825-1848, 1852-1862)

### Residence

Lindenwald Estate, Kinderhook, New York, U.S.

### Children

Abraham Van Buren (son), John Van Buren (son), Martin Van Buren Jr. (son), Winfield Scott Van Buren (son), Smith Thompson Van Buren (son)

### Parents

Abraham Van Buren (father)Maria Hoes Van Alen (mother)

### Siblings

Maria Van Alen (half-sister), John I Van Alen (half-brother), James I Van Alen (half-brother), Derike Van Buren (sister), Jane Van Buren (sister), Lawrence Van Buren (brother), Abraham Van Buren (brother)

### Hair color

Sandy red

**Martin Van Buren** was the eighth President of the United States (1837-1841), after serving as the eighth Vice President and the tenth Secretary of State, both under President Andrew Jackson. While the country was prosperous when the “Little Magician” was elected, less than three months later the financial panic of 1837 punctured the prosperity.

*The Presidency of Martin Van Buren spanned the period in United States history that encompasses the events of the Jacksonian era. President Martin Van Buren represented the Democratic political party which influenced the domestic and foreign policies of his presidency. Martin Van Buren carried on with the policies begun by his predecessor, President Andrew Jackson.*

## Biography

Only about 5 feet, 6 inches tall, but trim and erect, Martin Van Buren dressed fastidiously. His impeccable appearance belied his amiability–and his humble background. Of Dutch descent, he was born in 1782, the son of a tavernkeeper and farmer, in Kinderhook, New York.

As a young lawyer he became involved in New York politics. As leader of the “Albany Regency,” an effective New York political organization, he shrewdly dispensed public offices and bounty in a fashion calculated to bring votes. Yet he faithfully fulfilled official duties, and in 1821 was elected to the United States Senate.

By 1827 he had emerged as the principal northern leader for Andrew Jackson. President Jackson rewarded Van Buren by appointing him Secretary of State. As the Cabinet Members appointed at John C. Calhoun’s recommendation began to demonstrate only secondary loyalty to Jackson, Van Buren emerged as the President’s most trusted adviser. Jackson referred to him as, “a true man with no guile.”

The rift in the Cabinet became serious because of Jackson’s differences with Calhoun, a Presidential aspirant. Van Buren suggested a way out of an eventual impasse: he and Secretary of War Eaton resigned, so that Calhoun men would also resign. Jackson appointed a new Cabinet, and sought again to reward Van Buren by appointing him Minister to Great Britain. Vice President Calhoun, as President of the Senate, cast the deciding vote against the appointment–and made a martyr of Van Buren.

The “Little Magician” was elected Vice President on the Jacksonian ticket in 1832, and won the Presidency in 1836.

Van Buren devoted his Inaugural Address to a discourse upon the American experiment as an example to the rest of the world. The country was prosperous, but less than three months later the panic of 1837 punctured the prosperity.

Basically, the trouble was the 19th-century cyclical economy of “boom and bust,” which was following its regular pattern, but Jackson’s financial measures contributed to the crash. His destruction of the Second Bank of the United States had removed restrictions upon the inflationary practices of some state banks; wild speculation in lands, based on easy bank credit, had swept the West. To end this speculation, Jackson in 1836 had issued a Specie Circular requiring that lands be purchased with hard money–gold or silver.

In 1837 the panic began. Hundreds of banks and businesses failed. Thousands lost their lands. For about five years the United States was wracked by the worst depression thus far in its history.

Programs applied decades later to alleviate economic crisis eluded both Van Buren and his opponents. Van Buren’s remedy–continuing Jackson’s deflationary policies–only deepened and prolonged the depression.

Declaring that the panic was due to recklessness in business and overexpansion of credit, Van Buren devoted himself to maintaining the solvency of the national Government. He opposed not only the creation of a new Bank of the United States but also the placing of Government funds in state banks. He fought for the establishment of an independent treasury system to handle Government transactions. As for Federal aid to internal improvements, he cut off expenditures so completely that the Government even sold the tools it had used on public works.

Inclined more and more to oppose the expansion of slavery, Van Buren blocked the annexation of Texas because it assuredly would add to slave territory–and it might bring war with Mexico.

Defeated by the Whigs in 1840 for reelection, he was an unsuccessful candidate for President on the Free Soil ticket in 1848. He died in 1862.

## Personality

The character traits of President Martin Van Buren can be described as outgoing, charming, bright, optimistic, courteous and as cunning as a fox. It has been speculated that the Myers-Briggs personality type for Martin Van Buren is an INFJ (introversion, intuition, feeling, judging). A congenial but quiet leader with a intuitive, complex and confident character and a strong goal to better the lives of others. Martin Van Buren Personality type: conscientious, perceptive, creative and a perfectionist.

## Nicknames

* "Little Van"
* "Old Kinderhook"
* "The Little Magician"
* "The Red Fox"
* "Martin Van Ruin"
* "The Mistletoe Politician"

*Meaning: The nickname of President Martin Van Buren provides an insight into how the man was viewed by the American public during his presidency. The meaning of the Martin Van Buren nickname "Red Fox of Kinderhook" refers to his Dutch heritage his reputation as a wily, cunning politician. Kinderhook referred to his hometown in New York and "Red Fox" is in reference to his his red-colored whiskers.*

## Inauguration

The **inauguration of Martin Van Buren** as the eighth president of the United States took place on Saturday, March 4, 1837, at the East Portico of the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C. This was the 13th inauguration and marked the commencement of the only four-year term of both Martin Van Buren as president and Richard Mentor Johnson as vice president. Vice President and President-elect Van Buren rode with his predecessor Andrew Jackson in a small phaeton built from the wood of USS *Constitution* drawn by four gray horses. This was the first time that the outgoing and incoming president rode together to the Capitol. Van Buren would become the last sitting vice president to be inaugurated as president through an election until George H. W. Bush in 1989. The event proved less a celebration of the incoming president than a tribute to the outgoing one. With a single exception, the new administration retained Jackson's entire cabinet, and Van Buren pledged to "tread generally in the footsteps of President Jackson".

## Accomplishments and major events

*The major accomplishments and the famous, main events that occurred during the time that Martin Van Buren was president included the Panic of 1837, the Neutrality Law of 1838, the tragic events of the Trail of Tears (1838) and the Amistad incident (1839). Communications leapt forward in this period with the invention of the telegraph by Samuel Morse.*

**The Panic of 1837**

Summary: The Panic of 1837 occured during the presidency of Martin Van Buren but were largely due to changes in the banking system initiated by President Jackson and his Specie Circular that effectively dried up credit. President Martin Van Buren was blamed for the Panic of 1837 and his proposals for amending the banking system  met with strong opposition by the Whigs, led by Henry Clay, who had previously introduced the economic plan called the 'American System'.

**The Aroostook War**

Summary: The Aroostook War was a bloodless border conflict  between Maine and the province of New Brunswick, from February to May, 1839, who both claimed rich timber land in the highlands area known as Aroostook. The Maine-New Brunswick boundary was later settled by the Webster-Ashburton Treaty of 1842 during the presidency of John Tyler.

**The Trail of Tears**

Summary: The infamous event known as the Trail of Tears began during the presidency of Martin Van Buren. Trail of Tears involved the 1000 mile march during the forced relocation of the Five Civilized Tribes consisting of the Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Seminole and Chickasaw people. The tribes were forced to travel, from their homelands in the Southeastern United States to reservations in present day Oklahoma, as a result of the Indian Removal Act of 1830 that had been enacted during the presidency of Andrew Jackson.

**The Amistad Slave Ship**

Summary: The Amistad Slave Ship  involved a rebellion of 53 Africans who had been abducted from Sierra Leone by Spanish slavers to be shipped as slaves to Cuba. The slaves  seized control of the ship and ordered the navigator to sail for Africa but the Amistad was intercepted two months later off New York on 26 August 1839. The Amistad Case was later fought by John Quincy Adams and the 35 survivors of the rebellion were allowed to return to Sierra Leone in 1842.

**Samuel Morse and the First Telegraph**

Summary: During the presidency of Martin Van Buren a new invention revolutionized communication in the US. Samuel Morse and the First Telegraph were developed and patented in the United States in 1837. Morse demonstrated his invention by sending telegraph messages between the Senate and House.

## Post Presidency

### Election of 1844

On the expiration of his term, Van Buren returned to his estate of Lindenwald in Kinderhook. He continued to closely watch political developments, including the battle between the Whig alliance of the Great Triumvirate and President John Tyler, who took office after Harrison's death in April 1841. Though undecided on another presidential run, Van Buren made several moves calculated to maintain his support, including a trip to the Southern United States and the Western United States during which he met with Jackson, former Speaker of the House James K. Polk, and others. President Tyler, James Buchanan, Levi Woodbury, and others loomed as potential challengers for the 1844 Democratic nomination, but it was Calhoun who posed the most formidable obstacle.

Van Buren remained silent on major public issues like the debate over the Tariff of 1842, hoping to arrange for the appearance of a draft movement for his presidential candidacy. Tyler made the annexation of Texas his chief foreign policy goal, and many Democrats, particularly in the South, were anxious to quickly complete it. After an explosion on the USS *Princeton* killed Secretary of State Abel P. Upshur in February 1844, Tyler brought Calhoun into his cabinet to direct foreign affairs. Like Tyler, Calhoun pursued the annexation of Texas to upend the presidential race and to extend slavery into new territories.

Shortly after taking office, Calhoun negotiated an annexation treaty between the United States and Texas. Van Buren had hoped he would not have to take a public stand on annexation, but as the Texas question came to dominate U.S. politics, he decided to make his views on the issue public. Though he believed that his public acceptance of annexation would likely help him win the 1844 Democratic nomination, Van Buren thought that annexation would inevitably lead to an unjust war with Mexico. In a public letter published shortly after Henry Clay also announced his opposition to the annexation treaty, Van Buren articulated his views on the Texas question.

Van Buren's opposition to immediate annexation cost him the support of many pro-slavery Democrats. In the weeks before the 1844 Democratic National Convention, Van Buren's supporters anticipated that he would win a majority of the delegates on the first presidential ballot, but would not be able to win the support of the required two-thirds of delegates. Van Buren's supporters attempted to prevent the adoption of the two-thirds rule, but several Northern delegates joined with Southern delegates in implementing the two-thirds rule for the 1844 convention. Van Buren won 146 of the 266 votes on the first presidential ballot, with only 12 of his votes coming from Southern states.

Senator Lewis Cass won much of the remaining vote, and he gradually picked up support on subsequent ballots until the convention adjourned for the day. When the convention reconvened and held another ballot, James K. Polk, who shared many of Van Buren's views but favored immediate annexation, won 44 votes. On the ninth ballot, Van Buren's supporters withdrew his name from consideration, and Polk won the nomination. Although angered that his opponents had denied him the nomination, Van Buren endorsed Polk in the interest of party unity. He also convinced Silas Wright to run for Governor of New York so that the popular Wright could help boost Polk in the state. Wright narrowly defeated Whig nominee Millard Fillmore in the 1844 gubernatorial election, and Wright's victory in the state helped Polk narrowly defeat Henry Clay in the 1844 presidential election.

After taking office, Polk used George Bancroft as an intermediary to offer Van Buren the ambassadorship to London. Van Buren declined, partly because he was upset with Polk over the treatment the Van Buren delegates had received at the 1844 convention, and partly because he was content in his retirement. Polk also consulted Van Buren in the formation of his cabinet, but offended Van Buren by offering to appoint a New Yorker only to the lesser post of Secretary of War, rather than as Secretary of State or Secretary of the Treasury. Other patronage decisions also angered Van Buren and Wright, and they became permanently alienated from the Polk administration.

### Election of 1848

Though he had previously helped maintain a balance between the Barnburners and Hunkers, the two factions of the New York Democratic Party, Van Buren moved closer to the Barnburners after the 1844 Democratic National Convention. The split in the state party worsened during Polk's presidency, as his administration lavished patronage on the Hunkers. In his retirement, Van Buren also grew increasingly opposed to slavery.

As the Mexican–American War brought the debate over slavery in the territories to the forefront of American politics, Van Buren published an anti-slavery manifesto. In it, he refuted the notion that Congress did not have the power to regulate slavery in the territories, and argued the Founding Fathers had favored the eventual abolition of slavery. The document, which became known as the "Barnburner Manifesto," was edited at Van Buren's request by John Van Buren and Samuel Tilden, both of whom were leaders of the Barnburner faction. After the publication of the Barnburner Manifesto, many Barnburners urged the former president to seek his old office in the 1848 presidential election. The 1848 Democratic National Convention seated competing Barnburner and Hunker delegations from New York, but the Barnburners walked out of the convention when Lewis Cass, who opposed congressional regulation of slavery in the territories, was nominated on the fourth ballot.

In response to the nomination of Cass, the Barnburners began to organize as a third party. At a convention held in June 1848, in Utica, New York, the Barnburners nominated Van Buren for president. Though reluctant to bolt from the Democratic Party, Van Buren accepted the nomination to show the power of the anti-slavery movement, help defeat Cass, and weaken the Hunkers. At a convention held in Buffalo, New York in August 1848, a group of anti-slavery Democrats, Whigs, and members of the abolitionist Liberty Party met in the first national convention of what became known as the Free Soil Party.

The convention unanimously nominated Van Buren, and chose Charles Francis Adams as Van Buren's running mate. In a public message accepting the nomination, Van Buren gave his full support for the Wilmot Proviso, a proposed law that would ban slavery in all territories acquired from Mexico in the Mexican–American War. Anti-slavery Whig orator Daniel Webster, in his "Marshfield Speech," expressed skepticism, in terms that may have influenced Whig voters, about the sincerity of Van Buren's espousal of the anti-slavery cause:

> In Mr. Van Buren's anti-slavery professions, Mr. Webster had no confidence. He said pleasantly, but significantly, that "if he and Mr. Van Buren should meet under the Free-soil flag, the latter with his accustomed good-nature would laugh." He added, with a touch of characteristic humor, "that the leader of the Free-spoil party suddenly becoming the leader of the Free-soil party is a joke to shake his sides and mine."
>
>

Van Buren won no electoral votes, but finished second to Whig nominee Zachary Taylor in New York, taking enough votes from Cass to give the state—and perhaps the election—to Taylor. Nationwide, Van Buren won 10.1% of the popular vote, the strongest showing by a third-party presidential nominee up to that point in U.S. history.

### Retirement

Van Buren never sought public office again after the 1848 election, but he continued to closely follow national politics. He was deeply troubled by the stirrings of secessionism in the South and welcomed the Compromise of 1850 as a necessary conciliatory measure despite his opposition to the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. Van Buren also worked on a history of American political parties and embarked on a tour of Europe, becoming the first former U.S. president to visit Britain. Though still concerned about slavery, Van Buren and his followers returned to the Democratic fold, partly out of the fear that a continuing Democratic split would help the Whig Party. He also attempted to reconcile the Barnburners and the Hunkers, with mixed results.

Van Buren supported Franklin Pierce for president in 1852, James Buchanan in 1856, and Stephen A. Douglas in 1860. Van Buren viewed the fledgling Know Nothing movement with contempt and felt that the anti-slavery Republican Party exacerbated sectional tensions. He considered Chief Justice Roger Taney's ruling in the 1857 case of *Dred Scott v. Sandford* to be a "grievous mistake" since it overturned the Missouri Compromise. He assessed that the Buchanan administration handled the issue of Bleeding Kansas poorly, and saw the Lecompton Constitution as a sop to Southern extremists.

After the election of Abraham Lincoln and the secession of several Southern states in 1860, Van Buren unsuccessfully sought to call a constitutional convention. In April 1861, former president Pierce wrote to the other living former presidents and asked them to consider meeting to use their stature and influence to propose a negotiated end to the war. Pierce asked Van Buren to use his role as the senior living ex-president to issue a formal call. Van Buren's reply suggested that Buchanan should be the one to call the meeting, since he was the former president who had served most recently, or that Pierce should issue the call himself if he strongly believed in the merit of his proposal. Neither Buchanan nor Pierce was willing to make Pierce's proposal public, and nothing more resulted from it. Once the American Civil War began, Van Buren made public his support for the Union cause.

## Death

Van Buren's health began to fail later in 1861, and he was bedridden with pneumonia during the fall and winter of 1861–1862. He died of bronchial asthma and heart failure at his Lindenwald estate at 2:00 a.m. on Thursday, July 24, 1862. He was 79 years old. He is buried in the Kinderhook Reformed Dutch Church Cemetery, as are his wife Hannah, his parents, and his son Martin Van Buren Jr.

Van Buren outlived all four of his immediate successors: Harrison, Tyler, Polk, and Taylor. In addition, he saw more successors ascend to the presidency than anyone else (eight), living to see Abraham Lincoln elected as the 16th President before his death.

## Facts and trivia

* Martin Van Buren was the first president not to be to be born of British descent, but Dutch. He is also the first president to born as an American citizen, as the presidents before him were born as British subjects.
* Van Buren was born as Maarten Van Buren on December 5, 1782, in Kinderhook, New York, about 20 miles (32 km) south of Albany in the Hudson River valley.
* Van Buren's father, Abraham Van Buren, a farmer, tavern owner, and patriot in the American Revolution, was a descendant of Cornelis Maessen, a native of Buurmalsen, Netherlands who had emigrated to New Netherland in 1631 and purchased a plot of land on Manhattan Island.
* Van Buren received a basic education at the village schoolhouse, and briefly studied Latin at the Kinderhook Academy and at Washington Seminary in Claverack. Van Buren was raised speaking primarily Dutch and learned English while attending school; he is the only President whose first language was not English.
* While going to school as a youth, Van Buren worked in his father's tavern. It was frequented by lawyers and politicians like Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr.
* Van Buren, at 5 feet 6 inches (1.68 m) tall, was small in stature, and affectionately nicknamed "Little Van".
* Trained as a lawyer from the age of 14, Van Buren entered politics as a member of the Democratic-Republican Party, won a seat in the New York State Senate, and was elected to the United States Senate in 1821. As the leader of the Bucktails faction, Van Buren emerged as the most influential politician from New York in the 1820s and established a political machine known as the Albany Regency.
* When he began his legal studies he wore rough, homespun clothing, causing the Silvesters to admonish him to pay greater heed to his clothing and personal appearance as an aspiring lawyer. He accepted their advice, and subsequently emulated the Silvesters' clothing, appearance, bearing, and conduct. The lessons he learned from the Silvesters were reflected in his career as a lawyer and politician, in which Van Buren was known for his amiability and fastidious appearance.
* Despite Kinderhook's strong affiliation with the Federalist Party, of which the Silvesters were also strong supporters, Van Buren adopted his father's Democratic-Republican leanings.
* Van Buren married Hannah Hoes (or Goes) in Catskill, New York, on February 21, 1807. She was his childhood sweetheart, and a daughter of his maternal first cousin, Johannes Dircksen Hoes. She grew up in Valatie, and like Van Buren her home life was primarily Dutch; she spoke Dutch as her first language, and spoke English with a marked accent. The couple had five sons, four of whom lived to adulthood. Hannah died from tuberculosis in 1819. He never remarried.
* Following the 1824 presidential election, Van Buren sought to re-establish a two-party system with partisan differences based on ideology rather than personalities or sectional differences; he supported Jackson's candidacy in the 1828 presidential election with this goal in mind.
* Van Buren was a staunch supporter of Andrew Jackson. In 1828, Van Buren worked hard to get Jackson elected, even running for governor of the state of New York as a way to gain more votes for him. Van Buren won the election, but he resigned after three months to accept an appointment as Secretary of State from the newly-elected president. He was an influential member of Jackson's "kitchn cabinet," the president's personal group of advisors.
* In his cabinet position, Van Buren became a key Jackson advisor, and built the organizational structure for the coalescing Democratic Party. He ultimately resigned to help resolve the Petticoat affair, and briefly served as the U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom.
* At Jackson's behest, the 1832 Democratic National Convention nominated Van Buren for vice president of the United States, and he took office after the Democratic ticket won the 1832 presidential election.
* With Jackson's strong support and the organizational strength of the Democratic Party, Van Buren successfully ran for president in the 1836 presidential election, defeating several Whig opponents. However, his popularity soon eroded with his response to the Panic of 1837.
* Van Buren was the first president to sit down for an interview with a reporter.
* Van Buren's son Abraham got married in 1838 to a cousin of Dolley Madison (who was First Lady to America's fourth president) named Angelica Singleton. After their honeymoon, Angelica performed the First Lady duties for her father-in-law.
* In 1840, Van Buren lost his re-election bid to William Henry Harrison, the nominee of the anti-Jacksonian Whig Party.
* Van Buren campaigned for the office of president again in 1844 and 1848 but lost both times. He retired to Kinderhook, New York but did stay active in politics, serving as a presidential elector for both Franklin Pierce and James Buchanan.
* Van Buren was the newly formed Free Soil Party's presidential nominee in 1848, and his candidacy helped Whig nominee Zachary Taylor defeat Democrat Lewis Cass.
* Van Buren returned to the Democratic Party after 1848, but grew increasingly opposed to slavery, and became one of the party's outspoken abolitionists.
* Van Buren supported the policies of President Abraham Lincoln, a Republican, during the American Civil War.
* Van Buren's health began to fail later in 1861, and he was bedridden with pneumonia during the fall and winter of 1861–1862. He died of bronchial asthma and heart failure at his Lindenwald estate at 2:00 a.m. on July 24, 1862, at 79.
* Van Buren is buried in the Kinderhook Reformed Dutch Church Cemetery, as are his wife Hannah, his parents, and his son Martin Van Buren Jr.
* Van Buren lived longer than the next four presidents; William Henry Harrison, John Tyler, James K. Polk, and Zachary Taylor all died before Van Buren.
* In historical rankings, historians and political scientists often rank Van Buren as an average or below-average U.S. president, due to his handling of the Panic of 1837. However, Van Buren is largely remembered today as a leader in the formation of the two-party system in the United States.

## References

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin\_Van\_Buren
* https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/presidents/andrew-jackson/
* https://www.american-historama.org/presidents-united-states/martin-van-buren.htm
* https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Van\_Buren-1