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VAN BUREN, Martin
(1782–1862), eighth president of the U.S. (1837–41).
Nicknamed the “Fox” and the “Little Magician” for
his shrewdly opportunistic political leadership, he was responsible
for forming the coalition that became the modern Democratic party.
Van Buren was born on Dec. 5, 1782, in Kinderhook, N.Y., of
a relatively prosperous middle-class family. He was well educated
by private tutors, becoming a lawyer at the age of 20. His law practice
was unusually successful, and it enabled him to cultivate the elegant
tastes in clothing and life-style that were to earn him a reputation
as a dandy. His political career also thrived. He served in the
New York state senate from 1812 and 1820 and was the state attorney
general from 1816 to 1819. In 1821 the state legislature that he
had come to dominate elected him to the U.S. Senate.
Van Buren was a master politician. During the New York phase
of his career he made himself the leader of the Regency—an
upper-class clique that ran the state’s Democratic-Republican
party with an iron hand. The principle they admired most was unquestioning
party loyalty to the policies they had hammered out. After the election
of 1824, Van Buren, who knew little about Andrew Jackson’s
beliefs, nevertheless became the guiding spirit in organizing a
national Democratic party that in 1828 succeeded in electing Jackson
president. He had perceived Jackson as a winner.
As a reward for Van Buren’s loyalty and in recognition
of his ability, Jackson named him secretary of state. He resigned
from that office in 1831 to serve briefly as U.S. minister to Great
Britain. Van Buren encouraged the feud between Jackson and Vice-President
John C. Calhoun, which led to Van Buren’s replacing Calhoun as
the president’s running mate in 1832. With Jackson’s
enthusiastic support the Democrats nominated Van Buren for president
in 1836. In the face of indecision and splits in the opposing Whig
party, Van Buren won easily, becoming the first New Yorker in the
White House.
In the president’s office, Van Buren’s political
magic seemed to desert him, for he failed to command the support
even of many within his own party. His chief political problems,
however, were not of his own making. Shortly after the financial
panic of 1837 the nation experienced a severe economic depression.
In telling an emergency session of Congress that he could do little,
that “all communities are apt to look to government for
far too much,” Van Buren was expressing the conventional
wisdom of that age. The Independent Treasury Bill that he signed
on July 4, 1840, and called the “second declaration of
independence,” separated government finances from those
of the nation’s banks, but did little to alleviate the
economic misery. In the presidential election four months later
Van Buren lost to William Henry Harrison. The public seemed little
impressed by “Little Van’s” good sense
in resolving foreign policy crises.
In 1844 the Democratic party passed him over for the presidential nomination
because of his opposition to the annexation of Texas. Four years
later he left the increasingly proslavery Democratic party to accept
the presidential nomination of the new Free-Soil party. He was,
of course, soundly beaten in the election. Yet, there was something
admirable as well as fascinating in the switch by the master of
practical politics to the politics of principle.
In his later years Van Buren wrote an autobiography designed
to vindicate his administration. He did not succeed. He died in
Kinderhook on July 24, 1862.