The First 100 Days: Martin Van Buren
Martin Van Buren was Andrew Jackson's hand-picked successor for the Presidency and luckily for Little Van, his mentor still had enough clout after two terms in office to assure Van Buren his party's nomination. When the Democratic Convention met in Baltimore, Maryland in May, 1835, 18 months before the election, Van Buren was nominated unanimously. Slavery would soon become an issue that evoked deep divisions within both the Democratic and the Whig Party, but not yet. Van Buren, who was from New York, was able to keep the support of southerners by assuring them that he opposed abolitionism and supported the maintaining of slavery in states where it already existed. As Vice-President, Van Buren had cast the tie-breaking Senate vote in favor of a bill that subjected abolitionist mail to state laws, which meant that its circulation would be prohibited in the South.
Van Buren's opponents in the election of 1836 were three members of the newly established Whig Party. At the time, the Whigs were a loose coalition of those opposed to Jackson's policies. In a scheme designed to try to defeat the powerful party unity of Jackson's Democrats, the Whigs ran several regional candidates in hopes of sending the election to the House of Representatives. The three Whig candidates were: Hugh White of Tennessee, Daniel Webster of Massachusetts, and William Henry Harrison of Indiana. But Van Buren won the election with 764,198 popular votes, (50.9 percent of the total), and 170 electoral votes, enough for a majority and for the presidency. Harrison led the Whigs with 73 electoral votes, White receiving 26 and Webster 14. Willie P. Mangum of South Carolina received his state’s 11 electoral votes.
Martin Van Buren was sworn in as president by Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger Taney on March 4, 1837, in a ceremony held on the East Portico of the Capitol. In his inaugural address, Van Buren said that his role as president was "sacredly to uphold those political institutions" created by the constitution and to safeguard the Jeffersonian principles of a limited national government. He pledged to protect the liberty and sovereignty of "the people and the states." He praised Jackson in his address, stating: "In receiving from the people the sacred trust twice confided to my illustrious predecessor, and which he has discharged so faithfully and so well, I know that I can not expect to perform the arduous task with equal ability and success. But I may hope that somewhat of the same cheering approbation will be found to attend upon my path."
The real show at Van Buren's inauguration was the departure of Jackson from political life. Senator Thomas Hart Benton wittily remarked, "For once, the rising was eclipsed by the setting sun." Jackson and Van Buren rode together in a small carriage built from the wood of USS Constitution, drawn by four gray horses. It was the first time that the outgoing president and incoming president rode together to the Capitol.
Van Buren kept some of Jackson's cabinet and other presidential appointees. He hoped that doing so would stop Whig momentum in the South and hold the sectional unity among Democrats. The only new position Van Buren filled was Secretary of War. He appointed Joel Roberts Poinsett, a South Carolinian who had opposed secession during the Nullification Crisis. Van Buren's cabinet choices were criticized by Pennsylvanian James Buchanan, who believed that his state deserved a cabinet position. Some Democrats felt that Van Buren should have used his patronage powers to place his own imprint on the Presidency, but Van Buren saw value in avoiding contentious patronage battles. He wanted to send the message that by retaining Jackson's cabinet made, he would continue the policies of predecessor.
Van Buren held regular formal cabinet meetings and discontinued the informal gatherings of advisers that had become known as Jackson's "kitchen cabinet". He encouraged open and frank exchanges between cabinet members, allowing him to reserve judgment and make final decisions himself.
For the first half of his presidency, Van Buren, who was a widower for many years, did not have a specific person fill the role of White House hostess at administration social events. It was not until 1838, when his eldest son Abraham Van Buren married Angelica Singleton, that he put his daughter-in-law in the role of hostess.
Van Buren had the misfortune of inheriting some of the fallout from the worst decisions of the Jackson presidency. One of these was Jackson's decision not to renew the charter of the National Bank. When Van Buren entered office, the nation's economic health had taken a turn for the worse. The prosperity of the early 1830s was over. Just two months into his presidency, on May 10, 1837, a number of large state banks in New York found themselves running out of hard currency reserves. They suddenly refused to convert paper money into gold or silver. Other financial institutions throughout the nation quickly followed suit. This financial crisis would become known as the Panic of 1837. The Panic was followed by a five-year depression in which banks failed and unemployment reached record highs. Van Buren wore the blame for this, but it was really the result of Jackson's policies. Van Buren blamed the economic collapse on what he viewed as greedy American and foreign business and financial institutions, and on the over extension of credit by U.S. banks. The Whigs in Congress blamed the Democrats.
The Whigs proposed rechartering the national bank, but Van Buren stuck to his predecessor's guns. He proposed the establishment of an independent U.S. treasury, arguing that such a system would take the politics out of the nation's money supply. He proposed that the government would hold all of its money balances in the form of gold or silver and would be restricted from printing paper money at will, a measure designed to prevent inflation. Van Buren formally announced this proposal later that year, in September 1837. He was met with opposition, not just in Congress, but from state banks. An alliance of conservative Democrats and Whigs prevented it from becoming law until 1840. The independent treasury lasted only one year and was repealed in the following term when the Whigs won a congressional majority and the presidency in the 1840 elections.
Another troubling issue confronted by Van Buren during his presidency concerned the policy began under Jackson regarding the Indian Removal Act of 1830. Jackson planned to move all indigenous peoples in the area covered under the Act to lands west of the Mississippi River. Despite protests over this policy, Van Buren decided to continue this policy. The federal government negotiated another 19 treaties with Indian nations in the course of Van Buren's four-year-long presidency that continued the policy of relocation of these nations. In the second year of his presidency, Van Buren directed General Winfield Scott to forcibly move all those Cherokee who had not yet complied with the treaty. The Cherokee were herded violently into internment camps, where they were kept for the summer of 1838. This sad chapter of history became known as the Trail of Tears, a trek in which over 20,000 people were relocated against their will.
In 1835 Jackson had directed the army to remove the Seminole from Florida. Known as the Second Seminole War, the war began in 1835, and before leaving office, Jackson put General Thomas Jesup in command of all U.S. troops in Florida. Forts were established throughout the territory and soldiers scoured the countryside. Realizing that they were fighting a losing battle, many Seminoles offered to surrender. The Seminoles slowly gathered for emigration near Tampa, but in June they fled the detention camps, driven off by disease and fear of being returned into slavery by slave catchers. Jesup responded by taking many Seminole leaders prisoner while under a flag of truce, including Osceola. Later that year, in December of 1837, Jesup began a massive offensive, culminating in the Battle of Lake Okeechobee on Christmas Day, 1837.
Eventually, Van Buren realized that it would be practically impossible to drive the remaining Seminoles from Florida. He sent General Alexander Macomb to negotiate a peace with the Seminoles and an agreement was reached allowing the Seminoles to remain in southwest Florida. It was a tenuous peace and fighting continued until 1842, after Van Buren had left office.
Before leaving office in March 1837, Andrew Jackson extended diplomatic recognition to the Republic of Texas. Jackson wanted to see the annexation of Texas, but pursuing this risked the danger of war with Mexico. It also heightened sectional tensions at home. New England abolitionists accused the government of being a part of a "slaveholding conspiracy to acquire Texas". Daniel Webster was one of the most eloquent advocates of this theory. In September 1836, Texans had voted overwhelmingly in favor of annexation. This was one area in which Van Buren did not aggressively pursue Jackson's policies. Van Buren sought a diplomatic solution with Mexico, rejecting Jackson's threat to settle it by force. When the Texas minister (Ambassador) to the United States formally proposed annexation to the administration in August 1837, Van Buren rejected the idea. Fear of war with Mexico and concern that it would hasten a clash over the extension of slavery were his motivations for the rejection. Texas withdrew the annexation offer in 1838.
Van Buren also had problems on the northern border. British subjects in Lower Canada (now Quebec) and Upper Canada (now Ontario) rose in rebellion in 1837, protesting their lack of responsible government. The initial insurrection in Upper Canada ended quickly and many of the rebels fled across the Niagara River into New York, where Mackenzie began recruiting volunteers in Buffalo. Later that year, on December 13, 1837, Mackenzie declared establishment of the Republic of Canada and planned for an army of volunteers to invade Upper Canada from Navy Island on the Canadian side of the Niagara River. To deter the invasion, British forces crossed to the American bank of the river, and in a skirmish, one American was killed and others wounded. Van Buren was pressured to declare war on the British. Instead he sent General Winfield Scott to the border. Scott impressed upon the local American citizens the need for a peaceful resolution to the crisis, and made it clear that the U.S. government would not support adventuresome Americans attacking the British. In early January 1838, Van Buren proclaimed U.S. neutrality on the Canadian independence issue. Congress later endorsed this position by passing a neutrality law designed to discourage the participation of American citizens in foreign conflicts.
Van Buren lost his bid for re-election in 1840, largely due to the troubled economy, but also because of a well-run campaign by the Whigs (the "Log Cabin and Hard Cider Campaign" that put William Henry Harrison in the White House. Van Buren’s political opponents never let go of their acrimonious respect for his artfulness as a political genius. Historic assessments of Van Buren result in a distinction drawn between Van Buren's presidency, which is viewed as lacking and troubled, and his contributions to the development of the American political system, which was significant.
Van Buren's opponents in the election of 1836 were three members of the newly established Whig Party. At the time, the Whigs were a loose coalition of those opposed to Jackson's policies. In a scheme designed to try to defeat the powerful party unity of Jackson's Democrats, the Whigs ran several regional candidates in hopes of sending the election to the House of Representatives. The three Whig candidates were: Hugh White of Tennessee, Daniel Webster of Massachusetts, and William Henry Harrison of Indiana. But Van Buren won the election with 764,198 popular votes, (50.9 percent of the total), and 170 electoral votes, enough for a majority and for the presidency. Harrison led the Whigs with 73 electoral votes, White receiving 26 and Webster 14. Willie P. Mangum of South Carolina received his state’s 11 electoral votes.
Martin Van Buren was sworn in as president by Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger Taney on March 4, 1837, in a ceremony held on the East Portico of the Capitol. In his inaugural address, Van Buren said that his role as president was "sacredly to uphold those political institutions" created by the constitution and to safeguard the Jeffersonian principles of a limited national government. He pledged to protect the liberty and sovereignty of "the people and the states." He praised Jackson in his address, stating: "In receiving from the people the sacred trust twice confided to my illustrious predecessor, and which he has discharged so faithfully and so well, I know that I can not expect to perform the arduous task with equal ability and success. But I may hope that somewhat of the same cheering approbation will be found to attend upon my path."
The real show at Van Buren's inauguration was the departure of Jackson from political life. Senator Thomas Hart Benton wittily remarked, "For once, the rising was eclipsed by the setting sun." Jackson and Van Buren rode together in a small carriage built from the wood of USS Constitution, drawn by four gray horses. It was the first time that the outgoing president and incoming president rode together to the Capitol.
Van Buren kept some of Jackson's cabinet and other presidential appointees. He hoped that doing so would stop Whig momentum in the South and hold the sectional unity among Democrats. The only new position Van Buren filled was Secretary of War. He appointed Joel Roberts Poinsett, a South Carolinian who had opposed secession during the Nullification Crisis. Van Buren's cabinet choices were criticized by Pennsylvanian James Buchanan, who believed that his state deserved a cabinet position. Some Democrats felt that Van Buren should have used his patronage powers to place his own imprint on the Presidency, but Van Buren saw value in avoiding contentious patronage battles. He wanted to send the message that by retaining Jackson's cabinet made, he would continue the policies of predecessor.
Van Buren held regular formal cabinet meetings and discontinued the informal gatherings of advisers that had become known as Jackson's "kitchen cabinet". He encouraged open and frank exchanges between cabinet members, allowing him to reserve judgment and make final decisions himself.
For the first half of his presidency, Van Buren, who was a widower for many years, did not have a specific person fill the role of White House hostess at administration social events. It was not until 1838, when his eldest son Abraham Van Buren married Angelica Singleton, that he put his daughter-in-law in the role of hostess.
Van Buren had the misfortune of inheriting some of the fallout from the worst decisions of the Jackson presidency. One of these was Jackson's decision not to renew the charter of the National Bank. When Van Buren entered office, the nation's economic health had taken a turn for the worse. The prosperity of the early 1830s was over. Just two months into his presidency, on May 10, 1837, a number of large state banks in New York found themselves running out of hard currency reserves. They suddenly refused to convert paper money into gold or silver. Other financial institutions throughout the nation quickly followed suit. This financial crisis would become known as the Panic of 1837. The Panic was followed by a five-year depression in which banks failed and unemployment reached record highs. Van Buren wore the blame for this, but it was really the result of Jackson's policies. Van Buren blamed the economic collapse on what he viewed as greedy American and foreign business and financial institutions, and on the over extension of credit by U.S. banks. The Whigs in Congress blamed the Democrats.
The Whigs proposed rechartering the national bank, but Van Buren stuck to his predecessor's guns. He proposed the establishment of an independent U.S. treasury, arguing that such a system would take the politics out of the nation's money supply. He proposed that the government would hold all of its money balances in the form of gold or silver and would be restricted from printing paper money at will, a measure designed to prevent inflation. Van Buren formally announced this proposal later that year, in September 1837. He was met with opposition, not just in Congress, but from state banks. An alliance of conservative Democrats and Whigs prevented it from becoming law until 1840. The independent treasury lasted only one year and was repealed in the following term when the Whigs won a congressional majority and the presidency in the 1840 elections.
Another troubling issue confronted by Van Buren during his presidency concerned the policy began under Jackson regarding the Indian Removal Act of 1830. Jackson planned to move all indigenous peoples in the area covered under the Act to lands west of the Mississippi River. Despite protests over this policy, Van Buren decided to continue this policy. The federal government negotiated another 19 treaties with Indian nations in the course of Van Buren's four-year-long presidency that continued the policy of relocation of these nations. In the second year of his presidency, Van Buren directed General Winfield Scott to forcibly move all those Cherokee who had not yet complied with the treaty. The Cherokee were herded violently into internment camps, where they were kept for the summer of 1838. This sad chapter of history became known as the Trail of Tears, a trek in which over 20,000 people were relocated against their will.
In 1835 Jackson had directed the army to remove the Seminole from Florida. Known as the Second Seminole War, the war began in 1835, and before leaving office, Jackson put General Thomas Jesup in command of all U.S. troops in Florida. Forts were established throughout the territory and soldiers scoured the countryside. Realizing that they were fighting a losing battle, many Seminoles offered to surrender. The Seminoles slowly gathered for emigration near Tampa, but in June they fled the detention camps, driven off by disease and fear of being returned into slavery by slave catchers. Jesup responded by taking many Seminole leaders prisoner while under a flag of truce, including Osceola. Later that year, in December of 1837, Jesup began a massive offensive, culminating in the Battle of Lake Okeechobee on Christmas Day, 1837.
Eventually, Van Buren realized that it would be practically impossible to drive the remaining Seminoles from Florida. He sent General Alexander Macomb to negotiate a peace with the Seminoles and an agreement was reached allowing the Seminoles to remain in southwest Florida. It was a tenuous peace and fighting continued until 1842, after Van Buren had left office.
Before leaving office in March 1837, Andrew Jackson extended diplomatic recognition to the Republic of Texas. Jackson wanted to see the annexation of Texas, but pursuing this risked the danger of war with Mexico. It also heightened sectional tensions at home. New England abolitionists accused the government of being a part of a "slaveholding conspiracy to acquire Texas". Daniel Webster was one of the most eloquent advocates of this theory. In September 1836, Texans had voted overwhelmingly in favor of annexation. This was one area in which Van Buren did not aggressively pursue Jackson's policies. Van Buren sought a diplomatic solution with Mexico, rejecting Jackson's threat to settle it by force. When the Texas minister (Ambassador) to the United States formally proposed annexation to the administration in August 1837, Van Buren rejected the idea. Fear of war with Mexico and concern that it would hasten a clash over the extension of slavery were his motivations for the rejection. Texas withdrew the annexation offer in 1838.
Van Buren also had problems on the northern border. British subjects in Lower Canada (now Quebec) and Upper Canada (now Ontario) rose in rebellion in 1837, protesting their lack of responsible government. The initial insurrection in Upper Canada ended quickly and many of the rebels fled across the Niagara River into New York, where Mackenzie began recruiting volunteers in Buffalo. Later that year, on December 13, 1837, Mackenzie declared establishment of the Republic of Canada and planned for an army of volunteers to invade Upper Canada from Navy Island on the Canadian side of the Niagara River. To deter the invasion, British forces crossed to the American bank of the river, and in a skirmish, one American was killed and others wounded. Van Buren was pressured to declare war on the British. Instead he sent General Winfield Scott to the border. Scott impressed upon the local American citizens the need for a peaceful resolution to the crisis, and made it clear that the U.S. government would not support adventuresome Americans attacking the British. In early January 1838, Van Buren proclaimed U.S. neutrality on the Canadian independence issue. Congress later endorsed this position by passing a neutrality law designed to discourage the participation of American citizens in foreign conflicts.
Van Buren lost his bid for re-election in 1840, largely due to the troubled economy, but also because of a well-run campaign by the Whigs (the "Log Cabin and Hard Cider Campaign" that put William Henry Harrison in the White House. Van Buren’s political opponents never let go of their acrimonious respect for his artfulness as a political genius. Historic assessments of Van Buren result in a distinction drawn between Van Buren's presidency, which is viewed as lacking and troubled, and his contributions to the development of the American political system, which was significant.