Remembering the Little Magician
On July 24th of 1862, 148 years ago today, Martin Van Buren, the eighth President of the United States died at the age of 79. Van Buren served as Vice-President to Andrew Jackson before being elected president in 1836. He had been Governor of New York before joining Jackson, first as Secretary of State in 1829, and then as Vice-President for Jackson's second term. Jackson hand-picked Van Buren as his successor and he was nominated unanimously as the Democratic candidate to run in the 1836 election. The Whigs ran four regional candidates against him, including future President William Henry Harrison, in the hopes that this would prevent Van Buren from winning a majority of the electoral college votes, but the strategy failed. Van Buren picked up 170 of the 294 electoral college votes.
Van Buren inherited a financial mess from his illustrious predecessor, leading to the panic of 1837. Van Buren took the blame for hard times, as Whigs ridiculed him as Martin Van Ruin. His rather elegant personal style was also an easy target for Whig attacks. Van Buren was unanimously renominated by the Democrats in 1840, but lost his bid for re-election to William Henry Harrison.
He tried to run for president again in 1844, but had a falling out with Jackson over the issue of the admission of Texas into the union, something Jackson was for and Van Buren was against. This led to a split in the Democratic party that resulted in the nomination and election of dark horse candidate James K. Polk.
In 1848, he was nominated to run for President by the Free Soil Party, an anti-slavery faction, but won no electoral votes. He did steal enough votes in New York from the Democrats to give the state and likely the election to Zachary Taylor. In the election of 1860, he voted for the fusion ticket in New York which was opposed to Abraham Lincoln, but he could not approve of President Buchanan's course in dealing with secession and eventually supported Lincoln.
Martin Van Buren then retired to his home in Kinderhook. After being bedridden with a case of pneumonia during the fall of 1861, Martin Van Buren died of bronchial asthma and heart failure at his Lindenwald estate in Kinderhook at 2:00 a.m. on July 24, 1862. He was 79 years old. In his lifetime he had gained the nickname "the little magician" as a tribute to his political skills.
Van Buren inherited a financial mess from his illustrious predecessor, leading to the panic of 1837. Van Buren took the blame for hard times, as Whigs ridiculed him as Martin Van Ruin. His rather elegant personal style was also an easy target for Whig attacks. Van Buren was unanimously renominated by the Democrats in 1840, but lost his bid for re-election to William Henry Harrison.
He tried to run for president again in 1844, but had a falling out with Jackson over the issue of the admission of Texas into the union, something Jackson was for and Van Buren was against. This led to a split in the Democratic party that resulted in the nomination and election of dark horse candidate James K. Polk.
In 1848, he was nominated to run for President by the Free Soil Party, an anti-slavery faction, but won no electoral votes. He did steal enough votes in New York from the Democrats to give the state and likely the election to Zachary Taylor. In the election of 1860, he voted for the fusion ticket in New York which was opposed to Abraham Lincoln, but he could not approve of President Buchanan's course in dealing with secession and eventually supported Lincoln.
Martin Van Buren then retired to his home in Kinderhook. After being bedridden with a case of pneumonia during the fall of 1861, Martin Van Buren died of bronchial asthma and heart failure at his Lindenwald estate in Kinderhook at 2:00 a.m. on July 24, 1862. He was 79 years old. In his lifetime he had gained the nickname "the little magician" as a tribute to his political skills.