Kenneth (kensmind) wrote in potus_geeks,
Kenneth
kensmind
potus_geeks

  • Location:
  • Mood:
  • Music:

The Obscure Presidents: Martin Van Buren-Part I

The last "obscure president" we'll look at is Martin Van Buren. He was unique for a number of reasons, including the fact that he was the first president to be born in the United States after the Declaration if Independence, and the only one whose first language wasn't English. He was revered for being a political genius (for which he was given his nickname "the Little Magician"), but his presidency was hamstrung by the fiscal policies of his predecessor. He also was a political contortionist, transitioning from the running mate of one of the greatest supporters of slavery to running as an abolitionist. He is also despised for carrying out his predecessor's abhorrent Indian Removal Act.

Martin_Van_Buren_by_Mathew_Brady

Martin Van Buren (no middle name) was born on December 5, 1782 in the village of Kinderhook, New York, located about 20 miles south of Albany on the Hudson River. The Van Buren family spoke the Dutch language at home and it was the first language that Martin Van Buren spoke. His ancestors had come to America from the town of Buren in the Netherlands in 1631. His father was Abraham Van Buren, a farmer who owned a Kinderhook tavern and inn, along with six slaves. Abraham Van Buren served in the American Revolution as a captain in the Albany County Militia's 7th Regiment. He became a Jeffersonian Republican and was active in local politics and government, serving as Kinderhook's town clerk from 1787 to 1797. Martin Van Buren's mother was Maria Hoes Van Alen Van Buren. Abraham Van Buren was her second husband and Martin Van Buren had one half-sister and two half-brothers as well as four full siblings (three brothers and one sister).

Van Buren attended the Kinderhook Academy and Washington Seminary in Claverack. He began reading law in 1796 at the office of Peter Silvester and his son Francis in Kinderhook. He spent a final year of apprenticeship in the New York City office of William P. Van Ness, a political supporter of Aaron Burr. Van Buren was admitted to the New York state bar in 1803. He later formed a law partnership with his half-brother James I. Van Alen. His practice made him financially secure enough to increase his focus on politics.

Van Buren married Hannah Hoes on February 21, 1807. She had been his childhood sweetheart and was his first cousin once removed. They were wed in Catskill, New York. They had five sons and one daughter together. But after 12 years of marriage, Hannah contracted tuberculosis. She died on February 5, 1819, at the age of 35. Martin Van Buren never remarried.

Van Buren first became active in politics at age 17 when he attended a party convention in Troy, New York, and he helped John Peter Van Ness to win the Democratic-Republican Party nomination for the 6th Congressional District seat. Van Buren became a supporter of Aaron Burr. He supported Daniel D. Tompkins for Governor and when Tompkins won, Van Buren was appointed Surrogate of Columbia County, New York. He served as Surrogate from 1808 until 1813, when the Federalist Party obtained a majority in the state legislature and replaced him.

Van Buren was elected to the New York State Senate and served there from 1812 to 1820. He joined a faction of the Democratic-Republicans known as the "Opposition Party", a group that fought DeWitt Clinton for control of the party in New York. Van Buren served as New York's Attorney General from 1815 to 1819. During the War of 1812 he sponsored a number of war measures bills, including legislation to expand the New York Militia and increase pay to soldiers. He was a special judge advocate appointed as one of the prosecutors of William Hull during Hull's court-martial following the surrender of Detroit. During the winter of 1814-15 he and General Winfield Scott corresponded on ways to reorganize the New York Militia. This collaboration ended when the war was over and no further action was taken on the project.

At first Van Buren opposed the plan to build the Erie Canal, but he supported it when opponents of Governor DeWitt Clinton were able to gain a majority on the Erie Canal Commission. He voted in favor of a bill to raise money for the canal through the sale of state bonds.

In 1817, Van Buren created the first state-wide political organization in New York, called the Bucktails. This group bought party loyalty through the use of patronage. It was at this time that Van Buren received his nickname of "Little Magician" because of the political skill with which he utilized the "spoils system".
He was the leading figure of the faction that dominated New York politics and influenced national politics for many years. His local faction, known as the Albany Regency, was one of a number of local New York political organizations such as Tammany Hall that made the spoils system the standard operating procedure for state politics.

Van Buren became one of the founders of the first nationwide political party, Jacksonian Democrats. This group became known as the Democratic Party. It had evolved from the Democratic-Republicans and relied on party loyalty and patronage to prevent contentious sectional issues such as tariffs and slavery from dividing the party. Van Buren wrote: "Without strong national political organizations, there would be nothing to moderate the prejudices between free and slaveholding states."

In February 1821, Van Buren was elected a U.S. Senator from New York. In the presidential election of 1824, Van Buren supported William H. Crawford in the four candidate race that included John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson and Henry Clay. When none of the candidates received a majority of the electoral college votes, the House of Representatives was called upon to decide the issue. Van Buren had hoped to block John Quincy Adams by denying him the state of New York, but New York Representative Stephen Van Rensselaer convinced his colleagues to vote for Adams. Van Buren wisely kept out of the controversy which followed the House selection of Adams over first place finisher Andrew Jackson. In 1828 he switched his support from Crawford, whose ppr health after a stroke presented him from being a viable candidate, to Andrew Jackson.

Prior to the 1828 election, Van Buren voted in favor of what became known as the "Tariff of Abominations". He was normally opposed to high tariffs, and many believe that he voted for the tariff in order to create a political climate more likely to elect Jackson. He claimed that he voted for it in response to instructions from the New York State Legislature. He became one of the leading managers of the Jackson campaign, and his tour of Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia in the spring of 1827 won support for Jackson.

In 1828 Van Buren ran for Governor of New York in an effort to use his campaign to bolster Jackson's chances of carrying New York in the presidential election. Both Jackson and Van Buren were successful in their elections. Van Buren resigned from the Senate to start his term as Governor of New York on January 1, 1829. But his tenure as Governor of the state turned out to be the second shortest on record. On March 5, 1829, Jackson appointed Van Buren Secretary of State, and Van Buren resigned the governorship on March 12.

As Secretary of State, Van Buren did not have to face any serious diplomatic crises, but he did manage to settle some long-standing claims against France, winning reparations for property that had been seized during the Napoleonic Wars. He also reached an agreement with the British to open US trade with the British West Indies colonies. He also completed a treaty with the Ottoman Empire that gave American merchants access to the Black Sea. He was not successful however in settling the Maine-New Brunswick boundary dispute with Great Britain, or in settling the U.S. claim to the Oregon Country. He also failed to conclude a commercial treaty with Russia, or to convince Mexico to sell Texas to the United States.

Van Buren sided with Jackson on the controversy over the Bank of the United States and on the Indian Removal Act. But perhaps most important to Jackson, Van Buren won Jackson's deep gratitude by his courtesy shown to Peggy Eaton, wife of Secretary of War John H. Eaton, with whom the wives of the cabinet members had refused to associate. As a widower, Van Buren was unaffected by the position of the Cabinet wives, and he agreed with Jackson's position that criticism of Mrs. Eatons would not be tolerated. When Jackson asked his cabinet to resign over the controversy, Van Buren complied.

After resigning as Secretary of State in April 1831, Van Buren remained in office until June, and afterwards continued to play a part in Jackson's unofficial group of advisers known as the "Kitchen Cabinet." In August 1831 Jackson made a recess appointment naming Van Buren as Minister to the Court of St. James (Great Britain). Van Buren arrived in London in September where he was cordially received, but his nomination was rejected by the Senate on January 25, 1832. The rejection was orchestrated by Jackson's political enemy John C. Calhoun, who was quoted as saying of the vote to reject Van Buren's nomination: "It will kill him dead, sir, kill him dead. He will never kick, sir, never kick."

After a brief tour of Europe, Van Buren returned home to New York on July 5, 1832. At the May 1832 Democratic National Convention (the party's first) he was nominated for vice president on the Jackson ticket. The Jackson-Van Buren ticket won the 1832 election, and Van Buren took office as Vice President in March 1833. He continued to be one of Jackson's primary advisors and confidants, and accompanied Jackson on his tour of the northeastern United States in 1833.

Van Buren's support of Jackson in the Nullification Crisis and the decision not to recharter the Second Bank of the United States gave him support from Jackson; supporters and contempt from Jackson's enemies. He received threats of violence, which caused him to carry pistols for protection. But he worked with Jackson enemies Henry Clay and Calhoun (now a Senator) to pass the compromise Tariff of 1833, which helped end the Nullification Crisis.

Jackson chose to follow George Washington's precedent of not running for a third term in 1836. He was determined to make Van Buren his successor in order to continue his policies. Van Buren was unanimously nominated by the 1835 Democratic National Convention at Baltimore, Maryland. On the issue of slavery, Van Buren told southerners that he opposed abolitionism and supported the maintaining of slavery in states where it had already existed. He also stated that he opposed rechartering a national bank. To solidify his support from sounterners on slavery, Van Buren cast the tie-breaking Senate vote in favor of a bill to subject abolitionist mail to state laws, ensuring that its circulation would be prohibited in the South.

1836Results.jpg

In the 1836 election, the Whigs ran four regional candidates against him in the hopes of sending the election to the House of Representatives, where the Whigs would stand a better chance of winning. William Henry Harrison hoped to receive the support of the Western voters, Daniel Webster had strength in New England, and Hugh Lawson White and Willie Person Mangum had support in the South. But Van Buren won the election easily, with 170 electoral votes to 73 for Harrison, 26 for White, 14 for Webster and 11 for Mangum.
Tags: andrew jackson, dewitt clinton, henry clay, martin van buren, slavery, william henry harrison
Subscribe

  • Post a new comment

    Error

    Comments allowed for members only

    Anonymous comments are disabled in this journal

    default userpic

    Your reply will be screened

    Your IP address will be recorded 

  • 0 comments