Martin Van Buren, the eighth President of the United States, was a short and thin man with an affable smile and a remarkable ability for avoiding the issue. Though his background was humble by White House standards, his dress was that of a wealthy aristocrat. His love for stately attire made him appear arrogant and indifferent to the people suffering in the economic depression. He was intensely ambitious, but at the same time able to separate his political battles from his personal feelings, a trait that won over many of his political enemies. One of the founding fathers of the spoils system, Martin Van Buren was a masterful politician who viewed politics as a game to be won.
Martin Van Buren was born on December 5, 1782 in Kinderhook, New York. He was the youngest of three children born to Maria and Abraham Van Buren, a Dutch farmer and tavern keeper who had fought in the American Revolution. Martin Van Buren grew up in the tight knit Dutch community of Kinderhook, New York where he received a rudimentary education.
When he was fourteen, Martin Van Buren began studying law. He tried, and won, his first case at the age of sixteen. In 1801 he moved to New York City to continue his study of law. He moved back to Kinderhook, after passing the bar in 1803, to set up practice.
On February 2, 1807 Martin Van Buren married his longtime girlfriend and distant cousin, Hannah Hoes. The couple had four sons. Hannah died in 1819, seventeen years before Van Buren's Presidency. The role of White House hostess during the Van Buren Administration was filled by Van Buren's daughter-in-law, Angelica Singleton.
In 1808 Martin Van Buren moved to Hudson, New York where he was appointed surrogate of Columbia County. In 1812 he was elected to the New York State Senate. He was appointed New York Attorney General in 1815 and served without resigning his seat in the Senate.
By 1820 Martin Van Buren had become a leader of the Albany Regency, a tightly knit, tightly controlled political organization that held tremendous power in New York State. The Albany Regency was responsible for the development and perfection of the spoils system, a system of achieving and maintaining power by way of political favors. Martin Van Buren became a master of the spoils system and made ample use of it in his rise to the Presidency.
Van Buren ran as a Democratic-Republican candidate for the United States Senate and won a seat in 1821. It was in the Senate that Martin Van Buren met and established a long-running friendship with Andrew Jackson. Van Buren was re-elected to the Senate in 1827, but resigned the position in order to help Andrew Jackson in his campaign for the Presidency. It was decided that Martin Van Buren should run for governor of the State of New York in order to cement Jackson's support in that state. Martin Van Buren became the governor of New York in 1828, but resigned three months after taking office to assume the role of President Jackson's Secretary of State.
After a falling out between President Jackson and his Vice President John C. Calhoun, Jackson decided to reconstruct his cabinet in order to get rid of Calhoun and his supporters. Martin Van Buren resigned as Secretary of State in the hopes that it would trigger across-the-board resignations in the cabinet. Jackson then appointed Van Buren minister to London, but Congress split on confirmation, and Vice President Calhoun was left to cast the deciding vote. Calhoun blocked confirmation, and Martin Van Buren became President Jackson's Vice Presidential running mate in the election of 1832.
As Vice President, Martin Van Buren supported all of President Jackson's policies past and present, including the much criticized veto of the National Bank charter. When Jackson decided not to run for a third term as President, Van Buren became the leading candidate. Jackson's popularity was still great at this time, and so Van Buren, with Jackson's public support, won the Presidency in a landslide victory in 1836, beating out the second place candidate, William Henry Harrison, by 97 electoral votes. Martin Van Buren became the eighth President of the United States on March 4, 1836. In his inauguration address he promised to continue the policies of Andrew Jackson and to reinstate Jackson's cabinet.
When the Bank charter had been vetoed by President Jackson in 1832, state and local banks found themselves free from the controls of a centralized bank and began to speculate on long-shot investments. Prices and interest rates went up, and there was an abundance of paper money floating around, with no gold or silver in the banks to back it up. Panic set in, and there was a run on the banks. On May 10, 1837 the banks in New York City closed. On May 12 the banks in Philadelphia closed. The country was thrown into a severe depression, worsened by a poor wheat harvest that caused food prices to skyrocket. President Van Buren's answer to the problem was to cut government expenditures, but this only made the problem worse.
In 1839 a border dispute between Maine and Canada resulted in Governor John Fairfield's sending Maine's militia to the border to fight with Canada. President Van Buren met with British diplomats to establish a mutually accepted border. The President then sent General Winfield Scott to Maine to enforce the decision.
Though President Van Buren had not changed his mind about the National Bank by 1840, he had come to recognize the need for the federal government to handle its own funds. His solution was to create a national treasury system made up of smaller sub-treasuries, established in seven U.S. cities. The Independent Treasury Act was signed on July 4, 1840.
Eager to avoid a war with Mexico, President Van Buren opposed the annexation Texas. His position caused him to lose the support of Andrew Jackson and of the "common man" in the next election. Despite his genuinely "common" background, Martin Van Buren's incumbency, his habit of wearing fine clothes, and his hands-off economic policy towards the depression enabled the supporters of William Henry Harrison to portray Van Buren as wealthy and out of touch with the needs of the people. President Van Buren was defeated in his bid for reelection in 1840.
Four years after his 1840 defeat, Martin Van Buren ran for re-election to the Presidency. This time he was defeated by James K. Polk, an open supporter of the annexation of Texas. Van Buren ran a third time in 1848, but did so without the support of the Democratic Party. As a candidate for the Free Soil Party, Van Buren was the anti-slavery candidate. His long shot candidacy split the vote, allowing the Whig candidate, Zachary Taylor, to win over Democrat Lewis Cass.
In 1853 Martin Van Buren became the first former President to tour Europe. His two-year voyage took him to Britain, France, Italy, Belgium, Holland, and Switzerland. He returned to the United States in 1855 to write "An Inquiry into the Origin and Course of Political Parties in the United States," which was published post-mordem in 1867.
Martin Van Buren died in Kinderhook, New York on July 24, 1862.
