The USA In The Time of Martin Van Buren
1837-1841
By Mike Donovan
The Panic of 1837 Van Buren was a Dandy
'Old Kinderhook' - New York Dem - Lawyer - #8 - VP Richard M. Johnson of Tennessee - 'The Sly Red Fox'- “OK” - Defeated Whig William Henry Harrison in 36 - Harrison would win the rematch. - "The Little Magician" - "Van Ruin" - Lindenwald - His wife's family was a bunch of Hoes – The first President born in the United States of America
Martin was an easygoing guy who had the ability to make friends with ordinary people as easily as with politicians. He also had the rare and valuable gift for remaining on friendly personal terms with his political opponents.
Andrew Jackson dubbed him prez. Jackson was in such a position of power at the end of his second term as to be virtually able to name his successor, and this he did in Martin Van Buren of New York. The Vice-Presidency had become a stepping stone to the (elected) presidency for only the second time out of three total in US history. The next sitting Vice-President to win a Presidential election would be George H.W. Bush in 1988!
1836 Electoral vote-
Van Buren (D)---------------170
W. H. Harrison (Whig)------73
Hugh L. White (Whig)------26
Daniel Webster (Whig)------14
Willie P. Magnum-----------11
Popular vote -
Van Buren 762,000
(Combined Whig)-------735,000
If Van Buren had died in office, Richard Johnson would have been the first of three Vice Presidents named Johnson to ascend to the White House upon the death of the President.
The first of the big depressions hit America in 1837 and Van Buren was the man caught holding the bag. Jackson escaped all historical blame and Van Buren's presidency was less than a success. The Panic of 37 was the end of the Jackson dynasty. By the in the election of 1840, the opposition Whig party was chanting, "Van Van is a used up man" as a campaign slogan.
Van Buren's cabinet
Secretary of State - John Forsyth (GA)----1837-1841
Secretary of War - Joel R. Poinsett (SC) - 1837-1841
Sec. of Treasury - Levi Woodbury (NH)--1837-1841
Att. General ------B.F. Butler (NY) --------1837-1838
Felix Grundy (TN)------1838-1840
Henry .D. Gilpin (PA)---1840-1841
CABNOTES
John Forsyth was the great-great-great grandfather of the famous actor of Falcon's Crest fame, John Forsyth.
One of the campaign slogans was “OK”, the acronym for Old Kinderhook. From this we derive the expression, ‘okay’ or ‘ok’ for something good or acceptable. There is some debate over the origin of ‘ok’ but the Van Buren source is probably the most accepted.
Secretary of War Poinsett was a respected botanist and brought a rare species of flower into the United States from Africa. This is now known in the flower world as the ‘poinsettia,’ in honor of its patron from the VB cabinet.
BIO
Little Marty was born on December 5, 1782 and is the first President who was not born a British subject. He was always denounced as an aristocratic snob but that is ironic because Van Buren was actually one of the first national politicians of low birth.
Marty’s father Abraham Van Buren owned a tavern and Marty rose to high society without the help of silver spoons. (And no, he was not the illegitimate son of Aaron Burr as some people believe because that is the plot of a successful novel. Sigh)
Martin never went to college but he was a nevertheless a reader with goals. As a teenager he swept the floors in a law office and as you can probably guess, he soon worked his way up off the floor and over the bar, which he passed in 1803.
In 1807 Van Buren married the lovely Hannah Hoes on the twenty-first of February. They both spoke fluent Dutch at home and were in the process or raising four boys when she died in 1819. Martin Van Buren never re-married.
MVB was elected to the state senate at Albany in 1813 and became the Empire State’s attorney general from 1816 to 1819.
Van Buren was not only ambitious in life and politics; he admits in his biography that his lifelong goal had always been the Presidency of the United States. Such honesty is refreshing in this era of phony windbags who do not seem to realize that boastful humility is the worst form of ego.
Van Buren had a long time rivalry with DeWitt Clinton for power in New York state. Van Buren's political organization was called The Albany Regency.
Van Buren ran for Governor of New York as a favor to Andrew Jackson. New York was going to be a difficult state for the Southerner Jackson to win and Van Buren was popular there. Marty supported Jackson for President and helped him carry the state. Jackson didn’t forget a favor and made Van Buren his Secretary of State.
Van Buren was not the heir apparent to the Jackson throne until the Peggy Eaton controversy gave the sly fox an opportunity to sew discord between AJ and the true front-runner John C. Calhoun. Van Buren had hinted to Jackson that the major source of anti-Peggyism was Calhoun and company.
The resignation of Vice President Calhoun opened the door to the VP spot for 1832 and Van Buren walked in. From there it was a front-runner's seat behind the giant shadow of Jackson for the election of 1836.
At the end of his term, in 41, Marty took one giant paycheck for four years work, $100,000
EVENTS
ELECTION OF 1836
PANIC OF 1837
GRIMKE TOUR
MURDER OF ELIJAH LOVEJOY 1837
RISE OF THE LOCO-FOCOS
INDEPENDENT TREASURY ACT
TEXAS INDEPENDENCE
MAINE BOUNDARY DISPUTE 1838-39
ELECTION OF 1836
Late in his second term as president, Andrew Jackson approached his vice-president Martin Van Buren with a remarkable and shrewd idea. Jackson offered to resign the presidency on order to strengthen the position of Van Buren in the next election. Van Buren could inherit the presidency, gain some experience in office, and then use the power of incumbency to coast to an easy re-election. But Van Buren nobly rejected the idea. Van Buren was politically shrewd but Jackson’s idea was a bit much, even for the Silver Fox.
Van Buren led the Democrats on his own in 1836, with Rich Johnson, the man who claimed to have killed Tecumseh in the Battle of the Thames as the choice for Vice President.
Election of 1836
In the other corner stood the Whigs.
A note on the Whig Party of America; the 1830’s US Whigs got their name from the liberal party of that name in England. The British Whigs were opposed to the policies of the Stuart Kings.
Some historians, however, insist that the 1830’s Whig party in England got its name from the earlier American Whigs who had opposed King George. Still other historians say the new Whigs got their name from both the old English and the old American Whigs.
In any case, the old Whigs of England were genuine iconoclasts, rebelling against the Royal prerogative, per se, while the new American Whigs were really against the policies of one man, not the idea that the President should have the power to make policy. The old Whigs were against the principle, and the new Whigs were against the person.
The new American Whigs were in fact every bit as conservative as the Democrats, if not more so. It was the Whigs, not the Democrats, who favored high tariffs and the Bank of the United States. The Whigs were actually just the anti-Andrew Jackson coalition, and retained their existence after Jackson only in order to enjoy power for its own sake. Without a King Andrew to hate, the Whigs were a party without a soul.
The Whigs running against Van Buren consisted of the National Republicans and the Anti-Jacksons as well as an assortment of other of power-challenged groups, like the anti-Masons or elderly Federalists.
The Whig leader was Henry Clay of Kentucky, the old war hawk of 1812. The Whigs were often referred to colloquially as the ‘friends of Clay.’ Clay was on his way to a losing streak in presidential elections.
For an intensely scathing portrait of Clay, see Irving Stone in They Also Ran. Some hatchet job!
The Whigs thought about running Clay in 36 but they had other more devious ideas.
The Whig Party devised a sly strategy for the 1836 campaign but it failed them. They ran four different candidates in four geographical areas, hoping to divide up the electoral votes so that no candidate could win a clear majority. The election would then be thrown to the House of Representatives where they felt they had a chance to back one of their own into power. Billy Harrison from Ohio ran in the northwest. Hugh Lawson White ran in the Tennessee region. Charles Magnum ran in the South and Whig Webster was assigned to win the northeast. Collectively these Whigs polled 49.1% of the vote, a buck shy, but a possible portent of Whig strength for the next election, since in 1840 the Whigs won.
On the other hand since the only thing that had ever united the Whigs was dislike of Jackson, their long term future was not bright. A couple of sound right uppercuts in presidential elections after 1840 and they crumbled into a hundred pieces and disappeared.
INAUGURATION
It was one of those inaugurals where there was more focus on the retiring president than there was on the incoming, ‘more on the setting sun than the rising.’ In that sense, 1837 was like 1797 and 1989. Old Hickory was still the biggest celebrity on the stage as he sat in the background while Marty Van Buren read his inaugural address. Jackson got a bigger cheer from the crowd when he arrived than Van Buren did at any point in his Inaugural speech.
Van Buren’s speech made it clear that he was not going to interfere with slavery where it existed and that he was solidly opposed to the banning of slavery or the slave trade in the District of Columbia.
THE LOCOFOCOS/ERP
The most radical of the Democrat splinter groups was a New York gang called the Locofocos. They believed in a free handout of land to anyone who didn’t have any, the election of judges, and were against usury as sinful. They hated banks in the spirit of Jackson. These radicals had one of the their meetings disrupted when conservatives shut off the gas lights on them. So they continued their meeting by the light of large matches, called ‘locofoco’ matches. That’s how they got their name. They never had the power to win an election but as a united voting block in a closely contested state, they had more muscle than they deserved.
The Locofocos had changed their name to the Equal Rights Party by the time Van Buren was sworn in. President Van Buren then co-opted some of their financial ideas. This deprived the ERP its reason to exist. The matchstick men returned to the Democratic flock, but did manage to elect a few fusion legislators (half Whig – half Locofoco) to the New York State senate.
THE PANIC OF 1837
The second American Depression hit in 1837 and hit harder than the first one that came in 1819. Before Van Buren took over there had been a two-year a slowdown in business while the speculation game continued unabated. It was a similar situation to the origins of the later Great Depression.
Many people saw the dark clouds on the horizon. Historian W. E. Woodward even implies that the Whigs may have deliberately lost the Election of 1836, running three candidates because they did not want to enter the Presidency just as the economy went off the cliff.
Andrew Jackson’s irrational hatred of banks came back to haunt not him, but the man who succeeded him. Martin Van Buren paid the price for Jackson’s errors. Andy left his heir apparent out on the old Kinderhook to dry. Van Buren had Jackson to thank for his presidency and had Jackson to thank for that presidency’s overall failure.
As we have seen Jackson withdrew all federal funds from the Bank of the United States and deposited them in ‘pet banks’, that is state banks that were loyal to the Democratic Party. These state banks lent money freely and helped fuel the speculation craze that was sweeping the country. There was excessive speculation in canals, roads, railroads, land, and slaves, most of it funded by wildcat paper money from these state banks.
Then Jackson pulled the rug out from under his own monsters when he issued the famous specie circular, which demanded that all federal notes be redeemed for hard currency.
The specie circular set off a chain of events that culminated in the Panic of 1837, one of the more severe economic depressions that ever hit the nation. Jackson conveniently left office just as the mud was hitting the fan buren.
State banks began calling in their own notes and lending less. At the same time, an economic crisis in England led to the cutting off of the flow of metal coin from there to here. Speculators could not make their payments and foreclosures became common.
Few could invest in anything anymore because of strict hard currency requirements. 618 banks failed and had to close. Unemployment swept the country, especially in the cities. In New York City fifty percent of the work force was idle. Nine tenths of the east coast industry was not operating. The wheat crop failed in the North due in large part to the invasion of the Hessian fly (those no good Hessians - first the revolution, then this). Hunger was not uncommon. In the south, a bumper crop of cotton caused prices to plummet, leading to further poverty there. All over the country people left the towns and found shelter with relatives on farms where at least there was homegrown food to survive on.
Hank Poor of Mississippi writes of when the Planters Bank of Natchez failed, “Everybody was in debt without any possible means of payment.”
Through it all Van Buren did little, because lassaiz faire was not only conventional wisdom at the time, it was the only wisdom at the time. The storm had to run its course. MVB in 1837 was 180 degrees removed from 100 years later when King Roosevelt fought The Great Depression of 1929-1940 by the means of total government integration into the economy. That kind of federal intervention wasn't even an option for Kinderhook.
When these pet state banks failed, they took government money down with the ship. The nation lost a fortune to Jackson’s stubborn scorn of the BUS and Van Buren got the bill. Marty decided that this must not happen again. The anti-Jacksons wanted a revival of the Bank of the United States but Van Buren had another idea.
Land speculation was a major cause of the financial disaster of 1837. In moderation, like drinking, land speculation had its place in this world. But by the time of Van Buren’s inaugural it was spinning out of control. A famous British broad named Harriet Martineau was visiting Chicago in early 1837. She wrote of how her poor husband couldn’t walk a single city block without being accosted by men standing in doorways grabbing him by the arm and offering land-lots in towns for sale, farm lots in agricultural areas for speculation, or distant virgin lands for super profits on the cheap. When the English couple managed to dodge the barkers they had their royal hands full merely getting through the crowds of men hustling through the streets on their way to negotiate some fantastic land deal.
By the end of 1837 Martineau and her Brit beau could walk through Chicago unmolested.
INDEPENDENT TREASURY BILL
In late 1837 Van Buren presented his plan for an Independent Treasury for the nation. There would be no BUS and no pet banks. The US cash would be stored in vaults located in various major cities (Boston, New York, Philadelphia, St. Louis Washington and New Orleans). Paper notes would be converted to metal currency in a process hopefully completed by the target date of 1843.
The Independent Treasury Bill has been called the ‘Divource Bill’ because Van Buren was attempting to divource the government money from the economy at large. It also has been called the subtreasury act. By any other name, it was difficult for Van Buren to get it passed. It failed to pass the Senate in 1837 and was not made law until the Fourth of July, 1840. However the Whigs repealed the Independent Treasury Act it as soon as they took over in 1841. It was re-passed in 1846 and this time Van Buren’s idea lasted. It governed the national stash until 1920.
Van Buren was ruined by Jackson's stubborn and naďve ideas about finance. The president was called "Martin Van Ruin." The Dems and the Whigs did quite well in the mid-term elections of 1838.
The Democrats blamed paper money for the depression, which lasted till 1843, while the Whigs blamed Jackson's Specie Circular. The Democrat anger with banks in general was so strong that in two states, Louisiana and Arkansas, they passed laws prohibiting the existence of any banks whatsoever! In other states banks were prohibited from printing small money bills.
SLAVERY
A sea change was taking place in Southern thinking during this time. Since the Revolution of 1776, Southerners had tried to explain away slavery as a temporary necessary evil. Much of the earliest agitation against slavery came from the South (as racist historians are quick and slick to point out). But with the abolitionists on the attack, and the institution threatened by Congress it was time to stand up for slavery or see it go down.
The rest of the world was progressing spiritually and intellectually while the South at the moment of truth decided on formal regression. In 1837 the leader of the South, John Calhoun stood up in the Senate and declared that far from being evil, slavery was a positive good. It was the natural order of things between these two races.
The Whigs were supposed to be more liberal than the Democrats but their leaders were not united against slavery. Webster was against slavery, but Calhoun was all for it and Clay was in between as usual.
Calhoun feared emancipation. He thought it would lead to the subjugation of Southern whites by a coalition of freed slaves and their white political allies from the north. Historian Hofstadter writes that this was quite an accurate prediction for this came true in the Reconstruction era.
This was not an accurate prediction. It was the aftermath of a full-scale war that led to the conditions of Reconstruction. “Emancipation” was never tried so the prediction is cancelled out by new circumstances. It was the failure to emancipate that led to this condition over the south in the Post War era. If not for secession, Southern whites could have gradually learned to share political power with their black brothers and sisters and there never would have been the invasion of the carpetbaggers.
Generally speaking, the side that loses a full-scale five-year war will tend to have to go through an occupation phase. That is if they are lucky. In the 300’s a losing tribe in Europe might be exterminated. In 1700 a defeat meant becoming part of someone’s new empire. By 1866 it only meant occupation with a curbing of political rights for the defeated warriors.
FREEDOM AND ANGELINA SRO TOUR 1837
In the world of 1837 show business, (otherwise known at the time as ‘the church’) there was a major national tour by two traveling minstrels named Sarah and Angelina Grimke. These two women were daughters of South Carolina slaveholders. The Grimkes had a grim view of slavery, defying their parents. Sarah and “Angel” were outspoken against slavery. South Carolina cast them out for this crime. The sisters fled North. The Grimke sisters published influential tracts and in 1837 went on a standing room only speaking tour of the churches of the North. They were truly preaching to the choir. In the South they were persona non grata. If Sarah and Angie had been men their lives would have been in danger wherever they roamed.
Sarah and Angelina not only were speaking out against slavery, they were demanding equality for women in general, black and white. They were ‘two for one’ reformers. The Grimkes claimed that the white women in the North had a special bond with black slave females in the South. The Grimkes blended abolitionism and feminism into one batter.
Grimkeism caused a rift within the abolitionist movement. Some abbies wanted the issue of abolitionism to be the beginning and the end of the movement. Even those who agreed with tag-along causes like women’s rights, free education and care for the insane often felt that the chance for success in any issue would be reduced by an attempt to win in several at once.
In 1838 Angelina became the first woman ever to address an elected assembly in the United States when she lectured the Massachusetts Legislature on the twin evils of slavery and the doctrine of male supremacy.
Angie Grimke ended up marrying the famous abolitionist Theodore Weld.
The Grimke sisters in the last years of their lives continued to fight for women’s rights. Angelina and Sarah often tried to register to vote in places where it was forbidden for females.
ELIJAH LOVEJOY MUST DIE
Traitors die first. To a racist white, those who defended slaves were worse than those who owned them. These Benedict Whites were even worse than rebellious slaves.
Elijah Lovejoy was such man. The 34-year-old Lovejoy had been a preacher in St. Louis where he published a religious newspaper that took a stand against slavery. His presses were thrown more than once into the Mississippi River by angry pale-faced thugs.
Lovejoy then moved to Alton, in the free state of Illinois. But his reception there was even worse. Three times his offices were broken into and his printing presses demolished.
On November 7, 1837 Lovejoy and 20 of his followers were holding out in a warehouse, guarding the next press to be delivered. An Archie Bunker mob gathered around the building and resorted to terror. The building was set on fire. Lovejoy was killed with a shotgun blast. The 20 were threatened with death and were eventually allowed to leave unharmed. Lovejoy was buried on November 9. It should have been his 35th birthday. At times it was as dangerous to be an abolitionist in the North as it was to be a slave in the South.
As for being an abolitionist in the South, there were no abolitionists in the South. They were dead, quiet, or now living in the north. It was not an option to be an abolitionist in the south.
TEXAS
The new Republic of Texas formally requested admission to the USA in August of 1837. Eight states were against statehood for Texas. There was not enough Congressional support and van Buren didn’t like it either. Van Buren told his Secretary of State J Forsyth to tell them no. Mexico was still officially at war with Texas and the US had a friendship treaty with Mexico, which Van Buren elected to honor. Too many Americans were more against slavery than they were for expansion. So an easy addition of an enormous expanse of valuable territory had to sit on the fence for years.
Marty was also moderately against slavery, certainly much more so than Jackson and this probably influenced his lack of interest in letting Texas in as a new member of the family of united states. Later in life he became active in anti-slavery party politics.
Whig Henry Clay opposed annexation because he thought it would lead to war with Mexico and his Texas stand probably cost him the Presidency in 1840.
Independent Texas in these years did its own thinking. There was no slavery compromise nor controversy in Texas. The new republic of Texas broke with both Mexican and US policy when it decided that the Indian had no rights to any of the land and Texas didn't owe them an apology or a gift. The white man would take what was coming to him and there was no Federal government to protect you. The USA recognized the rights of Indians had had to go through hoops to take their land from them in rationalized increments, but Texas was unapologetic. They never heard of no Indian reservations in Texas, unless you were talking about some giant graveyard.
After Texas joined the Union in 1845 it kept this policy of non-recognition for another nine years before giving in to Federal pleas to compromise on recognizing red.
The neighboring Republic of Texas in Van Buren's time was more racist
than any state in US history at any time. Or, Texas was less friendly to the interests of the black and Indian racial minorities than any other state.
FUTURE PRESIDENT BABY
A few days after Van Buren's inauguration on March 18, 1837 in Caldwell New Jersey, future president Grover Cleveland was born.
CAROLINE AFFAIR DECEMBER 29 1837
The Canadian Rebellion of 1837-1838 involved the United States in a serious squabble that would not be settled until the time of President Tyler. The rebels wanted independence for Canada from Great Britian. There was fighting in late 1837 in the streets of Toronto between 400 rebels under a man named McKenzie, and crown forces of more than 1,000 well-armed men. The Canadian rebels didn't exactly get the best of it.
By December the last 200 of McKenzie revolutionaries (many of them American immigrants to Lower Canada) were forced to retreat to an island in the Niagara River within Canadian territory. Here on Navy Island they proclaimed themselves to be the ‘Provisional Government of Upper Canada.’ What was more important for US history, American sympathizers were supplying the Canadian rebs to the consternation of the Canadian-British government. These New Yorkers were regularly ferrying food and ammo to the island on a small ship, the Caroline.
The forces of the UK/Canada decided to pre-empt.
On the night of December 29, 1837 they put together a commando squad and with stealth crossed over to the American side where Caroline was sleeping at the dock. They set poor Caroline on fire and set her adrift to go over the mammoth Niagara Falls. Men jumped off to save their lives and swam to shore as the flaming hulk went over the falls. One man was shot in the back while fleeing the scene. No one was arrested for his murder. Not at this time at least.
Americans were outraged by the Caroline violation of their territory. They demanded an apology and reparations. The British responded by denying responsibility on the grounds that it was a private act and not that of the Canadian government.
On January 11 1838 the Canadian Army bombarded McKenzie’s rebel nation clean off of Navy Island. The rascals fled to America where McKenzie's movement melted into the countryside never to be heard from again. The Caroline incident was simmering down.
Then in 1840 a man bragged in a New York bar that it was he who had shot the fleeing American sympathizer on December 29, 1837. The fool, a British subject of Canada, was arrested in New York and charged with murder.
Because he was a British subject he represented British pride and the Canadians claimed to be outraged over his arrest. Now they changed their legal minds, claiming that the burning of the Caroline was not a private act, but a pre-emptive act of self-defense on the part of the Crown. They wanted the man released from jail and returned to Canada.
The Caroline dispute carried over into the Tyler administration and was not resolved until the Webster Ashburnton Treaty. The arrested man was acquitted in a New York trial because he was obviously some big mouth who bragged to show how important he was, but could not have been within 300 miles of Niagara Falls the night of the murder. His whereabouts were accounted for and he was released. If the toad ended up hanging for murder, it could have led to a lot of trouble between the US and its Northern Crown neighbor. I'm getting ahead of the Van Buren story, but I didn't want to leave you hanging.
LUMBERJACK WAR 1839
British Canada and the United States disputed the boundary between northeastern Maine and southwestern New Brunswick. The area was rich in timber and barely populated. Geographical surveys and legal maps were vague and contradictory. The spat remained dormant until lumberjacks from these rival nations began to hunt wood on the same land in the last months of 1838. There were threats and arrests. LB's from each country were alleged to be treading on the other’s property.
By February of 1839 the two governments were getting testy over the Maine/New Brunswick hot spot. Maine created a new county, Aroostook (Algonquin for “mine, pal”) to boost its claim to the region. Local militia began organizing on both sides of the disputed area and it looked there might be some shooting. There was talk of war between Britain and the United States over this Canadian timber dispute, and it became known as ‘The Aroostook War.’
The US Congress funded a militia of 50,000 troops. General Winfield Scott led the troops and soon they were mustering to march to Maine and beyond.. One history book says that General Scott was sent out there on a peace mission to smooth over the argumentative atmosphere. I cannot agree. Since when does a diplomatic peace mission go out with a General at the head of 50,000 armed troops?
The timber crisis was finally settled in a peaceful way. Each side produced maps supporting its claim. Canada settled for a partition that was slightly favorable to the United States and it’s a good thing it did. A new map was produced after the settlement that showed a very strong case for the United States to win its full claim. If the American negotiators had found this old map a little earlier, then Maine would be deeper into the cold north than it already is.
“THE TEACHERS ARE COMING!”
The first state supported teacher’s school was founded at Lexington Massachusetts in 1839. There are known as “normal schools” meaning they are set up to established standard set of “norms” for American education. It was part of trying to set up an American state of mind rather than a mind of an individual state. It was also ‘a measure of public safety’ in the words of one historian. The immigrants would be less apt to raise children with the ideas of the country of their parents if they were all taught the same things in American schools regardless of region or state. Let's clean out those lefty ideas from Europe before they are old enough to realize what just happened, is, I think, the idea there.
Normal schools were few before the Civil War, but the precedent was set. The concept was to be enlarged and improved upon at an accelerated rate after the Civil War.
Massachusetts in the 19th century was the lead bird in the V-formation in education reform. Mt. Holyoke Seminary for women established itself in 1837, which is the oldest extant female college in the US. Western Mass is still a bee hive of female colleges today, and the percentage of college females out there who are gay is breathtaking.
SUPREME COURT
Van Buren put three new men on the Supreme Court, John Cartron in 1837, John McKinley in 1838, and Peter V. Daniel in 1842.
Catron was from Tennessee and was self-educated. Historians cannot seem to locate his wife’s first name. Andrew Jackson had appointed Catron but the Senate didn't confirm him until Jackson had been out of office about five days, so he is technically a Van Buren appointment.
Jackie McKinley was a self-educated lawyer and lifelong Alabama politician. The Senate confirmed on September 25, 1837 he served until death 1852.
Peetie Daniel was confirmed by the Senate just a few days before Van Buren left office on March the second, 1841. PVD was a Virginia politician and regional judge before Van Buren named him to the Court to replace the departed Barbour.
AFTER OFFICE
Van Buren remained active in national politics for some time after he left the White House. Marty ran for President several times after leaving the office. As President Van Buren had done nothing to stop the spread of slavery, and nothing to force its retreat. Late in life he joined the Free-Soil Party. He had either progressed with the times, or had a guilty conscience over his lack of action on slavery in the Jackson era
Martin Van Buren retired to his farm and his mansion on it called Lindenhurst. He still doesn't know who won the Civil War. Martin Van Buren died old in Kinderhook at 2:01 a.m. on July 24 1862 on July 24, 1862 after a long illness.
SOURCES
The American Pageant, A History of the Republic by Thomas A. Bailey of Stanford University – c) 1961 D.C. Heath
This is a book that a 12 year old could read and follow. That's why it's right up my alley. This is one of my favorite all time books. I was sad when I finished it. Buy the new revised one published by Elizabeth Cohen quite recently.
The American Presidents
A Diplomatic History of the United States, by Samuel Flaff Bemis, Farnam Professor of Diplomatic History at Yale University – c) 1934 Henry Holt
A monumental and well-known book. I have read 554 pages and only have 208 left to go. Not a book to read when you're tired.
Empire for Liberty, The Genesis and Growth of the United States of America, Vol. One, to 1865 – by Dumas Malone, and Basil Rauch, - c)1960
This is a great read but very racist by modern standards, and certainly has a pro-South bias. Since this volume is concerned largely with the events leading up to the Civil War, there is plenty of room for the authors to employ this bias. On page 488 they explain how Southern slaveowners were really making admirable progress with their view of slavery,
“The Southerners tended to be strict constructionists
with respect to both the Bible and the Constitution.
But they became increasingly aware of their religious
duties in human relations. Toward the end of the
antebellum period, far more than at the beginning,
religious leaders instructed masters in their duties
and sought to carry the Gospel to the slaves.”
We’re so impressed. This excerpt contains the words of 1960 historians. They might as well be writing for a Southern newspaper in 1859. These kinder and gentler masters would teach the slaves the Gospel at the same time it remained illegal for any slave to read the Bible, or to read anything else at all, or to even learn how to read. The Bible was ok, as long as it was only oral.
These 2 illiberal historians pull the same trick that all the others do. They intellectualize the dispute into ‘an unfortunate misunderstanding in which both sides were equally at fault,’ which is giving the good guys an unfair beating and lifting the bad guys out of the mud where they belong,
“The abolitionists were unrealistic in underestimating
social problems arising from the presence, side by
side, of races as different in history and in external
appearance as the whites and Negroes, but some of
the Southern apologists went to an unbearable
extreme when they denied the unity of mankind.”
The Great Republic, by Bernie Bailyn & co.
A History of the American People, by Graebner & co.
History of a Free People by Henry W. Bragdon of Instructor of History at Phillips Exeter Academy, and Samuel P. McCutchen Chairman of Social Studies Department, School of Education, New York University copyright 1954 MacMillan
These guys make reading history a living hell for students, but if you picked this up used 50 years later and don't have to do the homework assignments, its not a bad read. I'm almost done with its 680 pages and bad cartoon illustrations.
i)
A New American History, by W. E. Woodward, c) 1938 – He’s the one who thinks the Whigs may have lost on purpose in 1836.
Old Kinderhook, the story of Martin Van Buren
Out of Many, A History of the American People, by John Mack Faragher (Yale); Mary Jo Buhle (Brown), Daniel Czitrom (Mount Holyoke); and Susan Armitage (Washington State), c)1994
It is a beautiful book, physically. Super maps and pictures, a fun work of grand US history for beginners. The writing is great. But its so biased left it's a joke. This isn't a problem for me in the Van Buren era.
The Oxford History of the American People, by Samuel Eliot Morison – c) 1965 Oxford University Press
How does he get away with having no double letters in his name?
The Revolutionary Age of Andrew Jackson, by Remini – A lot of material on VP Van B.
A Short History of the American Nation, by John A. Garraty – c) 1977
Harper & Row
I have listed this under different copyright years in different chapters. It was first published in 1966 and is very unpleasant on the race issue. Garraty is a nasty man. This is the fourth revised edition of the third revised edition. It's a bit confusing. All you need to know is that Garraty is a Columbia professor and if a guy this racist could write a general US history out of Columbia in 1966, it says a lot about how white and to the right this country was in 1966. At the time, Bill Cosby as co-star of I-Spy was the only black person on television. This book reflects that situation rather accurately.
The United States to 1865, by Michael Kraus c) 1959 University of Michigan Press
I don’t quite follow professor Kraus’ meaning when he writes of Van Buren’s Independent Treasury Bill, that it “was in keeping with the Jacksonian tradition.” He also says that in Van Buren, Jackson’s mantle “had fallen on lesser shoulders.” I don’t know. I might take Van Buren over Jackson by default, just as I prefer Taft to Teddy Roosevelt.
Jackson was a little too violent for my taste. Give me those second rate presidents any day! They never start trouble.
The United States, From Colony to World Power, by Chitwood and Nixon
The United States, The History of a Republic, by Richard Hofstadter (Columbia University), Bill Miller (co-author of The Age of Enterprise), and Daniel Aaron of Smith College – c) 1957 Prentice-Hall
Hofstadter died of leukemia at the age of only 54. My best friend died of leukemia at the age of 54. This is a fine course book for college freshmen of the 50's.
William H. Seward, by John T Morse, c) 1898 – Great little Riverside Press hardcover gives a good detailed count of the Caroline Affair. Seward was NY Governor during the crisis.
NEWSPAPERS
New York Times, obituary for MVB
The Times is really rough on poor Marty. Here in its closing paragraph,
“He has identified his name with no measure which entitled him to the permanent gratitude of our people; he did nothing distinguishable to advance the course of humanity and civilization; there is no period of his life we can single out as the era of some leadership service to the Republic. His place in our history is not in any way pronounced. He will be calendared as a President, and be characterized as a skilled and not unsuccessful politician, but not as an elevated statesman, or a benefactor of his country. His private virtues and social qualities will be remembered perhaps longer than his public career.”
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