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Princeton Legacy Library
Martin Van Buren And The American Political System
Donald Cole analyzes the political skills that brought Van Buren the nickname Little Magician," describing how he built the Albany Regency (which became a model for political party machines) and how he created the Democratic party of Andrew Jackson.
492 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1984
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517 people want to read
About the author
Donald B. Cole
13 books4 followersDonald B. Cole was professor emeritus at Phillips Exeter Academy, New Hampshire, and the author of a number of books on early American history.
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February 2, 2015
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“Martin Van Buren and the American Political System” by Donald Cole was published in 1984 and was the second full-scale biography of the eighth president in two years. Cole was a dean and professor emeritus at Phillips Exeter Academy. He was a long-distinguished scholar on the Jacksonian era and authored nearly a dozen books on the period. Cole died at the age of ninety-one this past October.
Cole first took serious notice of Van Buren while serving with the US Navy in the Pacific during World War II. While on the USS Lamar he had occasion to read Arthur Schlesinger’s “The Age of Jackson” and noticed numerous references to Van Buren. Years later he began researching the Jacksonian era in earnest and was again struck by Van Buren’s central role in the politics of the era. Realizing there was no comprehensive, recent work on Van Buren he decided to author a biography – unaware that John Niven had recently begun writing his own biography of Van Buren.
Cole’s biography proves to be thorough, comprehensive and compelling. In its first chapter, Cole provides an interesting introduction to the early Van Burens (then the Maessens from the Dutch village of Buren) whose travels to American in 1631 nearly coincided with my own ancestor’s voyage to Jamestown. With little literary delay, the young president-to-be is soon immersed in a legal apprenticeship and knee-deep in the precarious world of New York state politics.
Over the course of its four-hundred or so pages, the biography follows a logical and mostly chronological path through Van Buren’s life. Significant early attention is provided to Van Buren’s maturation as a politician, which coincides with his emergence into young adulthood. This period of his life is riddled with a seemingly endless stream of local and state politicians who flash in and out of Van Buren’s political sphere – making patience a virtue at this stage of the book.
Van Buren’s role as supporter of one of the losing candidates in the presidential campaign of 1824 is well-described as is his more successful effort on Andrew Jackson’s behalf during the campaign of 1828. For me, the most important and instructive sections of the book are those where Cole describes Van Buren’s roles as Jackson’s key adviser, secretary of state, minister to England and Vice President.
These eight years undoubtedly represented the peak of Van Buren’s political prowess (if not power) and the author carefully weaves his opinions and conclusions together with the facts in a way that is informative without being heavy-handed. Fortunately, the author is not unwilling to criticize Van Buren when deserved – which is fairly often once he ascends to the nation’s highest office.
Van Buren’s single-term presidency is adequately described and well-critiqued. And while moving past Van Buren’s four years in the White House, the author provides a thoughtful review of the “Little Magician’s” legacy as a politician, president and party leader. Unfortunately, for those seeking to learn more about Van Buren “the man” (rather than “the politician”) even his post-presidential years are described through a narrow, politically-focused lens. There is little, it seems, to be learned of Van Buren away from his primary passion: politics.
Overall, Donald Cole’s “Martin Van Buren” is a worthy, readable and educational biography of our eighth president. It is somewhat academic in tone, and rarely captivating, but while it sometimes requires a modicum of patience it is relatively efficient with the reader’s time. Best of all, Cole rarely assumes the reader sees the bigger picture; ever the mindful teacher, he frequently reminds his audience of the themes and lessons to be drawn from Van Buren’s life. Although not a biography which will attract many casual readers, it is a very worthwhile and scholarly look at a superb politician who made a mediocre president.
Overall rating: 3½ stars
“Martin Van Buren and the American Political System” by Donald Cole was published in 1984 and was the second full-scale biography of the eighth president in two years. Cole was a dean and professor emeritus at Phillips Exeter Academy. He was a long-distinguished scholar on the Jacksonian era and authored nearly a dozen books on the period. Cole died at the age of ninety-one this past October.
Cole first took serious notice of Van Buren while serving with the US Navy in the Pacific during World War II. While on the USS Lamar he had occasion to read Arthur Schlesinger’s “The Age of Jackson” and noticed numerous references to Van Buren. Years later he began researching the Jacksonian era in earnest and was again struck by Van Buren’s central role in the politics of the era. Realizing there was no comprehensive, recent work on Van Buren he decided to author a biography – unaware that John Niven had recently begun writing his own biography of Van Buren.
Cole’s biography proves to be thorough, comprehensive and compelling. In its first chapter, Cole provides an interesting introduction to the early Van Burens (then the Maessens from the Dutch village of Buren) whose travels to American in 1631 nearly coincided with my own ancestor’s voyage to Jamestown. With little literary delay, the young president-to-be is soon immersed in a legal apprenticeship and knee-deep in the precarious world of New York state politics.
Over the course of its four-hundred or so pages, the biography follows a logical and mostly chronological path through Van Buren’s life. Significant early attention is provided to Van Buren’s maturation as a politician, which coincides with his emergence into young adulthood. This period of his life is riddled with a seemingly endless stream of local and state politicians who flash in and out of Van Buren’s political sphere – making patience a virtue at this stage of the book.
Van Buren’s role as supporter of one of the losing candidates in the presidential campaign of 1824 is well-described as is his more successful effort on Andrew Jackson’s behalf during the campaign of 1828. For me, the most important and instructive sections of the book are those where Cole describes Van Buren’s roles as Jackson’s key adviser, secretary of state, minister to England and Vice President.
These eight years undoubtedly represented the peak of Van Buren’s political prowess (if not power) and the author carefully weaves his opinions and conclusions together with the facts in a way that is informative without being heavy-handed. Fortunately, the author is not unwilling to criticize Van Buren when deserved – which is fairly often once he ascends to the nation’s highest office.
Van Buren’s single-term presidency is adequately described and well-critiqued. And while moving past Van Buren’s four years in the White House, the author provides a thoughtful review of the “Little Magician’s” legacy as a politician, president and party leader. Unfortunately, for those seeking to learn more about Van Buren “the man” (rather than “the politician”) even his post-presidential years are described through a narrow, politically-focused lens. There is little, it seems, to be learned of Van Buren away from his primary passion: politics.
Overall, Donald Cole’s “Martin Van Buren” is a worthy, readable and educational biography of our eighth president. It is somewhat academic in tone, and rarely captivating, but while it sometimes requires a modicum of patience it is relatively efficient with the reader’s time. Best of all, Cole rarely assumes the reader sees the bigger picture; ever the mindful teacher, he frequently reminds his audience of the themes and lessons to be drawn from Van Buren’s life. Although not a biography which will attract many casual readers, it is a very worthwhile and scholarly look at a superb politician who made a mediocre president.
Overall rating: 3½ stars
June 7, 2021
It's difficult to avoid comparing this book with John Niven's "Martin Van Buren and the Romantic Age of American Politics" - they were published just a year apart in the early 1980’s, and they both stand as the most thorough, full-scale modern biographies of this often-overlooked president. Plus, I happened to read them back-to-back.
And I'm glad I read this one second, because while Cole’s book may disappoint the more casual reader with its intense focus on politicking, a dizzying array of names and campaigns, and a failure to fully bring Van Buren to life as a person as opposed to just a politician, it still bests Niven’s book in almost every way.
One cannot tell Van Buren’s life story without fully describing his rise to prominence in New York, so unless you’re intensely interested in the era, the place and the people described, it can get a little dry. But while Niven’s chapters on Van Buren’s rise read like a political encyclopedia of the era, with an overwhelming amount of details but little analysis of what any of it means or why it matters, Cole does far better in describing these events while explaining it all in the context of how it contributed to Van Buren’s political education and the development of his ideas.
Cole deftly describes Van Buren as a bridge between Jefferson and Jackson - more democratic than the former, and more republican than the latter. As a politician, the key to his success was not obstinately sticking to a set of convictions, nor opportunistically shifting with the winds, but somewhere in between. Van Buren showed flexibility, Cole explains. He did not always “initiate change, but he adapted to it,” displaying an ability to be “a master at determining the direction in which events were moving and then directing those events along the route that was best.”
And those skills helped him get Andrew Jackson, and later himself, elected president. Cole does a good job describing the relationship between the more impulsive Jackson and the more measured Van Buren. However, Cole’s description of Van Buren’s resignation as Secretary of State is the only time I felt his analysis was somewhat off base, since he contradicts not only many other historians, but also himself - Cole’s later book "The Presidency of Andrew Jackson" suggests that Van Buren’s offer to resign was part of an elaborate effort to give Jackson cover to force the resignation of the rest of his Cabinet as he secretly wanted, while Niven, and Jackson biographer Robert Remini, believe it was more an act of political self-preservation on Van Buren’s part to extricate himself from an unharmonious administration. And yet, in this book, Cole concludes that Van Buren simply wanted to move on after feeling that he had accomplished all that he could, which seems a simplistic explanation of a much-studied episode in Van Buren’s political life.
But throughout the rest of the book, Cole’s analysis of Van Buren’s actions and motivations is more astute and convincing. He describes how Van Buren’s political skills helped him earn the presidency - and then failed to help him succeed as president. His dedication to compromise and conciliation could come across as pandering to the South on issues like slavery, Indian removal and the Amistad case (yet, when he finally did take a strong stand against the South, first by opposing Texas annexation in his 1844 attempt at re-election, and later by taking a principled, unambiguous stand against slavery in the 1848 campaign, he failed to win back his old job both times.)
For the most part, it was the economy, and the Panic of 1837 and resulting depression, that doomed Van Buren’s presidency. But Cole also puts much of the blame on Van Buren himself, noting that times were changing, as were the electorate and the issues it cared about, but Van Buren remained too backward-looking, too committed to Jacksonianism when events called for him to grow and adapt to newer challenges as he had previously shown the ability to do so well.
In all, this is not necessarily a captivating portrait of a fascinating life - it’s no surprise that a biography of someone who’s little-known to the average person would not appeal to the average reader. But since Van Buren was a politician through-and-though, an unsuccessful president, and we simply don’t seem to know too much about his personal life, it’s not really a Van Buren biographer’s fault that they didn’t manage to write the next “Hamilton.” But if you have the patience and an interest enough in Van Buren to devote some time and attention to a thorough and informative book on his life and political importance, this one is well worth the effort.
And I'm glad I read this one second, because while Cole’s book may disappoint the more casual reader with its intense focus on politicking, a dizzying array of names and campaigns, and a failure to fully bring Van Buren to life as a person as opposed to just a politician, it still bests Niven’s book in almost every way.
One cannot tell Van Buren’s life story without fully describing his rise to prominence in New York, so unless you’re intensely interested in the era, the place and the people described, it can get a little dry. But while Niven’s chapters on Van Buren’s rise read like a political encyclopedia of the era, with an overwhelming amount of details but little analysis of what any of it means or why it matters, Cole does far better in describing these events while explaining it all in the context of how it contributed to Van Buren’s political education and the development of his ideas.
Cole deftly describes Van Buren as a bridge between Jefferson and Jackson - more democratic than the former, and more republican than the latter. As a politician, the key to his success was not obstinately sticking to a set of convictions, nor opportunistically shifting with the winds, but somewhere in between. Van Buren showed flexibility, Cole explains. He did not always “initiate change, but he adapted to it,” displaying an ability to be “a master at determining the direction in which events were moving and then directing those events along the route that was best.”
And those skills helped him get Andrew Jackson, and later himself, elected president. Cole does a good job describing the relationship between the more impulsive Jackson and the more measured Van Buren. However, Cole’s description of Van Buren’s resignation as Secretary of State is the only time I felt his analysis was somewhat off base, since he contradicts not only many other historians, but also himself - Cole’s later book "The Presidency of Andrew Jackson" suggests that Van Buren’s offer to resign was part of an elaborate effort to give Jackson cover to force the resignation of the rest of his Cabinet as he secretly wanted, while Niven, and Jackson biographer Robert Remini, believe it was more an act of political self-preservation on Van Buren’s part to extricate himself from an unharmonious administration. And yet, in this book, Cole concludes that Van Buren simply wanted to move on after feeling that he had accomplished all that he could, which seems a simplistic explanation of a much-studied episode in Van Buren’s political life.
But throughout the rest of the book, Cole’s analysis of Van Buren’s actions and motivations is more astute and convincing. He describes how Van Buren’s political skills helped him earn the presidency - and then failed to help him succeed as president. His dedication to compromise and conciliation could come across as pandering to the South on issues like slavery, Indian removal and the Amistad case (yet, when he finally did take a strong stand against the South, first by opposing Texas annexation in his 1844 attempt at re-election, and later by taking a principled, unambiguous stand against slavery in the 1848 campaign, he failed to win back his old job both times.)
For the most part, it was the economy, and the Panic of 1837 and resulting depression, that doomed Van Buren’s presidency. But Cole also puts much of the blame on Van Buren himself, noting that times were changing, as were the electorate and the issues it cared about, but Van Buren remained too backward-looking, too committed to Jacksonianism when events called for him to grow and adapt to newer challenges as he had previously shown the ability to do so well.
In all, this is not necessarily a captivating portrait of a fascinating life - it’s no surprise that a biography of someone who’s little-known to the average person would not appeal to the average reader. But since Van Buren was a politician through-and-though, an unsuccessful president, and we simply don’t seem to know too much about his personal life, it’s not really a Van Buren biographer’s fault that they didn’t manage to write the next “Hamilton.” But if you have the patience and an interest enough in Van Buren to devote some time and attention to a thorough and informative book on his life and political importance, this one is well worth the effort.
May 18, 2022
Operation Read Every President's Biography #8
Known as the "Little Magician", our 8th President Van Buren might ring familiar as a self-inflated bastard outsider who sacrificed principle and morality wherever he could and who people pretended to like. Born poor, he wringled and wrangled his way out of his rural New York state upbringing through vast and complex political machinations and deviousness, only to become one of our most wan and ineffective Presidents.
This is much more a political biography than a personal one, so don't expect much on that front. Van Buren's wife died pretty early on, he never remarried and he was not very exciting outside of politics. Any insights into his personality are almost all refracted through his political doings.
Luckily, there is no dearth of those, as Cole's title suggests.
Van Buren, for all his faults, was an effective political manipulator, what we call a "insider", "political broker" or "shitass" these days. His early years as a lawyer and in New York politics saw him seize power through back-alley machinations and manipulations, creating one of the first effective political "machines" on the state level. This was achieved because he was an opportunist and free from the burden of principle, for the most part. He was deft at exploiting situations locally and can be seen as one of the main harbingers of the modern party system which he championed religiously (the Democratic Party, not the one we have today, was born on his watch, out of the Jeffersonian Republicans and were basically the opposite of today's Democratic Party...yes, yes, I know it's confusing...).
After serving as Jackson's Vice President, he was launched into one term in the White House just as the Panic of '37 was beginning. Needless to say, his savvy didn't pay off in the real world; Van Buren didn't fare well. His fickle attitude towards issues such as slavery and government oversight undid him. Ineffectively, Van Buren kept Jeffersonian principles close throughout his career, so at least his idiocy was consistent if nothing else; as Cole points out you can't very well detach the government from the economy in the midst of an economic depression and expect great results. This kind of imbecility sets him apart from his predecessors, making him a direct link back to Jefferson's follies and not boding well for the looming debate over slavery.
Callously and ever-hypocritical, in the run-up to the Civil War, he split the Democratic party when he blithely and hypocritically decided to suddenly favor abolition. His "Free Soilers" soiled nothing more than their own party, split the ticket, and led to their defeat in elections. Then he recanted and thought slavery was great again. You get the picture.
That's probably the big takeaway from this little asshole: his consistent inconsistency and the peculiarly of being a Northern pro-slavery politician just goes to show how complicated things were before the Civil War. Van Buren's failure was to not look forward in an age of changing economies and technologies, but instead hearken back to insipid essentially anti-government Jeffersonianisms, hardly something that makes for an effective politician. His obsession with partisan politics and back-alley backstabbing pretty much set the stage for the next century and a half, I suppose.
Cole manages to keep objective without sacrificing honesty and wit. In the end, he might gently eviscerate his subject by saying that Van Buren "abandoned rationalization but not hypocrisy".
Known as the "Little Magician", our 8th President Van Buren might ring familiar as a self-inflated bastard outsider who sacrificed principle and morality wherever he could and who people pretended to like. Born poor, he wringled and wrangled his way out of his rural New York state upbringing through vast and complex political machinations and deviousness, only to become one of our most wan and ineffective Presidents.
This is much more a political biography than a personal one, so don't expect much on that front. Van Buren's wife died pretty early on, he never remarried and he was not very exciting outside of politics. Any insights into his personality are almost all refracted through his political doings.
Luckily, there is no dearth of those, as Cole's title suggests.
Van Buren, for all his faults, was an effective political manipulator, what we call a "insider", "political broker" or "shitass" these days. His early years as a lawyer and in New York politics saw him seize power through back-alley machinations and manipulations, creating one of the first effective political "machines" on the state level. This was achieved because he was an opportunist and free from the burden of principle, for the most part. He was deft at exploiting situations locally and can be seen as one of the main harbingers of the modern party system which he championed religiously (the Democratic Party, not the one we have today, was born on his watch, out of the Jeffersonian Republicans and were basically the opposite of today's Democratic Party...yes, yes, I know it's confusing...).
After serving as Jackson's Vice President, he was launched into one term in the White House just as the Panic of '37 was beginning. Needless to say, his savvy didn't pay off in the real world; Van Buren didn't fare well. His fickle attitude towards issues such as slavery and government oversight undid him. Ineffectively, Van Buren kept Jeffersonian principles close throughout his career, so at least his idiocy was consistent if nothing else; as Cole points out you can't very well detach the government from the economy in the midst of an economic depression and expect great results. This kind of imbecility sets him apart from his predecessors, making him a direct link back to Jefferson's follies and not boding well for the looming debate over slavery.
Callously and ever-hypocritical, in the run-up to the Civil War, he split the Democratic party when he blithely and hypocritically decided to suddenly favor abolition. His "Free Soilers" soiled nothing more than their own party, split the ticket, and led to their defeat in elections. Then he recanted and thought slavery was great again. You get the picture.
That's probably the big takeaway from this little asshole: his consistent inconsistency and the peculiarly of being a Northern pro-slavery politician just goes to show how complicated things were before the Civil War. Van Buren's failure was to not look forward in an age of changing economies and technologies, but instead hearken back to insipid essentially anti-government Jeffersonianisms, hardly something that makes for an effective politician. His obsession with partisan politics and back-alley backstabbing pretty much set the stage for the next century and a half, I suppose.
Cole manages to keep objective without sacrificing honesty and wit. In the end, he might gently eviscerate his subject by saying that Van Buren "abandoned rationalization but not hypocrisy".
Read
January 21, 2024I started a journey of reading through biographies of all the founding fathers of America and also through each of the Presidents as well. My intention was to start in the “beginning” and read chronologically through each President’s life, and through their lives, see an unfolding history of the United States in linear time. I read a number of these biographies as planned, but when it came to reading one on Martin Van Buren, it stopped the whole mission in its tracks.
I didn’t have anything against Martin Van Buren, of course. I just didn’t know much, if anything, about him (other than rumors that he became President due to Andrew Jackson’s strong influence). There didn’t seem to be any universally loved biographies on him either, and finding this one, I was surprised how difficult obtaining a copy of this book seemed. I could never find it in any of the bookstores I searched for it in. Online, it was decently expensive and took a really long time to ship. So, it really just turned me off from reading about him and the whole journey was put on hold for a long time.
I finally decided I was just going to read it and move on. I borrowed a copy of it from the Los Angeles library and started reading. Right at the beginning, I was met with writing that felt quite jumbled. The focus seemed to jump around so swiftly in time and events that it was hard to follow the narrative and stay interested. The author also seemed to write in such a way that assumed the reader had a vast knowledge of the American Revolution and the first governments as referrals to past events and related terms are tossed around constantly. I knew this information, but I could imagine someone more new to the subject might find themselves even more lost. By page 17, I already had the urge to speed read.
His childhood was over so quickly and his political career just suddenly started that I was left wondering when we switched over. There’s a chronological narrative, but it doesn’t feel like it is, if that makes sense. The reader doesn’t feel connected to the character in any real way and his life story is hard to follow.
As the timeline approached the War of 1812, I really didn’t have much interest in picking it up. I felt like I didn’t really know the man or care about his journey. It felt very much like looking in from the outside. By page 63, it was so painful to continue reading. It took all my force of will to continue just so I could finish it and continue on with my presidential biography journey. Even when Martin Van Buren’s wife passed away in the narrative, I just didn’t feel much empathy and I was surprised by that. It just really showed that the book didn’t bring me on a journey of caring about him or at least what he was doing.
I saw the book was due back to the library in two days and I thought for the first time, why am I forcing myself to read something that I am not enjoying this much? I can continue my journey through the presidential biographies and always come back to this. Why put myself through this? So I returned the book.
It is possible that at another time, or with another book on Martin Van Buren, that I would enjoy reading about his life. I’m deeply interested in these kinds of subjects. I just did not connect with this book is all.
I didn’t have anything against Martin Van Buren, of course. I just didn’t know much, if anything, about him (other than rumors that he became President due to Andrew Jackson’s strong influence). There didn’t seem to be any universally loved biographies on him either, and finding this one, I was surprised how difficult obtaining a copy of this book seemed. I could never find it in any of the bookstores I searched for it in. Online, it was decently expensive and took a really long time to ship. So, it really just turned me off from reading about him and the whole journey was put on hold for a long time.
I finally decided I was just going to read it and move on. I borrowed a copy of it from the Los Angeles library and started reading. Right at the beginning, I was met with writing that felt quite jumbled. The focus seemed to jump around so swiftly in time and events that it was hard to follow the narrative and stay interested. The author also seemed to write in such a way that assumed the reader had a vast knowledge of the American Revolution and the first governments as referrals to past events and related terms are tossed around constantly. I knew this information, but I could imagine someone more new to the subject might find themselves even more lost. By page 17, I already had the urge to speed read.
His childhood was over so quickly and his political career just suddenly started that I was left wondering when we switched over. There’s a chronological narrative, but it doesn’t feel like it is, if that makes sense. The reader doesn’t feel connected to the character in any real way and his life story is hard to follow.
As the timeline approached the War of 1812, I really didn’t have much interest in picking it up. I felt like I didn’t really know the man or care about his journey. It felt very much like looking in from the outside. By page 63, it was so painful to continue reading. It took all my force of will to continue just so I could finish it and continue on with my presidential biography journey. Even when Martin Van Buren’s wife passed away in the narrative, I just didn’t feel much empathy and I was surprised by that. It just really showed that the book didn’t bring me on a journey of caring about him or at least what he was doing.
I saw the book was due back to the library in two days and I thought for the first time, why am I forcing myself to read something that I am not enjoying this much? I can continue my journey through the presidential biographies and always come back to this. Why put myself through this? So I returned the book.
It is possible that at another time, or with another book on Martin Van Buren, that I would enjoy reading about his life. I’m deeply interested in these kinds of subjects. I just did not connect with this book is all.
June 21, 2019
Martin Van Buren doesn't get a lot of press as a significant President. He's trapped in that period of time between two popular 2 term POTUSs in US history: Andrew Jackson and later Lincoln. However, as this rare full volume treatment of Van Buren since 1984 accomplishes, he is placed back at the forefront of American political development in the antebellum period.
He wasn't a great President, but he was extraordinarily important in American political history. He established the first really coordinated statewide political machine with the Albany Regency to significant success. When he combined it with Andrew Jackson's Nashville Junto, Van Buren can be said to formally organize the first nationwide political coalition for President. In essence, Van Buren originated the roles of Campaign Manager and Chief of Staff far before those were actual roles in American society. The great irony of his life is that those coalitions shifted and changed just when it was his turn at the Presidency, dooming him to one term.
Because of the focus of other biographies, MVB often gets a very negative reputation as a political schemer, a "sly fox", a "magician" with all the pejorative connotations of those words. In reality, he was the first real politician in the 2019 sense of the word. I'm not left with the sense that he was a bad person; in fact, his family loved him very much and many Jackson supporters stuck by him. He was just really good at his job, created entirely by him.
One could read the shorter American Presidents series if you are on the whole "bio of each President" kick. However, I think this volume (which doesn't really feel like its 432 pps even though it gets into really serious political detail) is much more worth it. MVB's life was far more important than his Presidency, and here one can see why with his generational command of the American political system. How did things get done and not get done in Washington from @1820-1844? The answer is here, including important implications for the Civil War as well as the economic development of America, particularly in the area of banks and tariffs.
He wasn't a great President, but he was extraordinarily important in American political history. He established the first really coordinated statewide political machine with the Albany Regency to significant success. When he combined it with Andrew Jackson's Nashville Junto, Van Buren can be said to formally organize the first nationwide political coalition for President. In essence, Van Buren originated the roles of Campaign Manager and Chief of Staff far before those were actual roles in American society. The great irony of his life is that those coalitions shifted and changed just when it was his turn at the Presidency, dooming him to one term.
Because of the focus of other biographies, MVB often gets a very negative reputation as a political schemer, a "sly fox", a "magician" with all the pejorative connotations of those words. In reality, he was the first real politician in the 2019 sense of the word. I'm not left with the sense that he was a bad person; in fact, his family loved him very much and many Jackson supporters stuck by him. He was just really good at his job, created entirely by him.
One could read the shorter American Presidents series if you are on the whole "bio of each President" kick. However, I think this volume (which doesn't really feel like its 432 pps even though it gets into really serious political detail) is much more worth it. MVB's life was far more important than his Presidency, and here one can see why with his generational command of the American political system. How did things get done and not get done in Washington from @1820-1844? The answer is here, including important implications for the Civil War as well as the economic development of America, particularly in the area of banks and tariffs.
June 11, 2017
Martin Van Buren, American President from 1836-1840, and not one of America's most stellar leaders. A friend saw me reading the book and asked what it was. When I responded that it was about MVB, he honestly did not even know who he was, though whether that was a reflection on MVB's lack of charisma or my friend's lack of knowledge is hard to say. MVB was truly the consumate politican, "the magician", not all to unsimilar to "the man behind the curtain" in the Wizard of Oz. He would straddle issues so as not to offend and manipulate circumstances to achieve his own ends, laying any blame on some else or garnering all of the credit. He did not actually make an ideologic stand on an issue until his third presidential comeback bid in 1848!
MVB truly believed that a party system was essential to democracy, and worked hard to develop a party machinery, demanding an almost a ruthless loyalty to the party and using a spoils system as reward. He created a liaison between the North and South powerhouses of New York and Virginia about the time when the slavery issue was beginning to fray the Union fabric. He successfully aided Andrew Jackson to adjust to the changing landscape of the American political climate. He then maneuvered his way into the presidency by his political skills and, once attaining the prize, seems to have lost his magic touch. Would the economic panic of the late 1830's been less devastating had a more forward thinking leader, rather than a backward focused chameleon, been at the helm? Does the man make the times or do the times make the man?
Donald B. Cole's narrative was, at times, particularly dry reading. He presented great detail on the polical maneuverings of MVB that at times felt like wading through molasses, though one could argue that it was more a matter of Van Buren himself than the author. Cole's book is one of the two most recommended biographers of MVB. Had I known that the conclusion gave such a succinct overview of MVB's life, I would have read that and called it a day.
MVB truly believed that a party system was essential to democracy, and worked hard to develop a party machinery, demanding an almost a ruthless loyalty to the party and using a spoils system as reward. He created a liaison between the North and South powerhouses of New York and Virginia about the time when the slavery issue was beginning to fray the Union fabric. He successfully aided Andrew Jackson to adjust to the changing landscape of the American political climate. He then maneuvered his way into the presidency by his political skills and, once attaining the prize, seems to have lost his magic touch. Would the economic panic of the late 1830's been less devastating had a more forward thinking leader, rather than a backward focused chameleon, been at the helm? Does the man make the times or do the times make the man?
Donald B. Cole's narrative was, at times, particularly dry reading. He presented great detail on the polical maneuverings of MVB that at times felt like wading through molasses, though one could argue that it was more a matter of Van Buren himself than the author. Cole's book is one of the two most recommended biographers of MVB. Had I known that the conclusion gave such a succinct overview of MVB's life, I would have read that and called it a day.
April 21, 2022
Details how Van Buren recreated the party system after it had almost died.
Well, he didn't do it alone, but he was the head of the team of "Bucktails" who became the "Albany Regency" in New York and later transferred their ideas to the national scene. At the same time or slightly later there were similar movements in Virginia -- the Richmond Junto -- as well as New Hampshire and Tennessee.
As to why, Van Buren and his friends were not colossal figures like an Alexander Hamilton or a Dewitt Clinton who could command personal followings from either party. (Add James Monroe as part of that group.) Those kinds of figures were okay at first, but they could become too mercurial. They had no fixed principles necessarily, just a big following who would go wherever he wished to lead them. It was personal or factional politics. This left guys like Van Buren out, but it was also objectionable because the movement didn't stand for anything bedrock principles in the way that a party would. And a party would long outlive any particular candidate, meaning that if you lost that candidate, you didn't lose political control.
How he did it was by finding his team of talented, like-minded individuals, establishing good, frequent and open communications among the team, buying a newspaper that disseminated the group's views, being friendly and open to anyone who wanted to join the movement, setting up a patronage system whereby those friendly to the movement got government jobs and finally by stressing loyalty to party.
Unlike earlier, by the antebellum period there is a great deal more information available in the form of letters, newspapers, memoirs and so on. The author does a great job mastering this material and limiting it to the essentials, finding that delicate line between interest and exhaustion.
Van Buren seems to have mostly been a party first man, not particularly interested in policies and principles, but infinitely so in what could be accomplished in persuasion. He read people well, made strong alliances and tried to restrain people from their worst tendencies and outrages, for example, Jackson. I wouldn't call him a big picture thinker.
When a great crisis - The Panic of 1837 - arrived, he put his presidency first, his party second and the actual issue only third.
His largest idea was simply a regeneration of an old one : to recreate the North-South alliance that Jefferson, Madison and Burr had made and avoid the amalgamation of all parties into one, as had been practiced by Monroe and Quincy Adams. As such, he was a great gray eminence, but as the leader himself, which he definitely wanted, somewhat lacking. He did set the stage for Democratic party dominance for decades as well as the prevalence of the "doughface" types like Fillmore, Pierce and Buchanan.
As far as philosophy went, he didn't have one, but merely borrowed the Jeffersonian one, hanging on to it long after its relevance had passed.
Well, he didn't do it alone, but he was the head of the team of "Bucktails" who became the "Albany Regency" in New York and later transferred their ideas to the national scene. At the same time or slightly later there were similar movements in Virginia -- the Richmond Junto -- as well as New Hampshire and Tennessee.
As to why, Van Buren and his friends were not colossal figures like an Alexander Hamilton or a Dewitt Clinton who could command personal followings from either party. (Add James Monroe as part of that group.) Those kinds of figures were okay at first, but they could become too mercurial. They had no fixed principles necessarily, just a big following who would go wherever he wished to lead them. It was personal or factional politics. This left guys like Van Buren out, but it was also objectionable because the movement didn't stand for anything bedrock principles in the way that a party would. And a party would long outlive any particular candidate, meaning that if you lost that candidate, you didn't lose political control.
How he did it was by finding his team of talented, like-minded individuals, establishing good, frequent and open communications among the team, buying a newspaper that disseminated the group's views, being friendly and open to anyone who wanted to join the movement, setting up a patronage system whereby those friendly to the movement got government jobs and finally by stressing loyalty to party.
Unlike earlier, by the antebellum period there is a great deal more information available in the form of letters, newspapers, memoirs and so on. The author does a great job mastering this material and limiting it to the essentials, finding that delicate line between interest and exhaustion.
Van Buren seems to have mostly been a party first man, not particularly interested in policies and principles, but infinitely so in what could be accomplished in persuasion. He read people well, made strong alliances and tried to restrain people from their worst tendencies and outrages, for example, Jackson. I wouldn't call him a big picture thinker.
When a great crisis - The Panic of 1837 - arrived, he put his presidency first, his party second and the actual issue only third.
His largest idea was simply a regeneration of an old one : to recreate the North-South alliance that Jefferson, Madison and Burr had made and avoid the amalgamation of all parties into one, as had been practiced by Monroe and Quincy Adams. As such, he was a great gray eminence, but as the leader himself, which he definitely wanted, somewhat lacking. He did set the stage for Democratic party dominance for decades as well as the prevalence of the "doughface" types like Fillmore, Pierce and Buchanan.
As far as philosophy went, he didn't have one, but merely borrowed the Jeffersonian one, hanging on to it long after its relevance had passed.
September 25, 2021
Martin Van Buren was the first in a string of mostly unremarkable presidents between Andrew Jackson and Abraham Lincoln that nobody really cares about, so unlike the previous presidents I've read about, pickings were slim for a thorough biography of the POTUS whose chief claim to fame may be Most Impressive Sideburns.
Donald Cole's book is not meant for the casual reader of presidential biographies. This is a scholarly, heavily-footnoted work for serious historians, and you'd have to be a pretty serious grind to read this just because you're on a mission to read a biography of every American president.
So I read it.
And it was... kind of interesting.
Donald Cole's area of research was Jacksonian democracy, and he writes about Van Buren largely in that context — as the heir to Andrew Jackson and his party. Martin Van Buren and the American Political System is more of a political history than a biography, so while President Sideburns himself was not exactly the most fascinating man personally (Cole repeatedly points out that Van Buren was not charismatic or a great speaker), his rise, and his impact on American politics, is not uninteresting or insignificant.
A Professional Politician
First of all, Van Buren was probably the first POTUS who was genuinely a career politician. He started out as a party boss in New York, and from early on he was deliberately and methodically planning his political career. He considered this to be a perfectly legitimate profession and would have been puzzled by people who denigrate "professional politicians."
Secondly, he was the first real party president. No, I don't mean the fun kind. Unlike his predecessors, he didn't just reluctantly ally himself with a political party — he embraced party politics and openly advocated for a party system. He considered political parties not just inevitable, but necessary and useful, and actively opposed those who wanted to bring back the "Era of Good Feelings" from the Monroe era, in which party politics temporarily faded away. Parties, to him, were how professional politicians should organize and consolidate power, which was what professional politicians should be doing.
If this sounds all very calculating and mechanical and well, political, that was Van Buren. He lived and breathed politics and he was good at it.
Kissing Cousins from Kinderhook
Van Buren's origins were fairly humble; his father was an innkeeper in Kinderhook, New York, the son of a Dutch immigrant. The Van Burens weren't poor, but they certainly weren't wealthy. Almost all other presidents have had one or more of: college education, a military career, or a wealthy family. Van Buren had none of those.
Van Buren's wife, Hannah, was a distant cousin and childhood sweetheart who was also from Kinderhook. They had four sons before Hannah died of tuberculosis at the age of 35. We know almost nothing else about her. Van Buren almost never spoke of her again; in his own autobiography, in which he goes on about every other last detail of his life and political career, he never even mentions her! Van Buren was known to be flirtatious and enjoyed the company of beautiful women, but he never remarried, and if he ever had a mistress, it's not recorded and he must have kept any relationships he had very discreet.
Raising four young sons by himself would have been pretty difficult for a single father, even one of means. Van Buren evidently put them in the care of nannies, which probably didn't do a lot for his relationships with them.
Probably the most personally scandalous rumor that ever afflicted him was the one that Aaron Burr was actually his father. They were physically similar and Aaron Burr did actually frequent Van Buren's father's tavern before he was born, so it was theoretically possible, but there was no other evidence for this.
"The Little Magician" of the Regency
Van Buren helped create the Albany Regency, which controlled New York state politics for decades. This was an era of unabashed spoils systems: you supported a candidate and expected to get handed lucrative appointments and government contracts as a reward. Andrew Jackson would become infamous for this during his presidency, but he didn't invent the system.
Van Buren gamed the system like a pro. He was a pro. He gained the moniker "The Little Magician" for the way he carefully controlled his party, neutralized rivals, and engineered elections throughout his career.
The era is full of interesting parties. Van Buren was originally a Democratic-Republican, and considered himself a Jeffersonian, and later a Jacksonian. The Democratic-Republicans would eventually become the modern Democrats, though Van Buren would end his political career as a candidate for the Free Soil party. Cole goes into great and exhaustive detail about political infighting and caucuses and factions, with names like the Loco-Focos, the Bucktails, the Hunkers, and the Barnburners. (Most of these were essentially single-issue parties with names that came from some obscure reference to their origins - the "Loco-Focos" for example, were named after a kind of match that they supposedly used to light candles after their rivals in Tammany Hall turned off the gas to try to prevent them from meeting.)
All of these names are historical footnotes now, as are the many, many names of Van Buren's friends, allies, and rivals. If the minutiae of 19th century New York politics (eventually becoming regional and then national politics) doesn't excite you, then this book will really be a slog, but like Robert Caro's exhaustive biography of Lyndon Johnson, you can see the genius that makes some men great politicians, not because they are particularly brilliant, or charismatic, or visionary, but just because they are really, really good at politics. Van Buren was that kind of man.
"The Sly Fox"
Van Buren's opponents took to referring to him as a "sly fox." It wasn't intended as a compliment, and Van Buren didn't take it as one. While he was a very even tempered man who took criticism and insults throughout his life with equanimity, he was known to resent being depicted as some sort of scheming scoundrel. He was a schemer, and to his opponents he might have seemed a scoundrel, but Van Buren was actually principled and relatively uncorrupt... as far as playing as playing the game by the rules went. Whether the game itself was corrupt was not a question that ever troubled him.
This is most evident in his position on slavery, which can charitably be described as "equivocal" and less charitably as "mealy-mouthed." Van Buren was a classic centrist. He triangulated, compromised, and never took a position on anything without calculating its political advantageousness. Van Buren didn't keep slaves (though he did own some earlier in his life), but he was anti-abolitionist and one of the Southerners' best friends in the North. Not because he was particularly "pro-slavery," but because the South was an important part of his voting block. Like so many politicians of the era, he'd occasionally say things that suggested he found slavery kinda sorta unpleasant and regrettable, and he took a typically equivocal stand about allowing free blacks to vote, and later in life he would take a (slightly) firmer stance against slavery, but as Cole points out, despite the efforts of some Van Buren supporters to portray him as anti-slavery all along, the burden of proof is on them to show he ever really opposed it. In the famous Amistad case (where former President John Quincy Adams would represent a ship full of captured Africans who had freed themselves and killed their captors), Van Buren issued an executive order to turn the slaves over, to win the favor of Southern slaveholders. (Adams would win the case in the Supreme Court.)
His tactical style throughout his career was to seek the moderate middle that would placate, or at least not overly antagonize, either side. While he did have some convictions on political matters (he continued to claim he was an heir to Jefferson, in favor of states rights and limited government), he never let his convictions get in the way of a good compromise that would get him what he wanted.
Jacksonian Democracy
After reading a biography of the violent and confrontational Andrew Jackson, it seemed strange to me that a mild, urbane New Yorker would become one of Jackson's closest confidantes. But Van Buren was a quiet, diplomatic fixer who despite lacking Jackson's charisma and bluster, agreed with him on most points politically. Van Buren negotiated everything from bank crises to the Peggy Eaton affair with his usual equivocal diplomacy that avoided committing himself too much. He even negotiated an exit from Jackson's cabinet when he perceived that his position as Secretary of State was harming both himself as Jackson. Jackson, famously touchy about disloyalty, not only acquiesced to Van Buren's plan, but appointed him Foreign Minister to Britain.
Ironically, it was John C. Calhoun, Jackson's former Vice President whom Jackson had just "fired," who probably put Van Buren on the path to the presidency. In a bit of partisan spite, Calhoun had the Senate reject Van Buren's appointment. Van Buren, already enjoying London high society, received word that his appointment had been withdrawn and that he had to return to the US.
It was embarrassing for Van Buren, but it also allowed him to run on the Jackson ticket as Vice President. Which led to him becoming Jackson's successor as President.
The Rise of Modern Presidential Politics
One of Cole's themes in writing about Van Buren is Van Buren's introduction of modern party politics to the American political system. He ran on an explicitly party platform, "downplaying the nominee and stressing the party," as Cole puts it.
While Van Buren was attacked for being an "effeminate fop," indicating that the modern culture war is not very modern at all, his opponents in the Whig Party were hopelessly divided. Van Buren won the election of 1836 against a field of four rival candidates.
Initially, he signaled that he would continue to walk the path of Jacksonian Democracy, opposition to abolition and national banks, and generally defending the rights of the South. Over time, Van Buren would begin to distance himself somewhat from the Old Hero, but he masterfully kept Jackson on his side even when he went against his former mentor and President.
Van Buren had been a magician, a fox, and a political mastermind for his entire career. But as President, he seemed to lose most of his art. His presidency was mostly unremarkable, but in the late 1830s, the US suffered a severe economic panic (caused largely by English banks being forced to call in notes due to England's own economic woes), and Van Buren entered the election of 1840 with the economy in full depression.
The Log Cabin Campaign
Cole once again analyzes the election of 1840 in great detail, crunching the delegate counts and electoral college votes and what Van Buren needed to swing this state or that, but the really interesting part of it was that it was the first election with what we'd recognize as modern political campaigning.
Van Buren's opponent was William Henry Harrison, whose chief claim to fame was being the hero of the Battle of Tippecanoe. A mythology built around Harrison that he had personally killed Tecumseh (almost certainly untrue), that he was a humble man "born in a log cabin" (perhaps technically true, if you call his wealthy father's plantation house a "log cabin"), a true earthy, common man, the kind of president you'd like to have a beer with. As opposed to Martin Van Buren, a "used up man," a "cunning magician," a "cool, calculating, intriguing politician." The Whigs embraced this imagery, and even rolled logs along the campaign trail and built log cabins as publicity stunts. They created slogans like "Tippecanoe and Tyler Too!" and created campaign songs. Notably, the Whigs talked very little about actual campaign issues.
All of this undoubtedly helped push Harrison to victory, but really, it was the economy, stupid. Like more than one future president, Van Buren would become a one-term president because of economic woes which were probably largely out of his control.
Free Soiler
Having been defeated, Van Buren retired to his New York mansion, and claimed he was done with politics, but of course, a career politician like him could never really be done with politics.
He tried to exert influence over the Tyler and Polk administrations, but had a severe falling out with Polk, who essentially turned on the old Albany Regency in favor of his own clique. As mentioned above, Van Buren managed to find a conscience after he no longer had much power, and turned on the South and spoke out against slavery. In 1848, he sought the Democratic party nomination, lost, and ran instead on the Free Soil ticket. (His running mate was Charles Francis Adams, son of John Quincy Adams, who had long been one of Van Buren's political foes.)
Summary
In the 20th century, Van Buren was largely a forgotten figure, though he did have some fans who saw him as the last true Jeffersonian. (One of these was the notoriously anti-Semitic Ezra Pound, who believed Van Buren's campaign for an independent treasury was a defense against Jewish banking interests. He wrote an epic poem Cantos with tributes to Jefferson and Van Buren.)
Today, there are probably few people who could describe anything about President Van Buren. He wasn't the most boring or unsuccessful president, but he will make no one's top 10 list.
Donald Cole's writing is clear and describes a lot of very unexciting topics in a way that makes it clear why they were significant. He was an expert on Martin Van Buren and Andrew Jackson, and boy does he show you his research. Should you read this book? Probably not, unless you're researching the era or you're a total presidential history nerd. But as with many other biographies, it put the era in context and explains how a lot of things came to be that are still relevant today. I am glad I read this book, though it does not make me look forward to grinding through similarly dry biographies of the many other mediocre has-been presidents in American history.
Donald Cole's book is not meant for the casual reader of presidential biographies. This is a scholarly, heavily-footnoted work for serious historians, and you'd have to be a pretty serious grind to read this just because you're on a mission to read a biography of every American president.
So I read it.
And it was... kind of interesting.
Donald Cole's area of research was Jacksonian democracy, and he writes about Van Buren largely in that context — as the heir to Andrew Jackson and his party. Martin Van Buren and the American Political System is more of a political history than a biography, so while President Sideburns himself was not exactly the most fascinating man personally (Cole repeatedly points out that Van Buren was not charismatic or a great speaker), his rise, and his impact on American politics, is not uninteresting or insignificant.
A Professional Politician
First of all, Van Buren was probably the first POTUS who was genuinely a career politician. He started out as a party boss in New York, and from early on he was deliberately and methodically planning his political career. He considered this to be a perfectly legitimate profession and would have been puzzled by people who denigrate "professional politicians."
Secondly, he was the first real party president. No, I don't mean the fun kind. Unlike his predecessors, he didn't just reluctantly ally himself with a political party — he embraced party politics and openly advocated for a party system. He considered political parties not just inevitable, but necessary and useful, and actively opposed those who wanted to bring back the "Era of Good Feelings" from the Monroe era, in which party politics temporarily faded away. Parties, to him, were how professional politicians should organize and consolidate power, which was what professional politicians should be doing.
If this sounds all very calculating and mechanical and well, political, that was Van Buren. He lived and breathed politics and he was good at it.
Kissing Cousins from Kinderhook
Van Buren's origins were fairly humble; his father was an innkeeper in Kinderhook, New York, the son of a Dutch immigrant. The Van Burens weren't poor, but they certainly weren't wealthy. Almost all other presidents have had one or more of: college education, a military career, or a wealthy family. Van Buren had none of those.
Van Buren's wife, Hannah, was a distant cousin and childhood sweetheart who was also from Kinderhook. They had four sons before Hannah died of tuberculosis at the age of 35. We know almost nothing else about her. Van Buren almost never spoke of her again; in his own autobiography, in which he goes on about every other last detail of his life and political career, he never even mentions her! Van Buren was known to be flirtatious and enjoyed the company of beautiful women, but he never remarried, and if he ever had a mistress, it's not recorded and he must have kept any relationships he had very discreet.
Raising four young sons by himself would have been pretty difficult for a single father, even one of means. Van Buren evidently put them in the care of nannies, which probably didn't do a lot for his relationships with them.
Probably the most personally scandalous rumor that ever afflicted him was the one that Aaron Burr was actually his father. They were physically similar and Aaron Burr did actually frequent Van Buren's father's tavern before he was born, so it was theoretically possible, but there was no other evidence for this.
"The Little Magician" of the Regency
The Regency revolutionized American politics, not only by creating a new type of political machine, but also by popularizing a new theory of political parties.
Van Buren helped create the Albany Regency, which controlled New York state politics for decades. This was an era of unabashed spoils systems: you supported a candidate and expected to get handed lucrative appointments and government contracts as a reward. Andrew Jackson would become infamous for this during his presidency, but he didn't invent the system.
Van Buren gamed the system like a pro. He was a pro. He gained the moniker "The Little Magician" for the way he carefully controlled his party, neutralized rivals, and engineered elections throughout his career.
"There is such a thing in politics as killing a man too dead."
— Martin Van Buren, about one of the Regency's few failures, when trying to get rid of a rival backfired on them
The era is full of interesting parties. Van Buren was originally a Democratic-Republican, and considered himself a Jeffersonian, and later a Jacksonian. The Democratic-Republicans would eventually become the modern Democrats, though Van Buren would end his political career as a candidate for the Free Soil party. Cole goes into great and exhaustive detail about political infighting and caucuses and factions, with names like the Loco-Focos, the Bucktails, the Hunkers, and the Barnburners. (Most of these were essentially single-issue parties with names that came from some obscure reference to their origins - the "Loco-Focos" for example, were named after a kind of match that they supposedly used to light candles after their rivals in Tammany Hall turned off the gas to try to prevent them from meeting.)
All of these names are historical footnotes now, as are the many, many names of Van Buren's friends, allies, and rivals. If the minutiae of 19th century New York politics (eventually becoming regional and then national politics) doesn't excite you, then this book will really be a slog, but like Robert Caro's exhaustive biography of Lyndon Johnson, you can see the genius that makes some men great politicians, not because they are particularly brilliant, or charismatic, or visionary, but just because they are really, really good at politics. Van Buren was that kind of man.
"The Sly Fox"
According to legend, Van Buren managed to avoid committing himself in the speech. In one popular tale a wool buyer told Benjamin Knower that it was a "very able speech," but neither Knower nor the buyer could decide on which side of the tariff question it came down. Van Buren himself recalled that "directness on all points had not been [the] most prominent feature" of the address.
Van Buren's opponents took to referring to him as a "sly fox." It wasn't intended as a compliment, and Van Buren didn't take it as one. While he was a very even tempered man who took criticism and insults throughout his life with equanimity, he was known to resent being depicted as some sort of scheming scoundrel. He was a schemer, and to his opponents he might have seemed a scoundrel, but Van Buren was actually principled and relatively uncorrupt... as far as playing as playing the game by the rules went. Whether the game itself was corrupt was not a question that ever troubled him.
This is most evident in his position on slavery, which can charitably be described as "equivocal" and less charitably as "mealy-mouthed." Van Buren was a classic centrist. He triangulated, compromised, and never took a position on anything without calculating its political advantageousness. Van Buren didn't keep slaves (though he did own some earlier in his life), but he was anti-abolitionist and one of the Southerners' best friends in the North. Not because he was particularly "pro-slavery," but because the South was an important part of his voting block. Like so many politicians of the era, he'd occasionally say things that suggested he found slavery kinda sorta unpleasant and regrettable, and he took a typically equivocal stand about allowing free blacks to vote, and later in life he would take a (slightly) firmer stance against slavery, but as Cole points out, despite the efforts of some Van Buren supporters to portray him as anti-slavery all along, the burden of proof is on them to show he ever really opposed it. In the famous Amistad case (where former President John Quincy Adams would represent a ship full of captured Africans who had freed themselves and killed their captors), Van Buren issued an executive order to turn the slaves over, to win the favor of Southern slaveholders. (Adams would win the case in the Supreme Court.)
His tactical style throughout his career was to seek the moderate middle that would placate, or at least not overly antagonize, either side. While he did have some convictions on political matters (he continued to claim he was an heir to Jefferson, in favor of states rights and limited government), he never let his convictions get in the way of a good compromise that would get him what he wanted.
Jacksonian Democracy
After reading a biography of the violent and confrontational Andrew Jackson, it seemed strange to me that a mild, urbane New Yorker would become one of Jackson's closest confidantes. But Van Buren was a quiet, diplomatic fixer who despite lacking Jackson's charisma and bluster, agreed with him on most points politically. Van Buren negotiated everything from bank crises to the Peggy Eaton affair with his usual equivocal diplomacy that avoided committing himself too much. He even negotiated an exit from Jackson's cabinet when he perceived that his position as Secretary of State was harming both himself as Jackson. Jackson, famously touchy about disloyalty, not only acquiesced to Van Buren's plan, but appointed him Foreign Minister to Britain.
Ironically, it was John C. Calhoun, Jackson's former Vice President whom Jackson had just "fired," who probably put Van Buren on the path to the presidency. In a bit of partisan spite, Calhoun had the Senate reject Van Buren's appointment. Van Buren, already enjoying London high society, received word that his appointment had been withdrawn and that he had to return to the US.
It was embarrassing for Van Buren, but it also allowed him to run on the Jackson ticket as Vice President. Which led to him becoming Jackson's successor as President.
The Rise of Modern Presidential Politics
Van Buren's critics contributed to the formation of an American stereotype when they condemned him as "only a politician." Crockett even claimed that Van Buren was not content merely to become a politician, but had "pushed it as a trade." According to the critics Van Buren was a "third rate man," a "master hand at managin things, and gittin all his folks into office," while his friends in the Regency were "a knot of cat-paced, sly-faced, cringing, artful, busy fellows." One cartoon entitled "Going the Whole Hog," showed officeholders under Van Buren as a litter of pigs.
One of Cole's themes in writing about Van Buren is Van Buren's introduction of modern party politics to the American political system. He ran on an explicitly party platform, "downplaying the nominee and stressing the party," as Cole puts it.
While Van Buren was attacked for being an "effeminate fop," indicating that the modern culture war is not very modern at all, his opponents in the Whig Party were hopelessly divided. Van Buren won the election of 1836 against a field of four rival candidates.
Initially, he signaled that he would continue to walk the path of Jacksonian Democracy, opposition to abolition and national banks, and generally defending the rights of the South. Over time, Van Buren would begin to distance himself somewhat from the Old Hero, but he masterfully kept Jackson on his side even when he went against his former mentor and President.
Van Buren had been a magician, a fox, and a political mastermind for his entire career. But as President, he seemed to lose most of his art. His presidency was mostly unremarkable, but in the late 1830s, the US suffered a severe economic panic (caused largely by English banks being forced to call in notes due to England's own economic woes), and Van Buren entered the election of 1840 with the economy in full depression.
The Log Cabin Campaign
Cole once again analyzes the election of 1840 in great detail, crunching the delegate counts and electoral college votes and what Van Buren needed to swing this state or that, but the really interesting part of it was that it was the first election with what we'd recognize as modern political campaigning.
Van Buren's opponent was William Henry Harrison, whose chief claim to fame was being the hero of the Battle of Tippecanoe. A mythology built around Harrison that he had personally killed Tecumseh (almost certainly untrue), that he was a humble man "born in a log cabin" (perhaps technically true, if you call his wealthy father's plantation house a "log cabin"), a true earthy, common man, the kind of president you'd like to have a beer with. As opposed to Martin Van Buren, a "used up man," a "cunning magician," a "cool, calculating, intriguing politician." The Whigs embraced this imagery, and even rolled logs along the campaign trail and built log cabins as publicity stunts. They created slogans like "Tippecanoe and Tyler Too!" and created campaign songs. Notably, the Whigs talked very little about actual campaign issues.
With Harrison established in the public mind as a rugged frontiersman living in rural simplicity in a log cabin, it was easy to portray Van Buren as an effete Easterner, living in urban elegance in a mansion. While Harrison drank hard cider from an earthenware mug, Van Buren supposedly drank French wine from a silver goblet.
All of this undoubtedly helped push Harrison to victory, but really, it was the economy, stupid. Like more than one future president, Van Buren would become a one-term president because of economic woes which were probably largely out of his control.
Free Soiler
Having been defeated, Van Buren retired to his New York mansion, and claimed he was done with politics, but of course, a career politician like him could never really be done with politics.
He tried to exert influence over the Tyler and Polk administrations, but had a severe falling out with Polk, who essentially turned on the old Albany Regency in favor of his own clique. As mentioned above, Van Buren managed to find a conscience after he no longer had much power, and turned on the South and spoke out against slavery. In 1848, he sought the Democratic party nomination, lost, and ran instead on the Free Soil ticket. (His running mate was Charles Francis Adams, son of John Quincy Adams, who had long been one of Van Buren's political foes.)
Summary
In the 20th century, Van Buren was largely a forgotten figure, though he did have some fans who saw him as the last true Jeffersonian. (One of these was the notoriously anti-Semitic Ezra Pound, who believed Van Buren's campaign for an independent treasury was a defense against Jewish banking interests. He wrote an epic poem Cantos with tributes to Jefferson and Van Buren.)
Today, there are probably few people who could describe anything about President Van Buren. He wasn't the most boring or unsuccessful president, but he will make no one's top 10 list.
Donald Cole's writing is clear and describes a lot of very unexciting topics in a way that makes it clear why they were significant. He was an expert on Martin Van Buren and Andrew Jackson, and boy does he show you his research. Should you read this book? Probably not, unless you're researching the era or you're a total presidential history nerd. But as with many other biographies, it put the era in context and explains how a lot of things came to be that are still relevant today. I am glad I read this book, though it does not make me look forward to grinding through similarly dry biographies of the many other mediocre has-been presidents in American history.
April 22, 2011
As much as this biography was written in a very academic format there were times when I just couldn't put it down (strange right)? Maybe it was the fact that going into this book I only knew two things about Martin Van Buren, the first being his name, and the second was that he was the 8th president of the US. Fairly obvious but I do believe that is what 99% of the population know about Van Buren as well.
Sure Van Buren wasn't a memorable president. He didn't have the stature of Washington, the speaking ability of John Adams, he wasn't as debonaire as Jefferson, and he certainly didn't have the temper or hot-headedness of Jackson, but he did posess an ability to "puppet master" the best of them and earned himself the nickname of "Little Magician".
Van Buren was a master at looking at an issue without a strong opinion one way or the other and then crafting his stance on the issue in a way to use it to his ability to succeed. Although he straddled the fence on many important issues at the time, he was a firm believer in a two-party system and fought for the same throughout his political career.
In my opinion Van Buren was the first president to take office that was a true politician and was able to manipulate the system and the public. He is the first president that I have read about who reminds me of the politicians of today.
Sure Van Buren wasn't a memorable president. He didn't have the stature of Washington, the speaking ability of John Adams, he wasn't as debonaire as Jefferson, and he certainly didn't have the temper or hot-headedness of Jackson, but he did posess an ability to "puppet master" the best of them and earned himself the nickname of "Little Magician".
Van Buren was a master at looking at an issue without a strong opinion one way or the other and then crafting his stance on the issue in a way to use it to his ability to succeed. Although he straddled the fence on many important issues at the time, he was a firm believer in a two-party system and fought for the same throughout his political career.
In my opinion Van Buren was the first president to take office that was a true politician and was able to manipulate the system and the public. He is the first president that I have read about who reminds me of the politicians of today.
May 27, 2017
A political biography of Martin Van Buren, the eighth president of the United States. I'm in the minority opinion here, but I actually enjoyed this book. It is a bit dry at times and some complain that it is too academic, but personally, I appreciated the fact that the author had done thorough research on his subject.
Author Donald Cole doesn't do a great job in letting readers get to know who Van Buren was as a man or what his family was like. Where Cole shines is his insight into the politics of the era and the political motivations of Van Buren. Frankly, Van Buren appears to be a pretty terrible person! He seems to be the first true politician president. As far as I can tell, Van Buren basically had no principles but was very good at adopting whatever positions could help him get ahead politically at the moment. This path eventually led to his alliance with Andrew Jackson and Van Buren's own presidency as Jackson's successor. It is likely that Cole struggled in presenting Van Buren as a person because Van Buren was so layered and changed so often that he was very hard to define. In the end, Van Buren's legacy became not his achievements, but the means he used to accomplish them. While not a great biography in the usual sense, this book will certainly help any reader understand the political career of Martin Van Buren.
Author Donald Cole doesn't do a great job in letting readers get to know who Van Buren was as a man or what his family was like. Where Cole shines is his insight into the politics of the era and the political motivations of Van Buren. Frankly, Van Buren appears to be a pretty terrible person! He seems to be the first true politician president. As far as I can tell, Van Buren basically had no principles but was very good at adopting whatever positions could help him get ahead politically at the moment. This path eventually led to his alliance with Andrew Jackson and Van Buren's own presidency as Jackson's successor. It is likely that Cole struggled in presenting Van Buren as a person because Van Buren was so layered and changed so often that he was very hard to define. In the end, Van Buren's legacy became not his achievements, but the means he used to accomplish them. While not a great biography in the usual sense, this book will certainly help any reader understand the political career of Martin Van Buren.
March 31, 2024
I always learn something interesting in reading these biographies, even if I find the biographies themselves lacking. In the case of this book, a picture of Van Buren emerges as the first of the nondescript post-founders generation of politicians. Cole focuses on Van Buren’s legacy as the architect of the political party machine system that we still mostly have today. But so very little do we learn about his personal life or even the state of the country during his time. It really is a story of party politics. I guess it would be impossible to write a biography that is under 1000 pages if one were to include context and anecdote into a narrative that covers more than just one or two main themes; but I do regret not having more of this information. The book itself is not poorly written. And it is meticulously sourced with reference to a wide range of primary materials. So it serves in that regard. Now I launch into the period of U.S. politics that finds a lack of charisma and intellectualism in presidential leaders. Who ever remembers anything about William Henry Harrison, John Tyler, James K. Polk, etc.? There is a reason for that. And Van Buren is the first in this succession of Presidents. But, as in this case, I’m sure I’ll learn something from keeping on with this chronological presidential biography project. Van Buren done. Onward!
August 9, 2022
3,5 stars - English Ebook
Review follows later.
Review follows later.
March 14, 2023
Too focused on NY politics
February 1, 2015
A mainly academic, dry study not so much concerning Martin Van Buren's life per se, but his life in a political context. I guess that is the main reason that I did not care for this book: it is lifeless. Cole keeps Van Buren locked within the viewpoint of American politics. There just is not a lot here on Van Buren's personal life. Cole drops a tidbit here and there, but mainly he wants to explain Van Buren's role and actions as it relates to party politics throughout the first half of the 19th century.
Van Buren's heritage and adolescence are dispatched with almost immediately, and before you know it, you are knee-deep in New York State politics in the 1800s. It actually is hard to keep track of what all Van Buren was doing during this time, as Cole rapidly goes from issue to the next, with very few chapter breaks in between. Despite this, he is able to adequately describe some of the issues that were going on then: slavery, creation of the Erie Canal, etc... Still, at one point Cole states that Van Buren was Attorney General (I am assuming of his local county) and I was left wondering "When did this happen?"
For me, the most tedious part of the book was the (long) chapter on the 1824 election. Van Buren's name was on no ballot anywhere, yet Cole goes on and on about his maneuverings in relation to the deadlock between Jackson, Adams, and Clay. This was bogged down in way too much detail. Did Van Buren affect the election? Cole makes a good case for it, but the resulting disputes and it being thrown into the House of Representatives was much, much more than just Van Buren trying to control the New York delegation (think the Adams/Clay "corrupt bargain").
Cole devotes a lot of attention to Van Buren's relationship with Andrew Jackson, which is good. But he says little of Van Buren's relations with the other Cabinet members. I do almost wonder if, at times, Cole makes Van Buren seem more influential than he in fact was. He was cagey and often would not answer Jackson directly on certain matters (like the battle with Nicholas Biddle over the renewal of the charter of the Bank of the United States). Cole makes a good case for Van Buren being very "slippery" in his political dealings. I believe that, but more anecdotes would have been nice.
Van Buren's presidency is treated topically, with the vast majority of this going towards Van Buren's repeated attempts to get an independent treasury bill passed. I feel somewhat more enlightened now about his presidency, but only because I knew almost nothing about it going into this book. Ultimately, Van Buren could not crawl out of the hole dug by the Panic of 1837. Also, he tried to straddle the fence on many issues: slavery, internal improvements, issues with Great Britain, the bank war. That makes me think of many of today's less-than-candid politicians.
The chapter that covers his first retirement years and his attempt to be re-nominated in 1844 is actually the best one as Cole brings Van Buren to life a little bit - talking in fits and spurts about his family life and his relations with Polk and other political heavyweights, including his visit to Illinois and a chance meeting with a young Abraham Lincoln. The final chapter covers Van Buren's presidential run in 1848, and his last years on his estate in New York. I do like that Cole gives adequate focus to Van Buren's post-presidential years. It seems that, frequently, presidential biographers act like they can't wait to finish a book once the person leaves the presidency - as if whatever else he did in his life was an afterthought. But Cole does not do this, and I appreciate that.
I get the sense that Van Buren was an interesting man who led a multi-faceted life: successful lawyer, widowed father at a young age, Senator, Secretary of State, Ambassador to Great Britain, Vice President, President, and then running for President again. But Van Buren's humanity is mostly missing from this politically-dominated work.
Grade: D+
Van Buren's heritage and adolescence are dispatched with almost immediately, and before you know it, you are knee-deep in New York State politics in the 1800s. It actually is hard to keep track of what all Van Buren was doing during this time, as Cole rapidly goes from issue to the next, with very few chapter breaks in between. Despite this, he is able to adequately describe some of the issues that were going on then: slavery, creation of the Erie Canal, etc... Still, at one point Cole states that Van Buren was Attorney General (I am assuming of his local county) and I was left wondering "When did this happen?"
For me, the most tedious part of the book was the (long) chapter on the 1824 election. Van Buren's name was on no ballot anywhere, yet Cole goes on and on about his maneuverings in relation to the deadlock between Jackson, Adams, and Clay. This was bogged down in way too much detail. Did Van Buren affect the election? Cole makes a good case for it, but the resulting disputes and it being thrown into the House of Representatives was much, much more than just Van Buren trying to control the New York delegation (think the Adams/Clay "corrupt bargain").
Cole devotes a lot of attention to Van Buren's relationship with Andrew Jackson, which is good. But he says little of Van Buren's relations with the other Cabinet members. I do almost wonder if, at times, Cole makes Van Buren seem more influential than he in fact was. He was cagey and often would not answer Jackson directly on certain matters (like the battle with Nicholas Biddle over the renewal of the charter of the Bank of the United States). Cole makes a good case for Van Buren being very "slippery" in his political dealings. I believe that, but more anecdotes would have been nice.
Van Buren's presidency is treated topically, with the vast majority of this going towards Van Buren's repeated attempts to get an independent treasury bill passed. I feel somewhat more enlightened now about his presidency, but only because I knew almost nothing about it going into this book. Ultimately, Van Buren could not crawl out of the hole dug by the Panic of 1837. Also, he tried to straddle the fence on many issues: slavery, internal improvements, issues with Great Britain, the bank war. That makes me think of many of today's less-than-candid politicians.
The chapter that covers his first retirement years and his attempt to be re-nominated in 1844 is actually the best one as Cole brings Van Buren to life a little bit - talking in fits and spurts about his family life and his relations with Polk and other political heavyweights, including his visit to Illinois and a chance meeting with a young Abraham Lincoln. The final chapter covers Van Buren's presidential run in 1848, and his last years on his estate in New York. I do like that Cole gives adequate focus to Van Buren's post-presidential years. It seems that, frequently, presidential biographers act like they can't wait to finish a book once the person leaves the presidency - as if whatever else he did in his life was an afterthought. But Cole does not do this, and I appreciate that.
I get the sense that Van Buren was an interesting man who led a multi-faceted life: successful lawyer, widowed father at a young age, Senator, Secretary of State, Ambassador to Great Britain, Vice President, President, and then running for President again. But Van Buren's humanity is mostly missing from this politically-dominated work.
Grade: D+
April 24, 2023
This is a well written book about one of the most boring men to ever become president.
May 14, 2019
Most of us have been asked the old question about which historical figure we’d choose to converse with given the opportunity. I usually resort to one of the usual U.S.-centric suspects like Mark Twain or wander into the American social/political sphere with a response of Martin Luther King Jr.
After finishing Donald B. Cole’s “Martin Van Buren and the American Political System,” I just might have a new, totally unexpected answer to that dinner party question. Would you believe Martin Van Buren? I’m not sure that he’d break into my top five, but I’m pretty sure he’d crack my top ten! Obviously, this seemingly crazy response requires an explanation. Here it is...
Almost nobody (with the possible exception of Ezra Pound... this is a story for another day) ranked/ranks Van Buren as a great President. He usually places in the middle of the pack. But oh, what stories he could tell. It appears that virtually everyone who knew Van Buren, including some pretty fierce enemies, liked him. He enjoyed good food, good wine, and good company. Undoubtedly, sitting down with him over dinner would be enjoyable. But that’s just where things start.
Van Buren isn’t just in the middle of the presidential rankings; he was also in the middle of one of the greatest transitional periods of American History. Born in 1782, he considered himself a Jeffersonian and, in fact, corresponded with and met with Thomas Jefferson. Van Buren died in July 1862 as Robert E. Lee defended Richmond and turned his army northward. “Old Kinderhook’s first encounter with Abraham Lincoln was when “Honest Abe” was only 33 years old and a young upstart Whig politician. Lincoln and Van Buren spent an evening swapping stories in a small town near Springfield, IL. Van Buren said “he had never spent a more agreeable night in his life.”
Van Buren served as Vice President and presided over the U.S. Senate when Daniel Webster, Henry Clay, and John C. Calhoun were Senators. He was Andrew Jackson’s Secretary of State and then his Vice President before serving as Jackson’s hand-picked successor. Van Buren knew Aaron Burr and John Quincy Adams, knew and was admired by Walt Whitman, and was a close friend of Washington Irving.
All of this took place at a time when travel and communications were being revolutionized. Steamboats and railroads replaced horseback during his lifetime. Finally, Van Buren was at the very center of revolutionizing the American political system. I’d guess that you might find him a fascinating dinner companion as well!
Cooper’s book isn’t exactly a page turner. There are lots of details about the bank wars and, as you might guess, a cast of thousands. Van Buren knew everyone, and sometimes you think Cole wants to make sure that nobody is forgotten. Nevertheless, this is one of the better biographies of Old Kinderhook and a must read if you’re trying to get to know the U.S. Presidents
After finishing Donald B. Cole’s “Martin Van Buren and the American Political System,” I just might have a new, totally unexpected answer to that dinner party question. Would you believe Martin Van Buren? I’m not sure that he’d break into my top five, but I’m pretty sure he’d crack my top ten! Obviously, this seemingly crazy response requires an explanation. Here it is...
Almost nobody (with the possible exception of Ezra Pound... this is a story for another day) ranked/ranks Van Buren as a great President. He usually places in the middle of the pack. But oh, what stories he could tell. It appears that virtually everyone who knew Van Buren, including some pretty fierce enemies, liked him. He enjoyed good food, good wine, and good company. Undoubtedly, sitting down with him over dinner would be enjoyable. But that’s just where things start.
Van Buren isn’t just in the middle of the presidential rankings; he was also in the middle of one of the greatest transitional periods of American History. Born in 1782, he considered himself a Jeffersonian and, in fact, corresponded with and met with Thomas Jefferson. Van Buren died in July 1862 as Robert E. Lee defended Richmond and turned his army northward. “Old Kinderhook’s first encounter with Abraham Lincoln was when “Honest Abe” was only 33 years old and a young upstart Whig politician. Lincoln and Van Buren spent an evening swapping stories in a small town near Springfield, IL. Van Buren said “he had never spent a more agreeable night in his life.”
Van Buren served as Vice President and presided over the U.S. Senate when Daniel Webster, Henry Clay, and John C. Calhoun were Senators. He was Andrew Jackson’s Secretary of State and then his Vice President before serving as Jackson’s hand-picked successor. Van Buren knew Aaron Burr and John Quincy Adams, knew and was admired by Walt Whitman, and was a close friend of Washington Irving.
All of this took place at a time when travel and communications were being revolutionized. Steamboats and railroads replaced horseback during his lifetime. Finally, Van Buren was at the very center of revolutionizing the American political system. I’d guess that you might find him a fascinating dinner companion as well!
Cooper’s book isn’t exactly a page turner. There are lots of details about the bank wars and, as you might guess, a cast of thousands. Van Buren knew everyone, and sometimes you think Cole wants to make sure that nobody is forgotten. Nevertheless, this is one of the better biographies of Old Kinderhook and a must read if you’re trying to get to know the U.S. Presidents
April 28, 2023
This is not the best presidential biography I've ever read. There are many reasons for this. One that I find particularly compelling is that the years between Jackson and Lincoln were dominated more by the legislative than the executive branch. People like Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and John C. Calhoun were more responsible for the nation's direction than the president. Because of this, historians don’t seem to be clamoring to write biographies on these pre-Civil War presidents.
With MVB, I find this to be a shame. No, he didn’t have the magnetism of a Jackson or the brilliant international career of a Quincy Adams, but he was fascinating in his own right. When one thinks about it, it’s far more impressive for a Van Buren to become president than a Jackson. Jackson instilled love (and hate), captivated the nation, and left an indelible mark. As for Van Buren, he was such an obscure president that Seinfeld chose to use him as a punch line.
MVB was a classic politician. He rose through the ranks of the Democratic party (of which he was a founding member of), serving as New York’s AG, a senator, governor, minister to Great Britain, Secretary of State, and finally, Andrew Jackson’s Vice President before taking the top office in his own right. He is credited with building the Democratic political machine and reestablishing a two-party system after the chaos of the 1824 presidential election. He was a staunch supporter of Jackson, making him one of many bland politicians who latched onto a more compelling individual and rode that attachment to the presidency.
As opposed to some other forgettable presidents, MVB left a lasting legacy. His work towards entrenching a two-party system and building up the Democratic Party is still seen in our political system.
Even with his diligent work toward helping Jackson secure the presidency, there was no reason to believe Van Buren would become president as late as 1832. John C. Calhoun was Vice President and was seen as Jackson’s heir apparent. And then came the infamous Petticoat affair.
The Petticoat affair centered around Secretary of War John Eaton’s new wife, Peggy. Peggy had been previously married, and there was some dispute regarding when her relationship with Secretary Eaton began. There were claims that before her husband committed suicide, she had already started seeing Secretary Eaton. Additionally, there were rumors regarding her other dalliances. As to the validity of these rumors, I cannot speak to that. Peggy would be far from the first woman smeared as a harlot on dubious grounds.
Due to her scurrilous reputation, the wives of Jackson’s Cabinet decided to ostracize Peggy. They refused to invite Peggy to their social gatherings and wouldn’t speak to her at joint functions. One of the women who led the boycott of the new Mrs. Eaton was Floride Calhoun, the wife of the Vice President and heir apparent.
A bit more relevant background is that Jackson’s wife, Rachel, had been the victim of heinous attacks on her character. She had still been technically married to another man when she and Jackson eloped. They believed her ex-husband had secured a divorce, but he hadn’t. This made their marriage bigamous, and they were forced to remarry after her divorce was finalized. During the contentious election of 1828, Adams’ supporters used this information to launch vicious attacks against Rachel that Jackson blamed for hastening her death.
As you can imagine, Jackson never forgot how these rumors could destroy a person, and when the Petticoat affair broke out, he sided with the Eatons. Calhoun entrenched his position and, in the end, nearly all of Jackson’s Cabinet resigned.
Now, I know this all sounds a bit Mean Girls-y, but it does illustrate how important social politics were (and are) to the fabric of our national political system. This spelled the end of Calhoun’s presidential hopes, transforming him from a national to a regional figure, and likely made him even more hateful toward the North. Calhoun is a crucial figure in the lead-up to the Civil War and, along with Clay, the most important political figure of the nineteenth century to have not been president.
If not for the Petticoat affair, how would the nation have evolved? Would Calhoun have been president? Would he have further entrenched slavery as a part of our national identity? Would this have hastened the Civil War or forestalled it? How many more innocent men and women would have been sold into bondage under a Calhoun presidency?
It’s truly amazing the seemingly minor things on which the nation turns. An inconsequential Secretary of War marries a woman with a reputation, and as a result, one man becomes president, and another becomes the most hateful Senator in US history.
As for Van Buren, he was named Vice President on Jackson’s 1832 presidential ticket and became president in 1836. His presidency was marred by the Panic of 1837, which it has to be said he handled terribly. This panic was another in a long line of arguments about centralized banking, and it doomed his re-election bid.
He likely would’ve still managed the 1844 Democratic nomination if it hadn’t been for his opposition to the annexation of Texas and his growing anti-slavery position. He again contemplated a run in 1848, but his anti-slavery stance only made him less palatable in 1848 than in 1844. He ran on the third-party Free-Soil ticket in 1848 (quite the statement for a man who fought so hard to entrench the two-party system), which only helped doom Democrat Lewis Cass and elect Whig Zachary Taylor.
After that election, he returned to the Democratic party but no longer felt connected to its ravenously pro-slavery form. He supported Lincoln during the Civil War and died in 1862, with the nation ripped open amid that war.
He’s not a figure that inspires much devotion, and he’s not someone who is often discussed in the history of this nation. But he was consequential. He left a lasting legacy and was present for many critical moments in our history. I only wish there was a better biography of him. There’s plenty of intrigue, and his life awaits a great biographer to remind the nation of MVB.
A few years ago, I set out to listen to a biography of every US President. I have completed that project and am now writing about each book I listened to. If you’re interested in more of these I have a substack (https://patrickodowd.substack.com) and a website (https://www.patrickrodowd.com) where I post these reviews/musings. Thank you for reading!
With MVB, I find this to be a shame. No, he didn’t have the magnetism of a Jackson or the brilliant international career of a Quincy Adams, but he was fascinating in his own right. When one thinks about it, it’s far more impressive for a Van Buren to become president than a Jackson. Jackson instilled love (and hate), captivated the nation, and left an indelible mark. As for Van Buren, he was such an obscure president that Seinfeld chose to use him as a punch line.
MVB was a classic politician. He rose through the ranks of the Democratic party (of which he was a founding member of), serving as New York’s AG, a senator, governor, minister to Great Britain, Secretary of State, and finally, Andrew Jackson’s Vice President before taking the top office in his own right. He is credited with building the Democratic political machine and reestablishing a two-party system after the chaos of the 1824 presidential election. He was a staunch supporter of Jackson, making him one of many bland politicians who latched onto a more compelling individual and rode that attachment to the presidency.
As opposed to some other forgettable presidents, MVB left a lasting legacy. His work towards entrenching a two-party system and building up the Democratic Party is still seen in our political system.
Even with his diligent work toward helping Jackson secure the presidency, there was no reason to believe Van Buren would become president as late as 1832. John C. Calhoun was Vice President and was seen as Jackson’s heir apparent. And then came the infamous Petticoat affair.
The Petticoat affair centered around Secretary of War John Eaton’s new wife, Peggy. Peggy had been previously married, and there was some dispute regarding when her relationship with Secretary Eaton began. There were claims that before her husband committed suicide, she had already started seeing Secretary Eaton. Additionally, there were rumors regarding her other dalliances. As to the validity of these rumors, I cannot speak to that. Peggy would be far from the first woman smeared as a harlot on dubious grounds.
Due to her scurrilous reputation, the wives of Jackson’s Cabinet decided to ostracize Peggy. They refused to invite Peggy to their social gatherings and wouldn’t speak to her at joint functions. One of the women who led the boycott of the new Mrs. Eaton was Floride Calhoun, the wife of the Vice President and heir apparent.
A bit more relevant background is that Jackson’s wife, Rachel, had been the victim of heinous attacks on her character. She had still been technically married to another man when she and Jackson eloped. They believed her ex-husband had secured a divorce, but he hadn’t. This made their marriage bigamous, and they were forced to remarry after her divorce was finalized. During the contentious election of 1828, Adams’ supporters used this information to launch vicious attacks against Rachel that Jackson blamed for hastening her death.
As you can imagine, Jackson never forgot how these rumors could destroy a person, and when the Petticoat affair broke out, he sided with the Eatons. Calhoun entrenched his position and, in the end, nearly all of Jackson’s Cabinet resigned.
Now, I know this all sounds a bit Mean Girls-y, but it does illustrate how important social politics were (and are) to the fabric of our national political system. This spelled the end of Calhoun’s presidential hopes, transforming him from a national to a regional figure, and likely made him even more hateful toward the North. Calhoun is a crucial figure in the lead-up to the Civil War and, along with Clay, the most important political figure of the nineteenth century to have not been president.
If not for the Petticoat affair, how would the nation have evolved? Would Calhoun have been president? Would he have further entrenched slavery as a part of our national identity? Would this have hastened the Civil War or forestalled it? How many more innocent men and women would have been sold into bondage under a Calhoun presidency?
It’s truly amazing the seemingly minor things on which the nation turns. An inconsequential Secretary of War marries a woman with a reputation, and as a result, one man becomes president, and another becomes the most hateful Senator in US history.
As for Van Buren, he was named Vice President on Jackson’s 1832 presidential ticket and became president in 1836. His presidency was marred by the Panic of 1837, which it has to be said he handled terribly. This panic was another in a long line of arguments about centralized banking, and it doomed his re-election bid.
He likely would’ve still managed the 1844 Democratic nomination if it hadn’t been for his opposition to the annexation of Texas and his growing anti-slavery position. He again contemplated a run in 1848, but his anti-slavery stance only made him less palatable in 1848 than in 1844. He ran on the third-party Free-Soil ticket in 1848 (quite the statement for a man who fought so hard to entrench the two-party system), which only helped doom Democrat Lewis Cass and elect Whig Zachary Taylor.
After that election, he returned to the Democratic party but no longer felt connected to its ravenously pro-slavery form. He supported Lincoln during the Civil War and died in 1862, with the nation ripped open amid that war.
He’s not a figure that inspires much devotion, and he’s not someone who is often discussed in the history of this nation. But he was consequential. He left a lasting legacy and was present for many critical moments in our history. I only wish there was a better biography of him. There’s plenty of intrigue, and his life awaits a great biographer to remind the nation of MVB.
A few years ago, I set out to listen to a biography of every US President. I have completed that project and am now writing about each book I listened to. If you’re interested in more of these I have a substack (https://patrickodowd.substack.com) and a website (https://www.patrickrodowd.com) where I post these reviews/musings. Thank you for reading!
June 11, 2023
This is my first dud on my trek through the presidents. Martin Van Buren is neither interesting nor charismatic. I’m not sure whether to blame that on him or on the author of this biography. Martin was a career politician, it seems like it was basically all he cared about or thought about for the majority of his life. I’m not sure if any other biography of Van Buren gives a more full picture of him as a man, but I know that I probably won’t have the attention span to read another book about him. I found the last 2 chapters of his life somewhat interesting but I’m not sure if that because it actually is, or if it’s just because it speeds through 2 decades of his life so you just get the highlights.
August 17, 2016
Martin Van Buren seemed like an interesting enough guy. I learned a lot about him reading this book especially about his influence in shaping political parties. However, it was a slow read, and I was frustrated that the author did not do a good job explaining some of the main government issues Van Buren dealt with during his time as Secretary of State and President.
February 15, 2019
Bit of a slog, thought I didn't expect any different. It's three-quarters about New York politics in the early 19th century, and some about his administration and post-administration life.
It didn't give a super deep glimpse into MVB, but not sure that's possible given materials available. I did learn some interesting stuff though.
It didn't give a super deep glimpse into MVB, but not sure that's possible given materials available. I did learn some interesting stuff though.
August 7, 2021
I really enjoyed this, way more than I expected to. Some reviewers rate it lower because it focuses in on Van Buren's political experiences instead of his whole life. In my perspective, that was a boon, since that's what I read presidential biographies for.
Next: Old Tippecanoe
Next: Old Tippecanoe
May 17, 2013
There's no nice way to say that a book is boring, but I will say that this book was definitely comprehensive. Also, it is probably the only semi-readable complete biography of MVB.
December 13, 2020
“Instead of offering something new, he sought to keep the political peace. Instead of trying to rally the troops and destroy the enemy, he sought to satisfy his followers and placate the opposition.”
With Martin Van Buren, I embarked on what is sure to be the saddest and more boring stretch of presidents in my project of reading a biography of every POTUS. Between Jackson (#7) and Lincoln (#16) lies a long stretch of very unexciting fellows: Tyler, Taylor, Fillmore, Pierce — don’t feel bad if none of those ring a bell.
These were largely the second generation of Americans (the first generation being British subjects, but those who fought for and founded the nation). In fact, Van Buren was the first president to be born after the Declaration of Independence. And for the most part, these guys between #7 and #16 were crummy national leaders.
That said, Van Buren was surprisingly interesting to read about. A few notables:
Only president who grew up with English as a second language (Dutch was his first).
First president to be a real career politician and not just a national hero who’d been elevated to national leader. Worked his way through New York politics and into national politics, ultimately becoming Andrew Jackson’s friend, advisor, confidante, and Vice President.
Largely credited with the creation of the party system that’s now so familiar in our political landscape. He thought parties were healthy for the nation. Agree or not, you can thank MVB for that one.
Was president from 1837-1841. Lost the 1840 election to William Henry Harrison, who died just a month after taking office. MVB unsuccessfully (and sort of unofficially) tried again for the presidency in both 1844 and 1848.
While being Andrew Jackson’s #2 launched him into the White House, it also meant the guy could never escape from under Old Hickory’s long shadow. Combine that with Van Buren’s tendency towards appeasement rather than holding a strong moral ground on anything, and you get a guy who ultimately faded into the history books as a foppish, failed leader.
Given how interesting the life of Martin Van Buren was, I’m rather surprised that there aren’t more books about the man. There’s really only a few options, all of which are a bit dry and academic and stale. Donald Cole was a fine author and peppered in plenty of engaging context and analysis, but nobody would mistake him for being a master of prose or narrative. Between the few page-turning episodes were chapters and chapters on banking battles, political party in-fighting, and other topics that get real boring real quickly.
MVB hasn’t been seriously written about in a few decades, which makes him a subject ripe for the picking . . . if it hasn’t happened in another 20 years maybe I’ll take it on!
With Martin Van Buren, I embarked on what is sure to be the saddest and more boring stretch of presidents in my project of reading a biography of every POTUS. Between Jackson (#7) and Lincoln (#16) lies a long stretch of very unexciting fellows: Tyler, Taylor, Fillmore, Pierce — don’t feel bad if none of those ring a bell.
These were largely the second generation of Americans (the first generation being British subjects, but those who fought for and founded the nation). In fact, Van Buren was the first president to be born after the Declaration of Independence. And for the most part, these guys between #7 and #16 were crummy national leaders.
That said, Van Buren was surprisingly interesting to read about. A few notables:
Only president who grew up with English as a second language (Dutch was his first).
First president to be a real career politician and not just a national hero who’d been elevated to national leader. Worked his way through New York politics and into national politics, ultimately becoming Andrew Jackson’s friend, advisor, confidante, and Vice President.
Largely credited with the creation of the party system that’s now so familiar in our political landscape. He thought parties were healthy for the nation. Agree or not, you can thank MVB for that one.
Was president from 1837-1841. Lost the 1840 election to William Henry Harrison, who died just a month after taking office. MVB unsuccessfully (and sort of unofficially) tried again for the presidency in both 1844 and 1848.
While being Andrew Jackson’s #2 launched him into the White House, it also meant the guy could never escape from under Old Hickory’s long shadow. Combine that with Van Buren’s tendency towards appeasement rather than holding a strong moral ground on anything, and you get a guy who ultimately faded into the history books as a foppish, failed leader.
Given how interesting the life of Martin Van Buren was, I’m rather surprised that there aren’t more books about the man. There’s really only a few options, all of which are a bit dry and academic and stale. Donald Cole was a fine author and peppered in plenty of engaging context and analysis, but nobody would mistake him for being a master of prose or narrative. Between the few page-turning episodes were chapters and chapters on banking battles, political party in-fighting, and other topics that get real boring real quickly.
MVB hasn’t been seriously written about in a few decades, which makes him a subject ripe for the picking . . . if it hasn’t happened in another 20 years maybe I’ll take it on!
November 15, 2020
I'm always struck by the ways in which history rhymes: Van Buren took office at the height of a national panic that was at least partly a result of the actions of his predecessor, who was a nationalist with a strong distrust of political institutions and a history of engaging in disruptive actions. Van Buren, of course, was much more in thrall to Jackson than this Biden/Trump comparison, but Van Buren's penchant for conciliation and centrism was an interesting dynamic to explore. Particularly for Van Buren, who lacked the political charisma of his peers, this ability to build a coalition was borne out in a truly national Democratic Party, which survived right up to the Civil War.
Given Van Buren's reserved nature, he is not a character who jumps off the page. In fact, in studying Cole's work, it seems that Van Buren engaged in little else other than work and politics (although his twilight years as a farmer held a few anecdotal gems). It is interesting to see how Van Buren shapes first New York politics and then the national Democratic party, earning nicknames like 'The Little Magician' and 'The Sly Fox' along the way. But his caution and care to stitch together disparate groups means that we don't see any real fire or principled stands (unless you get excited about discussions on an independent treasury). Cole also doesn't do us many favors in building stakes or controversy: in his desire to be comprehensive, we are inundated with names, often with little or no context. And there are instances where terms are thrown in that assume the reader should know them (specie circular, Wilmot Proviso). It's not that it's difficult to track down this information, more that it doesn't immediately invite the reader to the text.
I would say that this book falls under the category of a pleasant mediocrity: I never felt that it was hard to make progress, but there were a number of details and discussions that ultimately failed to engage. I will say that Cole's summations were well done, and that despite his interest in the subject, Cole doesn't feel a need to resuscitate or modify Van Buren's reputation: an effective politician, but a forgettable president.
Given Van Buren's reserved nature, he is not a character who jumps off the page. In fact, in studying Cole's work, it seems that Van Buren engaged in little else other than work and politics (although his twilight years as a farmer held a few anecdotal gems). It is interesting to see how Van Buren shapes first New York politics and then the national Democratic party, earning nicknames like 'The Little Magician' and 'The Sly Fox' along the way. But his caution and care to stitch together disparate groups means that we don't see any real fire or principled stands (unless you get excited about discussions on an independent treasury). Cole also doesn't do us many favors in building stakes or controversy: in his desire to be comprehensive, we are inundated with names, often with little or no context. And there are instances where terms are thrown in that assume the reader should know them (specie circular, Wilmot Proviso). It's not that it's difficult to track down this information, more that it doesn't immediately invite the reader to the text.
I would say that this book falls under the category of a pleasant mediocrity: I never felt that it was hard to make progress, but there were a number of details and discussions that ultimately failed to engage. I will say that Cole's summations were well done, and that despite his interest in the subject, Cole doesn't feel a need to resuscitate or modify Van Buren's reputation: an effective politician, but a forgettable president.
December 9, 2017
What I think I'll remember about Van Buren is that he was an unprincipled but talented politician, primarily motivated by his own insecurity and thirst for power. He had a talent for sensing which position on an issue would advance his own career and playing his opponents against each other, but he was a weak president in part because it was the highest office, there was nowhere else to advance, and his lack of principles or vision finally came to roost. He knew how to work the system so as to get to the highest office; he didn't know what to do once he got there. He actually seems far more comfortable after his presidency, trying (twice) to regain that position, and failing; he knows who he is when he's trying to prove his worth; once he's proven it, he's at sea.
It's really hard to find a biography of Martin Van Buren. It took me forever to read this because I had to keep getting it through inter-library loan.
And it's not a great biography. It feels like an extended dissertation turned into a publishable book. Cole is fascinated with the inner workings of political parties and Van Buren's maneuverings, and that can be really complicated, and really boring to read. As a reader, I am more interested in understanding Van Buren as a person, his character and temperament, and then how he fit as a man of his times. I read biographies to learn about the person, but also to learn about the times the person lived in. I don't care nearly as much about the rise and fall of the Bucktails, Foco Locos, or Free Soilers as Cole is.
He hardly writes at all about Van Buren's family, until he's an old man and his sons, especially John, have political ambitions. He hardly writes at all about William Henry Harrison or John Tyler. I was surprised there was so little about Harrison's death and the constitutional crisis that caused - surely Van Buren had opinions about that.
It's really hard to find a biography of Martin Van Buren. It took me forever to read this because I had to keep getting it through inter-library loan.
And it's not a great biography. It feels like an extended dissertation turned into a publishable book. Cole is fascinated with the inner workings of political parties and Van Buren's maneuverings, and that can be really complicated, and really boring to read. As a reader, I am more interested in understanding Van Buren as a person, his character and temperament, and then how he fit as a man of his times. I read biographies to learn about the person, but also to learn about the times the person lived in. I don't care nearly as much about the rise and fall of the Bucktails, Foco Locos, or Free Soilers as Cole is.
He hardly writes at all about Van Buren's family, until he's an old man and his sons, especially John, have political ambitions. He hardly writes at all about William Henry Harrison or John Tyler. I was surprised there was so little about Harrison's death and the constitutional crisis that caused - surely Van Buren had opinions about that.
September 8, 2021
I am not sure if there is a lot on his personal life before and after the presidency if so the author left it completely out. While there aren't that many books on Van Bruen he barley touches on his home life before and after his presidential run. This may be because Van Bruen himself burned these letters or asked others to burn them.
An other big draw back is he briefly glazes over the Indian and Slavery especially in the armistad case that happened under his presidency. He spends about 3 chapters total while these parts take up about 5-6 pages. It appears he was trying to rehabilitate Van Bruen to no avail.
As far as the man himself, I went into this with an open mind as always and I walked away despising this man. He created today's politician. The one who straddles the fence and never let's you know where he truly stands. Also, he pushed for straight ticket voting regardless of the candidate and issues.
His failed run on the free soil party was again just a poltical side show. He never true came out against slavery and he waffles even during the outset of the civil war. He only started going against slavery slightly because his voter based had turned on it.
In summary; While he is president he ignores the depression by blaming others for the crisis and trying to create an "independent treasury" that would end up not fixing the depression. He bows down to the slaveocracy so he can keep his votes while they take away free speech in congress and he tries to back them again in the armistad case. He uses "war crime" tactics even back then against the seminoles during the seminole war II. In the end, he created the monster we know now as the "typical politican" that tries to straddle both sides and never gives a straight answer. Always, pushing for the straight ticket vote no matter who it was or what ideals they had. Because of this he gets a solid D in my ranking.
An other big draw back is he briefly glazes over the Indian and Slavery especially in the armistad case that happened under his presidency. He spends about 3 chapters total while these parts take up about 5-6 pages. It appears he was trying to rehabilitate Van Bruen to no avail.
As far as the man himself, I went into this with an open mind as always and I walked away despising this man. He created today's politician. The one who straddles the fence and never let's you know where he truly stands. Also, he pushed for straight ticket voting regardless of the candidate and issues.
His failed run on the free soil party was again just a poltical side show. He never true came out against slavery and he waffles even during the outset of the civil war. He only started going against slavery slightly because his voter based had turned on it.
In summary; While he is president he ignores the depression by blaming others for the crisis and trying to create an "independent treasury" that would end up not fixing the depression. He bows down to the slaveocracy so he can keep his votes while they take away free speech in congress and he tries to back them again in the armistad case. He uses "war crime" tactics even back then against the seminoles during the seminole war II. In the end, he created the monster we know now as the "typical politican" that tries to straddle both sides and never gives a straight answer. Always, pushing for the straight ticket vote no matter who it was or what ideals they had. Because of this he gets a solid D in my ranking.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 6, 2018
This book is not particularly captivating, but that is more a product of the subject than the author. Martin Van Buren is portrayed as someone entirely consumed by politics. After reading several hundred pages about him I still have no idea what Van Buren truly believed or stood for. As far as I can tell he crafted all his political views around what he felt would be most accepted by society and his peers, and was willing to shift when necessary. This style helped elevate him to one of the most effective politicians in the country and earned him the nickname "The Magician" during his rise to power. But this same spinelessness deeply hurt his 4 years as President, when the country was changing rapidly and he needed to take stands.
He didn't want to come out strongly in favor of or opposed to slavery. He tried to not offend anyone on the issue of Texas annexation. And he sought to keep strong ties with his predecessor Andrew Jackson by retaining many of his economic policies like the specie circular, which required the use of hard currency like gold to purchase Government land. Unfortunately for Van Buren the economic prosperity of the Jackson age was over. He inherited a country in recession, and lacked the magnetism of a character like Jackson. Ultimately Van Buren was a fairly unpopular one term President who achieved very little besides an independent treasury bill that accomplished virtually nothing. The author praises him for his assistance in forming the original Democratic party and embracing the two party system, unlike the founding fathers who feared factions. He also says Van Buren set the path for a new kind of politician, but I'm not sure that's a good thing.
Unless you're very interested in the subject, I don't imagine you'll find much to like in this book.
He didn't want to come out strongly in favor of or opposed to slavery. He tried to not offend anyone on the issue of Texas annexation. And he sought to keep strong ties with his predecessor Andrew Jackson by retaining many of his economic policies like the specie circular, which required the use of hard currency like gold to purchase Government land. Unfortunately for Van Buren the economic prosperity of the Jackson age was over. He inherited a country in recession, and lacked the magnetism of a character like Jackson. Ultimately Van Buren was a fairly unpopular one term President who achieved very little besides an independent treasury bill that accomplished virtually nothing. The author praises him for his assistance in forming the original Democratic party and embracing the two party system, unlike the founding fathers who feared factions. He also says Van Buren set the path for a new kind of politician, but I'm not sure that's a good thing.
Unless you're very interested in the subject, I don't imagine you'll find much to like in this book.
July 21, 2021
About three years ago, I got it in my head to read a biography of each American President in order. Reading actually mean listening to audio books and I made in from Washington to Andrew Jackson in good order. That is when I ran into a roadblock. There was no book length audio book of President No. 8, Martin Van Buren. So I skipped Van Buren and jumped to William Henry Harrison. But it just didn’t feel right to skip a President. So I steeled myself and bought a kindle book. It took my 6.5 months to read the book—it is that bad.
The first half of the book is all about Van Buren’s rise to power as New York politician. It is boring as church. 1 star. The next ¼ gets into his vice presidency and the beginning of his presidency and picks up steam. 2 Stars. The last 1/4 finishes with his presidency and post-presidency life. 3 Stars. Combined together, 2 Stars, and don’t complain about that rating because I could drop this review to 1.5 stars without any problem.
The book just is not written in an interesting manner. And this is coming from a history buff. Also, the book has a major punctuation problem that bugged me throughout. It leaves out the comma in introductory clauses to sentences. Example: “As part of his campaign for reelection Van Buren returned to the task of securing the independent treasury.” I need a comma after reelection. But throughout the book, the comma is missing. It bugged me big time. Maybe that is a punctuation convention from the 1940s when I assumed the book was written. But the book was published in 1984 so there is no excuse for the painful punctuation.
Van Buren warrants a definitive biography by a talented author who can put his career in context and make the subject crackle. Until then, only read this book if you need to check Van Buren off your list of presidential biographies. 2 Stars.
The first half of the book is all about Van Buren’s rise to power as New York politician. It is boring as church. 1 star. The next ¼ gets into his vice presidency and the beginning of his presidency and picks up steam. 2 Stars. The last 1/4 finishes with his presidency and post-presidency life. 3 Stars. Combined together, 2 Stars, and don’t complain about that rating because I could drop this review to 1.5 stars without any problem.
The book just is not written in an interesting manner. And this is coming from a history buff. Also, the book has a major punctuation problem that bugged me throughout. It leaves out the comma in introductory clauses to sentences. Example: “As part of his campaign for reelection Van Buren returned to the task of securing the independent treasury.” I need a comma after reelection. But throughout the book, the comma is missing. It bugged me big time. Maybe that is a punctuation convention from the 1940s when I assumed the book was written. But the book was published in 1984 so there is no excuse for the painful punctuation.
Van Buren warrants a definitive biography by a talented author who can put his career in context and make the subject crackle. Until then, only read this book if you need to check Van Buren off your list of presidential biographies. 2 Stars.
February 12, 2021
This was the 16th book in my Presidential biography challenge. Cole is a clear academic and the book reflects that. It's well written and very informative, but not overly interesting. Now, it seems like it's less his writing style and more that Van Buren himself is not that interesting. Adams had tons of correspondence that allowed McCullough to paint him as a full developed, colorful guy. Van Buren seems to have gotten rid of much of his writings from the most important periods of his life that might have made him more colorful. Cole did the best with what he had, and it is a fully encompassing cradle to grave biography. I enjoyed learning the information, I just wish I had more insight into the man. The main points I'll remember are the Van Buren was more successful at the beginning of his career orchestrating political genius in creating the Albany Regency, the Democratic Party, and helping Jackson win the election of 1828. However, as President he focused too much on appealing to everyone and trying to push through the independent treasury at the expense of actually governing. He remained active in politics after, but never again rose to his early levels. Unfortunately, he doesn't leave much of a legacy either as he's one of the most forgettable Presidents in history despite his political contributions in creating the modern party system. There aren't many choices for #8, so it might as well be this one!
June 27, 2022
This is one of those situations where I feel like any rating I give is unfair. Did I much enjoy this reading experience? Not particularly. However, giving it a low rating is pretending that this book was supposed to be something it never was. This is an academic text from a few decades ago. It is what it is, and I don't want to unfairly malign it. However, I wouldn't suggest reading this book for fun. I needed a biography of Martin Van Buren, and I picked this one because it specifically focused on his impact on his hand in creating our modern party system. Van Buren was not a great president, but his impact on party politics cannot be understated. It was interesting to learn more about that shift in process. However, I did feel that this book was a bit contradictory. Cole tries to say that Van Buren was not, for example, a flip-flopper ... and then describes him flip flopping on issues. In the last chapter, former President Franklin Pierce asks Van Buren to call a conference of all former presidents about the Civil War, and Van Buren declines to do so. Cole then calls him a defender of the Union a paragraph or so after saying he was not as strong a Unionist as Jackson. There are some places were there is A LOT of detail and then some, like these, where I wish there was more to understand exactly how Cole can make both of these statements. Either way, this isn't a light read, but it worked for my project of reading a biography on every American President.
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