Transcript Martin Van Buren

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As a young man Van Buren congregated with people of various backgrounds and
professions in a tavern opened by his father.
The enjoyment and zeal brought upon meeting many different people, especially
the frequent visits from Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr generated Van Buren’s
interest in politics.
After his graduation from Kinderhook Academy, he continued to study law on his
own until his parents encouraged him to enroll in a law school.
For the next five years he lived with the Silvester family to study law.
In the William P. Van Ness office, located in New York City is where Van Buren
finished his law training.
After working in the Van Ness office, Van Buren was admitted to the bar in 1803
at the age of twenty-one.
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Less than a year later, Van Ness
asked Van Buren to defend him in
a trial.
Van Ness was an assistant to Vice
President Aaron Burr, who killed
Federalist Alexander Hamilton in
a duel in which both were
accused.
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Van Buren was
against one of the
best lawyers and
orator of the day,
Daniel Webster.
Van Buren proved
himself by gaining
support from
Daniel Tompkins ,
governor of New
York, then winning
his case, the tuning
point in his career.
• Van Buren’s
political career
started to emerge
and on March 20,
1808, he was
appointed
surrogate of
Columbia County.
This was his first
political job for
the DemocraticRepublican Party.
• He ran against
Edward P.
Livingston for
state senator in
April of 1812.
• Van Buren won the
election & was now
the state senator
of New York, at age
Thirty.
Many people liked the idea of
wealth, development, and route
to the West that the Erie Canal
provide, Van Buren, however,
wanted to postpone the Erie
Canal project because of it’s
price. Van Buren successfully
stalled the proposal in the
senate. DeWitt Clinton, running
for governor of New York, was
infatuated by the project. Both
were part of the DemocraticRepublican party, but they
faced different ways in political
matters. Van Buren his view on
the canal project , therefore
began supporting it. His
popularity easily won over
voters to pass the bill to
construct the Erie Canal. The
work on the Erie Canal lasted
ten years.
Construction of the Erie Canal in New York
Van Buren’s and Gov. Clinton’s relationship grew worse after the construction
of the canal. On 1819 Gov. Clinton fired Van Buren as attorney general, thus
enraging Van Buren’s followers and later caused a split in the DemocraticRepublican Party. The faction soon formed their own organization the
Bucktails.
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In February 1821 Van Buren was
elected to the United States Senate.
In 1824 Federalist John Quincy
Adams won the presidential
election. Van Buren had not support
him, but supported Andrew
Jackson, they shared an antifederalist belief for more power to
the states and less to the U.S.
government.
To support Jackson in the next
election, Van Buren dropped out of
the U.S. Senate and ran for governor
of New York.
Van Buren did this because New
York would be a crucial candidate
for Jackson.
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Their plan worked. Jackson
won the presidency 1828 and
Van Buren the newly elected
governor of New York.
That team became the
foundation of the Democratic
Party.
Van Buren served only three
months as governor, until
Jackson appointed him
secretary of state.
Van Buren was greatly honored
and retuned to D.C. and
became apart of Jackson’s
famous Kitchen Cabinet.
By 1832 relations between President Jackson and VP Calhoun were very
unstable that Calhoun resigned his post. Jackson needed a new VP running mate
that year so he chose his trusted friend Van Buren. When Jackson won the
reelection with Van Buren on Mach 4, 1833 they took the oath of office. That
year there were economic problems brought on by Jackson’s plan to abolish the
Bank of the United States.
On March 4, 1837 was the inauguration of Martin Van Buren and his VP Richard
Mentor Johnson.
 Inflation was one of the colossal problems in the country in that day and age,
leading to the Panic of 1837: the first economic depression in America’s history.
 Van Buren still agreed that the Bank of the United States only benefited the
wealthiest Americans.
Depositing the huge federal funds in small bank failed, so Van Buren decided to
propose a bill for the formation of an independent treasury. This is suppose to
handle large deposits and serve everyone equally.
Another policy he supported was the buying of land in the West with hardmoney instead of bank notes.
Banks were not ready to offer hard-money loans and concerned European
countries demanded payment of loans to the U.S.. Congress denied the passage of
Van Buren’s bill.
Entanglement with Canada’s Rebellion
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In late November , a group of Canadians, organized a rebel against the British with Louis
Joseph Papinean as their leader. They bribed U.S. citizens to help fight for Canada’s
independence.
By December 15, a force of about thousand men had been organized on Navy Island. Van
Buren had not heard of this rebellion until ten days later. Soon after the news of the rebellion
the British attacked the Caroline, a privately owned U.S. steamship, which had ferried
supplies to aid the rebels. Van Buren learned about the incident on January 4 of the next
year and was determined to evade war with Great Britain.
Van Buren instructed General Winfield Scott to go to the Niagara frontier and use “rhetoric
and diplomacy” meathead for calling off American recruits out of Canada.
Van Buren asked Congress to “to revise existing legislation from violating the nation’s neutrality as well as
to punish those who might do so.” On March 10, Congress passed a new neutrality law
The Trail of Tears &The
State of Texas
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Another burden that Jackson left Van
Buren was the removal of seventeen
thousand Cherokee from their
homeland.
This action was due to New Echota
Treaty, signed in 1835 but was not
enforced until tree years later.
Van Buren could not undo the treaty.
On his second year of office, the
Cherokee began their march to the
Indian Territory.
Approximately 3,000 died of
starvation and disease on the long
march, which became known as the
Trail Of Tears
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One policy that Van Buren did not
follow was the sudden annexation of
Texas.
By 1838 the debate about its future
statehood heated up. Van Buren was
worried that annexing Texas would
arouse Mexico’s anger and lead to
war. Another reason was that slaveholding would move farther West.
He opposed the annexation of Texas.
His goal was to keep peace and war
along to Texas-Mexico border. On
September 11, 1838, the U.S. and
Mexico reached an agreement.
In the 1840 presidential campaign Van Buren’s adversary was the Whigs
nomination, William Henry Harrison, a formal general, who claimed to have defeated
the Shawnee Indians in the battle of Indiana’s Tippecanoe River in 1811
Van Buren was badly defeated in 1944, with only 60 electoral votes and 234 for
Harrison. Van Buren did not even win his home state of New York.
Van Buren gave his last speech in Congress in December 1840. He said that the
year had been one of “health” and “peace”, as well as warning the dangers of the
national debt. He also asked Congress to stop the American practice of sending
supplies to the “slave factories” on the African coast and to abolish “those dens of
iniquity”
Van Buren becomes the presidential candidate of the Free- soil party in 1944,
which opposes extension of slavery in the U.S. territories. Sadly he lost the election
to Zachary Taylor.
Work Cited
Lazo, Caroline Evensen. Martin Van Buren. Minneapolis: Lerner, 2005. Print.
Portrait of Martin Van Buren. N.d. www.nndb.com. Web. 22 Mar. 2011.
<http://www.nndb.com/people/821/000024749/>.
Web link Burr and Hamilton Duel. N.d. www.sonofthesouth.net. Web. 22 Mar.
2011.
<http://www.sonofthesouth.net/revolutionary-war/patriots/
alexander-hamilton.htm>.
Lockport on the Erie Canal, New York, United States, 1840. 1895.
www.superstock.com. Web. 22 Mar. 2011. <http://www.superstock.com/
stock-photos-images/1895-25139>.
Web link Negative cartoon of the Bucktail faction. N.d.
elektratig.blogspot.com. Web. 22
Mar. 2011. <http://elektratig.blogspot.com/2009_03_01_archive.html>.
 plitical cartoon of the cabinet. N.d. www.corbisimages.com. Web. 22 Mar.
2011.
<http://www.corbisimages.com/Enlargement/BE035740.html>.