Martin Van Buren (December 5, 1782 – July 24, 1862) was an American statesman who served as the eighth president of the United States from 1837 to 1841. He was the first President to have been born after the American Revolution, and is the only President to speak English as a second language. A founder of the Democratic Party, he had previously served as the ninth governor of New York, the tenth United States secretary of state, and the eighth vice president. In historical rankings, historians and political scientists often rank van Buren as an average or below-average U.S. president.
About Martin Van Buren in brief
Martin Van Buren (December 5, 1782 – July 24, 1862) was an American statesman who served as the eighth president of the United States from 1837 to 1841. He was the first President to have been born after the American Revolution, and is the only President to speak English as a second language. A founder of the Democratic Party, he had previously served as the ninth governor of New York, the tenth United States secretary of state, and the eighth vice president. Later in his life, he emerged as an elder statesman and, despite prior opposition, an important anti-slavery abolitionist leader who led the Free Soil Party ticket in the presidential election of 1848. He died in Kinderhook in July 1862, at age 79. His father was a descendant of Cornelis Maessen, a native of Buurmalsen, Netherlands who had emigrated to New Netherland in 1631 and purchased a plot of land on Manhattan Island. His mother, Maria Hoesen, was the daughter of Abraham Hoeson, a Patriot who had been a Patriot during the American revolution. He is the first U.S. President to be born in a Dutch-American community. He served as a member of the New York State Senate, and then in the U. S. Senate in 1821. He ran successfully for Governor of. New York in order to support Jackson’s campaign, but resigned shortly after Jackson was inaugurated so he could accept appointment as Jackson’s Secretary of State. He became a key Jackson advisor, and built the organizational structure for the coalescing Democratic Party.
He supported Jackson’s candidacy in the 1828 presidential election with this goal in mind. He won the presidential nomination at the 1835 Democratic National Convention, and he defeated several Whig opponents in the1836 presidential election. His presidency soon eroded with his response to the Panic of 1837, which centered on his Independent Treasury system, under which the Federal government would store its funds in vaults rather than in banks. His refusal to admit Texas to the Union as a slave state, done as an attempt to avoid heightened sectional tensions, helped turn him out of office in 1840. He returned to the Democrats after 1848, but grew increasingly opposed to slavery, and became one of the party’s outspoken abolitionists. In historical rankings, historians and political scientists often rank van Buren as an average or below-average U. S. president, due to his handling of the Panic of 1837 and the Second Seminole War. He led a third-party ticket in 1848 and his candidacy most likely helped Whig nominee Zachary Taylor defeat Democrat Lewis Cass. In 1844, he was initially the leading candidate for the Democratic party’s nomination again in1844, but his continued opposition to the annexation of Texas angered Southern Democrats, leading to the nomination of James K. Polk. He ultimately resigned to help resolve the Petticoat affair, and briefly served ambassador to the United Kingdom.
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