Martin Van Buren by Ted Widmer, Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.

Martin Van Buren by Ted Widmer
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Going through all the presidents in chronological order. Up to Martin Van Buren now. This probably wasn't as thoroughly researched as most biographies to this point, but I'm not sure MVB is worth much more. Having said that, there were many interesting points.

MVB had a very different initiation to politics as compared to the previous presidents. He was not idealistic like the founding fathers, but came up in the dirty world of New York politics. In fact, Aaron burr was one of his first mentors and seems to have treated him as a protege.

Interesting to read about MVB's role in the creation of the first real opposition party (Federalists and Jeffersonians went at it before, but tried very hard to pretend they got along). MVB realized opposition parties were needed in a democracy. He spent much of his time courting the Southern vote (not least of which in getting Andrew Jackson elected)

He was an extremely ineffective president, mainly because an international financial crisis hit more or less right after he was elected, and he refused to take a side on the issue of Slavery and kept up Jackson's brutal native american policies (in fact, MVB's niece said she hoped he lost the election because of what he did to the natives). However, his VP Johnson was married to a mixed-race lady. Which makes one wonder if Johnson wouldn't have been more effective as a president.

I learned that MVB grew up speaking Dutch. I also learned where our word booze came from, where OK came from, and that MVB had to make a last-minute stop in Rochester, Illinois, due to bad roads. Here he stayed up all night chatting with a young Abraham Lincoln (who was of the opposing party). Apparently they stayed up until past midnight exchanging stories and MVB said he never "spent so agreeable a night in my life".

As with others, he seems to have found his ideals after losing the presidency, and campaigned against the annexation of Texas (because it was extremely illegal and it would add a slave state).

Also, he was born during the revolution and died during the civil war. He met and talked to Jefferson, Adams, as well as Lincoln. For 6 months after his death, all soldiers in the US Army and Navy wore a black band on their left arms.


3.5 stars


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