M A S T E R ’S THESIS M-911 ASHBY, John Hall, THE POLITICAL IDEAS OF MARTIN VAN BUREN.

The American University, M.A., 1966 History, modem

University Microfilms, Inc., Ann Arbor, Michigan TSE POLITICAL IDEAS OT MARTIN VAN BUREN

by John Hall Ashby

Submitted to the Faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences of The American University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts

Signature of Committeex Chairman: O•

Dean of the College ^ 0 Date: /7 C> Date: ; 7 M-LL

AMERICAN UNIVERSITY 19^ LIBRARY JAN 2 d 1966 The American University Washington, D.C. WASHINGTON, D. C. TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE INTRODUCTION ...... 1 I. MARTIN VAN BUREN; THE YOUNG JEFFERSONIAN . . 5 II. MARTIN VAN BUREN AND JACKSONIAN DEMOCRACY. . 19 III. MARTIN VAN BUREN AND THE "NEW RADICALISM" . 44 IV. MARTIN VAN BUREN AND AMERICAN POLITICAL PARTIES ...... 65 V. CONCLUSION...... 81 BIBLIOGRAPHY...... 85 INTRODUCTION

 recent student of the Age of Jackson has com­ pared the Jacksonian movement to a "large signpost, with arrows pointing . . . to many possible destina­ tions."^ In this metaphor the arrows are men and the destinations to which they point are the possible futures which America might achieve. In the past two decades many of the men and the destinations to which they pointed have been an object of study by historians of the Jacksonian Era. The in­ tellectual history of this period has been the object of their attention to the extent that even most of the smallest "arrows" have been scrutinized by historians seeking the meaning of Jacksonian Democracy. Host of these studies have been well received in historical 2 circles and rightfully so. They have added new dimen­ sions to the study of the period.

Joseph L. Blau, ed., Social Theories of Jackson­ ian Democracy (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrlll (To., 195^^, pp. X3cvii-X3^iii. 2 The best of these works are Arthur M. 8chlesin­ ger, Jr., The Age of Jackson (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1953)t and Marvin Beyers. Mie Jaokaonian Persuasion: Politics and Belief (New York: Vintage Èooks, I960;. (Hereafter cited as Bchlesinger. Age of Jackson and Meyers, Jacksonian Persuasion.) 2 Yet, in many cases these authors have, by inves­ tigating the minor figures of the times, overlooked those who stand out as its leading personalities. Even Jackson, by all standards the dominant figure of the age, has been shunted aside in the rush to discover the underlying meaning behind the Age of Jackson.^ Of none of the giants of this period has this been more true than of Martin Van Bur en. He has become one of the neglected figures of an age which he helped mold. Hot one scholarly biography of him has been published in this century. The only work of recent years in which he plays the central role deals almost exclusively with his part in creating the Democratic Party.^ His po­ litical ideas, unlike those of many figures of much less stature, have been ignored completely. It is odd that this should be the case, for Van Buren left a legacy of political writings as numerous, if not more so, than those of his contemporaries. Of the four towering men of his time— Jackson, Clay, Van Buren, and Calhoun— he

^John William Ward, Andrew Jackson. Symbol for an Age (Hew York: Oxford University Stress, 19^2J. Robert V. Eemini, Martin Van Buren and the Making of the Democratic Party (Hew York: Columbia University ïb^ess, ÎL959)» (Hereafter cited as Eemini, Martin Van Buren and the Making of the Democratic 5 was the only one who left an autobiography.^ He was also the only one who left a lengthy dissertation on the history of the American political system.^ His speeches and "public letters" have been preserved for us, and though no "Collected Works" has jet been pub­ lished, his voluminous correspondence reposes in the Library of Congress for scholars to peruse. In the light of this information how can one explain the fact that Van Buren's ideas have not been explored? It would appear that the main reason for this neglect is the widely held concept of Van Buren as a political boss who made good. When he is con­ sidered by historians, which is none too often, it is as the all-powerful czar of the Albany Regency, the greatest political machine of its day, or as the Presi­ dent who was unfortunate enough to have to try and fill the "Old Hero's" shoes after 1837* In other words, the concept of Van Buren as a politician has completely overshadowed all other facets of the man and his per-

^John C. Fitzpatrick, ed., "The Autobiography of Martin Van Buren,^ Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the leËœ T^lBT~Vol« II (Wasiiington, B.C.% 6.P.O., 1920^. (Hereafter cited as Van Buren, "Autobiography". ) Martin Van Buren, Inquiry into the Origin and Course of Political Parties in the tJnited States. E33Tted "by His Hons (kew tork: Hurd and Houghton, 106^). (Here­ after cited as Van Buren, Political Parties. ) sonality. It is my contention that historians have commit­ ted a grave error by looking at Van Buren so narrowly. Van Buren as the "Red Fox of Kinderhook," or the "Little Magician," is a very incomplete way of viewing a many- sided person. Certainly no historian would attempt a study of Calhoun without at least some scrutiny of his political ideas! I do not claim for Van Buren the em­ inence in political thought which Calhoun has achieved but I do maintain that Van Buren's political ideas are worth investigation. No politician of the Jacksonian period, with the possible exception of Calhoun, was governed more by his political ideas than was Martin Van Buren. A study of these political ideas will, in a great measure, help to explain his political conduct and his contributions to the Jacksonian movement. Hope­ fully, it will also add to the intellectual history of the period and help to broaden the concept of Jackson­ ian Democracy. CHAPTER I

MARTIN VAN BUREN | THE YOUNG JEFPERSGHIAN

Two factors in the early life of Martin Van Buren helped to mold his political beliefs. One was his father's deep-seated interest in the politics of the first decade of Constitutional government; the other was the law. Politics in the Hudson River Valley of New York in the 1790's was a partisan and often bitter affair. Van Buren's father was la firm Whig" during the Revo­ lution, an Anti-Pederalist in the 1780's and a "demo­ crat in the days of John Adams. In an area dominated by Federal is t-minded patroons it is not illogical that a lower middle class family such as the Van Burens 2 might adopt the politics of the opposition as its own.

William M. Holland, The Life and Politic^ Opinions of Martin Van BurenTlTice-^esldent of the iïnited "Bt^es (Hartford: Belknap & Hamer si ey. 1835), pp. ès, 54. (Hereafter cited as Holland, Life of Van l^ren. ; This work was overtly a campaign biography prepared for the election of 1836, but Van Buren later remarked that it was "a substantially correct history of my political course." Niles' National Register, September 19, 1840, p. 41. 2 The usefulness of negative reference group theory in the study of American political history and its application to the New York Dutch is discussed in 6 The younger Van Buren naturally received his first taste of politics at his father's table and "formed his most intimate connections with persons of the same po­ litical faith. Because the Republicans were a small minority in thé area of his nativity his unabashed avowal of their principles quickly marked young Van Buren as a potential local leader."His political opin­ ions, as well as a display of more than ordinary tal­ ent ..." resulted in his early participation in the local controversies "with regard to personal rights and rights of property. At the age of nineteen "as a zealous politicisui" he represented the Republicans of his county at a district convention in Troy.^ Throughout his youth. Van Buren made it "his constant habit to attend all meetings of the democratic party, to study with attention the political intelli-

Lee Benson, The Concept of Jacksonian Democracy : New York as a Test ^ w e CNewTork: Aikeneum. 19643. pp. 304-31?'""(Hereafter cited as Benson, Concent of Jacksonian Democracy.) Holland, Life of Van Buren. p. 28.

Holland, Life of Van Buren, p. 28. 5john C. Fitzpatrick, "Autobiography of Martin Van Buren" Aw-ntmi Report of The American Historical Association for the Year 1 ^ 0 . Vol. ÏI (Washington. B.C.: G.P.Ô., 19'5^,“p r ’l5 7 ~ 7 gence of his day, and to yield his most zealous aid . . . hy speaking in public and employing his pen to furnish resolutions and addresses whenever . . . required.These resolutions and addresses expressed the credo of Jeffersonian Republicanism. Those tenets of Jefferson which Tan Buren found most impressive were that complex of ideas which go to make up the "negative liberal state.The four cornerstones of Jeffersonian Republicanism were strict construction of the Constitution, states' rights, economic liberalism

Q (laissez-faire) , and faith in the individual. These four principles, adopted by Van Buren early in life, became the core of his political thought and the yard­ stick by which he measured his political actions through­ out his long career.

Holland, Life of Van Buren. p. 29. ^Benson, Concept of Jacksonian Democracy, p. 86. Although Benson is dealing with Jacksonian democracy his concept of the “negative liberal state" describes Jeffersonian Republicanism equally well. 8 Arthur A. Ekirch, The Decline of American Mberalism (New York; Longmans, 6reen iPCo., l955)* Chapter 5 passim.% Arthur 1Î. Schlesinger, Jr., The Age of Jackson (^Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1955)» pp. Al-^6. Though historians continue to disagree over the extent to which Jacksonian Democracy was an extension of Jeffersonian Republicanism, I have adopt­ ed the view that the similarities were greater than the differences. I also contend that Martin Van Buren, of all the Jacksonians, was the most Jeffersonian and that it was he who brought out most clearly the close link between Jefferson and Jackson. This thesis is discussed at greater length later in this paper. 8 While thus deeply engaged in the politics of his area he devoted what time remained to him in the study of the law. In the fashion of the time Van Buren was at an early age placed in a lawyer's office, where he remained for several years. New York law was dif­ ficult to master and the normal period of study, for candidates without a college education, preparatory q to admission to the bar was seven years. Because his father was "utterly devoid of the spirit of accumula­ tion," the son's formal education was limited to the village academy. As if this were not enough of a handicap he refused to concentrate on his legal stud­ ies "because the tendency of the course of training was adverse to deep study. " Van Buren preferred to read widely, though voraciously. As a result, he later complained of his desultory reading habits, sui^ected his inferiority in contests with "able and better ed­ ucated men," and expressed amazement at his ability to overcome his "disadvantages . . . with so few dis­ comfitures." "Much adroitness," he later remarked, "was often necessary to make myself master of the subject under discussion.

Holland, Life of Van Buren. pp. 25-26. I^Van Buren, "Autobiography, " pp. 10-11. ^^Ibid.. pp. 11-12. "Instead of laying up stores of knowledge, I read for amusement, and trusted to my facility for acquiring necessary information when oc­ casions for its use presented themselves." Ibid. 9 The inherent difficulties Van Buren faced in 1795 as a somewhat half-hearted law student with little formal education were compounded hy the fact that he was placed in the law office of one of the leading Federalists in the area, Francis Sylvester. Though Sylvester was "a just and honorable man," he and his like-minded students often chided Van Buren for his Republican leanings and frequently attempted to press upon him the beauties of their creed. He, however, stubbornly replied that his political course "had been settled after much reflection, and could not be changed. No doubt Van Buren*s active defense of his po­ litical ideas in this situation helped reinforce his beliefs, but more importantly his Jeffersonian, con­ victions were strengthened by the law which he learned in the offices of his Federalist mentor. The New York legal code at the dawn of the nineteenth century was written by and for the upper classes. In both polit­ ical and economic matters the law covertly recognized class discrepancies; suffrage was a jealously guarded privilege and imprisonment for debt weighed heavily upon the heads of the lower classes of New York society.

^^Ibid.. pp. 13-14 ^^Dixon Ryan Fox, The Decline of Aristocracy in the Politics of New York. iJdited^ by Robert V . Hemini (New York: Harper & !Ro w , 1965), pp. 142-144, 355”55A. (Hereafter cited as Fox, Decline of Aristocracy.) 10 Van Buren often expressed his discontent with the in­ equalities of the law and was particularly eloquent in his condemnation of the practice of imprisonment for debt. In 1812, as a young lawyer and a rising poli­ tician, he argued against the principle behind this statute in one of his frequent appearances before the New York State Supreme Court. It was, he said an "in­ flexible spirit" which "confines them [the debtors] within the same walls which confine the midnight in­ cendiary and the ruthless assassin; not for the crimes they have committed; not for the frauds which they have practiced . . . but for the misfortune of being poor; of being unable to satisfy the all-digesting stomach of some ravenous creditor. In February, 1821, the people of New York went to the polls to vote on the question of holding a convention to revise the state's 1777 constitution. By a majority of more than 7^,000 the people demanded such a convention.It was in this distinguished assembly that Martin Van Buren, now United States Senator from New York, first presented a lengthy and conscious exposition of his political philosophy. Van Buren was elected as a delegate from Otsego County and was the acknowledged leader of the "Buck-

^^Barry vs. Mandell, March, 1812, Jotoson's Reports. New York Court of Errors, X, 590-591. ^^Fox, Decline of Aristocracy, pp. 236-257. 11 tail" reformers.^^ "There was scarcely any question raised in the discussion of which I did not partici­ pate to a greater or less extent . . . ", he later recalled.The convention itself was split three ways. The conservatives, led hy Chancellor Kent, had opposed the calling of the convention and were there primarily to keep the inevitable democratization proc­ ess within reasonable limits. At the opposite end of the political fence were the radical democrats, led by Erastus Root and Peter R. Livingston, of whom Van Buren remarked, "They thought nothing wise that was 1 A not violent." These men stood for universal man­ hood suffrage and other seemingly dangerous experi­ ments in government and had been most ardent in trum­ peting for the convention call. Between these two extremes stood Van Buren and his following. Although he had not taken a lead in calling for the convention, "being omewhat timid in all matters of innovation . . . , he was convinced that it was necessary and that "temperate reform" was the only object of the main

^ ^ a n Buren's own county, Columbia, elected Federalist delegates. Ibid.. p. 241. ^^Van Buren, "Autobiography," p. 112. ^®Van Buren to John A. King, October 28, 1821. Charles R. King, ed..The Life and Correspondence of Rufus King. 6 vols. (New York: 6.P. Putnam's Sons, 1694-19557 vi, 422. ^^Van Buren to Rufus King, January 14, 1821, Ibid.. p. 575. 12 body of the convention's supporters. In fact, he assured one conservative, "the apprehension that . . . the rights of property or opinion, stand in danger from the contemplated measure is I believe entirely 20 groundless." The first question of major importance to come before the convention was the abolition of the hated 21 Council of Revision. Van Buren attacked the Coun­ cil on the floor of the Convention but argued for the retention of the veto power. Pew men, he said, really objected to the concept of a veto power; their ob­ jection was grounded in the fact that this veto was exercised by "persons not directly responsible to the 22 people," in other words, the judicary. I object to it, he said, "because it inevitably connects the judiciary . . . with the intrigues and collisions of party strife; because it tends to make our judges politicians . . . Furthermore, he argued, it

^°Ibid. ^^This body, created by the 1777 Constitution, was made up of the judges of the Supreme Court, the Chancellor and the Governor. It had the power to veto, by majority vote, laws passed by the state legislature. Fox, Decline of Aristocracy, p. 255. 22 Nathaniel H. Carter and William L. Stone, Re­ porters , Reports of the Proceedings and Debates of the Convention of 1321 (Albany: È7&JÈ. Hosforcl, lè^l), pp.7o- 7l. (Hereafter cited as Carter and Stone, Reports.) ^^Ibid.. p. 71. 13 tended to destroy the concept of the separation of powers, an "indispensable" part of our theory of government. "Distinct branches are not only necessary to the existence of government, but when you have proscribed them, it is necessary that you should make 24 them in a great degree independent of each other." Although, he admitted, no government could be formed so as to make them entirely independent, it was neces­ sary to achieve as great a degree of separation as possible because each was "constantly inclined to en­ croach upon the weaker branches of government, and upon individual rights. This was especially true of the legislative branch which, as the closest repre­ sentatives of the people and as the holders of the purse strings, tended to increase its powers at the expense of the other branches. After considerable quoting from Jefferson, the Senator concluded that a 26 responsible veto power was absolutely necessary. It was Van Buren's opinion that the Convention, in con­ sidering a motion to allow the legislature to over­ ride the Governor's veto by a bare majority vote, was going from one extreme to another. Van Buren and his

24 ^^Ibid.. p. 73. ^Ibid. ^^Ibid., p. 74. 14 moderates won the day; the Council was abolished and the veto power given to the governor who could be overruled by a two-thirds vote.^^ The battle over the elimination of the Council of Revision was merely the preliminary bout. The most important question facing the convention was the 28 extension of the suffrage. This was the reason the "radicals" had been so vociferous in calling for the convention; it was also the spectre which haunted Kent and his conservative followers. Both groups ex­ erted maximum efforts to see that their views pre­ vailed; in the end both were frustrated in their goals because of Van Buren. The Senator took the middle ground. He was well aware that the concept of the freehold suffrage had been outmoded by the passage of forty years since the old constitution had been adopted. It was not that Van Buren opposed the "stake in society" theory of government, in fact he endorsed it, but he realized PQ that many men of property were no longer landholders. ^ The early nineteenth century saw many men making their

^^Pox, Decline of Aristocracy, p. 246.

^®Harvin Meyers, The Jacksonian Persuasion: Politics and Belief (New Ÿor'k: Vintage Books, I960), p. ^58. 29 ^Benson, Concept of Jaekaontan Democracy. p. 8. 15 fortunes in other endeavors: trade, law, manufactur­ ing, hanking, emd transportation. Unless they in­ vested some of their earnings in land, however, they were disenfranchised men, theoretically no better than the poorest of the poor. Tet these were the very men upon whom burgeoning political parties were dependent for funds and influence. The question then was for Van Buren not whether property should secure the suffrage, but what kind of property. The battle centered on Judge Ambrose Spencer's amendment to require a freehold valued at 250 dollars as a pre-requisite to voting for Senators. Van Buren noted that 150 million dollars of personal prop­ erty was taxed each year in New York but was unrepre­ sented in the legislature, while only 250 million dol­ lars worth of real estate elected the entire body. "The true question . . . , " he argued, "was, whether this one hundred and fifty millions of personal prop­ erty, which annually contributed to defray the pub­ lic burdens, and to promote public improvements; and which was not now directly represented in any branch, should be wholly excluded from representation in one branch of the legislature . . . This motion, he

^^Fox, Decline of Aristocracy, p. 251. ^^Carter and Stone, Reports, p. 257» 16 went on, excluded from any participation in Senate elections approximately 75,000 men whose freeholds were valued under 250 dollars, almost one-half the electorate. These freeholders, along with "mechanics" and professional men constituted "the bone, pitl% and muscle of the population of the state." The Sena­ tor reminded his audience that taxation without repre­ sentation was the tyranny against which their fathers had rebelled and was "sacred in principle.Van Buren denied that those who did possess the 250 dollar freehold opposed the extention of the suffrage to other men of property. After all, had they not elect­ ed the very assembly which he was addressing? Could the freeholders be suspected of a want of fidelity to the freehold interest? "Were they their own worst enemies? After having demonstrated the fallacies in the amendment to create "250 dollar aristocrats," Van Buren went on to the question of universal man­ hood suffrage. He did not, he said, intend to intro­ duce "into the sanctuary of the constitution, a mob

ÙT a rabble, violent and disorganizing, as were the Jacobins of France; furious and visionaury as the

^^Ibid. ^^Ibid. ^tlbid.. p. 258. 17 radicals of England, are . . . supposed to be. He said he did not believe “there were twenty members . . , who, were the bare naked question of universal suffrage put to them, would vote in its favour . . . . Once it had been granted it could never be withdrawn. The door would have been entirely closed against retreat, whatever might be our after con­ viction, founded on experience, as to the evil tendency of this exrbended suffrage. Tan Buren's opposition to universal manhood suffrage at the 1821 convention was brought up again and again during his later political career as men for­ got that he led the movement to extend the suffrage and remembered only that he had spoken out against universal manhood suffrage. On the basis of Van Buren ' s opposition to the movement for universal suffrage, it has been asserted that "the Van Buren Republicans had to be dragged kick­ ing and screaming into the politically liberal nine­ teenth century. If this is so it was largely a result of Van Buren's Jeffersonianism. Jefferson's critique of the city and its malicious influence on

^^Ibid., pp. 255-256. ^^Ibid., p. 27 7 . ^^Ibid.. p. 568. ^®Benson, Concept of Jacksonian Democracy. p • 7. 18 society was undoubtedly known to the Senator as was Jefferson's praise of the "yeoman" as the backbone of American society. Taking Jefferson at his word, Van Buren applied the Virginian's views to the prac­ tical problem at hand. One of the many evils to flow from a wholly unrestricted suffrage, according to Van Buren, was the increase in the number of votes from New York City. This "would render their elections rather a curse than a blessing; which would drive from the polls all sober minded people . . . . "^^ Fur­ thermore, an unrestricted suffrage would damage the political power of the "hardy sons of the west" by reducing their proportion of the representation in the legislature while increasing the representation "of the worst population of the old counties and cities."^ In such a manner was Van Buren's early identi­ fication with Jeffersonianism displayed. In the winter of 1821 he moved to Washington to transfer his talents to the larger stage of national politics. In Washington the New York Jeffersonian met and was swept up by the rising tide of Jacksonian Democracy.

^^Carter and Stone, Reports. p. 56?. ^Ibid., pp. 567, 369. CHAPTER II

MARTIN VAN BUREN AND JACKSONIAN DEMOCRACY

The 1820's witnessed the rise of that com­ plex of ideas, forces and reforms known collectively as Jacksonian Democracy. Whether it was a barkening back to the past or a premonition of things to come, it was the dominant current political and social movement.^ As such, the newly elected Senator from New York had to deal with it. Van Buren was quickly classified by his contem- 2 poraries in Washington as a member of the "Radicals". This group, which included the "madcap" John Randolph and the venerable Nathaniel Macon, looked upon Monroe's Secretary of the Treasury, William Harris Crawford, as their leader. Their program was a simple one: they must keep the nation true to the tenets of Thomas

These two theses predominate in the works of Meyers and Schlesinger, respectively. Marvin Meyers, The JacksoTii an Persuasion: Politics and Belief (New York: Vintage Books, I960) ; Arthur H. Sctlesinger, Jr., The Age of Jackson (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1955). ^Robert V. Remini, The Election of Antoew Jackson (Philadelphia and Hew York: J.Ë."TCippincott Co., l9é3), p. 1 5 . (Hereafter cited as Remini, The Election of Andrew Jackson.) 20 Jefferson; they were, or felt they were, the "keepers of the Jeffersonian conscience.If their program was simple, its execution was difficult. They found themselves in the third decade of the nineteenth century surrounded by their enemies. The forces of aristocracy and Federalism were not only still en­ trenched, but were growing stronger: "Federalism has changed its name . . . [but] the party is now as strong as it ever has been . . . . "^ Equally frightening was the spectre of the growing Jacksonian movement. There was, the Radicals believed, a limit to the ex­ tension of democracy; Van Buren had illustrated this by his actions in the New York convention of 1821. There are clear indications that Jeffersonians were as afraid of the "mob" as Chancellor Kent or Fisher Ames ever were. The prospect of a great mass of humanity, untutored in the dicta of pure Jeffersonian thought, participating in the privilege of government, led by a military chieftain whose own "orthodoxy" was questionable, led the Radicals to draw away from the

^Schlesinger, Age of Jackson, title of Chapter Three. ^Thomas Jefferson to Albert Gallatin, August 2, 1823. P.L.Ford, ed., The Works of Thomas Jefferson. 12 vols. (New York: G.P.Putnam à Sons, 1905XTÏ, 297-298. (Hereafter cited as Jefferson, Works. ) 21 Jackson party. Certainly there was cause for concern. Jack­ son's position as a Tennessee aristocrat, his unabashed defiance of constituted authority during his Florida campaign, and his flirtations with the "Clay school" during his post-war Senatorial career were alarming 6 factors to the men of Radical temperament. More than any other factor, however, his open antagonism toward the caucus system of nomination alienated Martin Van Buren.^ Van Buren considered the caucus nomina­ tion one of the great legacies left by Jefferson to his followers and he tended to measure the "orthodoxy" of Presidential aspirants by their attitudes toward Q this system. Party harmony had to be preserved and

5 ^Jefferson reportedly remarked to the visiting Daniel Webster in 1824 that Jackson was "one of the most unfit men I know of for such a place" as the Presidency. Ibid.. p. 392.

^Schlesinger, Age of Jackson, p. 36; for Jack­ son's Tennessee record seelEhomas P. Abemethy, From Frontier to Plantation in Tennessee (Chanel Hill, B.C.: ’OnTvërsîty of Horth Carolina Press, 1932;. (Hereafter cited as Abemethy, From Frontier to Plantation in Tennessee.) ^Robert V. Remini, M ^tin Van Buren and the Making of the Democratic Party cBew York: dolumbia T?ni- versityTPress, 1^59;, pp. 4l-49, 60. Van Buren's problem was also complicated by the fact that De Witt Clinton, his arch-enemy, was New York's leading Jacksonian. Dixon Ryan Fox, The Decline of Aristocracy (New York: Harper & Row, 196$), p. ^14. Q Remini, Martin Van Buren and the Making of the Democratic Party, pp. l5. 60. 22 Jackson's political regularity was seriously ques­ tioned.^ Van Buren and the Radicals were soundly defeat­ ed in 1824; their caucus-nominated candidate, Crawford, lost not only the election hut also his faculties. Jackson had also lost. Between 1824 and 1828 the two losers drew together and between them forged the power­ ful Democratic Party.But Van Buren's conversion to the cause of Andrew Jackson was a slow and tedious proc­ ess; before any union could be consummated he had to convert Jackson to the cause of Jefferson. In conversation with a friend soon after the 1824 election. Van Buren explained the problems which lay before him in this attempt to capture Jackson for the Radical cause. There was "abundant evidence that the General was at an earlier period well grounded in the principles of our party . . . . " Trusting to "good fortune and to the effects of favorable associa­ tions for the removal of the rust they had contracted, in this case, by a protracted non-user . ..." it might be possible to revive those principles.If

^Van Buren' s opinions on the nature and role of the political party are discussed in Chapter Four. ^^An excellent and detailed discussion of the forg­ ing of the Jackson-Van Buren alliance may be found in Remini, The Election of Andrew Jackson. Chapters 5“5« ^^John C. Fitzpatrick, ed., "Autobiography of Martin Van Buren," Anmwai Report of the Amer lean Hi s- torical Association toT the Tear 19l6. Vol. II cHashing- t'on, incCT-g:T.'5.',-i9^)— . l9F. 23 Jackson would merely indicate his adherence to Jeffer­ sonian principles Van Bnren and the Radicals would come over to him. If Gen'l Jackson & his friends will put his election on party grounds, preserve the old sys­ tems . . . we can by adding his personal popular­ ity to the yet remaining force of old party feeling, not only succeed in electing him but our success when achieved will be worth something. We shall see what they are willing to do.12 With Van Buren the principles and the party al­ ways came first; the choice of a candidate was of secon­ dary importance. Jackson did not choose Martin Van Buren; Van Buren found Jackson. In order for Van Buren to attract the Old Hero to the standard of Jefferson, the Senator had to have something to offer. His bait was attractive. Van Buren formed and led a major party of opposition to the Adams- 01 ay administration. The "followers of the old Repub­ lican faith . . . , " he later wrote, could not fail to see in Mr. Adams's administration an attempt to estab­ lish, "the most ultra latitudinarian doctrines.Van Buren's object was to place himself at the head of the opposition to Adams; in this he was supremely successful.

^^Van Buren to P.M. Ficholas, November, 1826, Van Buren Papers, Library of Congress. ^^Remini, Martin Van Buren and the Malri np of the Democratic Party, n. 1^5. ^ ^ a n Buren, "Autobiography," p. 193» 24 Van Buren is now the great electioneering man­ ager for General Jackson . . . [and] has now every prospect of success in his present move­ ments .... 13 The record of Jackson's years in the White House attest to the measure of Van Buren's success. During Andrew Jackson's eight years in the Presidency three major issues confronted his adminis­ tration % the war with the Bank of the United States, the agitation over internal improvements, and the broader question of the relationship between the states and the federal government. On each of these questions Van Buren held definite opinions; his opinions influ­ enced the positions taken by General Jackson on these issues and helped to determine the program of the Demo­ cratic Party. Evidence indicates that Andrew Jackson's political ideas were largely unformed, or at least in a state of flux, at the time of his accession to the 16 Presidency. He apparently depended heavily upon his advisors when confronted with an issue which called for an interpretation of first principles. Chief among his advisors was his Secretary of State, later his

^^C.P. Adams, ed., Memoirs of Jnbm Quincy Adams Comprising Portions of His biarv from 1945-18481 lè vol s. %iiadelphlâ :"77B. ïiippIScôt¥ t Go., 1877), VII, 272. ^^Richard Hofstadter, The American Political Tradition and the Men Who Made ït CNew Ÿork: Vintage Soofcs, 19381» P • 55* 25 Vice-President, Martin Van Buren. Van Buren*s thoughts on the Second Bank of the United States were formed partly from his experience in New York politics and partly from his interpreta­ tion of the Jeffersonian heritage. The war against the "Monster" Bank was "the issue which stood for all 1 fi issues." If the "Jacksonians blamed the Bank for the transgressions committed by the people of their era against the political, social, and economic values of the Old Republic" it was Van Buren who interpreted these values for the Jacksonians.^^ As early as 1830 Eenry Clay informed Nicholas Biddle that Van Buren was intriguing against the Bank of the United States.

^The measure of Van Buren * s influence over Jackson is illustrated by his appointment as Secretary of State. In 1828 no man, save one, who had origin­ ally held this office had failed to be elected tothe Presidency when the incumbent did not choose to run. I contend that Jackson, who had originally intended to serve only one term, was considering Van Buren as his successor long before the split with Calhoun. It should also be remembered that in these early years of the Republic the Secretary of State was expected to be the President's chief advisor on all matters, not just foreign affairs, and as such was generally considered the "prime minister" of the administration. The ex­ tent to which Jackson relied upon his so-called "Kitchen Cabinet" has been greatly exaggerated.

^®Meyers, The Jacksonian Persuasion, p. 10.

^^Ibid.. p. 11. 26 That a strong party headed by Ur* Tan Buren . . . intend, if practicable, to make the Bank question the basis of the next Presidential election, 1 have, I believe, heretofore informe^you. I now entertain no doubt of that purpose.^ Biddle, however, did not believe him, although he was aware that the anti-Bank movement centered in New Tork.^^ Van Buren ' s connections with New York banking were a result of his leadership of the Albany Regency. Several members of this organization, particularly Benjamin Knower and Thomas Olcott, were active in New York banking. The Farmers* and Mechanics Bank of Albany, of which Enower was the principal stockholder, was a storehouse for Regency funds. The New York bankers were absolutely bent on destroying the Bank of the 22 United States, their principal competitor. Aside from the eminently practical consequence of enhancing

20 Eenry Clay to Nicholas Biddle, September 11, 1830. Reginald C. McGrane, ed., The Correauondence of Nicholas Biddle Dealing with National Affairs. iSo'T^ 1844 (Boston & iTew York; Hougkton MlTflin Co.! l9lyJ, p. 111. (Hereafter cited as Biddle, Correspondence.J 21 Thomas P. Govan, Nicholas Biddle. Nationalist and Public Banker. 1786-1844 (Chi'cago: tTniversitv of Chicago Iftress, 1959/» pp. 144-151. 22 Abernethy. From Frontier to Plantation in Tennessee, pp. 247-2%: Nathan ÏÙ-ller. The Enterprise of a Fr'êê People: Aspects of Economic Development in Sew^orh StateSuring the ?anai Period. 1792-18'% CIthaca: Cornell University î’ress, l*^è2), p. 161. (Hereafter cited as Miller, Enterprise of a Free People.) 27 the financial power of New York by destroying Biddle's Bank, there was among the New York Democrats a high­ ly articulate anti-monopoly sentiment. This sentiment was particularly strong inside the Albany Regency and among the radical Jacksonians of New York City, the Equal R i ^ t s Party.These "Locofocos", as they were called, were at first hostile to Tan Buren but in the late 1830's they succeeded in drawing him over to their views ; Philip Hone's remark that Van Buren ' s political ideas were "Locofoco to the very core" was, though meant as a disparaging remark, none the less true. Van Buren'8 original unpopularity among the Locofoco's and their predecessors, the Workingmen's Party, is understandable. . While these radicals favored a free banking system embodied in a generej. incorpora­ tion law and were strictly hard money men. Van Buren wanted merely to reform the state banking code and was friendly to the paper money banking class.The

^^Lee Benson, The Concept of Jacksonian Democracy; New York as a Test Case (New "York* Atheneum. 1964). pp. ^4=^6. 24 Glyndon G. Van Deusen, The Jacksonian Era. 1828-1^8 (New York; Harper & Row, 19^5^ p. 95* (Hereafter cited as Van Deusen, Jacksonian Era.); Philip Hone, The Diary of Philip Hone. Ëd!ite& by Allan Ne vins, 2 vols. (New lorE: t)odd, Nead & Co., 1927), I, 281, 25 '^Benson, Concept of Jacksonian Democracy, pp. 89-97. 28 lines were drawn in 1829. During his forty-three day reign as Governor of New York, Van Buren succeeded in creating the famous Safety Fund System for the state's banks. In his first (and only) annual message to the legislature Van Buren outlined his early ideas on banks, banking, and economics in general. He dis­ missed the idea that banking was an inherently evil ac­ tivity and should be dispensed with completely as "an idea which seems to have no advocate; and to make our­ selves wholly dependent upon those established by Federal authority, deserves none. A multi-branched state bank "would probably fail here, as it had else­ where," and furthermore, "Experience has shown that banking operations, to be successful and consequently beneficial to the community, must be conducted by pri­ vate men, upon their own account." The real problem, according to the new Grovernor, was not the nature of the banks but their solvency "and the consequent sta-

26 Charles Z. Lincoln, Messages from the Gov­ ernors, 9 vols. (Albany; J.B. Lyon Co., 1^09)» III, È30-ÉÉ8 . (Hereafter cited as Lincoln, Messages from the Governors.) One authority places Van Boren's message "among the best, if not the best, executive messages ever communicated to the legislature of this state." Jabez D. Hammond, History of Political Parties in the 6 ^ t e of New York, S vols. TTTooperstown, N.Y. : HT & !e, !AiTnney, 184é), II, 297. (Hereafter cited as Hammond, History of Political Parties.) 27 'Lincoln. Messages from the Governors. III. 238-240. ------29 pp bility of their paper." It did not matter who re­ ceived the charters; the equity of the distribution of the stock was of minor importance. The chief duty of the legislature is, to see that the farmer, when he exchanges his produce or his estate - the mechanic his wares - the merchant his goods - and all other classes of the community their property or service for bank paper, may rest contented as to its value.29 Van Buren then recommended the creation of the Safety Fund System, under which each bank would contribute a percentage of its deposits to insure its solvency and the solvency of its paper.Both John Randolph and Nathaniel Macon congratulated him upon "the character of that paper. The fact that Van Buren favored a strong and stable state banking system does not necessarily mean that he had to be opposed to Biddle's national bank, but such was the case. In addition to his political preference for state banks there was always the under-

^% b i d .. p. 241. ^^Ibid.. p. 242. ^ Benson, Concent of Jacksonian Democracy.

^^Van Buren, "Autobiography," p. 221. This message is occasionally cited to illustrate the theory that the Jacksonisins were "men on the make." It would seem to me, however, that a general incorporation law would have been most useful to such a group of men. Van Buren and the Albany Regency opposed such a law. 30 lying JeffersonianisTD in Van Bnren's thought. Jeffer­ son's strictures against a hank of the United States were well known to Van Buren and when the "hank weup" began those words of warning were reprinted by the Jacksonian press as the ultimate authority on the sub- 52 ject.^ Van Buren had three main objections to the Bank of the United States: he questions its constitu­ tionality, he disliked its power, and he disliked the way it abused its power. Van Buren's thoughts on the constitutionality of Biddle's Bank were formed by his rigid adherence to the strict-construction doctrines of the Jefferson school. The establishment of the Bank was, he later wrote, "an act at variance with principles vital to the Constitution ..." and it was "the great pioneer of constitutional encroachments . . . . "^^ In opposi­ tion to this view, however, is the testimony of James A. Hàmilton, who worked on the banking sections of Jack­ son's 1829 Annual Message.

^ Merrill D. Peterson, The Jefferson Image in the American Mind (New York: Oxford NniversTty Press, 1^62), pp. 77-76. Van Buren had opposed the recharter­ ing of the First Bank of the United States in 1811. William M, Holland, The Life and Political Opinions of Martin Vyi Buren. Vice-Presideni of the Hnited States (Hartford : Belknap Èc, Hamersley, lH33) » pp. 83-8H1

^^Van Buren, "Autobiography," pp. 299, 184. 51 I . . . said to him: "Van Bnren, you are against the bank on the grounds of its unconstitution­ ality." He ssLld, "Oh! no, I believe with Mr. Madison that the contemporaneous recognition of the constitutional power to establish a bank by all departments of the government, and with the concurrence of the people, has settled that ques­ tion in favor of the power."34 If Van Buren did hold this view in 1829, he soon changed it for he was in complete agreement with Jack­ son's veto of the re charter bill. Fifteen years later he could write I am opposed to the establishment of a National Bank in any form or under any disguise, both on constitutional grounds and grounds of e3q>ediency. The power to create such an institution has not been given to Congress by the Constitution, neither is it necessary to the exercise of any of the power which are granted . . . . 35 It appears, however, that Clay was wrong in his estimate that Van Buren was the leader of the anti- Bank movement. This is one case where the evidence indicates that Van Buren was not in the lead but in the rear and had to rush to catch up to Jackson. The President's hostility to the Bank of the United States and to banks in general was of long standing, It has been shown that the Bank Veto Message was written

^^James A. Hamilton, Reminiscences (New York: Charles Scribner & Co., 1869), p. 150 ^^Letter of Mr. Van Buren to the State Conven­ tion of Indiana (Tebruarv 15, 184577 n.p., p. ll This pamphlet is in the Library of Congress. ^ ^ a n Buren, "Autobiography," p. 625; Schles- inger. Age of Jackson, p. 76. 32 by Amos Kendall, and Van Buren had very little to do with its formulation.That he approved of Jackson's course is certain; that he initiated it is very doubt­ ful.^® At most, he reinforced the President's already strong prejudices. The power of the Bank of the United States wor­ ried Van Buren, as did the power of any group, govern­ mental or private, over which the people had no control. Not only did the Bank have too much power but it abused its power. According to Van Buren There is not a citizen of the United States, be he rich, or be he poor, who has not felt the blight of this all-pervading influence, in some way or other .... In the brief period of three years it beggared hundreds of thousands of citizens, impoverished States, wellnigh bankrupted the general government, inflicted deep . ._. stains . . . on our Republican Institutions.39 It was, "an institution that lacked either the will or the power to do good," and as such had to be destroyed.^

^^Dynn L. Marshall, "The Authorship of Jackson's Bank Veto Message," Mississippi Valley Historical Re­ view, L (December, l^é5), pp. 46^-47?. ^®Van Buren was not even in Washington when the crisis broke. Many contemporaries, however, accused Van Buren of responsibility for the veto. Mr. Van Buren arrived at the President's on Sunday night, and today the President sent to the Senate his veto on the Bank bill." W. Creighton to Nicholas Biddle, July 10, 1832. Biddle, Correspondence. p. 193» ^^Letter of Mr. Van Buren to the State Conven­ tion of InAianaT p. S'. ^Ibid. 35 The "baleful influence" of the Bank's attempt to coerce the country and the President after Jackson's veto message aroused Van Buren's disgust. Never in time of peace or in a state of public war, was the country so thoroughly convulsed . . . never before were our material interests so severely and wantonly injured as they were by the successive struggles of the second Bank of the United States to obtain a renewal of its charter.41

Though the electorate sustained Jackson and the char­ ter was not renewed, Van Buren cautioned that the struggle was not ended. The question of a National Bank is still before the people, and will continue to be, so long as avarice and ambition see in it the means of gratifying the love of money and the love of power . . . The enemy is not dead, nor doth he sleep.42

The question of federally financed internal improvements was another problem which agitated public opinion in the early nineteenth century. Van Buren was unalterably opposed to Henry Clay's American System, of which such improvements were an essential part. His opposition arose from two grounds once again, his experiences in New York and his strict- construction principles. It is clear that in the case of internal improvements Van Buren took the lead

^^Van Buren, "Autobiography," p. 628. 42 Letter of Mr. Van Buren to the State Con­ vention of Indiana, pp. 1, 8. 54 in formulating the Democratic Party's policy of opposition. Though Van Buren had originally opposed the construction of New York's Erie Canal, largely for political reasons, he and his Bucktails soon discov­ ered the popularity of the canal movement in his home state. He then quickly reversed his opinion and became as "canal-minded" as any other politician. Once New York was committed to constructing the canal out of its own resources the New York Republicans took the position that the other states should also finance their internal improvements and not turn to the feder­ al government for assistance. That Van Buren's main reason for opposing internal improvements was due to his strict construction principles can be illustrated by his actions while a United State Senator. In Janu­ ary, 1824, he introduced into the Senate a proposed constitutional amendment to permit the federal govern­ ment to finance the construction of internal improve­ ments.^ Despite the "ingenious constructions" some men gave to the Constitution, he felt that the govern­ ment did not have such power and that there was little hope that the issue would ever be settled without an

^^Miller, Enterprise of a Free People, p. 45. >\ h Annals of Congress. 18th Congress, 1st Session, pp. 134-1^5. 35 amendmeiit to clarify the government's powers.There­ fore he proposed to give the government this power "under restrictions regarding the sovereignty and se­ curing the equal ri^ts of the states."^® His idea of restrictions was to give the state legislatures a veto power over the projects planned for their states. His amendment was impractical and died in committee, but it serves to illustrate that his main objection was constitutional not political; if the government did not specifically have the power, then it did not have it at all.^^ Van Buren feared the encroaching power of the federal government upon the states and saw that the agitation for internal improvements was designed to foster that encroachment. As Governor of New York he urged his constituents to proceed with prudence with New York's system of roads and canals and not to depend 48 on federal assistance. As a member of Jackson's Cabinet and as one of his closest advisors. Van Buren led the administration's attack upon the internal im-

^^Ibid. ^®Ibid. ^^Van Buren proposed that the distribution of federal money for internal improvements should be based on population. Such a scheme would have benefited New York greatly. The text of Van Buren's proposed amend­ ment can be found in Ibid., p. 136. 48 Lincoln. Messages from the Governors. III. 234-236. 36 provements heresy. "Convinced," he later wrote, "of the inexpediency as well as the ■unconstitutionality of the construction of works of internal improvement under the direct or indirect authority of the Federal Government" he determined to halt "the mad schemes of that day. He was instrumental in getting Jackson to adopt a stand against these "mad schemes". No Cabinet councils were called: not another member or the Cabinet was consulted .... It was understood between us that I should keep an eye upon . . . Congress and bring to his notice the first Bill upon which I might think his in­ terference would be preferable . . . 50 The bill Van Buren chose was one "authorizing a sub­ scription to the stock of the Maysville . . . Turnpike- road Compemy.Upon the request of the President, he sent to the White House "a brief" upon the subject, "upon which I take more pride than in any of my speech­ es . . . . Jackson was enthusiastic. I think it one of the most lucid expositions of the Constitution and historical accounts of the departure of Congress from its true principles that I have ever met with .... 53

^^Van Buren, "Autobiography," pp. 315» 319* ^°Ibid.. p. 320.

51Ibid. ^% b i d .. p. 319• This "Brief" is not among the Jackson or Van Buren MSS in the Library of Congress. Jackson to Van Buren, May 4, 1830. Van Buren, "Autobiography," p. 321. 37 Upon this ground Jackson vetoed the hill; evidence indicates that the veto was written by Van Buren. His opposition on constitutional grounds to federal­ ly financed internal improvements was a cardinal principle which he maintained inviolate throughout his life. Near the end of that life he could look back and write that on the internal improvements question "I . . . can, I think, safely challenge a comparison with the straitest of the strict-construction sect in regard to à faithful adherence to the principles of that school . . . . The question of the proper relationship of the states to the federal government was one which was not fully answered during Van Buren*s lifetime. From the Constitutional Convention of 1?87 to the secession of South Carolina in 1860 this issue plagued American statesmen. During the Jackson administration the im­ plications of the problem first came to a head in the nullification crisis. As a stout supporter of Jefferson, Van Buren inherited the Virginian's position on the rights of the states. If Jefferson could refer to the government

^ The draft of the veto message closest to the final version, in the Jackson MSS in the Library of Congress, is in Van Buren's handwriting. 5^Van Buren, "Autobiography," p. 315• 58 at Washington as "our foreign government" it is not surprising that as one of the "keepers of the Jeffer­ sonian conscience," Van Buren should speak of "sacri­ fice . . . on the altar of States Eights."^® Through­ out the Monroe administration and during Adams's four years in the Presidency, the New Yorker thought he saw a clear trend among these nominal Republicans toward a doctrine of centralism. [T]he only chance for the perpetuity of existing institutions depends upon the preserved vigor and constant watchfulness of the State Governments . . . there is not at this moment sufficient honesty in . . . this Government . . . and we are indebted for the little that remains to constant apprehen­ sion of rebuke and resistance from the States.37 He announced in 1827 that he would never cease to de­ fend the "remaining rights reserved to the states ..." and would seek "to restore those of which they have been divested by construction . . . . He con­ sidered that the experience of forty years under the Constitution

^ Thomas Jefferson to Robert Garnett, February 14, 1824. Jefferson, Works. XII, 342. The Van Buren quote is from a toast made by him in Charleston, S.C. in March, 1827. Remini, Martin Van Buren and the Making of the Democratic Party, p. l42. ^^Van Buren to William Coleman, April 4, 1828, Van Buren Papers, Library of Congress. ^®Van Buren to Hon. Nathaniel Pitcher, Presi­ dent of the Senate of the State of New York, February 18, 1827, quoted in Hammond, History of Political Parties. II, 246-247. In 1824, Van Buren introduced a constitutional amendment to forbid the Supreme Court from invalidating a state law without the concurrence 39 has Tindlcated and fully sustained the opinions . . . of those, who . . . insisted that the tendency of the system would be to encourage encroachments by the federal power upon that of the states. That tendency may well be regarded as the imperfection of our otherwise most happy system.39 This did not, however, mean that he was will­ ing to go to any length to protect them; despite his feelings for the rights of the states he fought con­ sistently against the extreme states-ri^ts doctrines of Oalhoun and his following. The Carolinian's views on the federal Constitution "were latitudinarian in the extreme" and to his personal dislike of the man Tan Buren added a political hostility based on principles.®^ According to Van Buren, the doctrine of nullification arose from the “original federal proclivity" of Calhoun and not from the Jefferson school, with which he at- tempted to identify himself. Van Buren had just returned from his ill-fated term as Minister to England when South Carolina passed its Ordinance of Nullification. Althou^ Jackson had earlier informed Van Buren of his desire to "peacably . nullify the nullifyers [sic.]," after the issuance of of at least five Justices. It was never acted upon. The text of this amendment may be found in Autiai a of Congress. 18th Congress, 1st Session, pp. 336-337*

^^Lincoln, Messages from the Governors. Ill, 257 -258 . ®^Van Buren, "Autobiography," p. 513* 61Ibid., p. 706. 40 his Proclamation on December 11, 1852, he warned the New Yorker of his intent to use force if necessary to 62 solve the dispute. Van Buren must have been dis­ mayed at the General's rage for he wrote back urging Jackson to use "caution-caution."®^ This was no time to falter, he warned, but he also begged the Presi­ dent not to make war on the doctrine of states rights while in the process of condemning South Carolina; "the present is not," he wrote, "a season for the settlement or discussion of abstract propositions."®^ Evidently Jackson had not told him of the contents of his Proclamation for Van Buren regretted "to see . . . some of the doctrinal points of the proclamation, the most assailable of which . . . is likely to bring you in collision with Virginia ..." and the other mod­ erate followers of states rights.®^ Van Buren main­ tained that South Carolina would not secede, but in the unlikely eventuality that she should "it is a

6? Jackson to Van Buren, November 18, 1852; December 15» 1852; December 25» 1832. John S. Bassett, ed., Gorregpondence of ^drew Jackson. 7 vols. (Wash- ington, D.d.: Carnegie Institute of Washington, 1926- 1935)» IV, 489, 500-501, 504-506. (Hereafter cited as Jackson, Correspondence.) ®^Van Buren to Jackson, December 27, 1852. Ibid., IV, 507. ®^Ibid. 65Ibid. 41 question for the remaining members of the confederacy to decide, whether they will form a new Government, or wage a war agt. her to compel her to remain in the Union, and that the right of deciding . . . is fitly to be decided by Congress . . . . " Despite Van Buren* s unequivocal loyalty to the idea of the Union he considered Jackson's association of states rights with Calhounism to be a dangerous error. The President's proclamation, it is not to be denied, favoured the federal idea . . . sufficiently to give cause of great uneasiness in quarters entitled to respect, and in which there was much anxiety that he should do what was necessary to prevent the mistake into which he had been led . . . from being in future relied upon as a precedent.®' The message was, in his opinion, "weakened by its un­ necessary assertion of doctrines regarded by the re- 6R publican faith as political heresies." In connection with the nullification crisis Van Buren was persuaded to set forth his own views on the relationship between the states and the federal government. He prepared a report for the New York state legislature upon the subject. Van Buren noted that, to a great degree, the federal-state controversy arose from the interpretation of the word "state" in

®®Ibid.. pp. 507-508. ®^Van Buren, "Autobiography," p. 54-5. ®®Ibid.. p. 548. 42 the Constitution. The proper definition, he believed, was "the people composing those political societies, in their highest sovereign capacity," thereby making it "incontrovertible that the states must be regarded as parties to the compact."®^ Therefore, he went on, the Constitution was established by the people of the United States "not as one consolidated body, but as members of separate and independent communities, each acting for itself . . . . When disputes arose over the nature of the compact it was therefore illogical to appeal to "mere numbers" for this was "incompatable with the frame and design of the Feder­ al Constitution.Though all sincere republicans, as Jefferson taught, must acquiesce in the decisions of the majority "it is yet to be remembered . . . that there is no channel provided by our Constitution through which the sense of the people of the United States in the aggregate. may be taken. Such a pro­ vision was deemed incompatable with a full enjoyment by the States of the rights of sovereignty.

®^Quoted in Ibid.. p. 550. 70,'Ibid. 71Ibid. ^ Letter of Mr. Van Buren to the State Conven­ tion of InAianaT p. l4. The underTTned words are in italics in the original. 43 Only "anarchy . . . and interminable distress," how­ ever, could come from a dissolution of the Union; there must be a determination to maintain the union at all hazejpds, and a willingness to make liberal con­ cessions, nay sacrifices, for the preservation of peace and reciprocal good will among its members. Upon this great conservative platform all sincere friends of the Union . . . can meet and act in concert . . . .75 Van Buren's denial that the people "in the aggregate" formed the Constitution helped fasten the states rights philosophy upon the Democratic Party. The rejection of the Calhoun brand of this doctrine did not mean a rejection of the philosophy as a whole; indeed, it was Van Buren's moderate version which be­ came dominant in the party until the 1850's. In the year he wrote this report, Martin Van Buren became Vice-Ptesident of the United States. Four years later, as Jackson's hand-picked successor, he ascended to the White House where he was the em­ bodiment of the Jeffersonian conscience. During those four years and in the twenty-two years after his in­ voluntary retirement from the Presidency, Van Buren met and overcame new challenges to the faith he lived by. The most serious of those challenges were flung at him by two new brands of radicalism, Locofocoism and abolition.

"^^Ibid.. pp. 551-552. CHAPTER III

MARTIN VAN BUREN AND THE "HEW RADICALISM"

Martin Van Buren was President of the United States only a few weeks when the nation was suddenly subjected to the most severe depression in its short history. The causes of this economic setback were many and varied; economic overexpansion was probably the basic cause.^ The Jacksonians, including Van Buren, blamed the crash on the shortsighted contrac­ tion of credit by Biddle's bank.^ The Whigs blamed it upon Jackson's economic ignorance as manifested in his "pet bank" scheme and the Specie Circular.^ Whatever its cause, there was no doubt about its re­ sults. In Few York City alone two hundred thousand 4 were without adequate means of support. The nation

Samuel Rezneck, "The Social History of an American Depression," American Historical Review, XL (July, 1955;, pp. 652-663» Glyndon 6. Van Deusen, The Jacksonian Era. 1828-1848 (New York; Harper & Row, 1^3)» pp. 116-ÎT7. 2 John C. Fitzpatrick, "Autobiography of Martin Van Buren," Annual Re^port of the Americ^ Historical Association for the fear 1 ^ 8 . Vol. ÏI (Washington. B.C.: G.P.O., 19^0), pp. 115-117; Letter of Mr. Van Buren ^ the State Convention of Indiana ^February 15, 18437, n.p., p. 6 z Van Deusen, The Jacksonian Era, p. 118. 4 Rezneck, loc. cit.. p. 664. 45 waited to see what Van Bnren would do, Martin Van Buren*s knowledge of economics was limited, and his understanding of the subject was dom­ inated by his Jeffersonian political tenets. His opposition to the Bank of the United States was con­ stitutional; he rarely attacked it as economically unsound.^ Jacksonian economic thought has been char­ acterized as "imbued with archaic notions," "neophysi- ocratic," and "negative and inadequate." There is some truth in this when applied to Van Buren. His economic thought was laissez-faire to the core. He believed in a "natural law of trade, which is the best of all regulators, because it regulates itself. When questioned about the status of laborers' wages, he answered that if "left . . . free from the blight­ ing influence of partial legislation, monopolies, con­ gregated wealth, and interested combinations, the com­ pensation of labor will always preserve [a] salutary

^See Chapter Two. ®In other words, it was Jeffersonian. Glyndon G. Van Deusen, "Some Aspects of Whig Thought and Theory in the Jacksonian Period," American Historical Review. LXIII (January, 1958), pp^ 506, 319. See also lister M. Grace Madeleine, Monetary and Bauking Theories of Jaekanni am Democracy (Philadelphiat tTniversity of Pennsylvania Press,1943). She is of the opinion that Jeffersonian doctrine was the basis for the anti-bank movement, but she does not give Van Buren any credit for leadership in the transmission of this heritage. n 'Letter of Mr. Van Buren to the State Convention of Indiana. p. 8. 4 6 Q relation ..." to prices. If, however, something should happen to depress the wages of the laborer "beyond a bare subsistence, he can, at any time . . . become an independent farmer by settling on the vacant lands of the west.In the midst of the depression which was slowly strangling the economic life of the country. Tan Buren persisted in the belief that the fundamental economic structure of America was sound and that the enemies of recovery were monopoly and "overaction in all the departments of business. His program for recovery was two-fold: a complete divorce of bank and state and an extension of the hard-money policy begun by Jackson. Van Buren was known as a "Radical" when he first came to Washington in 1821. In 1837 he became a "radical" again, only this time it was a new brand of radicalism that he adopted. Philip Hone's comment that Van Buren had become a Locofoco was astute; his

®Van Buren to Messrs. Isaac Lippincott et.al.. Niles * National Register. LIX, 1513, September 1840, pT3^. ^Van Buren to Messrs. W. Fithian et. al.. Nil eg ' National Register. LIX, 1512, September 1 ^ i54o, p. 40. 10 Special Session Message, September 4, 1837» James D. Richardson, ed., A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents. 1789-1906T 11 vols. (Washington, D.Ù. % Bureau of National Literature and Art, 1908), III, 325» (Hereafter cited as Richardson, Messages and Papers.) 47 solution for the economic crisis was their solution 11 and they rejoiced at gaining so auspicious a convert. These Equal Rights men, who had opposed Van Buren's election In 1836, were enthusiastic about him in 1837» "Our party, to a man," said one Locofoco broadside, "are in favor of President Van Buren's great measure, 1 p the divorce of bank and state .... " When Van Buren's message on the sub-treasury plan was delivered on September 11, 1837» even his close friends comment- n % ed upon his conversion to Locofocoism. ^ The independent treasury system was urged on Van Buren by his friends and something like it was expected by many of his supporters. As early as

See Chapter Two. Walter E. Hugins, Jacksonian Democracy and the Working Class; A Study of the New York Workingmen*s Movement (Stanford: Stanford Univer­ sity Pres^ I960), p. 46. (Hereafter cited as Hugins, Jacksonian Democracy and the Working Class.) ^^Quoted in P. Byrdsall, The History of the Loco-foco or Equal Rights Party (New York: Clement & Packard, l8?2), p. iSb. ^%illiam L. Marcy to Mr. Gallup, September 23, 1837, quoted in Reginald C. McGrane, The Panic of 1837; Some Financial Problems of the Jacksonian NraT"(^icago : University of Chicago Press, 1924), p. 155» 1 4 W.C. Rives to Van Buren, June 3» 1837» James Buchanan to Van Buren, June 5» 1837» C.C. Cambreleng to Van Buren, June 13» 1837» Van Buren Papers, Library of Congress. "There should be a Divorce granted between the Banking system and the Government . . . Such I have no doubt are the opinions of Mr. Van Buren & his Cabinet." Stephen A. Douglas to Lewis W. Ross, August 12, 1837» Robert W. Johannsen, ed., The Letters of Stephen A. Douglas (Urbfima, 111.; University of Illinois Press, i w ; , p. 39» 4 8 Hay, the President revealed that he was thinking along these lines; he told W. C. Rives that he was beginning to favor a system "by which the government will be separated [sic. 3 from all connexion [sic. 3 with the Banks. "Ro Democratic administration of the federal Government," he wrote four months later, "can get along harmoniously, successfully, in a con­ nection with banks, which by the law of their nature, must be owned and controlled by its opponents. The idea of a complete separation of banking and government was not original with Martin Van Bur en. It found its most powerful current expression in the works of the radical economist and writer William M. Gouge, one of the acknowledged leaders of the working­ men's movement.In 1833» Gouge wrote a "short history" of banking in the United States in which he called for the total separation of bank and state in order to fur­ ther the equality of opportunity which the workingmen's movement considered the basic precondition for a demo-

^^Van Buren to W. 0. Rives, May 25, 1837, Van Buren Papers, Library of Congress.

^ ^ a n Buren to Thomas Ritchie, August 11, 1837» Van Buren Papers, Library of Congress. 17 'Hugins, Jacksonian Democracy and the Working Class, p.'199. 4 9 *1 g cratic society. Early in 1837, in a second work, he formulated his concept of the way in which this separation would be feasible; "A Sub-Treasury system," he thought'Is the common sense system. Whether Van Buren actually read Gouge or not is uncertain, but it can be shown that Gouge did have access to the President's ear on fiscal policy. 2 0 The extent of Gouge's influence is demonstrated in Van Buren*s spe­ cial message to Congress on the economic crisis. This message, which has been called "a classi­ cal expression of the . . . main tenets of the Equal Rights party ..." committed Martin Van Buren and the administration Democrats to the Locofoco economic 21 doctrine of divorce of bank and state. The Presi-

William M, Gouge, A Short History of Paper Money and Banking in the United States. 2nd, ed. l^ew York: B. & S."Hollins, 10553, pp. 35"56. ^^William M Gouge, An Inquiry Into the Exped­ iency of Dispensing with Ban^Agency and Bank Paper in the fiscal Concerns of the Ünited States (Philadel­ phia: William stavely, 1837V, p. 391 in the preface to this tract. Gouge states that it was written in 1855 but not then printed, p. iv. 20 In the Van Buren Papers, Library of Congress, there are a series of questions about fiscal policy which Van Buren asked Gouge to draw up to be circulat­ ed among the Cabinet for their views. Though there is no signature on the papers the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress asserts that these memoranda were authored by Gouge. Elizabeth E. West, ed., A Calendar of the Papers of Martin Van Buren (Washing­ ton, B.C.: library of Congress Manuscript Division, 1910), p. 302. ^^William Trimble, "Diverging Tendencies in Hew York Democracy in the Period of the Locofocos," American Historical Review. XXIV (April, 1919), pp. 411-412. 50 dent asserted that the practice of employing state banks to conduct the fiscal affairs of the govern­ ment was "from the beginning more a measure of emer­ gency than of sound policy," and given the fact that the re-establishment of a Bank of the United States was out of the question, the only course left open to the government was the creation of an independent treasury system to collect and disburse the federal 22 revenues. His pleux, he asserted, would put the Federal Government "in a situation which shall re­ lieve it from all dependence on the will of irrespon­ sible individuals or corporations" and would protect the public funds from being used for private ends. Congress, however, was recalcitrant; the Independent Treasury system did not become law until July 4, 1840. On that date Van Buren finally signed the measure which would restore, he believed, "after a departure of nearly half a century . . . the letter, as well as 24 the obvious spirit and intention of the constitution."

22 Richardson, Messages and Papers. Ill, 532, 328, 337-338. Van Buren also tkoughi that the scheme to distribute excess federal revenue to the states was un­ constitutional. Van Buren to Sherrod Williams, Aug­ ust 8. 1836, Miles* Rational Register. LI. 1303. September 10,T53S, p. ------^^Richardson, Messages and Papers. Ill, 381-582. ^ ^ a n Buren to Messrs. John McCalla, et. al.. July 4, 1840, Niles' National Register. LVIII, 1505, August 8, 1840, p. 364. 51 The debate over the nature of America's cur­ rency also disturbed Van Buren's administration. The conflict between those who favored a paper currency and those who wanted the currency limited strictly to specie agitated the nation and, more specifically, the Democratic Party. Those in Van Buren ' s party who demanded hard money were largely concentrated in the northeastern states. No group was more ardent in their desire for specie currency than the Locofo­ cos; they hoped to control inflation, the handmaiden of speculation, by the drastic deflationary device of 26 an exclusively metallic currency. Jackson, whose hard money views could be traced back to the Relief War in Kentucky and Tennessee in 1819, had begun the deflationary trend with the issu­ ance of his so-called Specie Circular in 1 8 3 6 . It fell to Van Buren to maintain and extend the hard money policy. Considering the magnitude of the econom-

^^Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. , The Age of Jack­ son (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1953 , p. 20HT 26(jarl N. Degler, "The Locofocos: Urban Agrarians," Journal ^f Economic History, XVI (Septem­ ber, 1956), p. 35G. ^^Thomas P. Ab erne thy. Prom Frontier to F l o t a ­ tion in Tennessee (Chapel Hill, S.C.: ‘rtnivsrsTty of North“Harolina Pness, 1932), p. 229; Van Beusen, The Jacksonian Era, p. 104. In his so-called Farewell Address, Jackson denounced paper money "and its natural associations— monopoly and exclusive privileges" and referred to gold and silver as "the constitutional cur­ rency." Richardson, Messages and Papers. Ill, 506. 52 ic crisis of 1857, such a position was not easily maintained; he was bombarded by letters from friends and enemies alike demanding that he repeal Jackson's 28 circular. If he did repeal the order he would be repudiating Jackson; if it were retained it might cause even greater distress. Even some of Van Buren's 'friends feared that he would give in to those who PQ demanded repeal. Van Buren and the Albany Regency had never been noted for hard money views, nor for any hostil­ ity toward banking in general.Yet by 1856 Van Buren had taken a definite stand against the paper money system. It is time, high time, that we should return to the constitutional policy . . . that the fed­ eral government confine itself to the creation of coin . . . 31 Paper money, he said, tended to depreciate ; in order to protect the working class from this depreciation "the currency of the country should be a metallic

28 See Van Buren Papers, Library of Congress, April-August, 1857, where dozens of these petitions have been preserved. James Buchanan to Jackson, July 28, 1857» John Bassett Moore, ed.. The Works of James Buchanan. 12 vols. (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Co., 1^08-1911), III, 256. ^^Lee Benson, The Concept of Jacksonian Democ­ racy: New York as a Test Case CNew'H'ork: Atheneum. i5è4j, pp. 96-97% ^^Van Buren to Sherrod Williams, August 8, 1856, Niles' National Register. LI, 1505, September 10, 1856, p. 28. 53 not a paper currency. "The manufacture of paper money has been attempted in every form, " he later wrote, "[I]t has been tried by individuals, been transferred to corporations by the States, then to corporations by Congress, engaged in by the States themselves, and has signally failed in all . . . But my most sincere and ardent wish is that its issue by the Federal Government may in all future time be prevented. In order to foster this wish the new President announced that he would not repeal the Specie Circular and would order the Treasury not to accept any bank notes "not redeemed in specie on demand." Between 1836 and 1841 Martin Van Buren ex­ panded the Jeffersonian heritage that was his politi­ cal credo by accepting the doctrines of the new "radicalism" that was Locofocoism. Actually this was not so difficult an adjustment as it has been made xc out to be."^"^ Despite the assertion that the Locofocos were "nascent proletarians," they were as much the inheritors of the Jeffersonian tradition as was Martin

^^Ibid. ^^Letter of Mr. Van Buren to the State Conven­ tion of IndlanaT p. FT ^^*Richardson, Messages and Papers. Ill, 339» ^^Benson, Concept of Jacksonian Democracy, pp. 94-97. 54 Van Buren; they were as much anti-government as anti-capitalist and are best described as "urban agrarians.C. C. Cambreleng of New York City, Van Buren's direct connection with the Locofoco move­ ment and one of his closed:friends, remarked that the "progress of reform may eventually leave trade . . . entirely free from all government regulation. This was pure Jeffersonian laissez-faire. as was Van Buren's remark that "All communities are apt to look to gov­ ernment too much . . . especially in periods of sudden embarrassment and distress . . . [T]he less government interferes with private pursuits the better for the general prosperity."^® If, therefore, I refrain from suggesting to Con­ gress any specific plan for regulating the ex­ changes of the country, relieving mercantile embarrassments or interfering with the ordinary operations of foreign or domestic commerce, it is

^ The thesis that the Locofocos were "nascent proletarians" is found in Trimble, loc. cit. The op­ posite, and I think the correct, point of view is taken by Degler, loc. cit. See also Joseph Dorfman, "The Jackson Wage-Eamer Thesis," American Historical Review. Ü V (January, 1949), pp. 290-$06; William Trimble, "The Social Philosophy of the Locofoco Democ­ racy," American Journal of Sociology. XXVI (May, 1921), pp. 705-715. Quoted in Dorfman, loc. cit.. p. 306. The close connection between the Locofocos and Cambreleng on the one hand and Cambreleng and Van Buren on the other is illustrated by Hugins, Jacksonian Democracy and the Working Class. p. 108. 38 Richardson, Messages and Papers. Ill, 344. 55 from a conviction that such measures are not within the constitutional province of the General Government. 39 Thus the Jeffersonian heritage received new impetus at the hands of the Locofoco party. Martin Van Buren, one of the original "keepers of the Jeffersonian conscience," blended the old radicalism of 1821 with the new and made it the official program of the 40 northern wing of the Democratic Party. Locofocoism was not the only new radicalism that gained momentum during the Age of Jackson. In the 1850*8, an old movement was revived in the form of a new crusade. Abolitionism then agitated Amer­ ican politics for three decades until its final triumph under Lincoln. It too was a challenge to the faith of Martin Van Buren. It threatened to de­ stroy not only the nation but the Democracy he had labored so diligently to build and maintain. Despite his efforts to cling to the party, Martin Van Buren was temporarily, if reluctantly, caught up in the tide of anti-slavery and as the Free Soil candidate for President in 1848 he found himself an outcast from the party he had helped to create. "Mr. Van Buren," wrote the genleman in the White House, "is

^^Ibid.. p. 345. 4 0 Van Deusen, The Jacksonian Era, pp. 95, 103 56 the most fallen man I have ever known. Van Buren, prior to his nomination in 1848, had never been known for any opposition to slavery or to its extension. It is unlikely that during the years prior to his Presidency he had formed any fixed 42 ideas upon the subject. He quietly supported the Compromise of 1820. When the Resolution was acted upon in the Senate there was neither debate nor a call of the Ayes and Noes; and it was silently passed. I was in my seat and would have voted for it if a formal vote had been taken and I always afterwards therefore admitted my share of re­ sponsibility for its passage.45 The first public notice he took of the sub­ ject of slavery was in a public letter in February, 1856, in which he gave his "full concurrence" to the ideas that "the relation of master and slave is a matter exclusively belonging to the people of each State . . . , and that any attempt by . . . the General Government to interfere with or disturb it.

Allan Nevins, ed., Polk: The Diary of a President (New York: Longmans, üreen & Co., 1^F9T, p. 558. 42 Robert V. Remini, Martin Van Buren and the Making of the Democratic Party (l^ew York: Columbia l^iversTEy Sress, l959), p. 152. The slave states, he thought in the 1820's, had dealt with the subject of slavery with "a wise and liberal spirit." Van Buren,"Autobiography," p. 132. ^^Van Buren, "Autobiography," p. 100. 57 would violate . . . the federal compact.He said that he could not deny that Congress might have the power to abolish slavery in the District of Colum­ bia; he thought, however, it would be inadvisable for it to do so because of the effect it would have in Maryland and Virginia and because such an act would violate "the spirit . . . which lies at the basis of our social compact.He restated this view in his Inaugural Address when he promised Congress he would veto any bill abolishing slavery in the District, a promise which was, according to Benton, "not a neces­ sity but a propriety , . . not called for by anything in congress, but outside of it."^ Van Buren's opin­ ions on slavery and its extension were limited by his Jeffersonian interpretation of the Constitution

^ V a n Buren to Messrs. Junius Amis, et. al.. March 6, 1856, in Opinions of Martin Van Buren. ITTce- President of the United States, upon the Powers and Duties"of "^ngress. in Reference to the Abolition of Slavery either in the Slaye-Solding States or in the District of Columbia to W ^ c h are Added Sundry DocumenEs"Hhowing !Bis~Hentiments Upon Other Sub.iects (Washington, D.C?: Blair & kives, 18563, pp. 4-5. ^^Ibid.. pp. 5“6, Van Buren's friend and admirer, John Forsyth of Georgia, said in 1836 that Van Buren's opinions on slavery were those held by "every honest Southerner." John Forsyth to Thomas Moughon, et. al.. October 28, 1836, quoted in Alvin L. Ducket¥7 J o W Forsyth. Political Tactician (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1962;, pp. 213-214. ^®Richardson, Messages and Pap ers. Ill, 318; Thomas Hartart Benton, Thirty TearsYears View. view. 2 vols. (New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1864), II, 9. 58 and by his desire to preserve harmony inside the Democratic Party. His public declaration, for ex­ ample, that Congress had every right to adopt the "gag rule" when confronted by a flood of abolition petitions was based on his interpretation of the powers of Congress under the Constitition.^^ Except when he found it convenient for political purposes or when called upon to expound constitutional doctrine. Van Buren apparently thought it was the better part of valor to keep his ideas on slavery, whatever they were, as quiet as possible. By 1844, however, discretion was becoming a political liability. Van Buren*s friends and ene­ mies pressed him to take a stand on the public ques­ tion which was rapidly obscuring all other public

/ I Q questions: the annexation of Texas. On April 20, 1844, he finally broke his silence in the famous letter which undoubtedly cost him the 1844 Democrat­ ic presidential nomination. He came out unequivo­ cally against the annexation of Texas "at this time.

4*7 '^Van Buren to Messrs. E. D. Sweet, et. al.. September 50. 1840, Niles’ Weekly Register. XTX. October 31, 1840, p." 1 3 ^ ----- /I g James C. N. Paul, Rift in the Democracy (New York: A.S. Barnes & Co. , 195ÎJ, p. Il4. ^^Van Buren to W.H, Hammet, April 20, 1844, Niles* National Register. LXVI, 1701, May 4, 1844, pp. 155-157. 59 Jackson was "mortified" by Van Buren's letterj "the whole Democracy," he wrote Blair, "expected him (and so did I) . . . to be in favor of immediate annexa­ tion . . . I am quite sick really, and have been since I read V.B. letter .... The ex-President tried to extricate his protege from the results of his forthrightness.^^ Van Buren, however, would not rescind nor alter his statement. Of the expediency of advancing them [his opinions on Texas] . . . there was certainly room for doubt, but that was a consideration which I was not at liberty to embrace. I did it not with my eyes fully open to the possible outbreak . . . but I am as well satisfied with my course now as when it was adopted.52 The election of James K. Polk and the ensuing war with Mexico caused intellectual problems for Van Buren. He feared that if war came "the opposition shall be able to charge with plausibility, if not truth, that it is waged for the extension of slavery;" if a war for slavery did come about he felt that the

^ Jackson to P. P. Blair, May 7, 1844 and May 11, 1844. John S, Bassett, ed,, Correspondence of AndJew Jackson. 7 vols. (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Institute of Washington, 1926-1955), VI, 284, 285. ^^Jackson to the Editors of the Nashville UNION. May 13, 1844, Ibid.. VI, 289-291. ^^Van Buren to George Bancroft, May 8, 1844, "Van Buren-Bancroft Correspondence," Proceedings. Massachusetts Historical Society (Boston: îhe Society, 1909), XLII, 427. 60 Democrats of the north would have to desert their southern allies.But once the war came Van Buren supported it. The existence of that war has received the official sanction . . . o f the government which is required by the constitution; and it is due to the future fame, as well as the present pros­ perity of this great nation, that it be triumph­ antly sustained.54 By 1848 the war had been won, great new areas had been added to the American domain and the Demo­ cratic Party was on the verge of disruption. The charge that the war had been conducted for the benefit of slavery was being leveled throughout the northern states not only by "the opposition" but by many in Van Buren*s own party. The rejection of the Wilmot Proviso seemed to many to prove the truth of the alle­ gation and the nucleus of a new party, hostile to the expansion of slavery, was forming. In New York this group, called Barnburners, was largely the rem­ nant of the old Jacksonian-Locofoco Democratst its nominal leaders were Silas Wright and John Van Buren.

^^Van Buren to Bancroft, February 15, 1845, Ibid., p . 439. ^^Van Buren to Samuel P. Collins, October 20, 1847, Niles' National Register. LXXIII, 1885, November 1 3 , 184?, p. 172. ^^Schlesinger, Age of Jackson, pp. 454, 461 ; The Locofocos were not anti-slavery; they were large­ ly indifferent to the problem. Trimble, "The Social Ihilosophy of the Locofoco Democracy," loc. cit.. p. 715 61 Their program, in addition to containment of slavery, included restriction of public works, economy in government, and limitation of the power of the legis­ lature in matters of state debt; it was largely the old Jacksonian program.^® That Martin Van Buren was actually its leader can be seen by the orders which he gave to the Barnburner delegation to the national convention of the Democracy in 1848. He ordered them to walk out if they were not officially recognized as the only New York delgation or if Polk was renom­ inated. The walkout resulted in a convention in Utica, New York, in late June, 1848, which culminated in the nomination of Martin Van Buren for President on a Wilmot Proviso ticket.^® The nomination of Van Buren was a surprise. Not only had he announced prior to the gathering that he did not wish to be a nominee, but there was no wide public knowledge that he held Wilmot Proviso views.Before the general Free Soil convention, held in Buffalo in early August, Van Buren

^^erbert A, Donovan, The Barnburners (Hew York; New York University Press, 1925), p. 119. (Hereafter cited as Donovan, The Barnburners.) ^^Joseph G. Payback, "Martin Van Buren*s De­ sire for Revenge in the Campaign of 1848," Mississippi Valiev Historical Review. XL (March, 1954), pp. ?10-yl5. ^®Van Deusen, The Jacksonian Era, p. 257* ^^Donovan, The Barnburners. p. 87. 62 once again refused to be a candidate but "cordially" concurred in their work; he compared their efforts as second in importance only to the 1?87 convention.®^ Despite his reluctance, he was nominated 159-129 over John P. Hale. He accepted the nomination and endorsed the Free Soil platform. Approving of the platform which the Convention has adopted, and conscious . . . of right and duty in regard to it, I shall be among the last to abandon it . . . 61 He also repudiated his 1856 pledge to veto any law abolishing slavery in the District of Columbia. Despite his mild antislavery bias. Van Buren was no sincere abolitionist. Tears later he wrote The existence and continuance of slavery was a sad qualification of . . . noble aims . . . but it was impossible, positively and absolute­ ly impossible to avoid it.63 Van Buren's nomination was "against his wishes and because he was believed to be the strongest candidate," thought one of his associates.®^ "Mr. Van Buren's

Van Buren to ?, August 2, 1848, Niles * National Register. LXXLV, 1907, August 16, 1848, pp. 109-110. ®^Van Buren to Benjamin F. Butler, et. al., August 22, 1848, Niles' National Register. IÏXIT7 1913, September 27, 184Ô, pp. 201-202. ®%bid. . p. 202. ®^Van Buren, "Autobiography," p. 133. 64- Samuel J. Tilden to Salmon P. Chase, July 29, 1848, E.P. Bourne, ed., "Diary and Correspondence of Salmon P. Chase," Annual Report of the American Histori- cal for the Year l9o2. 2 vols. (Washington. D.C.: G.P.O.. îHô37ri‘î745ï^52r~ 63 name was in it," thought another, "but not his head nor his heart. His enemies also had their versions of his conversion. To me, I confess, he presents himself in quite a new character; that of a bold, unscrupulous and vindictive demagogue . . . But I confess I had no idea that he could, unaided and alone, rise to the dignity of revenge; and in pursuit of it, hazard the ruin at once, of himself, his friends and his country. 66 After 1848 Van Buren gave up his flirtation with the antislavery movement; though he continued to believe that the expansion of slavery had to be stopped, he refused to follow most of his supporters into the Republican Party and favored the regular Democratic nominees in 1852, 1856, and 1860.®*^ He supported the Eansas-Nebraska Act and "squatter sovereignty" but when the Civil War shattered the nation Van Buren stoutly defended the cause of the Union.®®

^^Quoted in Donovan, The Barnburners. p. 103. ^^Joseph W. Lesesne to John C. Calhoun, July 5, 1848, Chauncy S. Boucher and Robert P. Brooks, eds. Correspondence Addressed to John C. Calhoun. 1837-1849. Sixteenth feeport of the Historical Manuscripts Commission (Washington, D.C.; G.P.O., 1931X PP- 451-452. ®^Donovan, The Barnburners. p. 112. ®^Letter of Ex-President Van Buren. June 28, 1856 (Philadelphia; William Dice, 1856), pp. 6-7 . (Hereafter cited as Letter of Ex-^esident Van Buren. ) ; Schlesinger, Age of Jackson, p. 494. Van Suren also later supported the Dred Scott decision saying he was convinced that Negroes were not meant to be citizens as defined by the Constitution. Martin Van Buren, Inquiry Into the Origin and Course of Political Parties in the United States. Edited by Pis Sons (H'ew York; Hurd & Houghton, 1857), pp. 356-357. 64 Van Buren's ideas on slavery and its exten­ sion thus underwent an important transformation during the three decades prior to the Civil War. It is safe to say that if he had had his way the whole subject would never have been brought up; he thought it "the source and the only source from which trouble was ap­ prehended."®^ He was not as successful in assimilat­ ing the radicalism of antislavery into his Jeffersonian philosophy as he had been with Locofocoism, but he tried to make an accommodation with it. In doing so he merely contributed to the rise of the Republican Party; in fact, it has been asserted, "it is almost possible to call Van Buren the real founder of that party.

®^Van Buren, "Autobiography," p. 133* ^®Prank R. Kent, The Democratic Party; A. History (New York: The Century Co., 1928), p . l37* CHAPTER IV

MARTIN VAN BUREN AND AMERICAN POLITICAL PARTIES

Martin Van Buren was America's foremost ex­ ponent of the party system of government in the early Nineteenth Century. He was concerned not only with the active process of constructing and maintaining a political party but also with the more passive pas­ time of philosophizing about its role once it had been proven an effective instrument of government. Furthermore, he was interested in the history of American political parties; he wanted to know what lessons from the past might be applied to the needs of the future. The essence of his party philosophy was "No free country can ever be without political parties . . . political parties are inseparable from free government ,.l As a young Senator in the 1820 ' s he was faced with a direct challenge to his ideas on polit-

Letter of Ex-President Van Buren. June 28, 1856 (Philadelphia; William bice, 1856), p. 3; John C. Fitzpatrick, ed., "Autobiography of Martin Van Buren," Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year""1^ 8 . Vol. ÏI (Washington. D.C. I G.P.O. , 19FÔ7 , p. 1?5T" 66 ical parties. It was the "Era of Good Feelings" and 2 party lines had almost disappeared. Everyone was nominally a Republican and the party of Jefferson was full of ex-Federalists looking for a place to hide after the debacle of the Hartford Convention.^ Van Buren was disturbed; he wanted a purified Repub­ lican Party, united, caucus-ruled and sharply dis­ tinguished from any other political organization.^ Though he was personally friendly with many Federal­ ists, he detested their politics.^ He found it im­ possible to reconcile himself to Monroe's "fusion" policy, a policy aimed at creating one amorphous party through which men of all political leanings might work together for effective government.® Van Buren considered such a policy to be the negation of effective government and he was determined to destroy it.^ He received advice from his idol.

2 George Dangerfield, The Era of Good Feelings (New York; Harcourt, Brace & World, 1^2), p. 95» ^Robert V. Remini, Martin Van Buren and the Making of the Democratic Party (Wew tork; Columbia ÛniversTEy Press, 1959), p. $. ^Ibid.. p. 15. ^Van Buren, "Autobiography," p. 127* ®Ibid.. pp. 124-125. '^Ibid. 67 I had meant to have added some views on the amalgamation of parties . . . an amalgamation of name, hut not of principle. Tories are tories still, by whatever name they may be called.8 Monroe's amalgamation of parties. Van Buren thought, grew out of the belief that the Federalist Party was on the verge of dissolution, "a view which showed little acquaintance with the nature of Parties. Such a dissolution, he thought, had never been the fate of long established political parties in any country. Their course may be qualified and their preten­ tions abated for a season by ill success, but the cohesive influences and innate qualities which originally united them remain . . . and spring up with their former vigour with the return of propitious skies.10 Van Buren was unable in 1824 to achieve his goal. The country was overrun with personal factions each seeking to place its leader in the presidential chair; the Republican Party was "literally shattered into fragments. "In the place of two great parties "

Thomas Jefferson to Van Buren, June 29, 1824. P.L. Ford, ed. , The Works of Thomas Jefferson. 12 vols. (New York: G.P. Putnam & Sons, 19&5), XII, ^72. ^Van Buren, "Autobiography," p. 124.

10'Ibid.- 11Martin Van Buren, Inquiry Into the Origin and Course of Political Parties in the üniteTHtates. Edited by His Sons (Wew Y*ork: Hurd ÎTTloughton, 185?), p. 3* 68 he later wrote, "arrayed against each other in a fair and open contest for the establishment of principles" the nation was subjected to a "discreditable" free- 12 for-all. The result was a contested election, the selection of the pseudo-Eepublican John Quincy Adams, and the shattering of the party, all because Monroe and the candidates had refused to accept Crawford's caucus 13 nomination. Van Buren never did understand why. There was no difference in the political condition of the country between 1816 - when Mr. Monroe received a caucus nomination . . . and 1824 when the caucus system was appealed to by the support­ ers of Mr, Crawford, which called for its aban­ donment . 14 The democratization of American politics which followed in the decade after 1815 apparently never registered upon Van Buren, despite the fact that he had partici­ pated in it during the New York convention of 1821. Ultimately he was successful in restoring the Republican Party to its original purity and as much as any man Van Buren was responsible for the return of American politics to the two-party system. He succeeded in rebuilding the Jeffersonian party around Jackson and between the two they created the Democrat-

^^Ibid.. pp. 5-4. ^^Remini, Martin Van Buren and the Making of the Democratic Party, on. 3é-37. 447 ^“^Van^^Van Buren, PoliticalPolit Parties, p. 4. ^^See Chapter One. 69 ic Party. Martin Van Buren was as interested in the nature and history of American political parties as he was in using them to win elections. His work on the origin and course of our party system contains few surprises. It is the work of a Jeffersonian- Jacksonian politician and is typical of their views. It is hardly a major work and its thesis has long since been exploded by professional historians; but it provides a great deal of insight, not only into the political ideas of Martin Van Buren but also into the nature of what has been called the "Jacksonian persuasion." The basic thesis of his views on the origin and course of American political parties is that there are two great parties in this country which "have . . . occupied antagonistic positions upon all important political questions," and that these two parties, despite occasional changes of name, "have maintained an unbroken succession" throughout the nation's his- 17 tory. ' Almost nothing, he thought, could change an individual's party allegiance.

^®See Chapter Two.

^^Van Buren, Political Parties. p. 7* 70 Neither the influence of marriage connections, nor sectarian prejudices, nor any of the strong motives which often determine the ordinary ac­ tions of men, have . . . been sufficient to override the bias of party organization and sympathy. . . 18 Changes of party names almost never indicate a change in their basic principles; the only alteration of significance was when the Anti-Federalists became Republicans. Van Buren traced the origins of these two immutable parties back into the revolutionary era where he found that 'the Whigs . . . and the Tories 20 constituted our entire population." Because the Tories were discredited, the men who favored the revolution, yet who differed upon the nature of the government to be created after its success, crowded into the Whig Party.These differences in "vital points in . . . political doctrines" were postponed during the war for independence; "but when that re­ straint was removed by the recognition of our inde-

^®Ibid. ^^Ibid. . p. 8. Van Buren noted that the names Federalist and Anti-Federalist were really misnomers. The Anti-Federalists, because of their concern with states rights, were the real federalists; the Federal­ ists, who advocated a centralist plan, were really anti-federalists but adopted their name from exped­ iency. pp. 55-37. ^®Ibid., p. 11. ^^Ibid. 71 pendence they broke forth unavoidably, and were soon pp developed in the formation of political parties." Under the Articles of Confederation, he thought, these differences were fostered by the nature of that govern­ ment. On the one hand were those who wished to pre­ serve the "alliance between the States," on the other were those who wanted a "virtual consolidation."23 These consolidationists, however, knew they would be unable to establish a centralized government among a people so recently in revolt against just such a government so they hit upon the idea of a "federal" 24 government. This federalism, thought Van Buren, was really a scheme to substitute by devious methods a "strong government" for one which was based on the sovereignty of the states.It was the fear of the Anti-Federalists that this "strong and absorbing general government" was desired by the so-called Fed­ eralists to gratify their desire for "irresponsible power" that led them to oppose the new Constitution. They were as anxious as the Federalists to preserve pg order and "maintain public credit," Unfortunately,

^^Ibid., p. 33. 23 '^Ibid. . pp. 33-34. Van Buren readily admits that the Articles government was "defective." p. 34. ^\ b i d . , pp. 34-35. ^^Ibid. ^®Ibid.. pp. 58-39. 72 however, the Anti-Federalists, who "represented very fairly the ideas and feelings that prevailed with the masses during the Revolution," were incap­ able of recognizing the "dangerous condition of the country," and were led into the mistaken policy of opposing the new compact. Van Buren thou^it this unfortunate because it gave the ascendency to the p g Federalist Party in the new government. As such, the Federalist Party, thought Van Buren, was unwise in its governing policy. Its influential and leading man forgot that the administration did not, in point of fact, rep­ resent the political opinions in respect to the proper uses and spirit of governments in general of a majority of the people.29 Thus, it drove into opposition "men, and the descend- ents of men, who had . . . at all times, and under all circumstances, been enthusiasts in devotion to liberty, and stern and uncompromising in demanding stringent restrictions upon delegated authority. Such was the origin of the Republican Party. Naturally, Van Buren's comments on President Washington were full of unstinted praise; to criticize

^'^Ibid., p. 50.

2®Ibid.. pp. 54-56, 65, ^^Ibid.. pp. 52-65. ^°Ibid., p. 65. 73 him would have heen literary sui c i d e . Washington was a Federalist, but not a "monarchist"; nor did he hope to see the institutions of the Constitution over-thrown and replaced by an omnipotent central government. Yet, Van Buren felt, this was essenti­ ally the program of Federalism. Who then was the culprit? To a Jeffersonian the answer was obvious; it was Alexander Hamilton. Van Buren went out of his way in his last works to heap praise upon Hamilton as a person. There was a time, he remembered, when "I could not have re­ viewed his course with the impartiality due to truth and justice," but that time was past and Van Buren thought himself an objective historian, his vision no longer "distorted by partisan prejudices.To prove his objectivity he merely denounced Hamilton's program while upholding his virtues as a man: "I am happy to . . .do justice to his motives, and to admit his sin­ cerity and his desire to serve his country in the

Ibid. "This is treading privileged ground. No American . . . can approach it without . . . being embarrassed by the apprehension that, however pure this intention, he may undesignedly outrage the sentiments of admiration and reverence by which it is naturally and properly intrenched." p. 65. ^% b i d . . pp. 65-70. ^^Ibid., p. 74. 74 very acts which. I unreservedly condemn.For a Jeffersonian, even in the magnanimity of old age, this was publicly conceding a good deal for Hamilton had always been the Jeffersonian devil; privately, of course, most of them had long since arrived at a more charitable opinion of the first Secretary of the Treasury. Van Buren thought Hamilton the power behind Washington, though he conceded that the General was not under Hamilton's influence in all matters of state.Washington had brou^t both Hamilton and Jefferson into his Cabinet so that he might reconcile their conflicting points of view, but he might as well "have attempted to combine the elements of fire and water . . . , their respective systems left no middle ground . . . . When Washington found that he could not reconcile the two, he gave his prefer­ ence to Hamilton "and sustained him in the measures

^^Ibid. ^^Van Buren recorded a conversation between himself and Jefferson in 1824 on the subject of Alex­ ander Hamilton. When the young Senator asked the old President if Hamilton had been involved in some in­ trigue Jefferson was discussing, he replied, "No.' He was above such things." Van Buren, "Autobiography," p. 185. ^^Van Buren, Political Parties, pp. 99-100. ^'^Ibid.. pp. 71-75. 75 he proposed to carry out the policy he recommended."^^ From then on, according to Van Buren, it was virtually Hamilton's government. From his position of influence and power he proposed sundry schemes to undermine the Constitution and the rights of the states in favor of establishing a government on the British model. The method he planned to use to accomplish this end was the "doctrine of implied powers . . . the 1 at it udinar i an construction of the Constitution, which has caused so much strife and con- tent ion . . . . " 40 For this purpose, asserted Van Buren, Hamilton seized upon the "common defense and general welfare" clause, which were "never understood as a substantive grant of power" to the Congress. The question of the construction of the Constitution, particularly the sections granting power to Congress, thus became the focal point around which the two par­ ties battled. Van Buren ' s interpretation of the character

^^Ibid.. p. 73. ^^Ibid., pp. 116-169. "I can well conceive that Hamilton might have been led to avail himself of . . . a coup de main of some decided character if its existence hacT^een brought about by others - a contin­ gency which his mind had doubtless often contemplated. But I do not think that he would have planned or con­ tributed to bring about such a state of things. . . ." p . 88. ^ Ibid.. p. 131. ^^Ibid.. p. 133. 76 of the two parties in the first decade under the Constitution provides a useful insight into the Jef­ fersonian- Jacksonian mentality. Who were the Feder­ alists? Who were the Eepuhlicants? These are questions which Tan Buren endeavored to answer; considering his maxim that party allegiances are virtually immutable his answers contain no surprises. The Federalists, he thought, were "the money power;" the Republicans 42 were "the landed interest." This simple dichotomy was pure Jacksonian dogma conveniently pushed back into history; Nicholas Biddle thus became the direct de­ scendent of Alexander Hamilton. In order to further the progress of this "money power" Hamilton, according to Van Buren, adopted a program based upon a national bank and a permanent public debt to tie the wealthy segment of the nation 45 to the general government. Hamilton's famous "Reports" embodied these ideas and were the keystone of his program. [Their] bold assumptions of power and the jubi­ lant spirit in which they were expressed afforded the clearest indications . . . that he regarded his victory over the Constitution as complete.44

^^Ibid.. pp. 161-167, 180. ^^Ibid.. pp. 136-160. "Hamilton had . . . at an early age, imbibed an opinion, which he never changed, that a permanent national debt was an advantage to any country, and likely to be particularly useful in a con­ federacy like ours." p. 147. ^Ibid., p. 159. 77 But, thought Van Buren, Hamilton did not comprehend the power of the opposition; the landholders rallied to save the government. Farthest removed . . . from the seductive influ­ ence of the money power, abounding in strong common sense and love of country, and always greatly superior in numbers to the business men of all other classes, it constituted then, and has ever since constituted, the balance wheel of the Government .45 Thus the antidote to Hamilton's course, "an outrage upon liberty and a crime against free government," rested with the farming class, "the farmers and plant­ ers," the mainstay of the Republican (and later, the Democratic) Party.^ Van Buren rejoiced in the virtues of the "landed interest" and prophesied, erron­ eously, about their future. [M]y firm conviction [is] that it will secure to our people the blessings of republican govern­ ment as long as it remains the predominant in­ terest in the country. It can only be when agri­ culturalists abandon the implements and the field of their labor and become . . . shopkeepers, manu­ facturers, carriers, and traders that the Republic will be brought in danger of the influences of the money power. But this can never happen.47 The early party battles in the first decade under the Constitution were fought between the agriculturalists and the "money power." The latter was made up of the

45i-bid.. pp. 180-181. ^^Ibid.. pp. 215, 226-227. Included in this landed group were the employees of agriculturalists but not those who speculated in land, who were "subject to the influence of the money power." pp. 222-22$. ^'^Ibid.. p. 231. 78 men who controlled the banks, the insurance companies and the "incorporated companies" engaged in manu­ facturing, all those who sought "governmental inter­ ference in the private pursuits of men and . . . special advantages to favored individuals and classes." Van Buren also included among the followers of Hamilton, "the press, men of letters, artists, and professional men . . . . II49 ^ Having thus created a clear class division in the early years of the Republic, Van Buren then traced the victories and defeats of the two groups through the four years of John Adams. The whole of that administration was a political campaign occupied by bitter and uninterrupted struggles for predominance between the conflict­ ing principles of the two great parties.50 Despite the fact that Adams and Hamilton were "upon very bad terms," the two were united in their opposi­ tion to Jefferson and his Republicans and were not above any measure which might destroy them. The "odious" Alien and Sedition laws were. Van Buren thought, the final capstone of the Hamiltonian program ;

Ibid.. pp. 223-224. Excluded from this money power were the "mechanics not manufacturers, and the working classes." p. 222. 49-Ibid., p. 225. ^°Ibid.. p. 235. ^^Ibid.. pp. 237-262. 79 it was an issue that involved "the existence of republican government. " In this, he felt, the Re­ publicans were victorious, but in another contest the Federalists won. The Federalists attempted to sub­ vert the Constitution through the federal judiciary. It has from the beginning been the constant aim of the leading Federalists to select some department, or some nook or corner in our political system, and to make it the depository of power which public sentiment could not reach nor the people control.53 Every true Republican, thought Van Buren, knew that the three branches of the federal government were meant by the Founding Fathers "to be coordinate, and . . . independent" of each other; any assertion of judicial superiority in constitutional interpretation 54 must be regarded as one of the Hamiltonian "heresies." At this point Van Buren's "history" stops. After an extremely prolix review of the struggle against judicial supremacy, his work degenerates into a series of random recollections. It is obvious that it was unfinished at the time of his death and was probably never meant to be published as a separate work. The remainder of the work is made up largely of boring repetitions of his earlier chapters. Though it con­ tains some lively comments on Jackson, Clay, Taney and

^^Ibid.. pp. 265-265. ^^Ibid.. p. 275. % b i d . . p. 274. 80 Buchanan they are merely indications of what he might have written had he finished the work. Despite its deterioration it is a useful vol­ ume for students of Van Buren and the Jacksonian era. Van Buren's outline of the history of American polit­ ical parties, "immutable and unchanging" despite changes in their names, is one of the few clues avail­ able to illustrate how the Jacksonians looked at history. That they thought they were the descendents of Jefferson, and their enemies the descendents of Hamilton, there can be no doubt. They saw themselves almost as characters in a morality play, and one can­ not read Van Buren's "history" without feeling that the contest between parties was also one between good and evil. In this light, the ferocity of the Jackson­ ian struggle against the "money power" becomes more understandable. No political movement can prosper without some sense of its origins, of its roots in history. Excepting Bancroft, Van Buren alone tried to supply Jacksonian Democracy with that necessity. Though his "history" is unquestionably faulty in some of its views, sometimes it is more important to know what an individual thought happened in history than it is to know what actually did happen. CHAPTER V

CONCLUSION

There are conflicting opinions about Martin Van Buren's fealty to political principles. There are those who are convinced that "ideology always played second fiddle to expediency and opportunism in Van Buren' s career . . . . "^ Others are of the firm opinion that "not many Presidents have had a steadier loyalty to their political principles than Van Buren . . . . " It is impossible to reconcile such opposing viewpoints and the student of Van Buren must choose between them. Before doing so it would be wise to reassert the nature of those opinions. Martin Van Buren was a disciple of Thomas Jefferson; no amount of histor­ ical re interpretation can erase or alter that fact. His concept of government was Jeffersonian, as was his view of society. Government, thought Van Buren,

Alvin Kass, Politics in New York State. 1800-1850 (Syracuse: Syracuse"University Press, 1965), p. 132. 2 Frank R. Kent, The Democratic Party; A History (New York; The Century Co., l920), p. 127. 82 should be a negative factor in the life of America. "All communities are apt to look to government too much," he once wrote and this was the essence of his political philosophy. To him, the Constitution was an immutable charter of liberty, a perpetual promise that government would not become oppressive because its powers were strictly limited. There was only one way to interpret the Constitution and that was liter­ ally; any attempts to discover new powers by inter­ polation inevitably resulted in "constitutional here­ sies." To the end of his life he fought what he called " ul t r a-1 at i t udinari ani sm. " Van Buren's picture of American society was also Jeffersonian. His continual references to a society of "hardy yeomen," his persistence in the belief that the "agricultural interests" were destined to dominate the nation, his deep-seated antagonism toward the "money power" all indicate Van Buren's preference for the Jeffersonian dream. He had faith in the individual ' s capacity to make a place for him­ self in society, provided there was a minimum of barriers raised against his ability. He thought it the duty of the true Republican to keep society "free from the blighting influence of partial legislation, monopolies, congregated wealth and interested com­ binations," so that the path to individual progress 83 would always be kept open. Therefore, he was an ad­ vocate of laissez-faire. Probably no other single individual was as re­ sponsible as Martin Van Buren for perpetuating Jef­ fersonian doctrines inside the Jacksonian movement. As one of the original "keepers of the Jeffersonian conscience" he rebuilt the Republican Party, after the debacle of Monroe's "fusion" policy, around the personality of the Old Eero from Tennessee. Though the evidence does not warrant the assumption that Jackson was anybody's tool, there is little doubt that much of what is known as Jacksonian Democracy was really Van Buren's definition of Jeffersonian Repub­ licanism. Therefore, if Jacksonian Democracy was "archaic" it was largely because Van Buren was trying to recapture the virtues of the Old Republic; that he thought it could be done can be seen from his re­ mark that nothing had changed between 1815 and 1824. The evidence simply does not permit the historian to indulge in the fantasy that "ideology always played second fiddle to expediency" in Van Buren's career. Indeed, his whole life is a monument to the consistence and persistence of his political ideas. Even in his old age he was fighting, or thought he was, the same battles that Jefferson had fought sixty years earlier. John Quincy Adams, not known for 84 M s charity to his enemies, commented fittingly, "Van Buren's principle is the talisman of democracy, which, so long as this Union lasts, can never fail.

C. F. Adams, ed., Memoirs of John Quincy Adams Comprising Portions of Üis ïïiary~~?rôm 1795-1848. 12 vols. (Philadelphia; J."T. ïiippincott & Co. , 1877), IX, 277. BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Lynch, Denis Tilden. Aja Epoch and A Man; Martin Van Buren and His Times. New York: Horace Liveright, l929. Marshall, Lynn L. "The Authorship of Jackson's Bank Veto Message," Mississippi Valley Historical Review, L (December, 1963), 466-477. McGrane, Reginald C. The Panic of 1837; Some Fi­ nancial I^ohlems of the Jacksonian Era. Chicago: University of Chicago Press,1924. Meyers, Marvin. The Jacksonian Persuasion: Poli­ tics and Belief. New York: Vintage Books, I95Ô. Miller, Nathan. The Enterprise of a Free People ; Aspects of Economic Development in New York State UurinF"the Canal Period. Tthaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1962. Paul, James C.N. Rift in the Democracy. New York: A. S. Barnes & do., 1^61. Peterson, Merrill D. The Jefferson Image in the American Mind. New York: Oxford University Press, 1962. Rayhack, Joseph G. "Martin Van Buren's Desire for Revenge in the Campaign of 1848," Mississippi Valley Historical Review, XL (March, l954), 707-716. Remini, Robert V. Martin Van Buren and the Making of the Democratic Party. NewYork: Columbia University Pres s, 1959. Remini, Robert V. "Martin Van Buren and the Tariff of Abominations," American Historical Review LXIII (July, 1958), 903-917. Remini, Robert V. The Election of Andrew Jackson. Philadelphia: J.B. lippincott C o . , 1963. Rezneck, Samuel. "The Social History of an Ameri­ can Depression." American Historical Review. XL (July, 1935), pp. 662-687. Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr. The Age of Jackson. Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1953. 91 Shepard, Edward M. Martin Van Buren. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., l900. Smith, Walter B. Economic Aspects of the Second Bank of the United~~5tates. Cambridge, kass. : Sarvard University Press, 1953* Trimble, William. "Diverging Tendencies in New York Democracy in the Period of the Loco­ focos," American Historical Review, XXIV (April, 1919), 396-421. Trimble, William. "The Social Philosophy of the Locofoco Democracy, " American Journal of Sociology. XXVI (May, 1921), 705“715. Van Deusenj Glyndon G. "Some Aspects of Whig Thought and Theory in the Jacksonian Period," Ameri­ can Historical Review. LXIII (January, 1958), 305- 3^ Van Deusen, Glyndon G. The Jacksonian Era, 1828- 1848. New York: Harper & Bow, 1963. Ward, John William. AndPew Jackson, Symbol for ana n Age.■ New York: Oxford University Press, 196'*2 • West, Elizabeth H. (ed.). A Calendar of the Papers of Martin Van Uuren. Washington, D.C. : Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, 1910. White, Leonard D. The Jacksonians; A Study in Administrative Bistory, 18^9-1861. New~Tork: Macmillan, 1956.