VAN BUREN 



C.02S 



VAN BUREN 



him. He was a "party man," and he knew how 

 to whip the members of his party into line, yot 

 he could maintain party discipline and occa- 

 sionally vote against his party. He possessed 

 a great gift the knowledge of when to talk 

 and when to keep still ; and when unimportant 

 matters went contrary to his liking he merely 

 passed them by. On all questions he favored a 

 strict construction of the Constitution. 



Reflected to the Senate in 1827, he resigned 

 in 1828 to become governor of New York. Up 

 to this time he had maintained his law prac- 

 tice, but after beginning his service as governor 

 he gave it up. As governor he advocated two 

 plans which were far ahead of their day. First, 

 he urged the adoption of the "safety-fund sys- 

 tem," which would make all the state banks the 

 "mutual insurers of each other's soundness." 

 The principle underlying this proposal was in- 

 corporated in the Federal Reserve Act of 1913. 

 Second, he recommended the separation of 

 state and national elections, a plan which has 

 not yet been widely adopted, but is now recog- 

 nized as essential to good government. 



In 1829, after having given Jackson zealous 

 support in the Presidential election, Van Buren 

 was called to Washington to serve as Secretary 

 of State in Jackson's Cabinet. But this office 

 he held only two years, for he resigned in June, 

 1831, and was sent as minister to Great Britain. 

 After Van Buren sailed, the Senate refused to 

 confirm the nomination; John C. Calhoun, then 

 Vice-President, cast the deciding vote. A thin 

 pretext was found for this action, but the real 

 reason was an attempt to discredit Van Buren 

 in the eyes of the people. Van Buren had re- 



signed from the Cabinet because he wanted to 

 be a candidate for President in 1836 and be- 

 cause he feared that his continued association 

 with Jackson might in some way compromise 

 either the administration or himself. The mis- 

 sion to England was calculated to keep him free 

 of factional disputes at home and thus insure 

 his nomination and election after Jackson had 

 been allowed a second term, to which it was 

 generally conceded he was entitled. 



Such was Van Buren's reasoning, and such, 

 too, was the reasoning of the Whigs when they 

 decided to refuse confirmation. But this bit 

 of petty politics proved a boomerang. Van 

 Buren won greater popularity than he had ever 

 enjoyed previously, and with Jackson he be- 

 came a sort of symbol for the Democratic 

 party. In 1832 he was elected Vice-President, 

 with Jackson as President. In spite of the 

 opportunity to revenge himself on the body 

 which had rejected him as minister to Great 

 Britain, he presided over the Senate with un- 

 varying, unruffled fairness. He took little part 

 in the discussion of public questions, but gradu- 

 ally became marked for succession as the leader 

 of his party. He was nominated for the Presi- 

 dency in 1835, and was elected in 1836. He had 

 a majority of forty-six electoral votes over his 

 four competitors, the ballots being 170 for Van 

 Buren, seventy-three for William Henry Harri- 

 son, twenty-six for Hugh L. White of Tennes- 

 see, fourteen for Daniel Webster and eleven for 

 W. P. Mangum of South Carolina. These four 

 candidates, who were all Whigs, had a com- 

 bined popular vote of 736,656 to 761,549 for 

 Van Buren. 



The Administration of Martin Van Buren, 1837-1841 



The Financial Crisis of 1837. At the very 

 outset of his administration Van Buren was 

 confronted by the disastrous panic of 1837. 

 This was due, in some degree, to Jackson's 

 financial policy. When Jackson, in 1833, re- 

 moved the government's funds from the Bank 

 of the United States, he ordered them depos- 

 ited in certain "pet banks," which used them 

 unwisely to stimulate trade and speculation. 

 The panic, however much it may have been 

 immediately due to these actions, had deeper 

 causes. It was due to over-speculation in land, 

 excessive expenditures for public improvements, 

 a failure of the wheat crop in the preceding 

 year, "wildcat" banking, and finally to a finan- 

 cial crisis in England. It was the first crisis of 

 its kind in the United States, and its full force 



was felt by the Van Buren administration. 

 Necessary foodstuffs and other commodities 

 went to unheard-of high prices, commercial 

 firms, brokers and banks failed by scores, great 

 distress was prevalent among the poor, and 

 specie payments were suspended. 



The Independent Treasury. The seriousness 

 of the financial situation, particularly in view 

 of the United States Treasury's intimacy with 

 some of the banks which failed, led Van Buren 

 to call a special session of Congress. In his 

 first message, September 1, 1837, he struck the 

 keynote of his administration. First he ana- 

 lyzed the panic and its causes, and then ex- 

 plained his favorite plan for an independent 

 treasury to receive and pay out government 

 funds. The idea was not new, but the govern- 



