THE PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN AND 
ELECTION OF 1840 
When Martin Van Buren was inaugurated as president of 
the United States, on March 4, 1837, his intention was to 
make his administration a continuation of that of Andrew 
Jackson.^ In adherence to the political principles of his prede- 
cessor, the purpose was carried out. But Van Buren was a 
gentleman, in the sense of possessing culture and polished 
manners, and in preferring peace and order to quarrel and 
turmoil, and in this he differed so greatly from General Jack- 
son that his administration could not be the same. He sur- 
rounded himself with gentlemen, bore himself with dignity, 
and evinced a most laudable desire to efface the memory of 
his achievements in the political field as the “Little Magician”, 
and of his subserviency to Jackson which had insured him 
the succession. Without the influence of Jackson, Van Buren 
perhaps could not have been elected, for it had required all 
of Jackson’s authority to carry him thru in 1836, and his 
margin was very small. ^ 
It was Van Buren’s misfortune that he came into the 
presidency just at the time when results attributed to the rash 
acts of Jackson were in readiness to burst forth. The terrible 
panic of 1837 began when the administration was but two 
months old, and this crisis was looked upon by his opponents 
as a direct consequence of the financial disorder produced by 
Jackson’s war on the Bank. The enforced liquidation of the 
greatest monetary institution in the country; the transfer of 
the public funds to banks much weaker and far more loosely 
managed than the Bank of the United States ; a wild specula- 
tion induced by the excessive note issues of state banks which 
had a fictitious capital only; and the inability of the banks 
to respond when called upon to refund the sums intrusted 
to them, under the law for “depositing” the surplus revenue 
with the states — such were the events which brought about 
the suspension of specie payments on May 10, 1837.^ 
^Edward Stanwood, A History of the Presidency (New York, 1912), I, 190, 
2Z6id„ I, 191. 
^Ihid., I, 191. 
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