Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1889, volume 6).djvu/256

230 VAN BUREN, Martin, eighth president of the United States, b. in Kinderhook, Columbia co., N. Y., 5 Dec, 1782 ; d. there, 24 July, 18G2. He was the eldest son of Abraham Van Buren, a small farmer, and of Mary Hoes (originally spelled Goes), whose first husband was named Van Alen. Mar- tin studied the rudiments of English and Latin in the schools of his native village, and read law in the office of Francis Sylvester at the age of four- teen years. Rising as a student by slow gradations from office-boy to lawyer's clerk, copyist of pleas, and finally to the rank of special pleader in the constables' courts, he patiently pursued his legal novitiate through the term of seven years and familiarized himself with the technique of the bar and with the elements of common law. Combin- ing with these professional studies a fondness for extemporaneous debate, he was early noted for his intelligent observation of public events and for his interest in politics. He was chosen to participate in a nominating convention when he was only eighteen years old. In 1802 he went to New York city and there studied law with William P. Van Ness, a friend of Aaron Burr. He was admitted to the bar in 1803, returned to Kinderhook, and asso- ciated himself in practice with his half-brother, James I. Van Alen.

Van Buren was a zealous adherent of Jefferson, and supported Morgan Lewis for governor of New York in 1803 against Aaron Burr. In February, 1807. he married Hannah Hoes, a distant kins- woman, and in the winter of 1806-'7 he removed to Hudson, the county-seat of Columbia county, and in the same year was admitted to practice in the supreme court. In the state election of 1807 he supported Daniel D. Tompkins for governor against Morgan Lewis, the latter, in the factional changes of New York politics, having come to be considered less true than the former to the meas- ures of Jefferson. In 1808 Van Buren became surrogate of Columbia county, displacing his half- brother and partner, who belonged to the defeated faction. He held this office till 1813, when, on a change of party predominance at Albany, his half- brother was restored. Attentively watching the drift of political events, he figured in the councils of his party at a convention held in Albany early in 1811, when the proposed recharter of the United States bank was the leading question of Federal politics. Though Albert Gallatin, secretary of the treasury, had recommended a recharter, the pre- dominant sentiment of the Republican party was adverse to the measure. Van Buren shared in this hostility and publicly lauded the "Spartan firm- ness " of George Clinton when as vice-president he gave his casting-vote in the U. S. senate against the bank bill, 20 Feb., 1811.

In 1812 Van Buren was elected to the senate of New York from the middle district as a Clinton Republican, defeating Edward P. Livingston, the candidate of the u Quids," by a majority of 200. He took his seat in November of that year and be- came thereby a member of the court of errors, then composed of senators in connection with the chan- cellor and the supreme court. As senator he stren- uously opposed the charter of " the Bank of Ameri- ca," which, with a large capital and with the prom- ise of liberal subsidies to the state treasury, was then seeking to establish itself in New York and to take the place of the United States bank. He up- held Gov. Tompkins when, exercising his extreme Krerogative, he prorogued the legislature on 27 [arch, 1812, to prevent the passage of the bill. Though counted among the adherents of the ad- ministration of Madison, and though committed to the policy of declaring war against Great Britain, he sided with the Republican members cf the New York legislature when in 1812 they determined to break from " the Virginia dynasty " and to sup- port De Witt Clinton for the presidency. In the following year, however, he dissolved his political relations with Clinton and resumed the entente cordiale with Madison's administration. In 1814 he carried through the legislature an effective war- measure known as " the classification bill," provid- ing for the levy of 12,000 men, to be placed at the disposal of the government for two years. He drew up the resolution of thanks voted by the legislature to Gen. Jackson for the victory of New Orleans. In 1815, while still a member of the state senate, he was appointed attorney-general of the state, superseding the venerable Abraham Van Vechten. In this same year De Witt Clinton, fall- ing a prey to factional rivalries in his own party, was removed by the Albany council from the may- oralty of New York city, an act of petty proscrip- tion in which Van Buren sympathized, according to the " spoils system " then in vogue. In 1816 he was re-elected to the state senate for a further term of four years, and, removing to Albany, formed a partnership with his life-long friend, Benjamin F. Butler. In the same year he was appointed a re- gent of the University of New York. In the legis- lative discussions of 1816 he advocated the surveys preliminary to Clinton's scheme for uniting the waters of the great lakes with the Hudson.

The election of Gov. Tompkins as vice-president of the United States had left the " Bucktails " of the Republican party without their natural leader. The people, moreover, in just resentment at the in- dignity done to Clinton by his removal from the New York mayoralty, were now spontaneously minded to make him governor that he might pre- side over the execution of the Erie canal which he had projected. Van Buren acquiesced in a drift of opinion that he was powerless to check, and. on the election of Clinton, supported the canal policy ; but he soon came to an open rupture with the gov- ernor on questions of public patronage, and, array- ing himself in active opposition to Clinton's re- election, he was in turn subjected to the proscrip- tion of the Albany council acting in Clinton's interest. He was removed from the office of attor- ney-general in 1819. He opposed the re-election of Clinton in 1820. Clinton was re-elected by a small majority, but both houses of the legislature and the council of appointment fell into the hands of the anti-Clinton Republicans. The office of at- torney-general was now tendered anew to Van Bu- ren, but he declined it. The politics of New York, a mesh of factions from the beginning of the cen- tury, were in a constant state of swirl and eddy from 1819 till 1821. The old party-formations were dissolved in the "era of good feeling." What with "Simon-pure" Republicans, Clintonian Re- publicans, Clintonian Federalists, "high-minded" Federalists cleaving to Monroe, and Federalists pure and simple, the points of crystallization were too many to admit of forming a strong or compact body around any centre. No party could combine votes enough in the legislature of 1818-'19 to elect its candidate for U. S. senator. Yet out of this medley of factions and muddle of opinions Van Buren, by his moderation and his genius for politi- cal organization, evolved order and harmony at the election for senator in the following year. Under his lead all parties united on Rufus King, a Feder- alist of the old school, who had patriotically sup- Sorted the war against Great Britain after it was eclared, and who by his candor had won the con-