Page:The Presidents of the United States, 1789-1914, v. II.djvu/20

 * LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS William P. Van Ness, a friend of Aaron Burr. He was admitted to the bar in 1803, returned to Kinderhook, and associated himself in practice with his half-brother, James J. Van Allen. 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