Page:The Presidents of the United States, 1789-1914, v. II.djvu/39

Rh popular Democratic vote in Massachusetts, Vermont, and New York exceeded that of Cass. Henceforth he was simply a spectator in the political arena. On all public questions save that of slavery he remained an unfaltering Democrat, and, when it was fondly supposed that “the slavery issue” had been forever exorcised by the compromise measures of 1850, he returned in full faith and communion to his old party allegiance. In 1852 he began to write his “Inquiry into the Origin and Course of Political Parties in the United States” (New York, 1867), but it was never finished and was published as a fragment. He supported Franklin Pierce for the presidency in 1852, and, after spending two years in Europe, returned in time to vote for James Buchanan in 1856. In 1860 he voted for the combined electoral ticket against Lincoln, but when the civil war began he gave to the administration his zealous support. Van Buren was the target of political accusation during his whole public career, but kept his private character free from reproach. In his domestic life he was as happy as he was exemplary. Always prudent in his habits and economical in his tastes, he none the less maintained in his style of living the easy state of a gentleman, whether in public station at Albany and Washington, or at Lindenwald in his retirement. As a man of the world he was singularly affable and courteous, blending