Part 8 of My Presidential Review Series
Leaving behind my favorite president, I now type of Martin Van Buren. Van Buren was the handpicked successor of Andrew Jackson. He was the first president to run against the Whig party. The third president to serve only one term, he was defeated by William Henry Harrison in 1840. He was the first former-president to run under a third-party, running under the Free-Soil Party in 1848. Van Buren served March 4, 1837 to March 3, 1841.
Two months after the inauguration of Van Buren, banks stopped converting paper money to gold and silver, touching off a nationwide panic that led to a severe economic depression that lasted until 1843. The panic was caused mainly by passage of the Specie Circular, successive crop failures, and an unfavorable balance of trade with England. 900 or so banks around the country collapsed. Van Buren blamed the banks, and sought to divorce the Treasury from private banking interests. He proposed a system of subtreasuries where federal funds could be deposited without fear of them being loaned out on easy credit and fueling another round of speculation. After a long delay in Congress, the Independent Treasury Act was passed in July 1840. It was repealed in 1841 but restored in 1846. The slump made Van Buren severely unpopular, and contributed to his loss in 1840.
Canadian insurgents had been leading a rebellion against British rule. Defeated in Toronto, they established a government-in-exile on Navy Island. Americans sympathetic to them transported supplies to the island on the steamship Caroline. In December 1837, Canadians, on order from the British, seized the Caroline, burned it, and sent it hurtling over Niagara Falls. 1 American was killed and several were injured. Van Buren was outraged and sent troops to the region, but refused to declare war and released a proclamation of neutrality. A Canadian, Alexander McLeod, was arrested in 1840 for the murder of the American but was acquitted. British-American relations, further aggravated by the Aroostook War, remained strained until the signing of the Webster-Ashburton Treaty.
The border between Canada and Maine had never been defined. Both the U.S. and Canada claimed a region of 12,000 square miles along the Aroostook River. The "war," though bloodless, started on February 1839 when Canadian officials arrested Rufus McIntire for attempting to expel Canadians from the area, on orders from Maine. Both sides massed their militia along the frontier and sought support from their governments. Van Buren again resisted cries for war and sent General Winfield Scott on a peace mission to the region. Scott arranged a truce, defusing the crisis pending the settlement of the issue by the Webster-Ashburton Treaty.
Having finally won its independence from Mexico in 1836, Texas applied for statehood with the U.S. The North opposed annexation, for fear of the effect another slave state would have. The South and West supported annexation. Van Buren, who usually supported the South, sided with the North this time, for fear of deepening sectional divides in the country. Texas was admitted to the Union in 1845.
During Jackson's second term, Seminoles under Chief Osceola had gone to war against removal from Florida to the West. Van Buren was criticized for continuing Jackson's Indian policy. Seminole resistance was stamped out in 1842.
Van Buren died on July 24, 1862.
Van Buren was one of those many presidents who did little, but had one or so large decisions. Van Buren's Independent Treasury system did manage to prevent speculation from happening in large quantities again until the 1920's. Also, his decision to stay out of the Canadian rebellion despite increased tension and anti-British sentiment was commendable. But, in the end, he will be remembered as an average president during a depression.
Overall Ranking: 23
"There is a power in public opinion in this country - and I thank God for it: for it is the most honest and best of all powers - which will not tolerate an incompetent or unworthy man to hold in his weak or wicked hands in the lives and fortunes of his fellow-citizens."