U.S. President #8: Martin Van Buren (Part I)

Martin Van Buren (/væn ˈbjʊərən/ van BEWR-ən; born Maarten Van Buren; December 5, 1782 – July 24, 1862) was an American statesman who served as the eighth president of the United States from 1837 to 1841. He was the first president to have English as a second language – his mother tongue was Dutch – and the first born after the United States had declared its independence from Great Britain. A founder of the Democratic Party, he had previously served as the ninth governor of New York, the tenth United States secretary of state, and the eighth vice president of the United States. He won the 1836 presidential election with the endorsement of popular outgoing President Andrew Jackson and the organizational strength of the Democratic Party. He lost his 1840 reelection bid to Whig Party nominee William Henry Harrison, thanks in part to the poor economic conditions surrounding the Panic of 1837. Later in his life, Van Buren emerged as an elder statesman and an important anti-slavery abolitionist leader who led the Free Soil Party ticket in the presidential election of 1848.

Van Buren was born in Kinderhook, New York, to a family of Dutch Americans; his father was a Patriot during the American Revolution. He was raised speaking Dutch and learned English at school, making him the only U.S. president to speak English as his second language. He trained as a lawyer and quickly became involved in politics as a member of the Democratic-Republican Party. He won election to the New York State Senate and became the leader of the Bucktails, the faction of Democratic-Republicans opposed to New York Governor DeWitt Clinton. Van Buren established a political machine known as the Albany Regency and in the 1820s emerged as the most influential politician in the Empire State. He was elected to the United States Senate in 1821 and supported William H. Crawford in the 1824 presidential election. John Quincy Adams won the 1824 election and Van Buren opposed his proposals for federally funded internal improvements and other measures. Van Buren's major political goal was to re-establish a two-party system with partisan differences based on ideology rather than personalities or sectional differences, and he supported Jackson's candidacy against Adams in the 1828 presidential election with this goal in mind. To support Jackson's candidacy, Van Buren ran for Governor of New York; he won, but resigned a few months after assuming the position to accept appointment as U.S. Secretary of State after Jackson took office in March 1829.
Van Buren was a key advisor during Jackson's eight years as President of the United States and he built the organizational structure for the coalescing Democratic Party, particularly in New York. He resigned from his position to help resolve the Petticoat affair, then briefly served as the U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom. At Jackson's behest, the 1832 Democratic National Convention nominated Van Buren for Vice President of the United States, and he took office after the Democratic ticket won the 1832 presidential election. With Jackson's strong support, Van Buren faced little opposition for the presidential nomination at the 1835 Democratic National Convention, and he defeated several Whig opponents in the 1836 presidential election. Van Buren's response to the Panic of 1837 centered on his Independent Treasury system, a plan under which the Federal government of the United States would store its funds in vaults rather than in banks. He also continued Jackson's policy of Indian removal; he maintained peaceful relations with Britain but denied the application to admit Texas to the Union, seeking to avoid heightened sectional tensions. In the 1840 election, the Whigs rallied around Harrison's military record and ridiculed Van Buren as "Martin Van Ruin", and a surge of new voters helped turn him out of office.
At the opening of the Democratic convention in 1844, Van Buren was the leading candidate for the party's nomination for the presidency. Southern Democrats, however, were angered by his continued opposition to the annexation of Texas, and the party nominated James K. Polk. Van Buren grew increasingly opposed to slavery after he left office, and he agreed to lead a third party ticket in the 1848 presidential election, motivated additionally by intra-party differences at the state and national level. He finished in a distant third nationally, but his presence in the race most likely helped Whig nominee Zachary Taylor defeat Democrat Lewis Cass. Van Buren returned to the Democratic fold after the 1848 election, but he supported Abraham Lincoln's policies during the American Civil War. His health began to fail in 1861, and he died in July 1862, at age 79. He has been generally ranked as an average or below-average U.S. president by historians and political scientists.
Early life and education
Van Buren was born as Maarten Van Buren[4] on December 5, 1782, in Kinderhook, New York, about 20 miles (32 km) south of Albany on the Hudson River. By American law, he was the first U.S. president not born a British subject, nor of British ancestry.
His father, Abraham Van Buren, was a descendant of Cornelis Maessen of the village of Buurmalsen in Netherlands, who had come to North America in 1631, and purchased a plot of land on Manhattan Island.  Abraham Van Buren had been a Patriot during the American Revolution, and he later joined the Democratic-Republican Party.  He owned an inn and tavern in Kinderhook and served as Kinderhook's town clerk for several years. In 1776, he married Maria Hoes Van Alen in the town of Kinderhook, also of Dutch extraction and the widow of Johannes Van Alen. She had three children from her first marriage, including future U.S. Representative James I. Van Alen. Her second marriage produced five children, including Martin.  Van Buren spoke English as a second language, unlike any other president; his primary language in youth was Dutch.
Van Buren received a basic education at the village schoolhouse and briefly studied Latin at the Kinderhook Academy and at Washington Seminary in Claverack.  His formal education ended in 1796, when he began reading law at the office of Peter Silvester and his son Francis, prominent Federalist Party attorneys in Kinderhook.  At his father's inn, Van Buren learned early to interact with people from varied ethnic, income, and societal groups, which he used to his advantage as a political organizer.
Van Buren was small in stature at 5 feet 6 inches (1.68 m) tall and affectionately nicknamed "Little Van".  When he first began his legal studies, he wore rough, homespun clothing, causing the Silvesters to admonish him to pay greater heed to his clothing and personal appearance as an aspiring lawyer. He accepted their advice and subsequently emulated the Silvesters' clothing, appearance, bearing, and conduct.
Hannah Van Buren
Van Buren adopted the Democratic-Republican political leanings of his father, despite his association with the Silvesters and Kinderhook's strong affiliation with the Federalist Party.  The Silvesters and Democratic-Republican political figure John Peter Van Ness suggested that Van Buren's political leanings constrained him to complete his education with a Democratic-Republican attorney, so he spent a final year of apprenticeship in the New York City office of John Van Ness's brother William P. Van Ness, a political lieutenant of Aaron Burr.  Van Ness introduced Van Buren to the intricacies of New York state politics, and Van Buren observed Burr's battles for control of the state Democratic-Republican party against George Clinton and Robert R. Livingston.  He returned to Kinderhook in 1803, after being admitted to the New York bar.
Van Buren married Hannah Hoes in Catskill, New York, on February 21, 1807, his childhood sweetheart and a daughter of his first cousin.  Like Van Buren, she was raised in a Dutch home in Valatie; she spoke primarily Dutch, and spoke English with a marked accent. The couple had five children, four of whom lived to adulthood: Abraham (1807–1873), John (1810–1866), Martin Jr. (1812–1855), Winfield Scott (born and died in 1814), and Smith Thompson (1817–1876).  Hannah contracted tuberculosis and died on February 5, 1819, at age 35, and Van Buren never remarried.
Early political career
Upon returning to Kinderhook in 1803, Van Buren formed a law partnership with his half-brother, James Van Alen, and became financially secure enough to increase his focus on politics.  Van Buren had been active in politics from age 18, if not before. In 1801, he attended a Democratic-Republican Party convention in Troy, New York where he worked successfully to secure for John Peter Van Ness the party nomination in a special election for the 6th Congressional District seat.  Upon returning to Kinderhook, Van Buren broke with the Burr faction, becoming an ally of both DeWitt Clinton and Daniel D. Tompkins. After the faction led by Clinton and Tompkins dominated the 1807 elections, Van Buren was appointed Surrogate of Columbia County, New York.  Seeking to find a better base for his political and legal career, Van Buren and his family moved to the town of Hudson, the seat of Columbia County, in 1808.  Van Buren's legal practice continued to flourish, and he traveled all over the state to represent various clients.
In 1812, Van Buren won his party's nomination for a seat in the New York State Senate. Though several Democratic-Republicans, including John Peter Van Ness, joined with the Federalists to oppose his candidacy, Van Buren won election to the state senate in mid-1812.  Later in the year, the United States entered the War of 1812 against Great Britain, while Clinton launched an unsuccessful bid to defeat President James Madison in the 1812 presidential election. After the election, Van Buren became suspicious that Clinton was working with the Federalist Party, and he broke from his former political ally.
During the War of 1812, Van Buren worked with Clinton, Governor Tompkins, and Ambrose Spencer to support the Madison administration's prosecution of the war. In addition, he was a special judge advocate appointed to serve as a prosecutor of William Hull during Hull's court-martial following the surrender of Detroit.  In the winter of 1814–1815, he collaborated with Winfield Scott on ways to reorganize the New York Militia in anticipation of another military campaign, but their work was halted by the end of the war in early 1815.  Van Buren was so favorably impressed by Scott that he named his fourth son after him.  Van Buren's strong support for the war boosted his standing, and in 1815, he was elected to the position of New York Attorney General. Van Buren moved from Hudson to the state capital of Albany, where he established a legal partnership with Benjamin Butler, and shared a house with political ally Roger Skinner.  In 1816, Van Buren won re-election to the state senate, and he would continue to simultaneously serve as both state senator and as the state's attorney general.  In 1819, he played an active part in prosecuting the accused murderers of Richard Jennings, the first murder-for-hire case in the state of New York.
Albany regency
After Tompkins was elected as vice president in the 1816 presidential election, Clinton defeated Van Buren's preferred candidate, Peter Buell Porter, in the 1817 New York gubernatorial election.  Clinton threw his influence behind the construction of the Erie Canal, an ambitious project designed to connect Lake Erie to the Atlantic Ocean.  Though many of Van Buren's allies urged him to block Clinton's Erie Canal bill, Van Buren believed that the canal would benefit the state. His support for the bill helped it win approval from the New York legislature.  Despite his support for the Erie Canal, Van Buren became the leader of an anti-Clintonian faction in New York known as the "Bucktails".
The Bucktails succeeded in emphasizing party loyalty and used it to capture and control many patronage posts throughout New York. Through his use of patronage, loyal newspapers, and connections with local party officials and leaders, Van Buren established what became known as the "Albany Regency", a political machine that emerged as an important factor in New York politics.  The Regency relied on a coalition of small farmers, but also enjoyed support from the Tammany Hall machine in New York City.  Van Buren largely determined Tammany Hall's political policy for the Democratic-Republicans in this era.
A New York state referendum that expanded state voting rights to all white men in 1821, and which further increased the power of Tammany Hall, was guided by Van Buren.  Although Governor Clinton remained in office until late 1822, Van Buren emerged as the leader of the state's Democratic-Republicans after the 1820 elections. Van Buren was a member of the 1820 state constitutional convention, where he favored expanded voting rights, but opposed universal suffrage and tried to maintain property requirements for voting.
Entry into national politics
In February 1821, the state legislature elected Van Buren to represent New York in the United States Senate.  Van Buren arrived in Washington during the "Era of Good Feelings", a period in which partisan distinctions at the national level had faded. Van Buren quickly became a prominent figure in Washington, D.C., befriending Secretary of the Treasury William H. Crawford, among others.  Though not an exceptional orator, Van Buren frequently engaged in debate on the Senate floor, usually after extensively researching the subject at hand. Despite his commitments as a father and state party leader, Van Buren remained closely engaged in his legislative duties, and during his time in the Senate he served as the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee and the Senate Judiciary Committee.  As he gained renown, Van Buren earned monikers like "Little Magician" and "Sly Fox".
Van Buren chose to back Crawford over John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, and Henry Clay in the presidential election of 1824.  Crawford shared Van Buren's affinity for Jeffersonian principles of states' rights and limited government, and Van Buren believed that Crawford was the ideal figure to lead a coalition of New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia's "Richmond Junto".  Van Buren's support for Crawford aroused strong opposition in New York in the form of the People's party, which drew support from Clintonians, Federalists, and others opposed to Van Buren.  Nonetheless, Van Buren helped Crawford win the Democratic-Republican party's presidential nomination at the February 1824 congressional nominating caucus. The other Democratic-Republican candidates in the race refused to accept the poorly-attended caucus's decision, and as the Federalist Party had virtually ceased to function as a national party, the 1824 campaign became a competition among four candidates of the same party. Though Crawford suffered a severe stroke that left him in poor health, Van Buren continued to support his chosen candidate.  Van Buren met with Thomas Jefferson in May 1824 in an attempt to bolster Crawford's candidacy, and though he was unsuccessful in gaining a public endorsement for Crawford, he nonetheless cherished the chance to meet with his political hero.
The 1824 elections dealt a severe blow to the Albany Regency, as Clinton returned to the governorship with the support of the People's party. By the time the state legislature convened to choose the state's presidential electors, results from other states had made it clear that no individual would win a majority of the electoral vote, necessitating a contingent election in the United States House of Representatives.  While Adams and Jackson were assured of finishing in the top three, and thus being eligible for selection in the contingent election, New York's electors would help determine whether Clay or Crawford would finish third.  Though most of the state's electoral votes went to Adams, Crawford won one more electoral vote than Clay in the state, and Clay's defeat in Louisiana left Crawford in third place.  With Crawford still in the running, Van Buren lobbied members of the House to support him.  He hoped to engineer a Crawford victory on the second ballot of the contingent election, but Adams won on the first ballot with the help of Clay and Stephen Van Rensselaer, a Congressman from New York. Despite his close ties with Van Buren, Van Rensselaer cast his vote for Adams, thus giving Adams a narrow majority of New York's delegation and a victory in the contingent election.
After the House contest, Van Buren shrewdly kept out of the controversy which followed, and began looking forward to 1828. Jackson was angered to see the presidency go to Adams despite having won more popular votes than he had, and he eagerly looked forward to a rematch.  Jackson's supporters accused Adams and Clay of having engaged in a "corrupt bargain" in which Clay helped Adams win the contingent election in return for Clay's appointment as Secretary of State.   Always notably courteous in his treatment of opponents, Van Buren showed no bitterness toward either Adams or Clay, and he voted to confirm Clay's nomination to the cabinet.  At the same time, Van Buren opposed the Adams-Clay plans for internal improvements like roads and canals and declined to support U.S. participation in the Congress of Panama.  Van Buren considered Adams's proposals to represent a return to the Hamiltonian economic model favored by Federalists, which he strongly opposed.  Despite his opposition to Adams's public policies, Van Buren was able to easily secure re-election in his own divided home state in 1827.
1828 elections
Van Buren's overarching goal at the national level was to restore a two-party system with party cleavages based on philosophical differences, and he viewed the old divide between Federalists and Democratic-Republicans as the best state of affairs for the nation.  Van Buren believed that these national parties helped ensure that elections were decided on national, rather than sectional or local, issues; as he put it, "party attachment in former times furnished a complete antidote for sectional prejudices". After the 1824 election, Van Buren was initially somewhat skeptical of Jackson, who had not taken strong positions on most policy issues. Nonetheless, he settled on Jackson as the one candidate who could beat Adams in the 1828 presidential election, and he worked to bring Crawford's former backers into line behind Jackson.
He also forged alliances with other members of Congress opposed to Adams, including Vice President John C. Calhoun, Senator Thomas Hart Benton, and Senator John Randolph.  Seeking to solidify his own standing in New York and bolster Jackson's campaign, Van Buren helped arrange the passage of the Tariff of 1828, which opponents labeled as the "Tariff of Abominations". The tariff satisfied many who sought protection from foreign competition, but angered Southern cotton interests and New Englanders.  Because Van Buren believed that the South would never support Adams, and New England would never support Jackson, he was willing to alienate both regions through passage of the tariff.
Meanwhile, Clinton's death from a heart attack in 1828 dramatically shook up the politics of Van Buren's home state, while the Anti-Masonic Party emerged as an increasingly important factor.  After some initial reluctance, Van Buren chose to run for Governor of New York in the 1828 election.  Hoping that a Jackson victory would lead to his own elevation to Secretary of State or Secretary of the Treasury, Van Buren chose Enos T. Throop as his running mate and preferred successor. Van Buren's candidacy was aided by the split between supporters of Adams, who had adopted the label of National Republicans, and the Anti-Masonic Party.
Reflecting his public association with Jackson, Van Buren accepted the gubernatorial nomination on a ticket that called itself "Jacksonian-Democrat". He campaigned on local as well as national issues, emphasizing his opposition to the policies of the Adams administration.  Van Buren ran ahead of Jackson, winning the state by 30,000 votes compared to a margin of 5,000 for Jackson.  Nationally, Jackson defeated Adams by a wide margin, winning nearly every state outside of New England.  After the election, Van Buren resigned from the Senate to start his term as governor, which began on January 1, 1829.  While his term as governor was short, he did manage to pass the Bank Safety Fund Law, an early form of deposit insurance, through the legislature.  He also appointed several key supporters, including William L. Marcy and Silas Wright, to important state positions.
Jackson administration
Secretary of State
In February 1829, Jackson wrote to Van Buren to ask him to become Secretary of State. Van Buren quickly agreed, and he resigned as governor the following month; his tenure of forty-three days is the shortest of any Governor of New York.  No serious diplomatic crises arose during Van Buren's tenure as Secretary of State, but he achieved several notable successes, such as settling long-standing claims against France and winning reparations for property that had been seized during the Napoleonic Wars. He reached an agreement with the British to open trade with the British West Indies colonies and concluded a treaty with the Ottoman Empire that gained American merchants access to the Black Sea. Items on which he did not achieve success included settling the Maine-New Brunswick boundary dispute with Great Britain, gaining settlement of the U.S. claim to the Oregon Country, concluding a commercial treaty with Russia, and persuading Mexico to sell Texas.
In addition to his foreign policy duties, Van Buren quickly emerged as an important adviser to Jackson on major domestic issues like the tariff and internal improvements.  The Secretary of State was instrumental in convincing Jackson to issue the Maysville Road veto, which both reaffirmed limited government principles and also helped prevent the construction of infrastructure projects that could potentially compete with New York's Erie Canal.  He also became involved in a power struggle with Calhoun over appointments and other issues, including the Petticoat Affair.  The Petticoat Affair arose because Peggy Eaton, wife of Secretary of War John H. Eaton, was ostracized by the other cabinet wives due to circumstances surrounding her marriage.
Led by Floride Calhoun, wife of Vice President Calhoun, the other cabinet wives refused to pay courtesy calls to the Eatons, receive them as visitors, or invite them to social events.  As a widower, Van Buren was unaffected by the position of the cabinet wives. Van Buren at first sought to conciliate the divide in the cabinet, but most of the leading citizens in Washington continued to snub the Eatons.  Jackson was personally close to Eaton, and he came to the conclusion that the allegations against Eaton arose from a plot against his administration led by Henry Clay.  The Petticoat Affair, combined with a contentious debate over the tariff and Calhoun's decade-old criticisms of Jackson's actions in the First Seminole War, contributed to a split between Jackson and Calhoun.  As the debate over the tariff and the proposed ability of South Carolina to nullify federal law consumed Washington, Van Buren increasingly emerged as Jackson's likely successor.
The Petticoat affair was finally resolved when Van Buren offered to resign; in April 1831, Jackson accepted, and took the opportunity to reorganize his cabinet by asking for the resignations of the anti-Eaton cabinet members.  Postmaster General William T. Barry, who had sided with the Eatons in the Petticoat Affair, was the lone cabinet member to remain in office.  The cabinet reorganization removed Calhoun's allies from the Jackson administration, and Van Buren had a major role in shaping the new cabinet.m After leaving office, Van Buren continued to play a part in the Kitchen Cabinet, Jackson's informal circle of advisers.
Vice-presidency
In August 1831, Jackson gave Van Buren a recess appointment as the ambassador to Britain, and Van Buren arrived in London in September.  He was cordially received, but in February 1832, he learned his nomination had been rejected by the Senate.  The rejection of Van Buren was essentially the work of Calhoun.  When the vote on Van Buren's nomination was taken, enough pro-Calhoun Jacksonians refrained from voting to produce a tie, thus giving Calhoun, in his role as presiding officer, the ability to cast the deciding vote against Van Buren.
Calhoun was elated, convinced that he had ended Van Buren's career. "It will kill him dead, sir, kill him dead. He will never kick, sir, never kick", Calhoun exclaimed to a friend.  Calhoun's move backfired; by making Van Buren appear the victim of petty politics, Calhoun raised Van Buren in both Jackson's regard and the esteem of others in the Democratic Party. Far from ending Van Buren's career, Calhoun's action gave greater impetus to Van Buren's candidacy for vice president.
Seeking to ensure that Van Buren would replace Calhoun as his running mate, Jackson had arranged for a national convention of his supporters.  The May 1832 Democratic National Convention subsequently nominated Van Buren to serve as the party's vice presidential nominee.  Van Buren won the nomination over Philip Pendleton Barbour (Calhoun's favored candidate) and Richard Mentor Johnson due to the support of Jackson and the strength of the Albany Regency.  Upon Van Buren's return from Europe in July 1832, he became involved in the Bank War, a struggle over the re-charter of the Second Bank of the United States.
Van Buren had long been distrustful of banks, and he viewed the Bank as an extension of the Hamiltonian economic program, so he supported Jackson's veto of the Bank's re-charter. Henry Clay, the presidential nominee of the National Republicans, made the struggle over the Bank the key issue of the presidential election of 1832. The Jackson–Van Buren ticket won the 1832 election by a landslide, and Van Buren took office as vice president in March 1833.  During the Nullification Crisis, Van Buren counseled Jackson to pursue a policy of conciliation with South Carolina leaders.  He played little direct role in the passage of the Tariff of 1833, but he quietly hoped that the tariff would help bring an end to the Nullification Crisis, which it did.
During his time in office, Van Buren continued to be one of Jackson's primary advisors and confidants, and accompanied Jackson on his tour of the northeastern United States in 1833.  Jackson's struggle with the Second Bank of the United States continued, as the president sought to remove federal funds from the Bank.  Though at first apprehensive of the removal due to congressional support for the Bank, Van Buren eventually came to support Jackson's policy.  He also helped undermine a fledgling alliance between Jackson and Daniel Webster, a senator from Massachusetts who could have potentially threatened Van Buren's project to create two parties separated by policy differences rather than personalities.  During Jackson's second term, the president's supporters began to refer to themselves as members of the Democratic Party. Meanwhile, those opposed to Jackson, including Clay's National Republicans, followers of Calhoun, and many members of the Anti-Masonic Party, coalesced into the Whig Party.
Presidential election of 1836
President Andrew Jackson declined to seek another term in the 1836 presidential election, but he remained influential within the Democratic Party as his second term came to an end. Jackson was determined to help elect Van Buren in 1836 so that the latter could continue the Jackson administration's policies. the two men-–the charismatic "Old Hickory" and the super-efficient "Sly Fox"--had entirely different personalities but had become an effective team in eight years in office together.  With Jackson's support, Van Buren won the presidential nomination of the 1835 Democratic National Convention without opposition.  Two names were put forward for the vice-presidential nomination: Representative Richard M. Johnson of Kentucky, and former Senator William Cabell Rives of Virginia. Southern Democrats, and Van Buren himself, strongly preferred Rives. Jackson, on the other hand, strongly preferred Johnson. Again, Jackson's considerable influence prevailed, and Johnson received the required two-thirds vote after New York Senator Silas Wright prevailed upon non-delegate Edward Rucker to cast the 15 votes of the absent Tennessee delegation in Johnson's favor.
1836 electoral vote results
Van Buren's competitors in the election of 1836 were three members of the Whig Party, which remained a loose coalition bound by mutual opposition to Jackson's anti-bank policies. Lacking the party unity or organizational strength to field a single ticket or define a single platform, the Whigs ran several regional candidates in hopes of sending the election to the House of Representatives.  The three candidates were: Hugh Lawson White of Tennessee, Daniel Webster of Massachusetts, and William Henry Harrison of Indiana. Besides endorsing internal improvements and a national bank, the Whigs tried to tie Democrats to abolitionism and sectional tension, and attacked Jackson for "acts of aggression and usurpation of power".
Southern voters represented the biggest potential impediment in Van Buren's quest for the presidency, as many were suspicious of a Northern president.  Van Buren moved to obtain the support of southerners by assuring them that he opposed abolitionism and supported the maintaining of slavery in states where it had already existed.  To demonstrate consistency regarding his opinions on slavery, Van Buren cast the tie-breaking Senate vote in favor of a bill to subject abolitionist mail to state laws, thus ensuring that its circulation would be prohibited in the South.  Van Buren personally considered slavery to be immoral, but sanctioned by the Constitution.
Van Buren won the election with 764,198 popular votes, 50.9% of the total, and 170 electoral votes. Harrison led the Whigs with 73 electoral votes, White receiving 26, and Webster 14. Willie Person Mangum received South Carolina's 11 electoral votes, which were awarded by the state legislature.  Van Buren's victory resulted from a combination of his own attractive political and personal qualities, Jackson's popularity and endorsement, the organizational power of the Democratic party, and the inability of the Whig Party to muster an effective candidate and campaign.  Virginia's presidential electors voted for Van Buren for president, but voted for William Smith for vice president, leaving Johnson one electoral vote short of election. In accordance with the Twelfth Amendment, the Senate elected Johnson vice president in a contingent vote.
The election of 1836 marked an important turning point in American political history because it saw the establishment of the Second Party System. In the early 1830s, the political party structure was still changing, rapidly, and factional and personal leaders continued to play a major role in politics. By the end of the campaign of 1836, the new party system was almost complete, as nearly every faction had been absorbed by either the Democrats or the Whigs.