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

Presidency, 1837–1841

Van Buren retained much of Jackson's cabinet and lower-level appointees, as he hoped that the retention of Jackson's appointees would stop Whig momentum in the South and restore confidence in the Democrats as a party of sectional unity.  The cabinet holdovers represented the different regions of the country: Secretary of the Treasury Levi Woodbury came from New England, Attorney General Benjamin F. Butler and Secretary of the Navy Mahlon Dickerson hailed from mid-Atlantic states, Secretary of State John Forsyth represented the South, and Postmaster General Amos Kendall of Kentucky represented the West.
For the lone open position of Secretary of War, Van Buren first approached William Cabell Rives, who had sought the vice presidency in 1836. After Rives declined to join the cabinet, Van Buren appointed Joel Roberts Poinsett, a South Carolinian who had opposed secession during the Nullification Crisis. Van Buren's cabinet choices were criticized by Pennsylvanians such as James Buchanan, who argued that their state deserved a cabinet position as well as some Democrats who argued that Van Buren should have used his patronage powers to augment his own power. However, Van Buren saw value in avoiding contentious patronage battles, and his decision to retain Jackson's cabinet made it clear that he intended to continue the policies of his predecessor. Additionally, Van Buren had helped select Jackson's cabinet appointees and enjoyed strong working relationships with them.
Van Buren held regular formal cabinet meetings and discontinued the informal gatherings of advisers that had attracted so much attention during Jackson's presidency. He solicited advice from department heads, tolerated open and even frank exchanges between cabinet members, perceiving himself as "a mediator, and to some extent an umpire between the conflicting opinions" of his counselors. Such detachment allowed the president to reserve judgment and protect his own prerogative for making final decisions. These open discussions gave cabinet members a sense of participation and made them feel part of a functioning entity, rather than isolated executive agents.  Van Buren was closely involved in foreign affairs and matters pertaining to the Treasury Department, but the Post Office, War Department, and Navy Department all had possessed high levels of autonomy under their respective cabinet secretaries.
Panic of 1837
When Van Buren entered office, the nation's economic health had taken a turn for the worse and the prosperity of the early 1830s was over. Two months into his presidency, on May 10, 1837, some important state banks in New York, running out of hard currency reserves, refused to convert paper money into gold or silver, and other financial institutions throughout the nation quickly followed suit. This financial crisis would become known as the Panic of 1837.  The Panic was followed by a five-year depression in which banks failed and unemployment reached record highs.
Van Buren blamed the economic collapse on greedy American and foreign business and financial institutions, as well as the over-extension of credit by U.S. banks. Whig leaders in Congress blamed the Democrats, along with Andrew Jackson's economic policies, specifically his 1836 Specie Circular. Cries of "rescind the circular!" went up and former president Jackson sent word to Van Buren asking him not to rescind the order, believing that it had to be given enough time to work. Others, like Nicholas Biddle, believed that Jackson's dismantling of the Bank of the United States was directly responsible for the irresponsible creation of paper money by the state banks which had precipitated this panic.  The Panic of 1837 loomed large over the 1838 election cycle, as the carryover effects of the economic downturn led to Whig gains in both the U.S. House and Senate. The state elections in 1837 and 1838 were also disastrous for the Democrats, and the partial economic recovery in 1838 was offset by a second commercial crisis later that year.
To deal with the crisis, the Whigs proposed rechartering the national bank. The president countered by proposing the establishment of an independent U.S. treasury, which he contended would take the politics out of the nation's money supply. Under the plan, the government would hold all of its money balances in the form of gold or silver, and would be restricted from printing paper money at will; both measures were designed to prevent inflation.  The plan would permanently separate the government from private banks by storing government funds in government vaults rather than in private banks.  Van Buren announced his proposal in September 1837, but an alliance of conservative Democrats and Whigs prevented it from becoming law until 1840.  As the debate continued, conservative Democrats like Rives defected to the Whig Party, which itself grew more unified in its opposition to Van Buren.  The Whigs would abolish the Independent Treasury system in 1841, but it was revived in 1846, and remained in place until the passage of the Federal Reserve Act in 1913.  More important for Van Buren's immediate future, the depression would be a major issue in his upcoming re-election campaign.
Indian removal
Federal policy under Jackson had sought to move Indian tribes to lands west of the Mississippi River through the Indian Removal Act of 1830, and the federal government negotiated 19 treaties with Indian tribes in the course of Van Buren's presidency.  The 1835 Treaty of New Echota signed by government officials and representatives of the Cherokee tribe had established terms under which the Cherokees ceded their territory in the southeast and agreed to move west to Oklahoma. In 1838, Van Buren directed General Winfield Scott to forcibly move all those who had not yet complied with the treaty.
The Cherokees were herded violently into internment camps where they were kept for the summer of 1838. The actual transportation west was delayed by intense heat and drought, but they were forcibly marched west in the fall. Under the treaty, the government was supposed to provide wagons, rations, and even medical doctors, but it did not.  Some 20,000 people were relocated against their will during the Cherokee removal, part of the Trail of Tears.  Notably, Ralph Waldo Emerson, who would go on to become America's foremost man of letters, wrote Van Buren a letter protesting his treatment of the Cherokee.
The administration also contended with the Seminole Indians, who engaged the army in a prolonged conflict known as the Second Seminole War.  Prior to leaving office, Jackson put General Thomas Jesup in command of all military troops in Florida to force Seminole emigration to the West.  Forts were established throughout the Indian territory, and mobile columns of soldiers scoured the countryside, and many Seminoles offered to surrender, including Chief Micanopy. The Seminoles slowly gathered for emigration near Tampa, but in June they fled the detention camps, driven off by disease and the presence of slave catchers who were hoping to capture Black Seminoles.
In December 1837, Jesup began a massive offensive, culminating in the Battle of Lake Okeechobee, and the war entered a new phase of attrition.  During this time, the government realized that it would be almost impossible to drive the remaining Seminoles from Florida, so Van Buren sent General Alexander Macomb to negotiate peace with them. It was the only time that an Indian tribe had forced the government to sue for peace. An agreement was reached allowing the Seminoles to remain in southwest Florida, but the peace was shattered in July 1839 and was not restored until 1842, after Van Buren had left office.
Texas
Just before leaving office in March 1837, Andrew Jackson extended diplomatic recognition to the Republic of Texas, which had gained de facto independence from Mexico in the Texas Revolution. By suggesting the prospect of quick annexation, Jackson raised the danger of war with Mexico and heightened sectional tensions at home. New England abolitionists charged that there was a "slaveholding conspiracy to acquire Texas", and Daniel Webster eloquently denounced annexation.  Many Southern leaders, meanwhile, strongly desired the expansion of slave-holding territory in the United States.
Boldly reversing Jackson's policies, Van Buren sought peace abroad and harmony at home. He proposed a diplomatic solution to a long-standing financial dispute between American citizens and the Mexican government, rejecting Jackson's threat to settle it by force.  Likewise, when the Texas minister at Washington, D.C., proposed annexation to the administration in August 1837, he was told that the proposition could not be entertained. Constitutional scruples and fear of war with Mexico were the reasons given for the rejection, but concern that it would precipitate a clash over the extension of slavery undoubtedly influenced Van Buren and continued to be the chief obstacle to annexation.  Northern and Southern Democrats followed an unspoken rule in which Northerners helped quash anti-slavery proposals and Southerners refrained from agitating for the annexation of Texas. Texas withdrew the annexation offer in 1838.
Britain
British subjects in Lower Canada (now Quebec) and Upper Canada (now Ontario) rose in rebellion in 1837 and 1838, protesting their lack of responsible government. While the initial insurrection in Upper Canada ended quickly (following the December 1837 Battle of Montgomery's Tavern), many of the rebels fled across the Niagara River into New York, and Canadian leader William Lyon Mackenzie began recruiting volunteers in Buffalo.  Mackenzie declared the establishment of the Republic of Canada and put into motion a plan whereby volunteers would invade Upper Canada from Navy Island on the Canadian side of the Niagara River. Several hundred volunteers traveled to Navy Island in the weeks that followed. They procured the steamboat Caroline to deliver supplies to Navy Island from Fort Schlosser.  Seeking to deter an imminent invasion, British forces crossed to the American bank of the river in late December 1837, and they burned and sank the Caroline. In the melee, one American was killed and others were wounded.
Considerable sentiment arose within the United States to declare war, and a British ship was burned in revenge.  Van Buren, looking to avoid a war with Great Britain, sent General Winfield Scott to the Canada–United States border with large discretionary powers for its protection and its peace.  Scott impressed upon American citizens the need for a peaceful resolution to the crisis, and made it clear that the U.S. government would not support adventuresome Americans attacking the British. Also, in early January 1838, the president proclaimed U.S. neutrality with regard to the Canadian independence issue, a declaration which Congress endorsed by passing a neutrality law designed to discourage the participation of American citizens in foreign conflicts.
During the Canadian rebellions, Charles Duncombe and Robert Nelson helped foment a largely American militia, the Hunters' Lodge/Frères chasseurs. This militia carried out several attacks in Upper Canada between December 1837 and December 1838, collectively known as the Patriot War. The administration followed through on its enforcement of the Neutrality Act, encouraged the prosecution of filibusters, and actively deterred U.S. citizens from subversive activities abroad. In the long term, Van Buren's opposition to the Patriot War contributed to the construction of healthy Anglo-American and Canada–United States relations in the 20th century; it also led, more immediately, to a backlash among citizens regarding the seeming overreach of federal authority, which hurt congressional Democrats in the 1838 midterm elections.
A new crisis surfaced in late 1838, in the disputed territory on the Maine–New Brunswick frontier, where Americans were settling on long-disputed land claimed by the United States and Great Britain.  Jackson had been willing to drop American claims to the region in return for other concessions, but Maine was unwilling to drop its claims to the disputed territory. For their part, the British considered possession of the area vital to the defense of Canada.  Both American and New Brunswick lumberjacks cut timber in the disputed territory during the winter of 1838–1839. On December 29, New Brunswick lumbermen were spotted cutting down trees on an American estate near the Aroostook River.
After American woodcutters rushed to stand guard, a shouting match, known as the Battle of Caribou, ensued. Tensions quickly boiled over into a near war with both Maine and New Brunswick arresting each other's citizens. The crisis seemed ready to turn into an armed conflict.  British troops began to gather along the Saint John River. Governor John Fairfield mobilized the state militia to confront the British in the disputed territory and several forts were constructed.  The American press clamored for war; "Maine and her soil, or BLOOD!" screamed one editorial. "Let the sword be drawn and the scabbard thrown away!" In June, Congress authorized 50,000 troops and a $10 million budget in the event foreign military troops crossed into United States territory.
Van Buren was unwilling to go to war over the disputed territory, though he assured Maine that he would respond to any attacks by the British.  To settle the crisis, Van Buren met with the British minister to the United States, and Van Buren and the minister agreed to resolve the border issue diplomatically. Van  Buren also sent General Scott to the northern border area, both to show military resolve, and more importantly, to lower the tensions. Scott successfully convinced all sides to submit the border issue to arbitration. The border dispute was put to rest a few years later, with the signing of the 1842 Webster–Ashburton Treaty.
Amistad case
The Amistad case was a freedom suit that involved international issues and parties, as well as United States law, resulting from the rebellion of Africans on board the Spanish schooner La Amistad in 1839. Van Buren viewed abolitionism as the greatest threat to the nation's unity, and he resisted the slightest interference with slavery in the states where it existed.  His administration supported the Spanish government's demand that the ship and its cargo (including the Africans) be turned over to them.  A federal district court judge ruled that the Africans were legally free and should be transported home, but Van Buren's administration appealed the case to the Supreme Court.
In February 1840, former president John Quincy Adams argued passionately for the Africans' right to freedom, and Attorney General Henry D. Gilpin presented the government's case. In March 1841, the Supreme Court issued its final verdict: the Amistad Africans were free people and should be allowed to return home.  The unique nature of the case heightened public interest in the saga, including the participation of former president Adams, Africans testifying in federal court, and their being represented by prominent lawyers. The Amistad case drew attention to the personal tragedies of slavery and attracted new support for the growing abolition movement in the North. It also transformed the courts into the principal forum for a national debate on the legal foundations of slavery.
Judicial appointments
Van Buren appointed two Associate Justices to the Supreme Court:  John McKinley, confirmed September 25, 1837, and Peter Vivian Daniel, confirmed March 2, 1841. He also appointed eight other federal judges, all to United States district courts.
White House hostess
For the first half of his presidency, Van Buren, who had been a widower for many years, did not have a specific person fill the role of White House hostess at administration social events, but tried to assume such duties himself. When his eldest son Abraham Van Buren married Angelica Singleton in 1838, he quickly acted to install his daughter-in-law as his hostess. She solicited the advice of her distant relative, Dolley Madison, who had moved back to Washington after her husband's death, and soon the president's parties livened up. After the 1839 New Year's Eve reception, the Boston Post raved: "[Angelica Van Buren is a] lady of rare accomplishments, very modest yet perfectly easy and graceful in her manners and free and vivacious in her conversation ... universally admired."
As the nation endured a deep economic depression, Angelica Van Buren's receiving style at receptions was influenced by her heavy reading on European court life (and her naive delight in being received as the Queen of the United States when she visited the royal courts of England and France after her marriage). Newspaper coverage of this, in addition to the claim that she intended to re-landscape the White House grounds to resemble the royal gardens of Europe, was used in a political attack on her father-in-law by a Pennsylvania Whig Congressman Charles Ogle. He referred obliquely to her as part of the presidential "household" in his famous Gold Spoon Oration. The attack was delivered in Congress and the depiction of the president as living a royal lifestyle was a primary factor in his defeat for re-election.
Presidential election of 1840
Van Buren easily won renomination for a second term at the 1840 Democratic National Convention, but he and his party faced a difficult election in 1840. Van Buren's presidency had been a difficult affair, with the U.S. economy mired in a severe downturn, and other divisive issues, such as slavery, western expansion, and tensions with Great Britain, providing opportunities for Van Buren's political opponents—including some of his fellow Democrats—to criticize his actions.  Although Van Buren's renomination was never in doubt, Democratic strategists began to question the wisdom of keeping Johnson on the ticket. Even former president Jackson conceded that Johnson was a liability and insisted on former House Speaker James K. Polk of Tennessee as Van Buren's new running mate. Van Buren was reluctant to drop Johnson, who was popular with workers and radicals in the North and added military experience to the ticket, which might prove important against likely Whig nominee William Henry Harrison.  Rather than re-nominating Johnson, the Democratic convention decided to allow state Democratic Party leaders to select the vice-presidential candidates for their states.
Van Buren hoped that the Whigs would nominate Clay for president, which would allow Van Buren to cast the 1840 campaign as a clash between Van Buren's Independent Treasury system and Clay's support for a national bank. However, rather than nominating longtime party spokesmen like Clay and Daniel Webster, the 1839 Whig National Convention nominated Harrison, who had served in various governmental positions during his career and had earned fame for his military leadership in the Battle of Tippecanoe and the War of 1812. Whig leaders like William Seward and Thaddeus Stevens believed that Harrison's war record would effectively counter the popular appeals of the Democratic Party. For vice president, the Whigs nominated former Senator John Tyler of Virginia. Clay was deeply disappointed by his defeat at the convention, but he nonetheless threw his support behind Harrison.
Whigs presented Harrison as the antithesis of the president, whom they derided as ineffective, corrupt, and effete.  Whigs also depicted Van Buren as an aristocrat living in high style in the White House, while they used images of Harrison in a log cabin sipping cider to convince voters that he was a man of the people. They threw such jabs as "Van, Van, is a used-up man" and "Martin Van Ruin" and ridiculed him in newspapers and cartoons.  Issues of policy were not absent from the campaign; the Whigs derided the alleged executive overreaches of Jackson and Van Buren, while also calling for a national bank and higher tariffs.  Democrats attempted to campaign on the Independent Treasury system, but the onset of deflation undercut these arguments.  The enthusiasm for "Tippecanoe and Tyler Too", coupled with the country's severe economic crisis, made it impossible for Van Buren to win a second term. Harrison won by a popular vote of 1,275,612 to 1,130,033, and an electoral vote margin of 234 to 60.  An astonishing 80% of eligible voters went to the polls on election day. Van Buren actually won more votes than he had in 1836, but the Whig success in attracting new voters more than canceled out Democratic gains.  Additionally, Whigs won majorities for the first time in both the House of Representatives and the Senate.
Later life
Election of 1844
On the expiration of his term, Van Buren returned to his estate of Lindenwald in Kinderhook.  He continued to closely watch political developments, including the battle between Clay and President Tyler, who took office after Harrison's death in April 1841.  Though undecided on another presidential run, Van Buren made several moves calculated to maintain his support, including a trip to the South and West during which he met with Jackson, former Speaker of the House James K. Polk, and others.  President Tyler, James Buchanan, Levi Woodbury, and others loomed as potential challengers for the 1844 Democratic nomination, but it was Calhoun who posed the most formidable obstacle.
Van Buren remained silent on major public issues like the debate over the Tariff of 1842, hoping to arrange for the appearance of a draft movement for his presidential candidacy.  President John Tyler made annexation of Texas his chief foreign policy goal, and many Democrats, particularly in the South, were anxious to quickly complete the annexation of Texas.  After an explosion on the USS Princeton killed Secretary of State Abel P. Upshur in February 1844, Tyler brought Calhoun into his cabinet to direct foreign affairs.  Like Tyler, Calhoun pursued the annexation of Texas to upend the presidential race and to extend slavery into new territories.
Shortly after taking office, Secretary of State Calhoun negotiated an annexation treaty between the United States and Texas.  Van Buren had hoped he would not have to take a public stand on annexation, but as the Texas question came to dominate U.S. politics, he decided to make his views on the issue public.  Though he believed that his public acceptance of annexation would likely help him win the 1844 Democratic nomination, Van Buren thought that annexation would inevitably lead to an unjust war with Mexico.  In a public letter published shortly after Henry Clay also announced his opposition to the annexation treaty, Van Buren articulated his views on the Texas question.
Van Buren's opposition to immediate annexation cost him the support of many pro-slavery Democrats.  In the weeks before the 1844 Democratic National Convention, Van Buren's supporters anticipated that he would win a majority of the delegates on the first presidential ballot, but would not be able to win the support of the required two-thirds of delegates.  Van Buren's supporters attempted to prevent the adoption of the two-thirds rule, but several Northern delegates joined with Southern delegates in implementing the two-thirds rule for the 1844 convention.  Van Buren won 146 of the 266 votes on the first presidential ballot, with only 12 of his votes coming from Southern states.
Senator Lewis Cass won much of the remaining vote, and he gradually picked up support on subsequent ballots until the convention adjourned for the day.  When the convention reconvened and held another ballot, James K. Polk, who shared many of Van Buren's views but favored immediate annexation, won 44 votes.  On the ninth and final ballot of the convention, Van Buren's supporters withdrew the former president's name from consideration, and Polk won the Democratic presidential nomination.  Though angered at the way in which his opponents had denied him in the Democratic nomination, Van Buren endorsed Polk in the interest of party unity.  He also convinced Silas Wright to run for Governor of New York so that the popular Wright could help boost Polk in the state.  Wright narrowly defeated Whig nominee Millard Fillmore in the 1844 gubernatorial election, and Wright's victory in the state helped Polk narrowly defeat Henry Clay in the 1844 presidential election.
After taking office, Polk used George Bancroft as an intermediary to offer Van Buren the ambassadorship to London. Van Buren declined, partly because he was upset with Polk over the treatment the Van Buren delegates had received at the 1844 convention, and partly because he was content in his retirement.  Polk also consulted Van Buren in the formation of his cabinet, but offended Van Buren by offering to appoint a New Yorker only to the lesser post of Secretary of War, rather than as Secretary of State or Secretary of the Treasury.  Other patronage decisions also angered Van Buren and Wright, and they became permanently alienated from the Polk administration.
Election of 1848
Though he had previously helped maintain a balance between the Barnburners and Hunkers, the two factions of the New York Democratic Party, Van Buren moved closer to the Barnburners after the 1844 Democratic National Convention.  The split in the state party worsened during the Polk's presidency, as his administration lavished patronage on the Hunkers.  In his retirement, Van Buren also grew increasingly opposed to slavery.
As the Mexican–American War brought the debate over slavery in the territories to the forefront of American politics, Van Buren published an anti-slavery manifesto. In it, he refuted the notion that Congress did not have the power to regulate slavery in the territories, and argued the Founding Fathers had favored the eventual abolition of slavery.  The document, which became known as the "Barnburner Manifesto," was edited at Van Buren's request by John Van Buren and Samuel Tilden, both of whom were leaders of the Barnburner faction.  After the publication of the Barnburner Manifesto, many Barnburners urged the former president to seek his old office in the 1848 presidential election.  The 1848 Democratic National Convention seated competing Barnburner and Hunker delegations from New York, but the Barnburners walked out of the convention when Lewis Cass, who opposed congressional regulation of slavery in the territories, was nominated on the fourth ballot.
In response to the nomination of Cass, the Barnburners began to organize as a third party. At a convention held in June 1848, in Utica, New York, the Barnburners nominated Van Buren for president.  Though reluctant to bolt from the Democratic Party, Van Buren accepted the nomination to show the power of the anti-slavery movement, help defeat Cass, and weaken the Hunkers.  At a convention held in Buffalo, New York in August 1848, a group of anti-slavery Democrats, Whigs, and members of the abolitionist Liberty Party met in the first national convention of what became known as the Free Soil Party.
The convention unanimously nominated Van Buren, and chose Charles Francis Adams as Van Buren's running mate. In a public message accepting the nomination, Van Buren gave his full support for the Wilmot Proviso, a proposed law that would ban slavery in all territories acquired from Mexico in the Mexican–American War.  Van Buren won no electoral votes, but finished second to Whig nominee Zachary Taylor in New York, taking enough votes from Cass to give the state—and perhaps the election—to Taylor.  Nationwide, Van Buren won 10.1% of the popular vote, the strongest showing by a third party presidential nominee up to that point in U.S. history.
Retirement
Van Buren never sought public office again after the 1848 election, but he continued to closely follow national politics. He was deeply troubled by the stirrings of secessionism in the South and welcomed the Compromise of 1850 as a necessary conciliatory measure despite his opposition to the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.  Van Buren also worked on a history of American political parties and embarked on a tour of Europe, becoming the first former American head of state to visit Britain. Though still concerned about slavery, Van Buren and his followers returned to the Democratic fold, partly out of the fear that a continuing Democratic split would help the Whig Party.  He also attempted to reconcile the Barnburners and the Hunkers, with mixed results.
Van Buren supported Franklin Pierce for president in 1852, James Buchanan in 1856, and Stephen A. Douglas in 1860.  Van Buren viewed the fledgling Know Nothing movement with contempt and felt that the anti-slavery Republican Party exacerbated sectional tensions.  He considered Chief Justice Roger Taney's decision in the 1857 case of Dred Scott v. Sandford to be a "grievous mistake" since it overturned the Missouri Compromise.  He believed that the Buchanan administration handled the issue of Bleeding Kansas poorly, and saw the Lecompton Constitution as a sop to Southern extremists.
After the election of Abraham Lincoln and the secession of several Southern states in 1860, Van Buren unsuccessfully sought to call a constitutional convention. In April 1861, former president Pierce wrote to the other living former presidents and asked them to consider meeting to use their stature and influence to propose a negotiated end to the war. Pierce asked Van Buren to use his role as the senior living ex-president to issue a formal call. Van Buren's reply suggested that Buchanan should be the one to call the meeting, since he was the former president who had served most recently, or that Pierce should issue the call himself if he strongly believed in the merit of his proposal. Neither Buchanan nor Pierce was willing to make Pierce's proposal public, and nothing more resulted from it.  Once the American Civil War began, Van Buren made public his support for the Union.
Van Buren's health began to fail later in 1861, and he was bedridden with pneumonia during the fall and winter of 1861–1862.  He died of bronchial asthma and heart failure at his Lindenwald estate at 2:00 a.m. on July 24, 1862, at the age of 79.  He is buried in the Kinderhook Reformed Dutch Church Cemetery, as are his wife Hannah, his parents, and his son Martin Van Buren Jr.
Van Buren outlived all four of his immediate successors: Harrison, Tyler, Polk, and Taylor.
Legacy
Van Buren's most lasting achievement was as a political organizer who built the Democratic Party and guided it to dominance in the Second Party System, and historians have come to regard Van Buren as integral to the development of the American political system. According to historian Robert Remini:
Van Buren's creative contribution to the political development of the nation was enormous, and as such he earned his way to the presidency. After gaining control of New York's Republican Party he organized the Albany Regency to run the state in his absence while he pursued a national career in Washington. The Regency was a governing consul in Albany consisting of a group of politically astute and highly intelligent men. He was one of the first statewide political machines in the country was success resulted from its professional use of patronage, the legislative caucus, and the official party newspaper.....[In Washington] he labored to bring about the reorganization of the Republican Party through an alliance between what he called "the planters of the South and the plain Republicans of the North."... [His Democratic] emphasized the importance of building popular majorities and it perfected political techniques which would appeal to the masses....Heretofore parties were regarded as evils to be tolerated; Van Buren argued that the party system was the most sensible and intelligent way the affairs of the nation could be democratically conducted, a viewpoint that eventually won national approval.
However, his presidency is considered to be average, at best, by historians. He was blamed for the economic troubles and was defeated for reelection.  His time in office was dominated by the economic disaster of the Panic of 1837, and historians have split on the adequacy of the Independent Treasury as a response to that issue.  Several writers have portrayed Van Buren as among the nation's most obscure presidents. As noted in a 2014 Time magazine article on the "Top 10 Forgettable Presidents":
Making himself nearly disappear completely from the history books was probably not the trick the "Little Magician" Martin Van Buren had in mind, but his was the first truly forgettable American presidency.
Memorials and popular culture
Van Buren's home in Kinderhook, New York, which he called Lindenwald, is now the Martin Van Buren National Historic Site.  Counties are named for Van Buren in Michigan, Iowa, Arkansas, and Tennessee. Mount Van Buren, USS Van Buren, three state parks and numerous towns were named after him.
During the 1988 presidential campaign, George H. W. Bush, a Yale University graduate and member of the Skull and Bones secret society, was attempting to become the first incumbent vice president to win election to the presidency since Van Buren. In the comic strip Doonesbury, artist Garry Trudeau depicted members of Skull and Bones as attempting to rob Van Buren's grave, apparently intending to use the relics in a ritual that would aid Bush in the election.
Van Buren is portrayed by Nigel Hawthorne in the 1997 film Amistad. The film depicts the legal battle surrounding the status of slaves who in 1839 rebelled against their transporters on La Amistad slave ship.  On the television show Seinfeld, the episode "The Van Buren Boys" is about a fictional street gang that admires Van Buren and bases its rituals and symbols on him, including the hand sign of eight fingers pointing up.
Also, in an episode of The Monkees, "Dance, Monkee, Dance", a dance instruction studio offers free lessons to anyone who can answer the question, "Who was the eighth president of the United States?" Martin Van Buren appears at the studio to claim the prize.