Martin Van Buren Quotes

it is easier to do a job right than to explain why you didnt

Martin Van Buren was a shitty guy. Not just because he was a bad president, and not just because he was pro-slavery. Van Buren was shitty in a very general sort of way. And with all that that implies.

Errors were doubtless committed on all sides, delusions set on foot which there was not time to dissipate and means, designed for good ends, perverted to bad purposes.

Memorably, he said, “I had rather have live vermin on my back than the tongue of one of these Washington women on my reputation.

First, the panic had struck a death blow at his presidency. Now the slavery debate was turning acrimonious, making normal politics impossible.

The length of history spanned by father and daughter is hard to comprehend. W. A. Clark was born in 1839, during the administration of the eighth president of the United States, Martin Van Buren. W.A. was twenty-two when the Civil War began. When Huguette was born in 1906, Theodore Roosevelt, the twenty-sixth president, was in the White House. Yet 170 years after W.A.’s birth, his youngest child was still alive at age 103 during the time of the forty-fourth president, Barack Obama.

Van Buren, like many American master-politicians since, was quite capable of combining party ruthlessness with high-mindedness. He was a political schizophrenic, admitting he abused power occasionally and vowing never to do it again (he did of course). ... American political history has since thrown up repeated exemplars of what might be called the Van Buren Syndrome --- men who could combine true zeal for the public interest with fanatical devotion to the party principle.

For all the noise and heat generated by the 1840 campaign, its most lasting legacy may have been one of the shortest words in the English language. In the spring of 1839, the phrase “OK” began to circulate in Boston as shorthand for “oll korrect,” a slangy way of saying “all right.” Early in 1840, Van Buren’s supporters began to use the trendy expression as a way to identify their candidate, whom they labored to present as “Old Kinderhook,” perhaps in imitation of Jackson’s Old Hickory. Van Buren even wrote “OK” next to his signature. It spread like wildfire, and to this day it is a universal symbol of something elemental in the American character—informality, optimism, efficiency, call it what you will. It is spoken seven times a day by the average citizen, two billion utterances overall. And, of course it goes well beyond our borders; if there is a single sound America has contributed to the esperanto of global communication, this is it.

No incumbent vice president had been elected to succeed an incumbent president since Martin Van Buren won in 1836.

Van Buren’s

Because a rumor floating around during the mid-1800s said that President Martin Van Buren was in fact the illegitimate son of former Vice President (and traitor and murderer, but we’ll get to that later) Aaron Burr.

RESISTANCE TO CHANGE? “The canal system of this country is being threatened by the spread of a new form of transportation known as ’railroads’ and the federal government must preserve the canals. . . . If canal boats are supplanted by ’railroads,’ serious unemployment will result. Captains, cooks, drivers, hostlers, repairmen, and lock tenders will be left without means of livelihood, not to mention the numerous farmers now employed growing hay for the horses. . . . As you may well know, Mr. President, ’railroad’ carriages are pulled at the enormous speed of 15 miles per hour by ’engines’ which, in addition to endanging life and limb of passengers, roar and snort their way through the countryside, setting fire to crops, scaring the livestock and frightening women and children. The Almighty certainly never intended that people should travel at such breakneck speed.” The above communication was from Martin Van Buren, then governor of New York, to President Andrew Jackson on January 21, 1829. In 1832 Van Buren was elected vice president of the United States under Andrew Jackson’s second term. In 1836 Van Buren was elected president of the United States. It is also interesting that the first railroad into Washington, DC, was completed in time to bring visitors from Philadelphia and New York to Van Buren’s inauguration. Sources: Janet E. Lapp, “Ride the Horse in the Direction It’s Going,” American Salesman, October 1998, pp. 26–29; and The World Book Encyclopedia, Volume 20 (Chicago: World Book—Childcraft International, Inc.), 1979, p. 214. 2

For thirty-six of the forty years between 1800 and 1840, either Jefferson or a self-described adherent of his served as president of the United States: James Madison, James Monroe, Andrew Jackson, and Martin Van Buren.32 (John Quincy Adams, a one-term president, was the single exception.)

Not every former president uses their position for good. Franklin Pierce, a Northerner who favored popular sovereignty—the idea that democracy allowed citizens, and not the federal government, to decide if the territory in which they lived would allow slavery—tried to rally the living ex-presidents in 1861 to resolve the Civil War. But his efforts were torpedoed by Martin Van Buren, and Pierce became a vocal critic of Lincoln, a sympathizer for the South, and a correspondent of Confederate president Jefferson Davis. Worse still, Pierce’s predecessor, the Virginian John Tyler, defected from the Union and won a seat in the Confederate House of Representatives. He died a traitor in January 1862, and President Lincoln denied his predecessor a state funeral. Instead, Tyler was honored in

Not every former president uses their position for good. Franklin Pierce, a Northerner who favored popular sovereignty—the idea that democracy allowed citizens, and not the federal government, to decide if the territory in which they lived would allow slavery—tried to rally the living ex-presidents in 1861 to resolve the Civil War. But his efforts were torpedoed by Martin Van Buren, and Pierce became a vocal critic of Lincoln, a sympathizer for the South, and a correspondent of Confederate president Jefferson Davis. Worse still, Pierce’s predecessor, the Virginian John Tyler, defected from the Union and won a seat in the Confederate House of Representatives. He died a traitor in January 1862, and President Lincoln denied his predecessor a state funeral. Instead, Tyler was honored in Richmond, the Confederate capital.

Canto 37 contains the major episode in Pound’s treatment of the American Revolution in this suite of cantos: the critical war for supremacy between the effectively private Bank of the United States and President Jackson representing the people of the United States. The war was carried on in the Senate, in the financial economy, and in the press from 1829 to 1835. Pound took as his principal source for that part of the canto The Autobiography of Martin Van Buren (published in 1918). Van Buren (1788–1862) was Secretary of State and then Vice-President (1833–7) to Andrew Jackson, and succeeded him as President (1837–41). Pound credited him with having been the brains behind Jackson’s saving the nation by freeing the Treasury from the despotism of the Bank,

Leadership for peace may make less exciting reading than leadership for war but for those who truly love peace – and freedom – the story of Martin Van Buren’s presidency deserves a new telling. He was firm in his dedication to protecting the nation and the Constitution; he was equally firm in his belief that involving the nation in unnecessary war would destroy republican virtue and ideology.

everybody in Washington knows, Vice President Van Buren never disagrees with Andrew Jackson. Thus, a new word is formed that becomes synonymous with agreement. Among Martin Van Buren’s many nicknames is “Old Kinderhook,” in reference to his town of birth. This is often shortened to OK. Coincidentally, Andrew Jackson prints this abbreviation on official documents. When he wants to approve something as all correct, he simply writes OK.