Opinion of Martin Van Buren

[Aurelius]

After reading a biography of him, it's quite dim. I get the sense that he never held any true convictions, and that pretty much his entire career was just a series of maneuvers attempting to strengthen his state political faction, as well as build a national party that would reward his Bucktails with federal patronage. His ability to pull off intricate political maneuvers was basically the one thing he had going for him, but during the 1830s he seemed to lose even that ability, and he pissed away his entire presidency chasing after an independent treasury, which was already de facto policy more or less. I'm also not a fan of his decision to strictly enforce neutrality during the Canadian revolt of 1837. His handling of the Amistad case was patently self-serving and quite honestly disgusting.

I used to admire him for what seemed to be a late in life awakening of ideals, but after reading more into it, it seems like even his Free Soil turn was simply an attempt to find a new political tailwind after over a decade of attempting to appease the South and gaining nothing from it. He makes Mitt Romney seem like a principled and consistent politician, and that's an understatement.

I've been reading a biography of each president in order, and Van Buren is very clearly the worst of the first 8 presidents. I used to have a pretty neutral opinion of him, but it's gone way down. Clear HP from me.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

The D's were Dixiecrats the Rodger B Taney Crt issues the Fred Scott decision and Jefferson was against Judicial Review because it said that Federal law is supreme over state law which invalidated the Fugitives Slave law and Emancipation proclamation was issued and then the 13/14(15 Amendment

The GOP was on the left side of the Crt and Dixiecrats on the Right side until Brown when Ds joined with Douglas and Warren in desegregation of schools

The GOP party was against slavery they always been the Religious party Moses got freed from the Egyptians they wear Religion on their sleeve just like Bush W put gay marriage ban on OH ballot to get reelected and Gays are allowed in military now, that effort was waisted.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

The man I most admire.

[TDAS04]

He also ramped up Jackson’s genocidal policies against Native Americans.

Have to say HP.  He was not OK.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

The only American President ever to have English as his second language.

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

Van Buren was and remains a fascinating figure, and that is not a compliment. It's not quite true that he had no principles of any kind: his singular principle was loyalty to the party, and in service to that ideal he made some monumental achievements in mental gymnastics as he flipped from avowed opposition to the expansion of slavery in 1819 (in order to facilitate an alliance with Rufus King), to avowed support for the gag rule (in order to facilitate an alliance with southern Jacksonians), to avowed opposition to expansion again in 1848 (after his southern friends had deserted him) —and that's just one issue. I do not totally agree with the OP's assessment that his free soil politics discovered later in life were entirely opportunistic. The balance of evidence suggests Van Buren did genuinely fear that slavery would split the Union if it were permitted to expand into the lands of the Mexican Cession: there is no reason for him to take so strong and early a stand against expansion otherwise, when the nomination would have been his for the taking in 1844 but for that singular position. He did think the brinksmanship of the southern Democrats was reckless and incredibly dangerous, and his correspondence with allies in New York politics (John Adams Dix and Samuel Tilden among them) reveals this. However, he was also totally blinded by his experiences of the previous thirty years to what was ultimately necessary to save the Union: viz. the coalition of all anti-slavery politicians in opposition to slavery's expansion. Call it all-consuming partisanship, call it loyalty to the doomed ideal of antebellum Unionism which posited "this government can endure permanently half slave and half free," a fundamental misunderstanding of the source of the crisis —Van Buren was just wrong, he dedicated his life to pursuit of a wrong idea of Union, and this cost him the opportunity to perform the role of the great national figure he hoped to be and which the country desperately needed.

Apart from slavery (other than that, how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln?) Van Buren's record is very spotty and it is hard to argue his tenure as president was anything short of disastrous. He was elected wholly on the basis of his reputation as Jackson's loyal lieutenant, which does him no favors as Jackson's legacy comes under increasing scrutiny in recent years. The Panic of 1837 and the horrors of the Trail of Tears were the inevitable result of the policies he supported as vice president, and when their chickens came home to roost Van Buren was entirely unprepared to handle them. His conduct in the Amistad case was wicked and to the great shame of his administration and the nation: the case of the mutineers could not have been more clearly recommended by the law, but Van Buren, for partisan political reasons, sided instead with the criminal kidnappers, displaying perfect contempt for the statutes he was sworn to uphold as president. It is difficult to name a single achievement of his as president that is not cloaked in asterisks, and it is no surprise that he went down to ignominious defeat in 1840 at the hands of William Henry Harrison (who was himself no prize). He deserves some credit for counteracting the influence of John C. Calhoun early in the formation of the Jacksonian party, but loses it all for failing spectacularly to counteract the influence of the same's disciples, who effectively wrested control of the organization from him in 1844 and would control the party apparatus for the next thirty years. That he practically invented the modern American political party should render his craven pursuit of power and influence unsurprising, and while there are points that recommend his philosophy over the elitist personality-driven politics of many of his rivals (who wished fundamentally for influence to remain with wealthy, landed individuals and not with large grassroots organizations), the theory of national unity at the expense of the liberty of black Americans with which he built his party, a theory which ultimately resulted in the Civil War, makes it difficult to regard his career in public service as anything but an abysmal failure.