Presentation Transcript

1. 1837-1841

   Martin Van Buren

   By: Josh Mason
2. The Boy Lawyer As a young man Van Buren congregated with people of various backgrounds and professions in a tavern opened by his father. The enjoyment and zeal brought upon meeting many different people, especially the frequent visits from Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr generated Van Buren’s interest in politics. After his graduation from Kinderhook Academy, he continued to study law on his own until his parents encouraged him to enroll in a law school. For the next five years he lived with the Silvester family to study law. In the William P. Van Ness office, located in New York City is where Van Buren finished his law training. After working in the Van Ness office, Van Buren was admitted to the bar in 1803 at the age of twenty-one.
3. Van Buren’s Big Break Less than a year later, Van Ness asked Van Buren to defend him in a trial. Van Ness was an assistant to Vice President Aaron Burr, who killed Federalist Alexander Hamilton in a duel in which both were accused. Van Buren was against one of the best lawyers and orator of the day, Daniel Webster. Van Buren proved himself by gaining support from Daniel Tompkins , governor of New York, then winning his case, the tuning point in his career.
4. Politician In The Rough Van Buren’s political career started to emerge and on March 20, 1808, he was appointed surrogate of Columbia County. This was his first political job for the Democratic- Republican Party. He ran against Edward P. Livingston for state senator in April of 1812. Van Buren won the election & was now the state senator of New York, at age Thirty.
5. New York’s Boom Many people liked the idea of wealth, development, and route to the West that the Erie Canal provide, Van Buren, however, wanted to postpone the Erie Canal project because of it’s price. Van Buren successfully stalled the proposal in the senate. DeWitt Clinton, running for governor of New York, was infatuated by the project. Both were part of the Democratic-Republican party, but they faced different ways in political matters. Van Buren his view on the canal project , therefore began supporting it. His popularity easily won over voters to pass the bill to construct the Erie Canal. The work on the Erie Canal lasted ten years. Construction of the Erie Canal in New York
6. The New York Bucktail faction Van Buren’s and Gov. Clinton’s relationship grew worse after the construction of the canal. On 1819 Gov. Clinton firedVan Buren as attorney general, thus enraging Van Buren’s followers and later caused a split in the Democratic-Republican Party. The faction soon formed their own organization the Bucktails. A negative Political cartoon of the New York Bucktails
7. Van Buren & Jackson In February 1821 Van Buren was elected to the United States Senate. In 1824 Federalist John Quincy Adams won the presidential election. Van Buren had not support him, but supported Andrew Jackson, they shared an anti-federalist belief for more power to the states and less to the U.S. government. To support Jackson in the next election, Van Buren dropped out of the U.S. Senate and ran for governor of New York. Van Buren did this because New York would be a crucial candidate for Jackson. Their plan worked. Jackson won the presidency 1828 and Van Buren the newly elected governor of New York. That team became the foundation of the Democratic Party. Van Buren served only three months as governor, until Jackson appointed him secretary of state. Van Buren was greatly honored and retuned to D.C. and became apart of Jackson’s famous Kitchen Cabinet.
8. Van Buren’s Vice-Presidency By 1832 relations between President Jackson and VP Calhoun were very unstable that Calhoun resigned his post. Jackson needed a new VP running mate that year so he chose his trusted friend Van Buren. When Jackson won the reelection with Van Buren on Mach 4, 1833 they took the oath of office. That year there were economic problems brought on by Jackson’s plan to abolish the Bank of the United States.
9. Van Buren For President On March 4, 1837 was the inauguration of Martin Van Buren and his VP Richard Mentor Johnson. Inflation was one of the colossal problems in the country in that day and age, leading to the Panic of 1837: the first economic depression in America’s history. Van Buren still agreed that the Bank of the United States only benefited the wealthiest Americans. Depositing the huge federal funds in small bank failed, so Van Buren decided to propose a bill for the formation of an independent treasury. This is suppose to handle large deposits and serve everyone equally. Another policy he supported was the buying of land in the West with hard-money instead of bank notes. Banks were not ready to offer hard-money loans and concerned European countries demanded payment of loans to the U.S.. Congress denied the passage of Van Buren’s bill.
10. Entanglement with Canada’s Rebellion In late November , a group of Canadians, organized a rebel against the British with Louis Joseph Papinean as their leader. They bribed U.S. citizens to help fight for Canada’s independence. By December 15, a force of about thousand men had been organized on Navy Island. Van Buren had not heard of this rebellion until ten days later. Soon after the news of the rebellion the British attacked the Caroline, a privately owned U.S. steamship, which had ferried supplies to aid the rebels. Van Buren learned about the incident on January 4 of the next year and was determined to evade war with Great Britain. Van Buren instructed General Winfield Scott to go to the Niagara frontier and use “rhetoric and diplomacy” meathead for calling off American recruits out of Canada. Van Buren asked Congress to “to revise existing legislation from violating the nation’s neutrality as well as to punish those who might do so.” On March 10, Congress passed a new neutrality law
11. The Trail of Tears &The State of Texas Another burden that Jackson left Van Buren was the removal of seventeen thousand Cherokee from their homeland. This action was due to New Echota Treaty, signed in 1835 but was not enforced until tree years later. Van Buren could not undo the treaty. On his second year of office, the Cherokee began their march to the Indian Territory. Approximately 3,000 died of starvation and disease on the long march, which became known as the Trail Of Tears One policy that Van Buren did not follow was the sudden annexation of Texas. By 1838 the debate about its future statehood heated up. Van Buren was worried that annexing Texas would arouse Mexico’s anger and lead to war. Another reason was that slave-holding would move farther West. He opposed the annexation of Texas. His goal was to keep peace and war along to Texas-Mexico border. On September 11, 1838, the U.S. and Mexico reached an agreement.
12. Van Buren’s Last Days In the 1840 presidential campaign Van Buren’s adversary was the Whigs nomination, William Henry Harrison, a formal general, who claimed to have defeated the Shawnee Indians in the battle of Indiana’s Tippecanoe River in 1811 Van Buren was badly defeated in 1944, with only 60 electoral votes and 234 for Harrison. Van Buren did not even win his home state of New York. Van Buren gave his last speech in Congress in December 1840. He said that the year had been one of “health” and “peace”, as well as warning the dangers of the national debt. He also asked Congress to stop the American practice of sending supplies to the “slave factories” on the African coast and to abolish “those dens of iniquity” Van Buren becomes the presidential candidate of the Free- soil party in 1944, which opposes extension of slavery in the U.S. territories. Sadly he lost the election to Zachary Taylor.
13. WorkCited Lazo, Caroline Evensen. Martin Van Buren. Minneapolis: Lerner, 2005. Print. Portrait of Martin Van Buren. N.d. www.nndb.com. Web. 22 Mar. 2011.      <http://www.nndb.com/people/821/000024749/>. Web linkBurr and Hamilton Duel. N.d. www.sonofthesouth.net. Web. 22 Mar. 2011.      <http://www.sonofthesouth.net/revolutionary-war/patriots/      alexander-hamilton.htm>. Lockport on the Erie Canal, New York, United States, 1840. 1895. www.superstock.com. Web. 22 Mar. 2011. <http://www.superstock.com/      stock-photos-images/1895-25139>. Web linkNegative cartoon of the Bucktail faction. N.d. elektratig.blogspot.com. Web. 22      Mar. 2011. <http://elektratig.blogspot.com/2009_03_01_archive.html>. plitical cartoon of the cabinet. N.d. www.corbisimages.com. Web. 22 Mar. 2011.      <http://www.corbisimages.com/Enlargement/BE035740.html>.