Episode 64: Van Buren II and Tyler Too [Part 2]

06/18/20 • 91 min

Picking up with Martin Van Buren in Jackson’s cabinet, Jay and Luke trace the Little Magicians rise to the vice presidency, his political knife fighting with John C. Calhoun, and his successful introduction of the party convention system. His presidency, bedeviled by the Panic of 1837 at home and trouble abroad with Britain and Mexico, gave rise to the hotly contested election of 1840 that saw the Whigs get organized and the ticket of William Henry Harrison and John Tyler take the White House. We move quickly through Tyler’s presidency (after Harrison’s death thanks to an inaugural address given in freezing rain) and see Van Buren aim for and nearly win the Democratic Party nomination in 1844. We look at his work forming the Free Soil Party, his increasing hostility to slavery, and his failure to defeat the rise of the slaveocracy within the Democratic Party. In the end, Van Buren remains one of the most consequential figures of his age, and deserves far more attention from the history books than he has received.

Previous Episode

Episode 63: Martin Van Buren: The Red Fox of Kinderhook [Part 1]

Martin Van Buren, nicknamed the Red Fox of Kinderhook and the Little Magician, was the first American president born after American independence, the first raised in a home where English was not the primary language, and the first true political organizer. A political genius, who created the model of the nineteenth-century political machine, Van Buren is sadly consigned to the second or third tier of American presidencies. Jay and Luke push back against his undue relegation in this episode, the first of two covering Van Buren. They discuss his unique cultural background, his rise through the ranks of Jeffersonian politics, his creation of what became known as the Albany Regency, and his controversial efforts on behalf of James Crawford’s unsuccessful candidacy in 1824. That election saw Van Buren cast out of the center of political life with the return of DeWitt Clinton to the New York governorship and John Quincy Adams’s presidency. Yet in four short years, Van Buren managed to organize the Jacksonian resurgence, as well as his own political revival in New York. We end the episode with Van Buren elected governor of New York and called by Jackson to join his cabinet as Secretary of State.