8) Martin Van Buren - The Little Magician

Only 43 men have held the title of President of the United Sates at the time of this writing, so naturally there are firsts in every presidency. Martin Van Buren, I would argue, was the first pure politician to rise to the presidency. Before assuming the presidency Van Buren served in the Senate, as Governor of New York, Secretary of State, minister to the United Kingdom, and Vice President. It isn’t the long list of offices that makes Van Buren the first ‘pure politician’; Jefferson, Monroe, and Quincy Adams had similar resumes; it was Van Buren’s work forming modern Democratic Party that gives him that title.

Born about 100 miles north of New York City in the Hudson River town of Kinderhook, Van Buren grew up in an isolated, Dutch village. Much of Washington Irving’s writings are set in Van Buren’s New York. Like his future mentor, Andrew Jackson, Van Buren’s life was marred by tragedy. Van Buren’s mother, father, and wife all died over a three-year span leaving him with four sons, aged two to eleven, to raise on his own.

Van Buren helped to build the Albany Regency, one of the first political machines in the young republic. At a time when communication over long distances was difficult the Regency crafted a system to maintain party discipline wherein the governor and senators sent policy to the caucus in the state legislature that informed the partisan press. Circuit judges also played a roll in spreading the party line as they rode the circuit around New York. The Regency began to give Americans a more positive image of political parties, which were beginning to be seen as a force for good that facilitated political engagement and curbed corruption.

As a luminary of the Regency, Van Buren worked to intertwine the powerful northern and southern states of New York and Virginia. This required a flexibility that would stay with him throughout his political life. Van Buren’s flexibility is most notable in his support for slavery at a time when New York’s abolitionist movement was swelling. Van Buren was of a class of politicians who believed that maintaining the union justified the status quo on slavery, a position he later abandoned when it suited him.

Van Buren’s presidency was unspectacular. He spent the majority of his single term attempting to deal with the Panic of 1837, a consequence of both European financial pressures and Andrew Jackson’s heavy-handed economic intervention. Van Buren’s main objective was to secure an independent treasury bill, reversing the policy of depositing federal funds into state banks. Van Buren’s quest for an independent treasury served to split the Democratic Party that he had worked so hard to build. When the bill passed, three years into Van Buren’s term, it had little practical effect as it merely legislated a practice that had been in effect for a year.

In his reelection campaign William Henry Harrison handily defeated Van Buren. That Harrison excited the electorate with his log cabin imagery and Tippecanoe slogans was evidenced by an increase in the popular vote from 1836 to 1840 from 1.5 million to 2.4 million. Van Buren would again seek the Democratic nomination in 1844 but lost to James Polk. In 1848, he ran as a member of the Free Soil Party which opposed slavery, he failed to carry a single state.

The career politician was often regarded as a shrewd manipulator, nicknamed The Little Magician, Van Buren flip-flopped on a number of issues including the Erie Canal (originally opposed), Jackson’s bank modifications, and slavery. It was Van Buren’s work to form the Democratic Party, and modern party structure in general, which is Van Buren’s lasting legacy.

7) Andrew Jackson - Napoleon of the Woods

Andrew Jackson was born in 1767 in Western South Carolina. Jackson’s life would be marked by tragedy from an early age; his father died while Jackson’s mother, Elizabeth, was still pregnant with him. In 1779, Jackson’s older brother died at the Revolutionary War Battle of Stono Ferry. Shortly thereafter, Andrew, and his remaining brother Robert, were captured by British soldiers and imprisoned. Andrew was beaten badly for refusing to polish a soldier’s boots and both boys were exposed to smallpox. During an exchange of prisoners, Elizabeth secured the release of her sons and five neighbors. On just two horses, they made the 45-mile journey home. Unfortunately Robert succumbed to smallpox two days after returning. Once Andrew had recovered, Elizabeth made the long trip to the Charleston harbor, where she would help nurse two nephews, and others, who were being held prisoner aboard boats by the British. Elizabeth would contract cholera and die in Charleston. At 14 years old Andrew Jackson had lost his entire family.

Two years of law apprenticeship and Jackson was ready to practice, he headed west and settled in Nashville. The rudimentary and corrupt legal system gave Jackson ample opportunity to build a practice. At times Jackson was responsible for half of the cases being tried in the county.

It was in Nashville where Jackson began to build his reputation. He served on the Constitutional Committee formed to win Tennessee’s statehood. He went on to serve one term as Tennessee’s first representative in Washington. Next, he was elected to the US Senate, a post he was unprepared for and would quickly resign. Jackson’s election to the state’s Superior Court allowed him to begin to shine. Despite a lack of formal legal education, Jackson became known for being a fair, effective, typically correct, and swift judge (he once heard 50 cases in 15 days).

Jackson yearned for military glory, and wanted the generalship of Tennessee’s militia. This was an elected position that local Revolutionary War hero, John Sevier, also wanted. The two ultimately tied, with the Governor breaking the tie in Jackson’s favor. Jackson and Sevier would become lifelong enemies and the Governor’s decision caused a political break between Eastern (Sevier) & Western (Jackson) Tennessee.

Jackson’s time in the military was eventful. Early on he aided Aaron Burr, evidently ignorantly, in Burr’s infamous plot to divide the union. As the War of 1812 broke out, Jackson was called on to defend New Orleans, however he received orders from Secretary of War John Anderson, the man who almost cost the US Washington DC later in the war, to disband prior to reaching New Orleans. Jackson ignored the order and marched his men 450 miles back to Nashville, in doing so he earned the nickname Old Hickory.

Jackson soon led his men to fight the Creek Indians, in what would be known as the Creek War. The Creek War was a civil war among the Creeks that Jackson used to the US’s advantage. Jackson routed the Creek’s leading many flee to Florida; the Creek’s who stayed behind had been friendly to the Americans and Jackson took advantage of them. He negotiated a treaty that turned over 3/5 of present day Alabama and 1/5 of Georgia to the Americans. Jackson had turned an Indian civil war in to an enormous land grab for the United States.

Jackson’s men had been campaigning for about a year after the Creek War, but instead of returning home Jackson led his men to occupied New Orleans with designs to take it from the British. The battle would be another decisive American victory with around 70 American casualties comparing to well over 1,500 for the British. The Battle of New Orleans would cement Jackson’s status as living legend, however there were a couple of wrinkles in the New Orleans story. The Treaty of Ghent, which ended the War of 1812, had already been signed when the Battle of New Orleans was fought, and even if it hadn’t it was likely that New Orleans would have ended the war. However, Jackson kept the city under martial law until official word of the war’s end arrived two months later. This strange decision rankled residents and it led to Jackson’s arrest and a guilty verdict for which Jackson paid a fine of $1,000. Supporters raised the money to cover his expenses, but ever the politician, Jackson donated the money to the families of deceased soldiers.

After New Orleans, Jackson was instructed to execute Article IX of the Treaty Of Ghent. The article called for the return of property taken from peaceful Indians after 1811. Whether Jackson didn’t believe that any Indians would be peaceful toward settlers or he just outright ignored the order, it is clear that Jackson did not return any land. In fact, he continued to sign treaties with Indians, usually under the direct or implied threat of force, to secure land in Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi. At the end of this time was the First Seminole War in which Jackson used the threat of the Seminole Indians as justification to invade and ultimately take Florida from the Spanish.

By 1822, Jackson was ready to return home.  He was physically exhausted, suffering from both dysentery and malaria. His name was again put forward for a Senate seat, a post for which he was now more prepared and a role that would strengthen his now inevitable presidential bid. In his first presidential bid, the election of 1824, Jackson won the popular vote but the Electoral College was split throwing the decision to the House of Representatives. Henry Clay delivered Kentucky and thus the presidency to John Quincy Adams despite Kentucky not giving Adams a single electoral vote. Clay then accepted Secretary of State in Adams’ administration. Jackson’s supporters deemed this “the corrupt bargain” and it effectively ended Clay’s political ambitions.

The Election of 1824 convinced many that there was a major corruption problem in the federal government and the Democratic Party grew out of a desire to return to Jeffersonian republicanism, reclaiming the government for the people. Jackson won in 1828 and there was mandate for change.  What opponents began to call the “spoils system,” Jacksonians called rotation. This was the practice of replacing officeholders in an attempt to root out corruption, entitlement to office, and lack of accountability. Over his two terms, it is estimated that about 8% of the federal workforce was replaced.

Jackson’s eight years in office were eventful. Despite his numerous accomplishments prior to the presidency, my opinion is that Jackson is the first president, save perhaps Jefferson, whose most impactful days came during his presidency. The three most impactful and controversial events of his presidency were the Indian Removal Act of 1830, his veto of the 2^nd Bank of the US, and the nullification crisis.

The Indian Removal Act passed the Senate on party lines, but barely passed the House. A section of the country didn’t support removal, however the majority of Americans either quietly or vocally supported removal. The legislation would force all Indians living within state boundaries to move into pre-designated territories in Oklahoma. The horrors of removal are undeniable, at least 45,000 Indians were removed during Jackson’s presidency and thousands died along the way. While not a defense of removal, it is important to note the support of removal by a majority of Americans, who viewed Indians as terrorists. Also, removal likely prevented Southeastern tribes from annihilation that would have come at the hands of settlers. This is the reasoning Jackson used to justify his actions.

The 2^nd Bank of the US was a federally chartered bank that held the government’s money. Jackson believed it to be an undemocratic monopoly benefitting only the rich, so when its charter for renewal passed through the Senate and House he vetoed it. This veto was extremely important as it fundamentally redefined the presidency. Never before had a president vetoed something for reasons other than constitutionality. The bank veto effectively redefined the executive branch as paramount to the legislative and judicial. Jackson had a weak grasp of financial matters, as did many of the men he surrounded himself with, while he understand many of the negative aspects of the bank he couldn’t grasp its importance to the American economy. The bank’s dismantling had a predictably negative effect made worse by the Bank’s tightening of credit in an attempt to stir up support. Jackson never wavered saying of those lobbying against the veto, “If they send ten thousand of them…I will not relax a particle from my position.” The Whig Party grew out of the Democratic Party’s split following the veto.

The nullification crisis was the first real sign of the coming Civil War. South Carolina passed a law nullifying federal tariffs, thus raising the question of whether federal laws could be invalidated within a state’s boundaries. Jacksons’ response was clear and forceful, stating that the United States superseded the states themselves. Jackson’s proclamation against nullification is one of the most important presidential documents in American history as it would form the basis for Lincoln’s actions against secession 30 years later. 

Portrait of an elderly Jackson
by the prolific George Peter
Alexander Healy

This the most I’ve written on any one president and it still feels incomplete to me. I’ve said nothing about Jackson’s duels, the first assassination attempt on a president, the scandal surrounding his marriage(s) to Rachel or her subsequent death, the John Eaton affair, his efforts to bring Texas into the union, or slavery. Jackson was a complicated man, one whose positive impact on his country’s development has been greatly overshadowed by his mistreatment of the Indians. I will end with what I found to be the greatest irony in Jackson’s legacy: Jackson despised paper money, he called it “ragg money” and believed it weakened society and benefitted the rich at the expense of the poor. Ironic then that his face has been immortalized on the $20 bill.

6) John Quincy Adams - The Abolitionist

John and Abigail Adams expected much of their oldest son, John Quincy and while the pressure JQA felt at a young age is similar to what the elder John experienced, John and Abigail could offer their son opportunities and resources unavailable to John and they made sure he knew it:

“You come into life with advantages which will disgrace you if your life is mediocre… if you do not rise to the head of not only your profession, but your country it will be owing to your own laziness, slovenliness, and obstinacy,” wrote the elder John to his son.

In Paul Nagel’s John Quincy Adams: A Public Life, A Private Life I met the most surprising man I’ve encountered on my introduction to the Presidents. JQA is a man remembered mostly for sharing a name with John Adams; I’ve found that many don’t even realize he’s John’s son. While his presidency is not worth remembering, it could fairly be considered America’s first “failed presidency”, his contributions to his country were vast, his work ethic was astonishing, and his life was simply amazing.

On January 12, 1779 he wrote “A Journal By Me JQA.” John would continue that diary for nearly 70 years. JQA’s diary explored personal struggles, political triumphs and frustrations, extensive travels, and daily minutia. It is an enlightening and important piece of American history not only because of its “real-time” views of the 19^th century, but because it documents a man who spent much of his youth overseas, served as an ambassador to the Netherlands, Prussia, Russia, and England, Secretary of State, President, and Congressman (in that order!).

Part of what makes JQA so endearing is his diary, it gives us an unusually personal look into his character and thus makes him much more relatable than other historical giants. JQA appears to have struggled, at times mightily, with depression. An early trigger was his mother, Abigail, who again comes off as overbearing (as she did in John Ferling’s book on John Adams). As we learned from Ferling’s book, Abigail had many difficult years raising her children as her husband served in various posts overseas. However, her parenting style appears to have been a sort of 18^th century-helicopter/tiger-mom-hybrid. One such example occurred when she strongly encouraged JQA to break off a relationship, feeling that her son had yet to reach a point where he could sufficiently support a family. In 1818, while JQA was serving as James Monroe’s Secretary of State, Abigail passed away. JQA did not return to Massachusetts to attend the funeral.

The first Presidential photograph
to appear on this blog, and perhaps the
earliest existing photograph of a US
President (1843).

While serving as Minster to England, JQA met Louisa Johnson, the daughter of an American father and British mother. Abigail again tried to end this relationship, but the ocean between mother and son gave JQA the strength to resist his mother’s influences. JQA and Louisa wed in 1797 and would live to celebrate their golden anniversary. Louisa comes across as a strong-willed and intelligent first lady who managed an emotionally unstable husband, the resentment of her mother-in-law, personal tragedies including several miscarriages and her son’s suicide, extensive world travel, and the bitter political battles that JQA engaged in over his career. Nagel says that Louisa’s letters give evidence to a strong strength of intellect, which he believes may have surpassed her husband’s had she received more education.

John had a lifelong passion for literature and composed a great deal of poetry, wrote a widely-distributed travel report on the European region of Silesia, and spent nearly a year translating Christoph Martin Wieland’s Oberon poem to English from German. Adam’s translation of Oberon wasn’t published until 1940, but the editor, A.B. Faust said that it was “remarkable for its fidelity to the original and its genuine artistry.” JQA often expressed a desire to retire from politics and focus on writing, however he could never pull himself away – after being defeated by Andrew Jackson for a second presidential term, something he seemed genuinely relieved about, he went on to represent Massachusetts in Congress for another 17 years until, literally, collapsing on the floor of the US House of Representatives at age 80.

You’ll note that I’ve said little about JQA’s time as President and that’s because his many accomplishments worth remembering did not happen while he was in the White House. As Secretary of State, JQA was deeply involved in developing the philosophy that was to become the Monroe Doctrine, ever the diplomat JQA felt the Doctrine should be communicated through back channels. However, Monroe’s desire to incorporate it into the State of the Union won out.

When John’s accomplishments are remembered today, it is often his opposition to slavery. While his motivations are sometimes questioned, as many of the Southern politicians who backed slavery where John’s enemies, it can not be debated that John spent the majority of his 17 years in the House of Representatives fighting against the spread of slavery to new states and the “Gag Rule” which prevented discussion of slavery in Congress. Additionally, JQA argued in front of the Supreme Court in defense of the enslaved Africans who had captured the slave ship Amistad and ultimately won their freedom.

JQA’s life was fascinating and I would encourage any one with an interest in history or great people to explore his life. He was groomed for greatness and achieved it. He was a tortured soul whose life spanned much of the time between the Revolution and the Civil War.  At times he rose above politics in a way that we often wish politicians would today, yet at times he succumbed to partisan rancor in a way we would find all too familiar today. Despite his shortcomings, I can say without hesitation, that he is my favorite President to this point.

5) James Monroe - The Last Cocked Hat

Even when looked at in comparison to other great men of his time, James Monroe led a remarkable life. His childhood was not easy; school was a 5-mile trek through the Virginia wilderness that had to be made, musket in hand, three months out of the year. By sixteen both of his parents had passed. History has James’ influential uncle, Judge Joseph Jones to thank for the fifth president of the United States. Jones paid the family’s debts, gave James’s older sister the wherewithal to raise their two younger brothers, and brought James with him to Williamsburg, where Jones was a member of the House of Burgesses, and enrolled James at the College of William & Mary.

At William & Mary, Monroe was exposed to the simmering resentment against the Crown and shortly thereafter dropped out of class to join the Virginia Infantry. Monroe’s regiment marched to New York, but arrived after the American retreat from New York City was underway (explained in more detail during the George Washington posts). Monroe was in the group of soldiers Washington led across New Jersey into Pennsylvania during the winter of 1776 and was one of the soldiers to cross the Delaware. At the ensuing Battle of Trenton, Monroe took a musket ball to the chest and escaped death thanks to the work of a field medic.

Monroe is depicted holding the flag in Emanuel Leutze's
famous painting, "Washington Crossing the Delaware"  

Following the war, Monroe returned to William & Mary where he received tutoring from his uncle’s acquaintance, Thomas Jefferson. Monroe’s uncle was elected to the Continental Congress in 1782 and recommended Monroe to take his seat on the Virginia Assembly, a post he would win. Monroe’s seat on the Virginia Assembly marked the first in a long string of political offices he would hold including US Congressman, US Senator, ambassador to France during the French Revolution, ambassador to England, minister to Spain, Governor of Virginia, Secretary of State, Secretary of War during the War of 1812, and President of the United States.

The list of offices that Monroe held hints at his proximity to many important events in American history. James, his wife Elizabeth, and their eight-year-old daughter Eliza set out for France in 1794, they stepped off the boat into the genocide that was the French Revolution – 17,000 were already dead and nearly half-a-million were in prisons. Monroe spent much of the goodwill he built up with the French leaders extracting Americans from French prisons. In one of the more interesting stories of his time in France, Monroe set out to free Marquis de Lafayette’s wife, Adrienne, who had been imprisoned after the Marquis fell afoul of the Jacobins. Elizabeth insisted on visiting Adrienne herself and the resulting scene, combined with Monroe’s diplomatic efforts, so affected the French people that Adrienne was released shortly thereafter. The Monroes reunited Adrienne with her son, George Washington Lafayette, who James then issued an American passport to get him out of France. While in the United States, Lafayette’s son would briefly live with his namesake.

Monroe’s efforts during the Jefferson administration are his most enduring. In 1803, Jefferson asked Monroe to travel back to France to help negotiate the purchase of New Orleans and West Florida from the French. His instructions were specific to the purchase of just the two territories mentioned above and he was further instructed to spend no more than $9 million. However, Monroe sensed that Napoléon desired to exit North America altogether and he arranged the purchase of an area larger than Great Britain, France, German, Spain, and Portugal combined. Monroe agreed to $15 million in exchange for what was to become known as the Louisiana Purchase, it would become the largest peaceful transition of land from one nation to another in history. Despite some concern about how the country would react, and Jefferson’s brief contemplation about the Constitutionality of the purchase, Congress approved the purchase and the United States doubled in size.

James Monroe played an important role in the War of 1812 as well, during Madison’s administration he took control of the War Department from the hapless, and possibly treasonous, John Armstrong. After the war, Monroe succeeded Madison in the Nation’s highest office and presided over a prolonged period of peace, which would become known as the Era of Good Feelings. So good were the feelings that Monroe won reelection with 231 of the 235 electoral votes, this count included 3 abstentions and 1 vote for John Quincy Adams (rumored to have been a symbolic vote meant to preserve Washington’s place in history as the only unanimously elected president). During his penultimate State of the Union Address, Monroe would articulate the concept for which he is most remembered, the Monroe Doctrine. The Doctrine sought to prevent European meddling in the affairs of the United States and its neighbors, but has since been invoked by many presidents seeking to protect American interests. Like Thomas Jefferson and John Adams before him, James Monroe would die on July 4^th, 55 years after the founding of the Republic.

While James Monroe seems to have been a great American, Harlow Giles Unger’s book was difficult to get through. The hero-worship for Monroe was, at times, laughable and severely detracted from my enjoyment of the book. Unger considers the presidents preceding Monroe “mere caretakers,” a view that he shares with few others. The book never touches on Monroe’s slave ownership, which seems worth writing about because I don’t believe he inherited any. Unger also writes about Madison as though he was a sickly, bumbling fool who cowered behind Monroe as Monroe held his presidency, and the nation, together.

With the end of Monroe’s presidency the revolutionaries have also passed us by. Next up, John Quincy Adams and the beginnings of the slow march toward the Civil War.