But it wasn't bad. It took me approximately two weeks to read, and the writing was not as dense and difficult as I was expecting. I'm not exactly sure why I was expecting it to be so challenging, but something about a presidential biography written in the '80s about an arguably boring president just seemed insurmountable to me. The actual book even looks dull and academic, right?
Martin Van Buren was born during the Revolutionary War and died during the Civil War. He and his contemporaries really made up the second generation of American politics, and let me tell you: Martin Van Buren's life was politics. Born to Dutch parents in Kinderhook, NY and growing up in his father's tavern with several siblings and lots of strangers who were in and out of the tavern as guests, Van Buren developed a bit of an inferiority complex that he had to contend with for the rest of his life. Besides a basic education at the village schoolhouse, Van Buren did not receive any higher or formal education. He apprenticed himself to, what he considered, a much superior family of lawyers and ended up having a very successful law practice. He's the first president I've read about who didn't ever seem to have any financial difficulties and that enabled him to focus on politics as much as he wanted...which was a lot. By the time he was 18, he was already very interested and involved in local politics and that continued for the rest of his life.
I wasn't excited to read about Van Buren because from what I had read about him in the last two presidential biographies of John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson, it seemed like he was just a political wheeler and dealer and there wasn't much else to say about him.
And you know what? I was right. Even though Van Buren was a well-liked man and didn't really have any personal enemies, he was a political schemer and lots of his political opponents couldn't stand the way he worked the system. He was really the first president who believed and advocated a two-party system whereas the presidents who came before, particularly the founding fathers, thought partisan politics were beneath them, even dangerous. Van Buren was the true forerunner of the political system we have in place now, producing the model for our two-party system with caucuses and national conventions to choose candidates and all of that boring political crap. (Can you tell how not impressed I was with him?)
Throughout his life, he made his way through state politics, rising to national politics as a senator from New York, briefly became governor of New York which he quickly cast aside to accept the role of vice president under Andrew Jackson for Jackson's second term. At the end of his vice presidency, he resigned (a political maneuver—not a true resignation) and served as minister to England for a short time before coming back to the U.S. to run for president. He served one term as our nation's eighth president but lost in his attempt to be reelected, to popular war hero William Henry Harrison. Despite all his successful political maneuvering and a lifetime of effective strategizing, in his presidency he got stuck on the issue of the independent treasury and really didn't accomplish much. In his retirement at Lindenwald back in Kinderhook where he was born, Van Buren lived the life of a gentleman farmer, but after a lifetime of political intrigue, he couldn't abide that for long. He tried to run for president again in 1844 but wasn't ultimately nominated to be his party's candidate. After Polk gained the presidency, Van Buren had a little hissy fit when Polk snubbed Van Buren's choices for key cabinet positions, so in 1848, going against his entire life's work of cultivating a strong two-party system of politics, Van Buren created the Free Soil party and ran for president again. He lost.
Martin Van Buren is a bit of a mystery to me. Despite all his political wheeling and dealing, people liked him and he managed to become very close to people he seemed to be the political and ideological opposite of. As I was reading about him, his strategy of playing his cards close to the vest and not taking a political stand until he could figure out what would best serve his interests was unpalatable to me. But he was one of the closest advisors of Andrew Jackson, a man who very clearly knew what he believed to be right and acted decisively on his ideals no matter who he offended. Van Buren's mind was constantly trying to find the political edge and ideology was a minor factor for him. During his career, he was for slavery, against slavery, for federal involvement, against federal involvement depending on what he thought would bring him the most votes. And that's just one example. He was always trying to work the angles and that just doesn't broker any of my respect.
As for his personal life, he married relatively young and was faithful to his wife who gave him five sons although his fourth son died in infancy. After their fifth son was born, his wife passed away and Van Buren never remarried. I wish Cole would have focused more in this biography on the relationship Van Buren had with his sons. It seemed like they got shuffled around to family members to be raised and Van Buren largely lived the life of a carefree bachelor, but several times throughout the book, Cole made reference to Van Buren's familial responsibilities, and when his sons were adults, Van Buren very obviously had close and healthy relationships with all of them. I would have liked to read more about his relationships with them.
Martin Van Buren outlived not only his wife, but two of his sons and died at the healthy old age of 79. He really seemed to enjoy his life and people liked to be around him. He never made any enemies and was never bitter, even in his political defeats. I liked him, but I didn't like him. What an interesting guy.
Like I mentioned before, this biography was actually much easier to read than I anticipated, and if you, for some strange reason, are looking for a biography of Martin Van Buren to read or are on a similar quest to read through all the U.S. presidents, I have no problem recommending this one. I mean, his life was not exciting and while the subject matter was a bit dry at times, I thought Cole did an excellent job of putting together a biography that was thorough without browbeating the life out of you with all the politics. As it turns out, I had no reason to be afraid of this book.
On to Old Tippecanoe!
