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ANN ARBOR • MICHIGAN
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Copyri^it by
Robert Vincent Remini
1951
THE EARLY POLITICAL CAREER OF
MARTIN VAN BUREN,
1782-1828
Robert V. Remini
Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy,
in the Faculty of Political Science,
Columbia University
1951
TABLE OP CONTENTS
Chapter Page
I. Little M a t .................................... 1
II. Columbia County Lawyer........................ 29
III. The Clintonian................................. 64
IV. The Madisonian................ 88
V. Van Buren and the W a r ............................. 114
VI. The Little Magician...............................141
VII. New York and Presidential Politics............... 160
VIII. Clinton's Return .............................. 185
IX. The Purge.........................................208
X. The Party Is Reorganised.........................246
XI. The Constitutional Convention..................... 290
XII. The Albany Regency...............................318
XIII. "The Monroe Heresy"............. 343
XIV. The Radical Candidate.............................371
XV. The Rescuer of His Country.......................397
XVI. Outmanaged and Undone............................453
XVII. Shifting Loyalties..............................490
XVIII. The Master of New Y o r k ...........................533
XIX. The Making of the Democratic Party . . . . . . . 558
XX. Farmers, Antimasons and Liberated Clintonlans . . 592
XXI. The East and West Are Drawn Together........... 625
XXII. "My Dominions" . . ............................. 650
XXIII. His Excellency the Governor.......................677
Bibliography............................................ 704
ii
CHAPTER I
LITTLE MAT
1
On March 4, 1837, some twenty thousand people lined the
brightly decorated streets of Washington and cheered with care
free abandon. Although many of them had witnessed presidential
inaugurations before, there was something special about this
one. The weather, usually cold and damp at this time of year,
became suddenly spring-like and tried to contribute its share
to the festive mood. Only the white patches of snow blanketing
the distant hills served to remind everyone that winter had not
fully run its course.
The multitude, pushing and jumping up and down to get a
better look, were eager to see the retiring chief executive and
his successor as they drove up to the Capitol in a gleaming car
riage made from the wood of the frigate Constitution. When at
length they sighted their departing President, Andrew Jackson,
their cheers beeame deafening. The ailing, aged and white
maned Hero of the battle of New Orleans bowed to the masses.
For him it was the last triumph.
Seated beside the old Oeneral was the Immaculately dressed
Martin Van Buren, a short, balding man with tufts of yellowish
hair growing around the crown of his head and down the sides of
his face. Within the hour he would stand before Chief Justice
Roger B. Taney and recite the oath of office. With chsractsristic
2
charm and dignity ha smiled at those who applauded his appear
ance and acknowledged with simple gestures those who pointed
him out. There he sat, the greatest politlcan of his day--
the Little Magician, the Master Spirit, the Red Fox of Kinder-
hook. But in spite of these many unflattering sobriquets con
ferred upon him by his enemies he had attained his long cher
ished goal. And he remembered with pride that he was the first
President to be born in the United States. All of his prede
cessors were English colonials when they were born.
Had he been in possession of certain facts, Van Buren
might have reckoned these ceremonies as something of an anni
versary. Approximately two hundred years earlier the first of
his family reached these shores and settled in the colony of
New Netherland. And his great-great-great grandfather had been
just as determined to get to America as he had been to become
President.
2
Early in the seventeenth century the fledgling settlement
of New Netherland, controlled by a group of merchants in Holland
called the Dutch West India Company, had slowly begun to expand
in the presence of hostile English colonies to the north and
south. The company, in its anxiety to stimulate the growth of
the colony, passed an enabling act in the spring of 1629 giving
a stockholder the right to acquire large tracts of land in the
new world provided fifty persons over fifteen years of age were
transported and established within the domain. The title of
3
"Patroon" along vlth great feudal powers was also granted. The
land to be conferred was to extend no further than four leagues
along one side, or two leagues along both sides of a navigable
river, and as far Inland as desired.^-
A diamond merchant of Amsterdam, Klllaen Van Rensselaer,
was one of the first to take advantage of the opportunity to
become a landed aristocrat in the wilderness. On November 19,
1629, he registered himself Patroon of a manor located on both
sides of the North or Hudson River, above and below the village
of Port Orange, His greatest problem in making good his claim,
however, was securing the required number of settlers.
In a letter dated 1634, the Patroon stated that one
Cornells Maessen Van Buermalsen (Buurmalsen or Buljrmalsen) had
sailed from Amsterdam to New Netheriand on the ship Endracht
2
three years before as his lessee. In all likelihood, Cornells
did not use any surname himself, for as yet Dutch oustom, except
for the upper classes, had not acquired the habit. When the time
arrived for assuming last names— 'particularly with the coming
of the English— It would be quite natural for the children of
Cornells to take "Van Buren" Inasmuch as their father had
migrated from a place called Burmalsen, near the town of Buren,
In the province of Oelderland, Holland. Cornelia's eldest son,
Marten, In writing his will dated 1703, signed himself "Marten
*3. G. Nlssenson, The Patroon1s Domain (New York, 1937),
p . 22.
2
Harriett C. Peckham, History of Cornells Maessen Van
Buren (New York, 1913), p. ^3: Edward A. Collier. A History of
61d ^lnderhook (New York, 1914), p. 413.
JJ
Cornelissen van Beuren," or simply Martin, the son of Cornells
4
who came from Beuren. The Inclusion of the extra "e" was "an
attempt to translate the sound of the dutch letter un Into the
5
English spelling.
On May 27, 1631, Cornells signed an agreement to work on
Van Rensselaer*s property for three years and out of his labors
turn over the sum of 210 pounds. This was the price he paid
for the trans-Atlantic trip, but three years In his young life
seemed very short. Anything he earned over and above the
stipulated fee set by the Patroon he could save for future use.
As evldenoe of the Dutchman's enthusiasm, industry and thrift
It Is recorded that he acquired enough money to go back to
Holland when his contract expired, marry and return to America
6
in 1636. He and his wife, Catalyntje, procured a farm on the
east side of the Hudson River a little below Oreenbush at a
place called Papsknee where they raised five children. There
Cornells prospered, hired a laborer for six years and in 1644
paid to the Patroon as rent a tenth of the produce he raised
7
including 100 bushels of wheat, oats, rye and some peas.
3
Berthold Fernow, Calendar of Wills on file and recorded
In...Albany (New York, lsde), p. 443.
4Frank J. Conkllng, "Martin Van Buren with a sketch of the
Van Buren Family in America," The New York Genealogical and
Biographical Record (New York, July, 1^97), XXVlIlV
6John Van Buren to Martin Van Buren, March 26, 1845, Van
Buren Papers, Library of Congress.
A
Peckham, op. olt.. pp. 25-26.
7
Conkllng, op. clt.. p. 123.
5
3
Ever since Holland had thrown off Spanish rule she pros
pered largely through the continued expansion of her commercial
enterprises. Her fine fleet of ships appeared in ports around
the world. Colonies were founded to insure that prosperity
against the future. But in that growth and sudden rise she was
confronted by a rival who proved to he a jealous foe. England,
whose own commercial development was growing apace, regarded the
Dutch with unfeigned malignity. She looked upon the colony of
New Netherland as a "nest of interlopers" preventing complete
British monopoly of the trade in America. War seemed the only
corrective to this and other problems facing the two countries
and in the struggles which followed the almost defenseless
colony lay in the balance.
During one of the wars, four English ships carrying approx
imately 400 men arrived outside New Amsterdam and without firing
a shot foroed the Governor to surrender the place. The same day
the name of the city was changed to New York in honor of the
king's brother who had been given proprietary rights to the
colony. Before a month was out the British extended their con
trol as far north as Fort Orange, which was re-named Albany.
Marten Van Buren, Cornells'* eldest son, did not find the
change in rule too inconvenient. Bloodshed had been averted
and no call to arms had summoned him from his fields. He
switched his allegiance as required even though he had been
born in Holland, and in 1665 moved to Constapels Island, just
a few miles south of Albany. There he improved his lot by
6
patiently tilling the aoll. When hie third eon, Pieter, Mar
ried Ariaantje Barentse on January 15, 1693, he gave them aa a
wedding gift twelve acrea of meadow land in Kinderhook, which
la the Dutch for "Children1a Corner." This pleasant little
village stood on the alluvial banka of a creek branching out
from the Hudson River, some doien miles south of Albany. The
neat little gardens dotting the wide road that led through it
and the clean newly painted houses that were so much the pride
of Dutch families reminded one traveler of New England towns
9
in point of simple beauty and grace. It was rich farm country
and Pieter, cut from the same cloth as his father and grand
father before him, made good use of his natural gifts. Within
two years he was admitted to membership in the Dutch Reform
Church and by 1720 was a freeholder. As he himself took pride
in the ownership of land, Pieter passed on that characteristic
as part of his legacy to his four sons, each of whom, including
Marten, the grandfather of the eighth President of the United
States, became freeholders. All the Van Burens, in varying
degrees, were enterprising landowners.
4
Born at the turn of the eighteenth century, Marten Van
Buren1s life encompassed the years in which French and Indian
aggression were the chief cause of alarm and fear to the
Q
Statement in the Van Buren Papers, no date.
®James Stuart, Three Years in North America (Edinburgh,
1833), I, 486.
