Martin Van Buren

"Van Buren will remain one of our lesser-known presidents, for reasons that he would understand. His presidency produced no lasting monument of social legislation, sustained several disastrous reverses, and ended with ignominious defeat after one short term. There will never be an animatronic Van Buren entertaining children at Disneyland alongside Abraham Lincoln. But still, he lives wherever people find gated communities shut to them. He lives particularly in the places far from the presidential stage where democracy does its best work- in the back rooms of union halls, fire stations, immigrant social clubs, granges, and taverns like the one he grew up in. Or even far from American shores, where courageous men and women are risking their lives every day to form opposition parties against the wishes of their governments."

"He does not need fame, or pity, but Martin Van Buren is worthy of a sober second thought. Quite simply, its antidemocratic to expect all of our leaders to be great, or to pretend that they are once they are in office and using the trappings of the presidency for theatrical effect. It goes without saying that we need our Lincolns and Washingtons- the United States would not exist without them. But we need our Van Burens, too- the schemers and sharps working to defend people from all backgrounds against their natural predators. For democracy to stay realistic, we need to remain realistic about our leaders and what they can and cannot do. In other words, we need books about the not-quite-heroic. Van Buren is history, and this book has reached its terminus, but, as Kafka tells us, the work is never done."

"I... believe him not only deserving of my confidence but the confidence of the Nation... He... is not only well qualified, but desires to fill the highest office in the gift of the people, who in him, will find a true friend and safe repository of their rights and liberty."

"The Border between Maine and the Canadian province of New Brunswick had never been defined. Both the United States and Canada claimed some 12,000 square miles along the Aroostook River. The "war," though bloodless, heated up in February 1839 when Canadian authorities arrested American Rufus McIntire for attempting to expel Canadians from the disputed region. MicIntire had been acting on orders from Maine officials. Both sides immediately massed their militias along the frontier and sought support from their parent governments. As in the Caroline affair, President Van Buren resisted cries for war and instead dispatched General Winfield Scott on a peace mission to the region. Scott arranged a truce, effectively defusing the crisis pending the settlement of the border issue by the Webster-Ashburton Treaty in 1842."

"Martin Van Buren does not belong on anybodys list of great presidents, but he certainly belongs at the top of a sublist ranking presidents for diplomacy. Not only did he keep America out of war, but he did it twice, first with Mexico and then with England. Historians tend to glorify strong presidents, and nothing makes a president stronger than being a wartime leader. In a 1961 collection of scholarly articles on "Americas Ten Greatest Presidents," for instance, half the presidents were men who had led the country into war. Yet managing to keep out of war can sometimes be an even greater achievement than rattling the war drums."

"This democratic Presidents house is furnished in a style of magnificence and regal splendor that might well satisfy a monarch... This is that plain, simple, humble, hard-headed democrat whom [the people] have been taught to believe is at the head of the democratic party... He may call himself a democrat- such, no doubt, he professes to be- but then there is a great difference between names and things."

"There is a power in public opinion in this country -and I thank God for it: for it is the most honest and best of all powers- which will not tolerate an incompetent or unworthy man to hold in his weak or wicked hands the lives and fortunes of his fellow-citizens."

"How imperious, then, is the obligation imposed upon every citizen, in his own sphere of action, whether limited or extended, to exert himself in perpetuating a condition of things so singularly happy."

"The practice of all my predecessors imposes on me an obligation I cheerfully fulfill—to accompany the first and solemn act of my public trust with an avowal of the principles that will guide me in performing it and an expression of my feelings on assuming a charge so responsible and vast."

"I tread in the footsteps of illustrious men... in receiving from the people the sacred trust confided to my illustrious predecessor."

"All the lessons of history and experience must be lost upon us if we are content to trust alone to the peculiar advantages we happen to possess."

"Martin Van Buren was probably one of the most charming men of his age. Without that charm, that ingratiating, refined and affable manner, he could never have succeeded as well as he did. Men and women vied for his companionship, and maneuvered to get him to accept invitations to their dinners. He was courteous to all- which some misinterpreted- and possessed the "high art of blending dignity with ease and suavity." His mild, open, and sociable disposition induced one observer to write that he was "as polished and captivating a person in the social circle as America has ever known..." Although endowed with no exceptional wit himself, he had a sense of humor and a keen appreciation of the humorous."