Martin Van Buren, of Dutch descent, was born December 5, 1782, when the war had ended and the treaty of peace between the United States and England was being considered. He was born in a little town with a strong Dutch name, Kinderhook. Kinderhook is a little town still, on the Hudson River, about sixteen miles below Albany, New York. He died in Kinderhook on July 24, 1862. His wife, Hannah Hoes, whom he married in 1807, died in 1819.

His father was a shrewd, thrifty, good-natured Dutchman, who kept the village tavern and worked a small farm, and made both pay him well. His mother was pious and sensible, both parents had good qualities and Martin got his share of them. He was an active little lad with the shrewdness of his parents and plenty of his father's good nature.

The boy was sent to the best schools of the old town. Moreover, his father's hostelry was like a school of politics where the neighbors gathered to talk over the events of the day, and where the quick-witted boy picked up useful lessons within the wisdom of the common folk.

His father did not send him to college. He wanted to give him knowledge that would pay, so he set him at studying law when he was fourteen and kept him at it till he was twenty-one. His last year of study was spent in New York City, under William P. Van Ness, who was a friend of Aaron Burr, and was to be his second in his famous duel with Alexander Hamilton.

Van Buren saw and learned much from Burr, who was one of the most brilliant men of his time.

In 1803, Van Buren began practicing law and like many other lawyers before him, quickly went into politics. The Federal party was the strong one in his neighborhood, and his friends blamed him for joining the Democrats, saying that he could never be elected to any office by that party. He told them plainly that he was going to live up to what he thought right if he never got into office.

He had a good nature and a smiling and kindly manner that brought him plenty of friends. He was very industrious, and he was very fond of books, reading everything that came in his way. In those days books were not so plentiful as they are now, but he managed to learn a good many things outside of the law. After his six years' practice at Kinderhook Mr. Van Buren removed to the city of Hudson, where he had the chance to come in contact with the best lawyers of the State. Here he gained a wide legal reputation, and grew so popular among the people that in 1812 he was elected to the Senate of New York State.

The war with England began that year, he did not believe in it, but he worked for it and helped pass a law for raising troops. This made him very popular with many people and after General Jackson's great victory at New Orleans, he offered a resolution in the Senate to give the thanks of the State to that famous general.

In 1818, Van Buren reorganized the Democratic party in New York and he was essentially the party boss for the next twenty years.

Van Buren engineered his rise to power by rewiring New York's system of political parties. Specifically, he restructured parties as permanent, impersonal institutions, built around issues and imposing strict control over voting, patronage and policy-making. Americans up to this point had regarded political parties as necessary evils, but Van Buren defended parties as effective and essentially democratic ways to mobilize the political will of the electorate. Moreover, as he turned his sights to national office, he argued that parties would help to smooth over sectional differences between the slave-holding south and the free states of the north.

Van Buren's notion of political parties as organizing institutions proved instrumental in the consolidation of the Jacksonian Democrats in the late 1820s.

New York was still a slave state when Van Buren was growing up, and his family owned slaves. As a young man Van Buren owned a slave himself, a man named Tom. When Tom ran away, Van Buren made no effort to recover him. But ten years later, in 1824, the escapee was discovered living in Worcester, Massachusetts, and at that point Van Buren agreed to sell him to another man if he could be captured "without violence."

Subsequently Van Buren came around to oppose slavery in principle. But as a matter of public policy, he adhered closely to his sense of the compromises that the Constitution and Congress had set up to preserve both slavery and the union. And as a politician trying to build a national party, he found himself obliged to accommodate growing southern anxieties about northern abolitionism over the 1830s. He was a northerner, a Yankee, of course, and that was enough to make him suspect in southern eyes. So in 1835, preparing to run for president, he had to assure southern politicians and editors that he did not oppose slavery in those states where it already existed, that he opposed abolitionism, and specifically that he opposed the campaign to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia.

When Van Buren was sent by the Legislature of New York to the Senate of the United States, in 1821, he used his power during the Presidential election to fight hard against John Quincy Adams and for Andrew Jackson. In 1829, Jackson was elected, many said he owed his election to Martin Van Buren and President Jackson rewarded Van Buren by appointing him Secretary of State. Van Buren emerged as the President's most trusted adviser and Jackson referred to him as, "a true man with no guile."

The "Little Magician" was elected Vice President on the Jacksonian ticket in 1832, and won the Presidency in 1836.

When Jackson's second term was near its end, he used all his vast influence to have his friend Van Buren nominated for President. The Whigs nominated General Harrison to run against him, but the Democratic party won, and the lawyer from Kinderhook was now lifted to the highest position in the nation, that of President of the United States.

On March 4, 1837, an immense crowd collected to see his inauguration. A striking scene it was when he rode side by side with Andrew Jackson in a phaeton drawn by four grays to take the oath of office. They were both uncovered and bowing to the cheers of the crowd. But the gaunt, iron, face of " Old Hickory " was in strange contrast with the shrewd, smiling, handsome countenance of the man beside him.

But Jackson, while he had made Van Buren President, had left plenty of trouble for him. The primary problem was the economic recession that struck soon after Van Buren entered office. Van Buren opposed any attempts at government intervention. He was committed to keeping the United States solvent, thus he cut back federal spending, which no doubt exacerbated the economic problems.

So in 1840, when the time for an election again came round, the people wanted a change, and the Whigs won by a large majority. Van Buren was badly beaten, and General Harrison was elected in his place. Of course, Van Buren would have liked to hold the Presidency for a second term ; but he bore his disappointment with his usual good nature and dignity, and retired to his New York home. He had been a politician so long that it was not easy for him to withdraw entirely from taking a part in the great questions of the day, and there was not much that he did not have a hand in.

He had lost favor with the South because he was not in favor of extending slavery into new territory, so he could not expect any further honors from his old party; yet he had a great many friends who believed in him still, and who chose him to be their candidate in 1848. They were called Free-Soilers, and by some were called Barn-Burners; but when the election came on he had a very small vote.

In 1853 Mr. Van Buren decided to take a tour of Europe in company with one of his sons. This was the first time an Ex-President of the United States had visited a foreign country. He had never been in the army, and therefore could not wear a uniform. Many questions arose as to how he should be received by the royalty abroad and what rank they would give him in their receptions. Mr. Van Buren made himself very agreeable and popular wherever he went, and did much to do away with any embarrassment. He visited England, Ireland, Scotland, and the principal countries and cities of Europe.

The remainder of his days he passed quietly at his beautiful home, which he called Lindenwald, and where he ended his long and busy life on July 24, 1862. He was born just as the war of the Revolution came town end. He lived to see the opening of the great Civil War, dying at eighty years of age.