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Biography
Martin Van Buren (1782–1862) was born in Kinderhook, New York. He attended village schools, studied law, and entered politics. He was New York attorney general, U.S. senator, and governor, a position he resigned to join Andrew Jackson’s cabinet as secretary of state. Over time, he became one of Jackson’s closest advisers.
As secretary, Van Buren opened U.S. trade in the British West Indies and in regions around the Black Sea, and he secured promises from the French that they would pay for U.S. property seized during their wars against Great Britain earlier in the century. But he failed to establish a commercial treaty with Russia, to persuade Mexico to sell Texas, and to settle a boundary dispute in Maine with Great Britain.
In a shake-up of Jackson’s cabinet, Van Buren resigned and was appointed U.S. minister to Great Britain in 1831, but the U.S. Senate rejected his nomination. He returned to the United States and joined Jackson’s reelection campaign as vice president. In 1836 Van Buren was elected president. Shortly after he entered office the U.S. economy took a severe downturn, and his term was marred by hardship. Tensions with Mexico over Texas and with Great Britain over the Maine boundary remained, and he lost his bid for reelection. Van Buren sought the Democratic nomination in 1844 but lost to James K. Polk. In 1848 he ran for president again as the nominee of the Free Soil Party, which opposed the extension of slavery in the western territories. The party made a strong showing for a third party, winning 10 percent of the vote, but after 1848 Van Buren retired from active politics.