Martin Van Buren

A new biography of the 8th president of the United States, the first chief executive not born a British citizen and the first to use the party system to chart his way from tavern-keeper's son to the pinnacle of power. Martin Van Buren was one of the most remarkable politicians not only of his time but in American presidential history. The principal architect of the party system and one of the founders of the Democratic Party, he came to dominate New York-then the most influential state in the Union-and was instrumental in electing Andrew Jackson president. Van Buren's skills as a political strategist were unparalleled (he was known as the "Little Magician"), winning him a series of high-profile offices: US senator, New York's governor, US secretary of state, US vice president, and finally the White House. In his rise to power, Van Buren sought consensus and conciliation, bending to the wishes of slave interests and complicit in the dispossession of America's Indigenous population--two of the darkest chapters in American history. This new biography of Van Buren -- the first full-scale portrait in four decades -- charts his ascent from a tavern in the Hudson Valley to the presidency, concluding with his late-career involvement in an antislavery movement. Offering vivid profiles of the day's leading figures (Andrew Jackson, Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun, John Quincy Adams, DeWitt Clinton, James K. Polk), James Bradley's book depicts the struggle for power in the tumultuous decades leading up to the Civil War.

James Bradley is co-editor of the Martin Van Buren Papers, based at Cumberland University in Lebanon, Tennessee. He is an Adjunct Instructor in the public history program at State University of New York at Albany, and was the Senior Project Editor of Encyclopedia of New York City, published by Yale University Press.

Introduction: A New Political Era
Part 1: The Making of a Politician, 1782-1815 1. Aristos and Demos 2. The World of Aaron Burr 3. That Little Imp of Jacobinism 4. The Luck of War
Part 2: The Fight for New York, 1815-1828 5. Kick or be Kicked 6. Plucking Mr. Clinton's Sting 7. The Goodly Boat 8. The Malcontents
Part 3: The Years of Andrew Jackson, 1828-1837 9. Electioneering 10. The Master Mover 11. A Killing Off in the Public Mind 12. A Sound Beating 13. Caution 14. The Successor
Part 4: The Presidency, 1837-1841 15. Hard Times 16. Rebels and Borders 17. The Dereliction of Faith and Virtue 18. We Have Taught Them How to Conquer Us
Part 5: The Fall From Power: 1841-1862 19. The Comeback 20. Polk's Betrayal 21. The Last Stand 22. A Pretense of Happiness