



Produced by D Alexander and the Online Distributed
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  Standard Library Edition


  AMERICAN STATESMEN

  EDITED BY
  JOHN T. MORSE, JR.

  IN THIRTY-TWO VOLUMES
  VOL. XVIII.

  DOMESTIC POLITICS: THE TARIFF
  AND SLAVERY

  MARTIN VAN BUREN




  [Illustration: M. Van Buren]




  American Statesmen

  STANDARD LIBRARY EDITION

  [Illustration: The Home of Martin Van Buren]

  HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO.




  American Statesmen


  MARTIN VAN BUREN

  BY

  EDWARD M. SHEPARD


  [Illustration]


  BOSTON AND NEW YORK
  HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
  The Riverside Press, Cambridge
  1899




  Copyright, 1888 and 1899,
  BY EDWARD M. SHEPARD.

  Copyright, 1899,
  BY HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO.

  _All rights reserved._




PREFACE TO THE REVISED EDITION


Since 1888, when this Life was originally published, the history of
American Politics has been greatly enriched. The painstaking and candid
labors of Mr. Fiske, Mr. Adams, Mr. Rhodes, and others have gone far to
render unnecessary the _caveat_ I then entered against the unfairness,
or at least the narrowness, of the temper with which Van Buren, or the
school to which he belonged, had thus far been treated in American
literature, and which had prejudicially misled me before I began my
work. Such a _caveat_ is no longer necessary. Even now, when the
political creed of which Jefferson, Van Buren, and Tilden have been
chief apostles in our land, seems to suffer some degree of
eclipse,--only temporary, it may well be believed, but nevertheless
real,--those who, like myself, have undertaken to present the careers of
great Americans who held this faith need not fear injustice or prejudice
in the field of American literature.

In this revised edition I have made a few corrections and added a few
notes; but the generous treatment which has been given to the book has
confirmed my belief that historic truth requires no material change.

A passage from the diary of Charles Jared Ingersoll (Life by William M.
Meigs, 1897) tempts me, in this most conspicuous place of the book, to
emphasize my observation upon one injustice often done to Van Buren.
Referring, on May 6, 1844, to his letter, then just published, against
the annexation of Texas, Mr. Ingersoll declared that, in view of the
fact that nearly all of Van Buren's admirers and most of the Democratic
press were committed to the annexation, Van Buren had committed a great
blunder and become _felo de se_. The assumption here is that Van Buren
was a politician of the type so painfully familiar to us, whose sole and
conscienceless effort is to find out what is to be popular for the time,
in order, for their own profit, to take that side. That Van Buren was
politic there can be no doubt. But he was politic after the fashion of a
statesman and not of a demagogue. He disliked to commit himself upon
issues which had not been fully discussed, which were not ripe for
practical solution by popular vote, and which did not yet need to be
decided. Mr. Ingersoll should have known that the direct and simple
explanation was the true one,--that Van Buren knew the risk and meant to
take it. His letter against the annexation of Texas, written when he
knew that it would probably defeat him for the presidency, was but one
of several acts performed by him at critical periods, wherein he
deliberately took what seemed the unpopular side in order to be true to
his sense of political and patriotic duty. The crucial tests of this
kind through which he successfully passed must, beyond any doubt, put
him in the very first rank of those American statesmen who have had the
rare union of political foresight and moral courage.

                                                    EDWARD M. SHEPARD.
  January, 1899.




CONTENTS


  CHAP.                                                             PAGE
     I. AMERICAN POLITICS WHEN VAN BUREN'S CAREER BEGAN.--
          JEFFERSON'S INFLUENCE                                        1

    II. EARLY YEARS.--PROFESSIONAL LIFE                               14

   III. STATE SENATOR: ATTORNEY-GENERAL: MEMBER OF THE
          CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION                                   38

    IV