Martin Van Buren: Dutch Speaking Red Fox Who Built the Party Machine

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Martin Van Buren was born in 1782 in Kinderhook, New York, the first president born a U.S. citizen, and grew up speaking Dutch in his father Abraham's tavern, a hub of local politics. Apprenticed to the Federalist Silvester family, he was told to dress like the ruling class and became the impeccably polite Red Fox. He married Hannah Hoes, who died of tuberculosis in 1819, leaving four sons, and he never remarried. As a state senator and attorney general he broke from family factions like the Clintons and built the Albany Regency, often called the first modern political machine, run on patronage, partisan newspapers and an alliance with Tammany Hall.

Entering the U.S. Senate in 1821, he argued that national parties would restrain sectional hostility. He backed William Crawford in 1824, then organized support for Andrew Jackson and helped pass the 1828 Tariff of Abominations. As secretary of state he sided with the Eatons in the Petticoat Affair, and after John C. Calhoun cast the tie breaking vote rejecting his nomination as minister to Britain, Jackson put him on the 1832 ticket. His presidency began with the Panic of 1837, and he lost to William Henry Harrison in 1840. In 1848 he ran on the Free Soil ticket, drawing enough New York votes to cost Lewis Cass the election.

• Opponents renamed him Martin Van Ruin as he pushed an independent treasury during the depression.
• His administration carried out the Cherokee removal known as the Trail of Tears.
• He sided against the Amistad captives, who won their freedom at the Supreme Court.
• He refused to annex Texas, which cost him the 1844 Democratic nomination to James K. Polk.
• Supporters of Old Kinderhook formed OK clubs, helping popularize the word OK.