Review of Martin Van Buren and the Emergence of American Popular Politics by Joel Silbey

When he became president, Martin Van Buren had everything going for him.  Like Taft in 1908 and Bush in 1988, Van Buren was the hand-picked successor of a popular outgoing president at a time when the economy was strong.  And yet, Martin Van Buren is never ranked among our greatest presidents among the few who can even remember his name.  Why is this?

Van Buren’s failure as an American chief executive lies in a combination of lack of a presidential “skill set” and sheer bad luck. Shortly after Van Buren took office, the US economy collapsed into a depression known most commonly as the Panic of 1837.  As a faithful Jeffersonian, committed to small government, Van Buren had neither the inclination nor the precedent to take strong action to combat the Panic.  While large numbers of Americans struggled just to feed themselves and their families, Van Buren’s fondness for fine food and clothing made him seem like an aristocrat who neither understood nor cared about the needs of the common people.  This, together with Van Buren’s near total lack of charisma, sealed his fate as a one-term president.

In Martin Van Buren and the Emergence of American Popular Politics, historian Joel H. Silbey presents a sympathetic, if conventional overview of the life of American’s eighth president.  Silbey takes issue with the common stereotype of “Old Kinderhook” as little more than a master behind-the-scenes manipulator and a man unwilling to commit to any positions on the key issues of the day.  For Silbey, Van Buren’s alleged disdain for taking positions was more a result of caution and prudence than anything else.

Whereas the first generation of America’s political leaders condemned political parties as harmful to America (even as they nevertheless divided into them), Van Buren was more realistic.  Silbey argues that Van Buren understood that political factionalism was inevitable, and rather than condemning it or trying to deny its existence, he embraced it.  Unlike most American leaders before him, Van Buren saw political parties as good for America; accordingly, he spent most of his political career creating and strengthening the first modern political party, the Democratic Party.  Clearly, Van Buren’s work in this regard must be judged as a success, given the Democrats’ domination of American politics from 1829-1861.

Silbey’s portrait of Van Buren, like the man himself, is bland and uninspiring.  Van Buren lacked the charisma and/or the exciting life adventures that his predecessors all had.  To be sure, this is not Van Buren’s fault, but it does not make his story any less boring.  One would have hoped that Silbey would have told us more about Van Buren’s personal life, but he does not.  Silbey, however, like all Van Buren biographers, was limited by the fact that Van Buren burned nearly all of his personal correspondence late in his life.  Nevertheless, one walks away from this biography knowing much about Van Buren’s career, but little about the man himself.  Readers wanting to get to know Van Buren would do well to try another biography.