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: U.S. senator, New York's governor, secretary of state, 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 our national history.
Van Buren scholar James M. Bradley charts the eighth president of the United States’ ascent from a tavern in the Hudson Valley to the presidency, concluding with his late-career involvement in an antislavery movement. Covering major events of the period with profiles of its leading figures (Andrew Jackson, Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun, John Quincy Adams, DeWitt Clinton, James K. Polk), Bradley depicts the struggle for power in the tumultuous decades leading up to the Civil War.
Bradley is co-editor of the Martin Van Buren Papers, based at Cumberland University in Lebanon, Tennessee. His book, Martin Van Buren: America's First Politician (Oxford University Press), is available for purchase.
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