A SURVEY OF AMERICAN HISTORY

Unit 2: Westward Expansion and Civil WarPart 11: Martin van Buren

VAN BUREN’S MAJOR ISSUES

The Panic of 1837The rise of the Whig PartyThe Amistad case and trial

MARTIN VAN BUREN

• Andrew Jackson’s Vice President from 1832 onwards.

• Received Jackson’s personal endorsement to run for election as President, since Jackson wanted to protect his legacy.

• Represented generational change in American politics, being the first President born after American independence.

• Represented cultural change, coming from New York with Dutch heritage and with Dutch as his first language.

THE PANIC OF 1837

• Early in Van Buren’s Presidential term, the United States suffered an economic downturn that would be its worst until the Great Depression of the 1920s.

• Banks collapsed, businesses went bankrupt, unemployment reached more than thirty per cent in the northeast…

• Van Buren had no way of controlling national finances because Jackson had let the Second Bank dissolve.

• The downturn lasted five years.

THE LAND OF OPPORTUNITY

• To help alleviate the pain of the economic downturn, some people began looking towards the unsettled lands of the West.

• The political activist and newspaper editor Horace Greeley urged the federal government to reduce the price of western lands and urged young, unemployed men to move west and start new, self-reliant lives for themselves.

• Greeley: “Go West, young man, go forth into the country...”

THE LAND OF OPPORTUNITY

• Going West as a way of escaping hardships in the ‘overpopulated’ east came to be known as the safety-valve theory of Western settlement.

• According to this theory, the ‘excess’ population of the east could be diverted to the West in the same way that a safety-valve diverts steam from an overheating engine.

• Van Buren denied popular requests to reduce the price of land in the West.

MEANWHILE,IN MEXICO...

• In the early nineteenth century, Mexico tried to increase its population by offering cheap land to settlers from the United States. Most of this land was in the Mexican state of Texas.

• In 1830, when Americansettlers made up a majority of the population of Texas, the President of Mexico banned further settlement, increased taxes on settlers, and ordered the slaveholding settlers to comply with a nationwide prohibition on slavery.

MEANWHILE,IN MEXICO...

• In response, Texas declared independence from Mexico in 1835. Under the leadership of Sam Houston, the Texian Army won a war for independence in 1836. Texas became a republic.

• In 1837, despite the economic downturn in America, Texas petitioned Van Buren for admission into the Union.

• Van Buren denied the request, sensing the difficulties it would pose for maintaining a balance between slave states and free states, and for maintaining peaceful relations with Mexico.

NO HELP FORTHE MORMONS

• In 1839, Joseph Smith personally visited Van Buren to request federal military assistance for the Mormons who were being persecuted by the state of Missouri.

• After 20,000 Mormons settled in Independence, Missouri, the Governor of Missouri ordered state forces to move against them and drive them out.

• Van Buren admitted that Smith’s request was valid, but he turned him down for fear of losing Missouri in the election of 1840.

THE AMISTAD UPRISING (1839)

• Aboard the Amistad, a Spanish slave ship leaving Cuba, the slaves rose up against the crew under the leadership of a man named Joseph Cinqué.

• The slaves were unable to navigate back to their native Sierra Leone and the ship was captured off Long Island.

• The slaves protested that they had been taken into slavery illegally by the Spanish.

• They received legal assistance from American abolitionists.

THE AMISTAD CASE (1840-1841)

• Towards the end of Van Buren’s Presidential term, the Amistad case went to the Supreme Court. The slaves argued that they should be returned to Sierra Leone while the Spanish Government argued that they were legally obtained property.

• Van Buren sided with the Spanish Government.

• The defense lawyers persuaded John Quincy Adams to argue their case. He delivered a powerful Supreme Court oration that helped them to win.

MARTIN VAN BUREN

• The poor economy, and the government’s failure to help unemployed Americans rebuild their lives, led to Van Buren’s electoral defeat in 1840.

• In a time of economic disaster, the laissez-faire approach of the Democratic Party did not provide solutions for the economic recovery of either the nation or its people.

• The Democrats were quickly eclipsed by the Whig Party...

A SURVEY OF AMERICAN HISTORY

Unit 2: Westward Expansion and Civil WarPart 11: Martin van Buren