Van Buren, Martin (1782–1862)

8th president of the USA 1837–41, a Democrat, who had helped establish the Democratic Party. He was secretary of state 1829–31, minister to Britain 1831–33, vice-president 1833–37, and president during the Panic of 1837, the worst US economic crisis until that time, caused by land speculation in the West. Refusing to intervene, he advocated the establishment of an independent treasury, one not linked to the federal government, worsening the depression and losing the 1840 election.

Born of Dutch ancestry in Kinderhook, New York, Van Buren was a US senator from New York 1821–28, and governor of New York 1829, As president, he attempted to hold the Southern states in the Union by advocating a strict states' rights position on slavery, but his refusal to annex Texas alienated many Southerners. He adhered to Jeffersonian principles of nonintervention in economic affairs. He lost the 1844 Democratic nomination to Polk, and in 1848 ran unsuccessfully for president as a candidate of Free Soil, a small but influential political party opposed to the expansion of slavery in the western territories.