Martin Van Buren: The Romantic Age of American Politics (review)

BOOK REVIEWS Martin Van Buren: The Romantic Age of American Politics. By John Niven. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983. Pp. x, 715. $35.00.) Here is the first full-length biography of Martin Van Buren to appear in nearly fifty years. The last one, brought out by Holmes Alexander in 1935, summarized most forcefully the indictment which the older Whig school had made against Van Buren: He was a "politician by trade," a master of management and intrigue, a spoilsman without principles, a sycophant of Andrew Jackson scheming for power. The present volume , building on a wide variety of studies done during the last two decades , convincingly redresses the balance. While personally ambitious and uncommonly apt in the political arts, Van Buren yet displayed at critical points in his career the qualities of statesmanship. He supported the War of 1812 with patriotic zeal; played a constructive role in the New York state constitutional convention of 1821; effected reform of the state bank system as governor; served well as secretary of state under Jackson ; and met the crises of his own administration with courage and consistency. Based on a wealth of manuscript and printed sources and organized into chapters which clearly mark the progression of his career, Martin Van Buren provides a rich texture for the New Yorker's perception of the political world in which he moved. One special merit of the book is its facility inleadingthe readerthroughthe maze of Byzantinepolitics in the state, marked by family feuds, warring factions, and shifting alliances . Equally facile are its portrayal of Van Buren's relationship with the patrician De Witt Clinton, the maturing of conflict between them for control of the Republican party, and the relative ascendancy of Van Buren's Regency by the mid 1820s. But contrary to the view of defeated foes that Van Buren was an invincible magician, his control of the Regency always required constant management and was liable, as in 1824, to shattering defeat. Niven also does a good job on the part Van Buren played in the development of the coalition which elected Jackson over John Quincy Adams in 1828. Eight of the thirty-two chapters are devoted to Van Buren's role in the administration of Jackson. High marks are given for his success as secretary of state removing long standingbarriers to trade in the British West Indies and in starting negotiations with France for the payment of back claims. In thepower struggle withJohn C. Calhoun to becomeJackson's BOOK REVIEWS261 successor, Van Buren is not cleared of all charges of intrigue; but greater emphasis is rightly placed on Calhoun's mistakes. Most of all, Van Buren won and held Jackson's confidence. Whigs called Van Buren a time server who shamelessly ministered to Jackson's egomania; in fact the relationship between the two was morenearly one of mutual respect and benefit. Van Buren exerted little influence on the shaping of policy, but Jackson very quickly came to rely on Van Buren's keen perceptions of political realities and his sound judgment. A serious weakness in the present work is the relatively little space— three chapters and about 70 of 612 pages of text—devoted to Van Buren 's own presidency. An appreciation of his central domestic measure, the Independent Treasury, requires much fuller analysis of the economic background, the impact of Jackson's policies, and the Whig response which promoted two-party competition. Thereis no evidence in the text or in the notes of having used one important work—James C. Curtis, Fox at Bay (1970)—which deals exclusively with the White House years. Nor is enough done with the rich body of literature on the second party system, the ideology of republicanism, and Van Buren's views on these matters. It was not true that Van Buren's thoughts about the history of parties and party ideology "began slowly to take shape" (p. 599) in the 1850s as he sat down to write his memoirs. One part of his autobiography, separately published as the Inquiry into the Origin and Course of Political Parties in the United States, merely expanded on views held earlier in his career and clearly articulated in a Senate...