Was Martin Van Buren A Success Or A Failure

“Martin Van Buren was the eighth president of the United States from 1837 to 1841. He was one of the founders of the Democratic Party, and he was known as the “Little Magician” to his friends and the “Sly Fox” to his enemies because of his skill as a politician” (britannica.com). Martin worked at his father’s [tavern], which was [visited often] by lawyers and politicians. Martin Van Buren was a great politician and an even better president.

Martin Van Buren worked in his father’s tavern as a child. “After classes, he would help in his father’s tavern, which was visited often by lawyers and politicians, including Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr” (britannica.com). Without his encounters with lawyers and politicians early on, I don’t think that Van Buren would have had as much of a spark to want to become a lawyer and politician one day.

Next, he was one of the founders of the Democratic Party. “He rose quickly in New York politics, winning a U.S. Senate seat in 1821 and presiding over a state political organization. Van Buren helped form the new Democratic Party from a coalition of Jeffersonian Republicans who backed the military hero and president Andrew Jackson” (history.com).

Polk, whose support of the acquisitions of Texas and Oregon was more popular than Van Buren’s [plan] against it. Van Buren ran again in 1848 as a member of the Free Soil Party, which was made up primarily of various antislavery [groups], but he received only 10 percent of the vote. Van Buren spent much of his later years traveling extensively, then returned to Kinderhook and wrote his memoirs. He died on July 24, 1862, at the age 79, and was buried in the Kinderhook Cemetery” (biography.com) I think that even though many people disliked Martin Van Buren, he was still a good politician and a great