- Martin Van Buren could scarcely have been more different from his predecessor, the hard-assed Andrew Jackson. The first President born to American parents (as opposed to colonial British subjects), and one of only two men (with Jefferson) to serve as Secretary of State, Vice President and President, van Buren’s public image was of an effete intellectual. His opponents criticized him for serving “unmanly” fare like strawberries and celery in the White House.