- Martin Van Buren (allthetropes.org)
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.
- Martin Van Buren (Wikipedia)
Martin Van Buren (/væn ˈbjʊərən/ van BURE-ən; Dutch: Maarten van Buren [ˈmaːrtə(ɱ) vɑm ˈbyːrə(n)]; December 5, 1782 – July 24, 1862) was the eighth president of the United States, serving from 1837 to 1841. A primary founder of the Democratic Party, he served as New York’s attorney general and U.S. senator, then briefly as the ninth governor of New York before joining Andrew Jackson’s administration as the tenth United States secretary of state, minister to Great Britain, and ultimately the eighth vice president from 1833 to 1837, after being elected on Jackson’s ticket in 1832. Van Buren won the presidency in 1836 against divided Whig opponents. Van Buren lost re-election in 1840, and failed to win the Democratic nomination in 1844. Later in his life, Van Buren emerged as an elder statesman and an anti-slavery leader who led the Free Soil Party ticket in the 1848 presidential election.
