‘Martin Van Buren: America’s First Politician’
By James M. Bradley
Oxford University Press, 632 Pages

From the outset, James M. Bradley renounces any effort to rebuild Martin Van Buren’s pedestrian presidential reputation. A lackluster speaker, a vice president who never emerged out of Andrew Jackson’s awesome aura as the first populist president, Van Buren equivocated about major issues, appeased the Southern slavocracy, and was unable to command the respect of an electorate who in 1841 turned him out after one term in office.

So why such a long and detailed book about an unremarkable chief executive? Because without a serious and thorough consideration of Van Buren’s entire career — before and after his presidency — it is impossible to understand the development of the modern two-party system.

The Founding Fathers deplored the advent of political parties, and as late as the presidency of James Monroe (1817-25), they hoped for an “era of good feeling” in which nonpartisan government would triumph. Yet Van Buren believed that only with a strong party system could public opinion be mobilized and driven to support effective government at the state and federal levels.

So Mr. Bradley shows how Van Buren went about creating a party apparatus in New York State that he eventually pioneered at the national level. As attorney general, senator, and governor, he shrewdly aligned allies within what became the Democratic Party.  

To achieve party unity, though, Van Buren, lacking Andrew Jackson’s charisma, had to ingratiate himself with his fellow politicians and pursue a deft and sometimes devious diplomacy in order to deliver good government and to remain in power.

At 5 feet 6 inches and prematurely balding, Van Buren was not a prepossessing figure, though careful grooming and smart-looking clothing made him well turned out. What he stood for, though, could shift with the political winds, given that his overriding principle was preservation of the Union at virtually any cost, even if that meant the perpetuation of slavery.

Nonetheless, so far as certain Southerners were concerned Van Buren was not protective enough of slavery, and he was not a stalwart in the defense of Northern anti-slavery principles that would eventually catapult Lincoln to the presidency. Van Buren, suffering from an image problem, became the target of a best-selling satirical biography, apparently authored by Davy Crockett (now remembered for his role in the Battle of the Alamo) with, most likely, significant help from his friends.

Crockett portrayed himself as a sensible common man who saw nothing but nonsense in Van Buren, and Crockett made his attack personal, describing Van Buren as “laced up in corsets, such as women in a town wear, and, if possible, tighter than the best of them. It would be difficult to say, from his personal appearance, whether he was man or woman, but for his large red and gray whiskers.”

That there was more to Van Buren than Crockett’s satirical portrayal is apparent in Mr. Bradley’s painstaking examination of how much Andrew Jackson relied on Van Buren’s advice and political savvy. Van Buren was also Jackson’s choice for successor.

Van Buren was the first president to write his autobiography — at once tedious and, as Mr. Bradley demonstrates, an invaluable resource for understanding the politics and personalities of Van Buren’s era. Unfortunately, Van Buren did not have someone to tout him like John Eaton, who wrote a sycophantic biography of Jackson, and Van Buren could not write with the celerity of Grant in his memoirs.

Fortunately Van Buren has Mr. Bradley, who has been able to rectify the cartoonish picture of a politician who after his defeat by William Henry Harrison remained the leading Democratic Party figure to whom party professionals turned for wise counsel.

Van Buren ran as a Free Soil Democrat in 1848, finally espousing a forthright opposition to slavery, yet he won no states, and eventually returned to the mainstream of the Democratic Party that continued its obeisance to the slavocracy.

Van Buren supported Lincoln after his election, but evidently never realized he might have won a second term by sweeping the Northern states. To do so, however, he would have had to forsake much of the party-building that had made him a Democratic Party pillar. None of his sons lived long enough to burnish their father’s reputation, and their deaths diminished Van Buren’s own efforts to curate his legacy.

Mr. Rollyson’s forthcoming book is “Making the American Presidency: How Biographers Shape History.”