Standard Library Edition
AMERICAN STATESMEN
EDITED BY
JOHN T. MORSE, JR.
IN THIRTY-TWO VOLUMES
VOL. XVIII.
DOMESTIC POLITICS: THE TARIFF
AND SLAVERY
MARTIN VAN BUREN
American Statesmen
STANDARD LIBRARY EDITION
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO.
American Statesmen
MARTIN VAN BUREN
BY
EDWARD M. SHEPARD
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
The Riverside Press, Cambridge
1899
Copyright, 1888 and 1899,
By EDWARD M. SHEPARD.
Copyright, 1899,
By HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO.
All rights reserved.
PREFACE TO THE REVISED EDITION
Since 1888, when this Life was originallypublished, the history of American Politics hasbeen greatly enriched. The painstaking and candidlabors of Mr. Fiske, Mr. Adams, Mr. Rhodes,and others have gone far to render unnecessary thecaveat I then entered against the unfairness, or atleast the narrowness, of the temper with which VanBuren, or the school to which he belonged, had thusfar been treated in American literature, and whichhad prejudicially misled me before I began mywork. Such a caveat is no longer necessary.Even now, when the political creed of which Jefferson,Van Buren, and Tilden have been chiefapostles in our land, seems to suffer some degreeof eclipse,—only temporary, it may well be believed,but nevertheless real,—those who, likemyself, have undertaken to present the careers ofgreat Americans who held this faith need not fearinjustice or prejudice in the field of American literature.
In this revised edition I have made a few correctionsand added a few notes; but the generoustreatment which has been given to the book hasconfirmed my belief that historic truth requires nomaterial change.
A passage from the diary of Charles JaredIngersoll (Life by William M. Meigs, 1897)tempts me, in this most conspicuous place of thebook, to emphasize my observation upon one injusticeoften done to Van Buren. Referring, on May6, 1844, to his letter, then just published, againstthe annexation of Texas, Mr. Ingersoll declaredthat, in view of the fact that nearly all of VanBuren's admirers and most of the Democratic presswere committed to the annexation, Van Buren hadcommitted a great blunder and become felo de se.The assumption here is that Van Buren was a politicianof the type so painfully familiar to us, whosesole and conscienceless effort is to find out what isto be popular for the time, in order, for their ownprofit, to tak