CHAPTER IX. MARTIN VAN BUREN. EIGHTH PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. URNING from General Jackson's to Martin Van Buren's life is like leaving the turbulent ocean and gliding into a peaceful, land-locked harbor. Between the two men there could not be sharper contrasts; yet they were ardent personal friends. Jackson was nearly sixteen years the senior, and had the combined feelings of a father and elder brother, after their acquaintance, toward his young friend and political co-worker. It is instructive to trace the history of men so different, reared in the same country, accepting the same political principles and trained in the same school of partisan life. It shows the power of original endowment and social surroundings. ANCESTRY, BIRTH AND BOYHOOD. As the name indicates, the ancestors of Martin Van Buren were Germans. They belonged to that thrifty and solid-sensed class which settled in the valley of the Hudson and put so much good blood, muscle and character into the society of the New World. The emigrants from Holland and Germany have had a strong life in America. Holland was quite abreast of England in advanced ideas in the seventeenth century. The men of the Mayflower went first to Holland, and then came to the new con tinent. Emigrants from Holland followed right on. Their life and work are mingled in the people and institutions of this country. Martin Van Buren's father, Abraham Van Buren, was a farmer in the old town of Kinderhook, a few miles east of the Hudson. When Martin was once asked how far he could trace his lineage, he replied, "To Kinderhook." Up from the common people the great minds of the republic have come. Mr. Van Buren was also a tavern-keeper, turning thrifty pennies from a double calling. Martin was the eldest son, born December 5, 1782, just as the revolutionary war was closing. The valley of the Hudson had been swept over and over by the tides of that war, and its inhabitants were charged with its public and patriotic spirit. The generation to which Martin belonged was born of that spirit. That great "time that tried men's souls" projected itself into the next generation. As the boy-of-all-work on a farm and the general helper about a country hotel Martin was taught a variety of useful lessonsthe use of his hands and muscles in work and of his mind and manners in mingling with men. He had an early contact with material nature and human nature, both of which he studied to profit. To most boys the old country tavern was an unprofitable place. The waste of time and money in the bar-room, the profanity and ribaldry too common there, the company that drags down and the lessons that corrupt, all tend to make it the last place to look for the boys that make presidents. While a hundred boys would have been weighted down by the depressing influences of such a place, Martin Van Buren set his face upward, treated everybody with respect, learned to be courteous, a gentleman to everybody, and at the same time how to serve, please, keep his own counsels and what are the mainsprings of human action. It was not the highest practical education which he got in this place, but it was one, no doubt, which did much to shape his character and career. It made him observant, studious to please, bland, genial and shrewd without the appearance of |