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Mahlon Dickerson, of New Jersey, secretary of the navy; Amos Kendall, of Kentucky, pastmaster-general, and Benjaman F. Butler, of New York, attorney-general. They were all, but Mr. Poinsett, in the cabinet under Jackson. Mr. Van Buren started out with the announcement that he should "follow in the footsteps of his illustrious predecessor." The country, therefore, had no right to expect any change in the policy of the goverment. The fruits of Jackson's administration must be reaped in Van Buren's also, and in greater abundance. The stagnation of business which had already become general and alarming, would be sure to become greater on the announcement of no change in the policy of the government. And so it proved. Early in May the pressure on the banks became so great that they were obliged to suspend specie payments. On the sixteenth of May the legislature of New York authorized the suspension of specie payments for one year. There had then been two months of unparalleled financial embarrassment in the whole country. It followed right on after Mr. Van Buren's inauguration. Failure followed failure in rapid succession. Two hundred and fifty houses failed in New York city in three weeks. Business was at a stand still in all the cities. Property fell rapidly in value; men were idle; suffering was extensive; complaints were bitter against Jackson and his successor. Petitions poured in upon the president, praying that the circulars issued by Jackson requiring that the payments for public lands should be made in gold or silver, should be rescinded. They asked also that he would bonds; and also that he would

not commence suits on unpaid call an extra session of Congress. He hesitated for some time, but the pressure became so great that he at length called a meeting of Congress for the first Monday in September.

The session lasted forty days. The democrats held the majority of both Houses, but not all of them agreed with the president's policy. Some voted with the whigs, and defeated the independent treasury scheme of the president. The payment of a fourth installment to the states was postponed. Ten millions of dollars of treasury notes were authorized. The independent treasury scheme was defeated again in the regular

session of Congress the next winter; but near the close of his term of office it became a law. Its object was to divorce the government from all connection with banks, and to do all government business with gold and silver. The financial policy of Jackson and Van Buren grew out of a prejudice against the United States bank as a federal and national institution as against state institutions. That prejudice at length extended to all banks, and resulted in the independent treasury scheme. It was one of the heaviest blows on the prosperity of the country that it has ever had. Business floundered for years in a stagnant sea. The hard-money craze captured the yeomanry of the country, whose small trading could be readily done with gold and silver; but it was a heavy burden on large transactions, and crippled the country for a generation. The two administrations that were so much alike in policy as to be one, Jackson's and Van Buren's, were narrow and hindering to the prosperity of the country, for lack of breadth of understanding and thorough knowledge of the subject of finance, on which they assumed to be wise.

The state currency, upon which they threw the country, was always weak and fickle, and their course made us a nation without a national currency.

To add to the discontent of Van Buren's term, the Seminole war in Florida continued to draw great sums from the treasury; the northeastern boundary question threatened a war with England, and the slavery question took on a more threatening aspect in the House and all over the country. A resolution was passed laying all petitions on the subject on the table without reading, which led to John Quincy Adams' stout and long defense of the right of petition. Threats of a dissolution of the Union became common, especially where nullification had sown its seeds of discontent.

An act was passed in Van Buren's term giving settlers on public lands the first right of purchase, which was just and encouraging to western settlement.

Mr. Van Buren's last message gloried in the independent treasury, and in a country "without a national debt or a national

bank." In this message he recommended the enactment of more stringent laws for the breaking up of the African slave trade.

But a new election was coming. The opposition had become intense, and was early in the field. The old federalists, with large numbers of disaffected from the banks and business, and intelligence of the country, had grown into the organized whig party. In every part of the country the strong opposition was alert. It charged the administration with every extravagance and corruption, with indifference to the laboring masses, with neglect of the country's good. Van Buren was called an autocrat eating with gold spoons, a fox, a monster of selfishness. Even his virtues were perverted into vices. The canvass was fierce and universal. On the fourth of December, 1839, the whig party nominated William Henry Harrison for president and John Tyler for vice-president. The democratic party, on the fifth of May, 1840, nominated Van Buren. The whigs

had five months the start which they improved in thorough organization and in rousing the whole opposition force into intense activity. The canvass was made a memorable one by the "log cabins" that were everywhere paraded as symbols of Harrison's humble origin, and the songs of "Tippecanoe and Tyler too," which recited the story of his famous Indian battle and victory. Monster meetings were addressed by inflamed orators; banners, badges, bonfires, songs, processions, torchlights, were everywhere in vogue to stir the masses and intensify the opposition. It was a desperate canvass, as though a monster had got the country by the throat and he must be struck off by a tremendous blow at the ballot box. And the blow came. Van Buren received only sixty electoral votes and Harrison two hundred and thirty-four. It was the rising of an ill-governed country to shake off the incompetent governors.

In 1844 Mr. Van Buren was again urged upon the democratic convention as its candidate; but he was rejected because he was opposed to the annexation of Texas to extend the realm of slavery, which had been an object arranged for for many years by the supporters of that institution.

In 1848, when the leaders of the party avowed themselves ready to tolerate slavery in New Mexico, not satisfied with the area of Texas for that institution, Mr. Van Buren and a portion of the party set up as the free democracy, and held a convention at Utica, at which he was nominated for president. Another convention was held at Buffalo, August 9, and Charles Francis Adams was nominated for vice-president. This convention declared that "Congress had no more power to make a slave than it had to make a king," and that "it is the duty of the federal government to relieve itself from all responsibility for the existence, or continuance of slavery wherever the government possesses constitutional authority to legislate on that subject, and is thus responsible for its existence." Mr. Van Buren gave full assent to these anti-slavery principles. But General Taylor, the regular candidate, was elected.

After this election, Mr. Van Buren lived quietly and elegantly at Kinderhook, in the enjoyment of a refined and placid old age. He traveled two years in Europe, enjoyed much society of the wise and good. On the outbreak of the civil war he was strongly for the government. He wrote a work entitled, "An Inquiry into the Origin and Course of Political Parties in the United States," which was edited by his son in 1867. He died July 24, 1862, at the age of eighty.

Few public men have been more misunderstood, than Martin Van Buren. He lived in a critical period of his country's history, just as it was passing out of the revolutionary era when its fortunes were managed by the great men who were the glory of that era, and into the era of popular conceit when a rough frontiersman was counted a magician of political wisdom, and when learning, civil experience and large knowledge of law, government and history, were held of secondary importance. He himself fell into this error when a boy, and had the misfortune to have no friend to counsel him, to educate himself before he entered upon the large affairs of public life. In this state of mind he early followed the erratic leadings of erratic minds, and drifted helpless into a sea he found it hard to navigate. He was accused of art, deceit, the wily legerdemain, of the heartless

and ambitious politician, and yet was honest in intention, and sought to serve his country well. He had a just pride of character and conduct; was singularly self-possessed, and was a gentleman everywhere and always, but did not see the high moralities of thought and statesmanship which alone give glory to a public career.

Mr. Forsyth, his secretary of state, made this estimate of him: "I have never witnessed aught in Mr. Van Buren which requires concealment, palliation or coloring; never anything to lessen his character as a patriot or a man; nothing that he might not desire to expose to the scrutiny of every member of this body, with a calm confidence of unsullied integrity. He is called an artful man, a giant of artifice, a wily magician. Those ignorant of his unrivaled knowledge of human character, his power of penetrating into the designs and defeating the purposes of his adversaries, seeing his rapid advance to power and public confidence, impute to art what is the natural result of those simple causes. Extraordinary talent; untiring industry; incessant vigilance; the happiest temper, which success cannot corrupt, nor disappointment sour, these are the sources of his unexampled success, the magic arts, the artifices of intrigue, to which he has resorted in his eventful life. Those who envy his success may learn wisdom from his example."

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THE GRAVE OF MARTIN VAN BUREN.

Martin Van Buren was born, lived and died at Kinderhook, Columbia county, New York. And there reposes what was mortal of him. The graveyard at the northern end of the village is filled with tenants. The Van Buren lot is at the northeast corner of the yard. It is crowded with graves; is unfenced; is even without boundary marks; is flowerless and shrubless. The president's grave is in the center of the lot. Over it is a

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