It's On My Mind

October 1, 2019 (Tuesday)
The source of the material in this blog is the web site, “Biography,” It is only slightly edited.
Synopsis:
Martin Van Buren was born on December 5, 1782, in Kinderhook, New York, about 20 miles southeast of Albany. He studied law and held various political positions before serving as U.S. senator, as secretary of state and as vice president. He was elected the eighth president of the United States in 1836, but his policies were unpopular and he failed to win a second term. He died on July 24, 1862, in Kinderhook.

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Martin Van Buren was born on December 5, 1782, in Kinderhook, New York, about 20 miles southeast of Albany. His parents, Abraham and Maria, were of Dutch descent and modest means. His father was a farmer but also ran a tavern, which frequently served as a political meeting place and where young Martin was first exposed to politics. The boy attended local schools and the Kinderhook Academy until age 14, when his father, unable to afford to send Martin to college, managed to secure him an apprenticeship with a lawyer. He studied law in the subsequent years, and in 1803 was admitted to the bar. Van Buren began his own practice shortly thereafter.
In 1807, Van Buren married his cousin, Hannah Hoes, and the couple would eventually have four children, two of whom would later serve in their father’s Cabinet. Around this time, Van Buren also become more involved in politics.In 1812, Van Buren was elected to the first of his two terms in the New York State Senate, and in 1815 he was appointed as New York’s attorney general.
As Van Buren was finishing his second term in the New York Senate, Hannah died, leaving him to look after their four children. He was elected to the United States Senate in 1821. Following the election of 1824, in which John Quincy Adams was elected president, Van Buren and other Democratic-Republicans, including Andrew Jackson, William Crawford and John Calhoun, sought to create a new political party based on the idea of a minimalist government. This group would later evolve into the Democratic Party.
In 1828, Van Buren gave up his Senate seat when he was elected governor of New York. However, he resigned that post only a few months later when Andrew Jackson, whom he had helped win the presidency, selected Van Buren as his secretary of state. Van Buren served Jackson faithfully during his first term, but then resigned as part of a strategy that would allow Jackson to reorganize his Cabinet as a means of ridding himself of John C. Calhoun, with whom Jackson had developed a contentious relationship. Following this reorganization, Jackson rewarded Van Buren’s loyalty and sacrifice by appointing him minister to Great Britain.
In 1832, when Jackson ran for a second term, he selected Van Buren as his running mate. Van Buren was officially nominated later that year in the first-ever Democratic convention, and he and Jackson were easily elected. In 1835, at the end of Jackson’s term, Van Buren was unanimously nominated for president. He ran on the platform that he would essentially continue Jackson’s policies, and in 1836 easily defeated his three opponents from the Whig Party.
Van Buren took office in March of 1837 and immediately faced significant challenges. The most significant of these was a financial panic, begun during Jackson’s second term and triggered by the transfer of federal funds from the Bank of the United States to state banks. In the aftermath, hundreds of banks and businesses failed and thousands of people lost their land, making it the worst financial crisis in the nation’s history up to that point. Van Buren pointed the finger primarily at the Bank of the United States and proposed that federal funds instead be transferred to an independent treasury. A measure establishing this treasury would eventually pass years later, but in the interim Van Buren’s political opponents sought to blame him for the crisis.
Another challenge Van Buren faced during his presidency was rising tension between the U.S. and British governments over a border dispute. Skirmishes along the Maine-New Brunswick border were bringing the two nations to the brink of war, but Van Buren sought to resolve the issue diplomatically, sending an envoy to negotiate a treaty with Great Britain. Though the negotiations were ultimately successful, those who had desired that the United States take a stronger stance in the matter counted this among Van Buren’s failings. Further wounding Van Buren’s political image, both without his party and within, were Van Buren’s stance against the annexation of Texas and his continuation of Jackson’s policies against Native Americans, which many people viewed as inhumane.
In 1840, Martin Van Buren was unanimously nominated as the Democratic candidate, but the challenges and controversies of his first term proved too great to overcome (they had also earned him the nickname “Martin Van Ruin”). He was soundly defeated by the candidate from the Whig Party, William Henry Harrison, failing to carry even his home state of New York. Van Buren finished out his term, and in 1841 returned to his “Lindenwald” estate in Kinderhook.
Four years after his failed bid for a second term, Van Buren expected to once again receive the Democratic nomination, but was passed over in favor of James K. Polk, whose support of the annexations of Texas and Oregon was more popular than Van Buren’s stance against it. Van Buren ran again in 1848 as a member of the Free Soil Party, which was made up primarily of various antislavery factions, but he received only 10 percent of the vote.
Van Buren spent much of his later years travelling extensively, then returned to Kinderhook and wrote his memoirs. He died on July 24, 1862, at the age 79, and was buried in the Kinderhook Cemetery.

Martin Van Buren – President 1837-1841

October 1, 2019 (Tuesday)
This blog is copied from “America’s Story,” a web site published by the Library of Congress.
Jame Monroe, our 5th president (1817-1825), was born on April 28, 1758, in Westmoreland County, Virginia and died on July 4, 1831, in New York, New York
Monroe is perhaps best known for establishing the foreign policy principle that came to bear his name, the Monroe Doctrine. He is also the person for whom Monrovia, the capital city of Liberia, was named. Liberia is an African country founded by freed American slaves. Monroe, a slave owner, supported their repatriation (return to their place of origin) to Africa.
Before becoming president, Monroe spent many years in public service, both domestically and overseas, and was the first president to have been a U.S. senator. Although he studied law under Thomas Jefferson, he was not as brilliant as some other leading members of the Revolutionary generation. But his contemporaries liked and admired him for his sensible judgment, his honesty, and his personal kindness. Like his fellow Founding Fathers and fellow Presidents John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, he died on July 4, the anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence and the nation’s official birthday.
James Monroe easily won his party’s nomination to run for president in 1816, and he just as easily won the election. His Democratic-Republican Party, which later became simply the Democratic Party, was very strong at the time. The economy was good, the rival Federalist Party was weak and unpopular, and Monroe himself was likable and popular. He was the last of the Founding Fathers to serve as president. Monroe’s presidency followed some 25 years of rivalry between Democratic-Republicans and Federalists, but when he was elected with 183 electoral votes to the Federalists’ 34, it signaled the end of the Federalist Party.
To celebrate his election victory, Monroe launched a 15-week tour through the New England states, the first presidential tour since George Washington’s. Later tours to the South and West put him in touch with more Americans than any previous president. The Boston Columbian Centinel newspaper called his reception in Massachusetts the start of an “era of good feelings.” The era lasted about 5 years.
In James Monroe’s first inaugural speech, delivered March 4, 1817, he referred to the “present happy condition of the United States” and “the happy government under which we live.” om other countries.” His 1817 inauguration was the first to be held outdoors.
Despite a serious recession in 1819, Monroe won a second term as president with no serious opposition. By this time, he had become the most popular president since Washington. Many state banks had failed, however, and dragged small businesses down with them. Unemployment soared. However, at the same time, Monroe was successful in foreign policy.
For example, he sent Gen. Andrew Jackson to the Spanish Florida border to ward off Seminole Indians who were hostile to American settlers. This showed how weak Spain was in Florida and allowed Monroe to pressure Spain to give up the territory in 1819.
In 1819, a time of serious economic problems, President Monroe was faced with another crisis. Missouri was the first state to be carved out of land acquired through the Louisiana Purchase, which Monroe had helped negotiate in 1803. It was on the verge of being admitted to the Union at a time when there were 22 states. Eleven states allowed slavery and 11 did not. There was an argument in the U.S. Congress about whether Missouri should or should not allow slavery.
With the admission of Missouri and Maine to the Union, the number of slave states and nonslave states remained equal at 12 each, which prevented the South from having more representation in the Senate, than the North. In addition, slavery would be forbidden north of the latitude line that runs along the southern Missouri border for the remaining Louisiana Territory. Monroe signed Congress’s bill reflecting the Compromise on March 6, 1820.
In October 1823, President Monroe was concerned about Spain reclaiming sovereignty in the Western Hemisphere. He asked former presidents Jefferson and Madison for advice. They told Monroe to join forces with Britain. However, Monroe’s secretary of state, John Quincy Adams (who would later succeed Monroe as president), had another idea. Adams thought the United States should go it alone. Monroe followed Adams’s advice and laid out an independent course for the United States, declaring four major points in his December 2, 1823, address to Congress. He made four basic statements:

1) The United States would not get involved in European affairs. 2) The United States would not interfere with existing European colonies in the Western Hemisphere. 3) No other nation could form a new colony in the Western Hemisphere. 4) If a European nation tried to control or interfere with a nation in the Western Hemisphere, the United States would view it as a hostile act against this nation.”

In his Monroe Doctrine, he said that the peoples of the West “are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers.”
Monroe’s declaration of policy toward Europe did not become known as the Monroe Doctrine until about 30 years after it was proclaimed. In 1823, the U.S. was not powerful enough to enforce Monroe’s proclamation. Outside the United States, the “doctrine” went mostly unnoticed. In the early 1900s, the U.S. emerged as a world power and the Monroe Doctrine became the foundation of U.S. foreign policy.
James Monroe will be remembered as a popular president.

James Monroe – President 1817-1825

October 1, 2019 (Tuesday)
James Madison Jr. (March 16, 1751 – June 28, 1836) was the fourth president of the United States from 1809 to 1817. Born on March 16, 1751, in Port Conway, Virginia, James Madison wrote the first drafts of the U.S. Constitution, co-wrote the Federalist Papers and sponsored the Bill of Rights. He established the Democrat-Republican Party with President Thomas Jefferson, and became president himself in 1808. He served as president two terms, 1809-1817.
The Madison administration’s principal event was the War of 1812. Britain and France had been at war for years and would not trade with each other. The young United States tried different approaches to finding solutions. Ultimately the United States tried an embargo, under Jefferson’s presidency, but it only brought depression. The hostile actions of the British brought about Madison’s declaration of war. In the end, the war was a draw, ended by treaty December 24, 1814, but 15,000 Americans died in it. The White House was also burned by the British, who paid Native American tribes to attack the Americans; after the war, the British provided no more help to them, enabling Americans to move westward more easily.
James Madison was married to Dolley Todd Payne, a young widow and mother of a son. She was noted for holding Washington social functions in which she invited members of both political parties. Previously, founders such as Thomas Jefferson would only meet with members of one party at a time, and politics could often be a violent affair resulting in physical altercations and even duels, Madison helped to create the idea that members of each party could amicably socialize, network, and negotiate with each other without resulting in violence. By innovating political institutions as the wife of James Madison, Dolley Madison did much to define the role of the President’s spouse.
Dolley also helped to furnish the newly constructed White House. When the British set fire to it in 1814, she was credited with saving the classic portrait of George Washington; she directed her personal slave Paul Jennings to save it.

James Madison-4th President(1809-1817)

October 1, 2019 (Tuesday)
The information in this blog comes from a web site known as “The Jefferson Monticello.” Much of the material is copied word for word from the site.
Jefferson was born April 13, 1743 in Shadwell, Virginia, the song of a wealthy plantation owner. He died July 4, 1826, the same day as his contemporary champion of national independence, John Adams.
He designed his own grave monument with instructions that it list only 3 achievements: “Author of the Declaration of American Independence, Author of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, and Father of the University of Virginia. The marker would have been crowded if all his achievements had been listed, such as President, Vice-President, Secretary of State, “Ambassador” to France, and congressman. In Virginia he served as governor, a member of both legislative bodies, as well as local offices–a total of 50 years of public service.
He also omitted his work as a lawyer, architect, writer, farmer, gentleman scientist, and life as patriarch of an extended family at Monticello, both white and black. He offered no particular explanation as to why only these three accomplishments should be recorded, but they were unique to Jefferson.
His father died when he was 14 years old, leaving him a gigantic estate, but he wanted to live in a house of his own design, at the foot of a mountain: “Monticello.” He married Martha Wayles Skelton, in January 1772. She died ten years later, after the birth of 6 children, only two of which survived to become adults: Martha (Patsy) and Mary (Polly).
Along with the land Jefferson inherited slaves from his father and even more slaves from his father-in-law, John Wayles; he also bought and sold enslaved people. Some were given training in various trades, others worked the fields, and some worked inside the main house. Many of the enslaved house servants were members of the Hemings family. The only slaves Jefferson freed in his lifetime and in his will were all Hemingses, giving credence to oral history. Years after his wife’s death, Thomas Jefferson fathered at least six of Sally Hemings’s children. Some were freed.
After a two-year course of study at the College of William and Mary that he began at age seventeen, Jefferson recorded his first legal case in 1767. In two years he was elected to Virginia’s House of Burgesses. He became a delegate to the first Continental Congress and was chosen to write The Declaration of Independence, stating the colonies’ arguments for declaring themselves free and independent states.
After Jefferson left Congress in 1776, he returned to Virginia and served in the legislature. Working with James Madison, he wrote the Statute for Religious Freedom in 1786. He became governor from 1779 to 1781. After leaving office in 1784, he entered public service again, in France, first as trade commissioner and then as Benjamin Franklin’s successor as U.S. minister.
In 1790 he agreed to be the first secretary of state under the new Constitution in the administration of the first president, George Washington. In 1796, as the presidential candidate of the nascent Democratic-Republican Party, he became vice-president after losing to John Adams by three electoral votes. Four years later, he defeated Adams in another hotly contested election and became the third president.
Perhaps the most notable achievements of his first term were the purchase of the Louisiana Territory in 1803 and his support of the Lewis and Clark expedition. His second term is most remembered for his efforts to maintain neutrality in the midst of the conflict between Britain and France. Unfortunately, his efforts did not avert the War of 1812 during Madison’s administration.
The three accomplishmets recorded on his gravestone made an enormous contribution to the aspirations of a new America and to the dawning hopes of repressed people around the world. He had dedicated his life to meeting the challenges of his age: political freedom, religious freedom, and educational opportunity. While he knew that we would continue to face these challenges through time, he believed that America’s democratic values would become a beacon for the rest of the world. He never wavered from his belief in the American experiment.
He is remembered for having said, “I have no fear that the result of our experiment will be that men may be trusted to govern themselves. . . .”
During the last seventeen years of his life, Jefferson generally remained at Monticello, welcoming the many visitors who came to call upon him. Jefferson embarked on his last great public service at the age of seventy-six with the founding of the University of Virginia, in which he was directly involved.
Unfortunately, Jefferson’s retirement was clouded by debt. His finances worsened in retirement with the War of 1812 and the subsequent recession, headed by the Panic of 1819. His extensive land holdings in Virginia could no longer cover what he owed. Ironically, Jefferson’s greatest accomplishment during his presidency, the purchase of the port of New Orleans and the Louisiana Territory that opened the western migration, would contribute to his financial discomfort in his final years, as the population moved westward, buying land elsewhere.
Despite his debts, when he died just a few hours before his friend John Adams on the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1826, he was optimistic as to the future of the republican experiment. Just ten days before his death, he had declined an invitation to the planned celebration in Washington but offered his assurance, “All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man.”

Thomas Jefferson – Third President (1801-1809)

October 1, 2019 (Tuesday)
John Adams (1735-1826) was a leader of the American Revolution who became President of the United States. He has been characterized by historians as intelligent, patriotic, opinionated and blunt. He was born in Braintree (present-day Quincy), Massachusetts, on October 30, 1735. He graduated from Harvard College in 1755. He then taught school for several years and studied law with an attorney in Worcester, Massachusetts. Adams began his law career in 1758 and eventually became one of Boston’s most prominent attorneys

John Adams – President 1797-1801

He served as Vice President with President George Washington,
1789-1797. He then ran for president and won. He became president and Thomas Jefferson became Vice President. The two served together 1797-1801. John and Abigail with their children were the first residents of the White House (Washington had input in construction, but never lived there).

Jefferson decided to run for president against John Adams and won the presidency for himself. The two men disagreed on whether the federal government (Adams) was supreme or the states (Jefferson). These ideological differences are still in play today.

The two men campaigned bitterly against each other in the 1796 election, and a rivalry developed between them that lasted for many years. When Jefferson was inaugurated, Adams refused to attend the ceremony. Instead, he packed up and moved back to Massachusetts.

That situation differed from the earlier days when the two men worked together to lead the revolution against Great Britain’s authority in colonial America. Adams worked with Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin as a committee of the Continental Congress to write The Declaration of Independence.

During the 1760s, Adams began challenging Great Britain’s authority in colonial America. He came to view the British imposition of high taxes and tariffs as a tool of oppression, and he no longer believed that the government in England had the colonists’ best interests in mind.

Abigail Adams died in 1818 but John Adams lived long enough to see his son John Quincy Adams (1767-1848) become America’s sixth president in 1824. By that point, the elder Adams and Jefferson were among the last living signers of the Declaration of Independence. In their latter years they corresponded and mended their relationship. Both men died on the same day: July 4, 1826.