Martin Van Buren (1837-1841)
VAN BUREN, Martin (1782-1862). Autograph letter signed ("M. V. Buren"), as U. S. Senator, to L. N. Bates, Washington, 20 December 1826. 3 pages, 4to, marked "Confidential."
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VAN BUREN, Martin (1782-1862). Autograph letter signed ("M. V. Buren"), as U. S. Senator, to L. N. Bates, Washington, 20 December 1826. 3 pages, 4to, marked "Confidential."
VAN BUREN DENIES HE HAS JOINED ANY "COALITIONS" WITH "ADAMS & CLAY" WHOM HE DENOUNCES FOR "ALL THEIR TRIMMING & HUCKSTERING." In this rich, lengthy political letter, Van Buren responds to a "very frank & friendly letter" from a political colleague back in Albany, and declares that "the story about arrangements & coalitions between the Secretary and my-self is an invention of the enemy. The time has been when I was greatly worried by the repeated apprehensions if not suspicions of my friends upon the subject of coalition, sometimes with Clinton, then with Adams & Clay & so on, but I have had the good fortune to satisfy myself that I should not be dissatisfied because it indicates a desire on the part of my old Democratic friends to appropriate me exclusively to their own uses. Be assured yourself & assure others that there is not the remotest danger that I will make any arrangements or be a party to any coalition, the first & controlling object of which shall not be to consult the wishes & promote the interest of the Republican Party of New York. To them I acknowledge all manner of obligations & as long as they are true to themselves, they will never have cause to complain of me. The coalition here cannot & does not deserve to stand. All their trimming & huckstering will but serve in the end to make their ruin the more signal & degrading. My own feelings would be best consulted by immediate efforts to enhance effectually their apostacy from true Republican principle, but my friends advise forbearance..."
The two-party division between Democrats and Whigs had not yet taken shape, and Van Buren still uses terms from the Federalist-Republican factionalism of the early republic, and firmly places himself in the Republican camp, and against "the coalition here" of President John Quincy Adams and his Secretary of State Henry Clay. Those two men formed their alliance as part of the infamous "corrupt bargain" that denied Andrew Jackson the White House in the electoral impasse of 1824. While Jackson seethed and plotted his revenge in 1828, Van Buren did everything he could to stand in Old Hickory's good graces. The specific issue about which Van Buren denies colluding with "the enemy" is the Panama Convention called by South American liberator Simón Bolívar in 1826. Adams and Clay wanted to send an American delegation, but pro-slavery Southerners (and their allies in cotton-trading New York) feared the conclave would be a soap box for abolitionism. The administrations opponents stalled voting on a delegation until it was too late for them to bother going.
VAN BUREN DENIES HE HAS JOINED ANY "COALITIONS" WITH "ADAMS & CLAY" WHOM HE DENOUNCES FOR "ALL THEIR TRIMMING & HUCKSTERING." In this rich, lengthy political letter, Van Buren responds to a "very frank & friendly letter" from a political colleague back in Albany, and declares that "the story about arrangements & coalitions between the Secretary and my-self is an invention of the enemy. The time has been when I was greatly worried by the repeated apprehensions if not suspicions of my friends upon the subject of coalition, sometimes with Clinton, then with Adams & Clay & so on, but I have had the good fortune to satisfy myself that I should not be dissatisfied because it indicates a desire on the part of my old Democratic friends to appropriate me exclusively to their own uses. Be assured yourself & assure others that there is not the remotest danger that I will make any arrangements or be a party to any coalition, the first & controlling object of which shall not be to consult the wishes & promote the interest of the Republican Party of New York. To them I acknowledge all manner of obligations & as long as they are true to themselves, they will never have cause to complain of me. The coalition here cannot & does not deserve to stand. All their trimming & huckstering will but serve in the end to make their ruin the more signal & degrading. My own feelings would be best consulted by immediate efforts to enhance effectually their apostacy from true Republican principle, but my friends advise forbearance..."
The two-party division between Democrats and Whigs had not yet taken shape, and Van Buren still uses terms from the Federalist-Republican factionalism of the early republic, and firmly places himself in the Republican camp, and against "the coalition here" of President John Quincy Adams and his Secretary of State Henry Clay. Those two men formed their alliance as part of the infamous "corrupt bargain" that denied Andrew Jackson the White House in the electoral impasse of 1824. While Jackson seethed and plotted his revenge in 1828, Van Buren did everything he could to stand in Old Hickory's good graces. The specific issue about which Van Buren denies colluding with "the enemy" is the Panama Convention called by South American liberator Simón Bolívar in 1826. Adams and Clay wanted to send an American delegation, but pro-slavery Southerners (and their allies in cotton-trading New York) feared the conclave would be a soap box for abolitionism. The administrations opponents stalled voting on a delegation until it was too late for them to bother going.