Martin Van Buren Praises God For His Rise and Is Satisfied With His Achievements and Legacy
He is concerned about, and wants to research, the Constitutional question of the power and authority of Federal courts over state courts (and thus state laws), a question almost surely evoked by the Dred Scott case decided earlier that year.
Governments are “in every Society constantly striving to confer on one part the might of power & happiness & to reduce the other to the extreme of weakness & misery.”
Van Buren’s father was a farmer and tavern keeper, so unlike so many of the nation’s early leaders, he was not born...
Governments are “in every Society constantly striving to confer on one part the might of power & happiness & to reduce the other to the extreme of weakness & misery.”
Van Buren’s father was a farmer and tavern keeper, so unlike so many of the nation’s early leaders, he was not born with a silver spoon in his mouth. Martin started out as a lawyer in upstate New York, and did not begin his career on the national stage until he was 37 years of age. His political career started in an era when the existence of political parties was frowned upon by many, and none were clearly delineated (in the chaotic 1824 election, all four presidential candidates belonged to the same party). Van Buren was among the first to recognize the need for party organization, and the potential that such organization held in terms of power and patronage. He became a protégé of Andrew Jackson, the great general admiring that Van Buren was, like him, a self-made man. Van Buren created the Democratic Party which very successfully promoted Jackson’s interests and policies, thus inventing the modern role of the political party as the primary source of political influence. He was rewarded by Jackson, serving as his secretary of state and then vice president. In 1837 he succeeded Jackson in the Executive Mansion. In office, he mollified southern interests to reduce tensions over slavery, and appointed two southerners to the United States Supreme Court.
“The great kindness which has been advanced to me in this & other respects by the giver of all good has impressed my heart & mind with a thorough sense of gratitude for the past & inspired me with some hopes for the future“
Twenty years later, looking back on his rise from anonymity to an illustrious career, he was thankful to God for his rise to fame and satisfied with his achievements and legacy. He also notes that he’s come to feel that governments are the result of struggles within groups or classes of people. The man “Beccaria” he refers to is the famed Italian author of On Crimes and Punishments (Dei Delitti e Delle Pene). First published in 1764, On Crimes and Punishments was soon translated in French, German, Polish, Spanish, Dutch, and English. The first of three American editions was published in 1777.
America’s Founding Fathers admired Beccaria. John Adams apparently got ahold of a European edition of On Crimes and Punishments and quoted it in his opening statement at the Boston Massacre trial in 1770, for which Adams served as defense counsel for the British soldiers.
Autograph Letter Signed, 6 pages, from his estate Lindenwald, at Kinderhook, N.Y., December 5, 1857, to Benjamin F. Butler, his former attorney general and close friend. “I am seventy five today, & as you, if you were within striking distance, would I am very sure tender your congratulations on the event, I consider them as made & thank you in advance.
“The great kindness which has been advanced to me in this & other respects by the giver of all good has impressed my heart & mind with a thorough sense of gratitude for the past & inspired me with some hopes for the future. In respect to the former my heart acquits me of having ever been wanting, but in respect to the latter, though the desire has been good, the resolution has, as yet, greatly failed.
“I have for some time been amusing myself with tracing our the workings of that spirit, when applied to Governments & Courts, which Beccaria tells us, is in every Society constantly striving to confer on one part the might of power & happiness & to reduce the other to the extreme of weakness & misery. But in its judicial track I have been constantly embarrassed by my not possessing the necessary books, to supply me with dates and particular instances, for strange as it my seem, after having been U.S. Senator, Gov. of State, Vice President and President, I neither own an edition of the Laws or a report of the decisions of the Court. I therefore venture to apply to you as I have so often done for information. But you must not be alarmed for I will not do so often nor in cases which will give you much trouble.
“What I want at this moment is a very brief history of the steps which have for a time been taken in the Sup. Court of the U.S. to affect & maintain its appellate Jurisdiction over the decision of the State Courts, under the 3rd Section (I believe it is) of the Judiciary Act of 1789. In what year did they commence? What were the titles of the suits in which the writs of Error were issued, & what (very briefly) was the question in each, & what the decision of the S. Court & what were the grounds relied upon by the Court of Appeals in Rec. in the case of Hunter & Martin 4th Munf – what the decision of S.C., what its action upon the refusal of the Court of Appeals to give effect to the Judmt of reversal? With your admirable memory & the Books at your home you can enlighten me upon these points in a few words & without much labour.” In a beautiful green half morocco and cloth clamshell case, spine gilt.
In 1848, Van Buren ran for president on the ticket of the Free Soil Party, whose main premise was opposing the expansion of slavery into Federal territories. On March 6, 1857, the Supreme Court ruled in the famous Dred Scot vs. Sanford decision, that Congress had no authority to prohibit slavery in Federal territories and that slaves were not citizens and could not sue in court. A particularly inflammatory concurring opinion was written by Peter Daniel, a southerner who Van Buren had appointed to the Court. It is tempting to conclude that Van Buren’s line of inquiry in this letter was provoked by the Dred Scott decision, which entailed this very issue and negated the very premise of his Free Soil Party.
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