Presidential Biographies | Van Buren Administration - Van Buren Becomes President

The Martin Van Buren Administration

Martin Van Buren was president during the nation's first terrible economic depression, and to this day his administration is defined by the Panic of 1837. Lacking the dynamic personality that had made Andrew Jackson so popular, Van Buren nevertheless guided the nation peacefully through a period marked by tense relations with Britain and a worsening sectional crisis in the United States.

Van Buren Becomes President

The Campaign of 1836

There was growing conflict within the Democratic Party by 1835, with the line being drawn between conservative members, who were friendly to banks, and the "Locofocos" who sided with the working class and advocated a hard-money currency (silver and gold coin). In the hope of heading off these deepening...