Presidential Biographies | Van Buren Administration - Van Buren and Congress

Van Buren and Congress

Van Buren presided over the Twenty-fifth and Twenty-sixth sessions of Congress, both of which held a slight Democratic majority (30 of 52 senators in the Twenty-fifth Congress were Democrats, while the House was composed of 108 Democrats, 107 Whigs, and 24 others). With the intraparty factionalism that was characteristic of the time, however, the terms Whig and Democrat did not mean much; in 1837 Whigs and conservative Democrats could outvote those Democrats loyal to Van Buren. The president's efforts to influence legislative outcomes, then, were generally unsuccessful, due to his inability to discipline the conservative wing of his own party. For example, while Congress did pass most of Van Buren's programs designed to deal with the panic of 1837, the keystone of the plan, a bill establishing an independent treasury, was blocked by the House until 1840—just months before Van Buren's term expired (See...