today on the daily Bellary were taking a look at martin van buren hello welcome to
the Naylor bellringer please don't forget to subscribe and take a look at the questions
down in the description also I'd love to see your answer to question number five
in the comments below so Martin Van Buren 8th President of the United States from 1837 to 1847
ch's tall he's one of our shortest presidents not quite as short as James Madison but not a
whole lot taller so let's take a look at Martin Van Buren's background so Van Buren was born
December 5th 1782 in Kinderhook New York and he's really considered to be the first true
American president because he's born after the American Revolution after we really gained full
independence from Britain his family of course had a farm they also ran its have urn where a
lot of political meetings were held and sat where he's kind of first exposed to politics at age 14
he gets an apprenticeship with with an attorney there in the Kinderhook area and then of course
subsequently goes on to become a lawyer himself but in 1807 martin van buren married his cousin
hannah hose and before you just simply say oh that's gross remember that was a pretty common
practice back then in the 1700s 1800s for you to marry a cousin all right but together they had
four children and actually two of those children later served in Van Buren's cabinets when he was
president but Hannah she actually ends up dying of tuberculosis in 1819 and actually martin van buren
never does remarry so Martin Van Buren's political career really began in New York State where he was
involved in very much in state politics there in the you know the State House of New York but in
1821 he was elected to the US Senate and in 1828 he gave up that Senate seat to go back and be the
governor of New York but actually he gave up that - just a few months later to become a member of
Andrew Jackson's cabinet during Andrew Jackson's presidency and it's really during Andrew Jackson's
presidency that Martin and really really makes a name for himself being part of Jackson's cabinet
and actually during this time Van Buren earns this nicknamed little magician because he helps Jackson
to basically find his way out of very tight political Asians but in 1832 he becomes Jackson's
vice president okay for Jackson's second term in office and then basically it just leads right into
1836 where Jackson meant or I'm sorry where Van Buren then runs for president and wins election
over three Whig Party candidates and basically he ran on the platform I ran on the idea that
he was gonna continue Andrew Jackson policies now speaking of campaigning this is where you really
get into what arguably might be the most important contribution Martin Van Buren has to American
history during his campaign people who supported him would wear or make signs that would say okay
for old Kinderhook because that was the town where Van Buren was born so to say that you were in
favor of Martin Van Buren you would say okay well of course that catches on as being a phrase to say
I'm good with something or yes and so technically even to this day when you say okay what you're
really saying is I support Martin Van Buren so that's you know a lot of their ISM argument of
where actually came from but a lot of people point to his campaign as being where we get the term
okay from but Martin Van Buren's presidency really started out really great the economy was doing
well things were were great in the United States but very quickly we have the panic of 1837 set
in which was an economic depression that you know closed hundreds of businesses thousands of people
lost their jobs and it actually prompts a lot of people to begin to look West and begins to push
for that idea of manifest destiny all right so to find better opportunities out in the West a lot of
people began to follow so that was a big part of his presidency but really you know he was pretty
ineffective in dealing with the depression itself and it actually continued throughout his entire
presidency and is really a major factor why Martin Van Buren was only a one-term president because he
just simply didn't really do a whole lot to be able to deal with that depression but I guess on
a positive note about his presidency Van Buren was very opposed to the annexation of Texas or
adding Texas as a new state because it's at this time of course Texas is gaining their independence
from Mexico and wants to become part of the Union but main Buren's big argument for why he did not
while Texas in is because he did not want to see the spread of slavery Van Buren was against the
spread of slavery in the United States but in 1840 he is easily defeated will not easily defeat it it
was a rather close election but in the electoral college William Henry Harrison a Whig candidate
defeats Martin Van Buren all right but actually Van Buren comes back and runs for president again
in 1848 on the Free Soil party ticket and the Free Soil party was a party that was focused on
not allowing slavery to expand to the west but man Baron died in 1862 at the age of 79 in Kinderhook
New York now one little side note here about Van Buren in his last few years he actually wrote an
autobiography writing the story of his life so he writes this big book you know hundreds of pages
you know thousands of paragraphs but interestingly in that entire biography there's no mention of his
wife Hannah at all a bit early she had died years before but at the same time she did give him four
children and you would think anyone would write about their life as part of their biography part
of their life stories so anyway that's Martin Van Buren hopefully you learned something there don't
forget to answer answer question number five in the comments below and thanks for watching
you