The Martin Van Buren Memorial Lamp
Ryan Pierce
$100
There was something entirely too polished about Martin Van Buren for the popular taste. The master strategist of Andrew Jackson’s common-touch political campaign was himself too dapper (some said too smooth) to win the trust of the constituency he inherited.
Not for the first time in American politics, appearances deceived. The elegant Van Buren was the son of a New York State tavern-keeper and a determined Democrat. But his talents were best exercised in back rooms and salons, as boss of New York State politics and as confidant to a national hero. When Van Buren became President, in a time of unrelenting economic depression, he suffered a failure of political style no less than of financial policy. In the merciless campaign of 1840, which retired him from office, the voters found it easy to believe their President a heartless aristocrat who dined off of silver while the people starved.
Van Buren’s self-confidence never left him. After two unsuccessful attempts to regain the Presidency, he settled into comfortable retirement. When Van Buren sat for Healy in 1858, ten years after his final bid for office, he was half-forgotten, a fading impression of courtliness in the age of the common man.