In the Shadow of Old Hickory: The Political Travail of Martin Van Buren

Abstract

The Senator was never at a loss for words, especially when describing moments of pomp and circumstance. I had seen inauguration of many Presidents, Thomas Hart Benton later recalled, but they all appeared as pageants, empty and soulless, brief to view, unreal to touch, and soon to vanish. Inauguration day, 1837, would never vanish from Old Bullion's memory. Nearly two decades later he could still recall crisp, clear air, huge throngs, and martial music. The people came, he thought, not so much to greet new as to pay homage to old. And so they waited dutifully until Martin Van Buren read his inaugural address and ceremonies concluded. As presidential party began to descend from platform, crowd caught a glimpse of ex-President Andrew Jackson and unleashed a thunderous ovation such as power never commanded, nor man in power received. For once, Benton said, the rising was eclipsed by setting sun.1 Despite flawed celestial imagery, historians have generally accepted Benton's account of inauguration as symbolic of relationship between Andrew Jackson and his successor. The third term of Jackson administration thus reads many a description of Van Buren's presidency. Curiously, Red Fox is in part responsible for this misconception. His Autobiography, begun in