John Van Buren (politician, 1810)

John Van Buren

John Van Buren (born February 18, 1810 in Hudson , New York , † October 13, 1866 ) was an American lawyer and politician . He was the second son of President Martin Van Buren .

Early years

John Van Buren's childhood was overshadowed by the British-American War . In 1828 he graduated from Yale College . He then studied law with Benjamin F. Butler . He was admitted to the bar in 1830. When his father was appointed Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to the United Kingdom in 1831 , he accompanied him to London as Secretary of the American Legation . But both returned to the United States in 1832 when Congress did not approve his father's appointment.

John Van Buren then opened his own law practice with James McKown in Albany (New York). He later said the following about his legal career:

"[I have a] remarkable memory. My success at the bar was great, but my fame as a lawyer has been dimmed by my wit and my wonderful ability as a politician. "

He returned to the United Kingdom during his father's presidency in 1838, and remained there until 1839. During this time he attended Queen Victoria's coronation , where he had excellent seats, attended the opening of Parliament , where she gave the mandatory speech , and was nicknamed Prince John after dancing with her once in 1838. He dined with every major 19th century figure in England, Ireland, and Scotland . He also met the King of France , Louis-Philippe I , the King of Belgium , Leopold I , and the King of the Netherlands , William I (Prince William IV of Orange ).

On June 22, 1841, he married his childhood sweetheart Elizabeth Vanderpoel (May 22, 1810-19 November 1844). The couple had a daughter named Anna (1842–1923). After the death of his wife, he never remarried.

Attorney General of New York

John Van Buren served as Attorney General of New York from 1845 to 1847 . He was the last incumbent to be jointly elected by the New York State Assembly and the New York Senate under the New York Constitution of 1821. In 1845 he brought charges against some of the leaders of the Anti-Rent Wars in their criminal trials of riot, conspiracy and robbery. Ambrose L. Jordan was in defense. At the first trial, the jury was unable to reach a verdict. When the proceedings were resumed in September 1845, the two opposing lawyers clashed. There was a fist fight in court. As a result, the presiding judge, John W. Edmonds , sentenced them to solitary confinement in the county jail for 24 hours. Van Buren then submitted his resignation, but the governor of New York Silas Wright refused to accept it. As a result, both lawyers led the case after they were released from prison. The defendant Smith A. Boughton ( Big Thunder ) was sentenced to life imprisonment. In the following gubernatorial election, Governor Wright suffered a defeat to his challenger John Young , who supported the Anti-Renters. Young pardoned Boughton after taking office.

In December 1845, Governor Wright asked Van Buren to draft a bill that would limit the tenancy of landlords. The bill, An Act to amend the Statute of Devices and Descents, and to extinguish certain Tenures, was the most radical reform of the New York State Legislature during the anti-rent years. Basically, it says that the tenancy ends when the landlord dies.

John Van Buren also led the indictment in the case of William Freeman, who murdered four members of the Van Nest family in Cayuga County, New York , on March 12, 1846 . The defense, led by William H. Seward , sought to prove that Freeman could not stand trial for mental illness. However, the jury disagreed and the trial began a few days after the jury was selected. Because it was a capital offense, all Quakers from the jury selection were sent away as they opposed the death penalty. The local district attorney, Luman Sherwood, also served as the prosecutor. He and Van Buren fought vehemently against the defense strategy regarding defensive insanity. Van Buren believed that the legal system was based on punishing law breakers. Finding a man declared innocent of mental illness would, in his view, bring the system down. In his speeches to the jury, he explained the legal situation and the consequences of Freeman's guilty verdict. The prosecution did everything possible to show the jury that Freeman was sane. He later tried to get the jury to find Freeman guilty and to sentence him to death. The race played an important role in the process: Freeman's mother was an Indian and his father a black. It has been argued that he was the result of two inferior races, which was a reason for his acting. In a society in which racism was common, these arguments did not fall on deaf ears. The jury deliberated for two hours and found Freeman guilty on July 23, 1846. At 6:30 a.m. the following day, Judge Whiting ruled that he should be hung that afternoon, September 18, 1846. In January 1847, however, the United States Supreme Court overturned the Cayuga County Court's judgment and granted Freeman a new criminal trial . Freeman died of complications from tuberculosis in his prison cell on August 21, 1847 , weeks before his new trial began.

Democratic party leader

In late 1847, Van Buren moved to New York City , where he started a law practice with Hamilton W. Robinson. The divorce process from Edwin Forrest , an actor, brought Van Buren yet another public sensation. He was asked several times to run for various offices, but always refused.

In 1848 Van Buren became the leader of the Barnburner faction in the Democratic Party , which rejected the election of Lewis Cass , who was benevolent towards slavery , at the Democratic National Convention in 1848 . The Barnburner held a state convention in Utica, New York , on June 22, 1848 , where they nominated Martin Van Buren as their presidential candidate. On August 9, 1848, the National Convention of the Free Soil Party was held in Buffalo (New York), which also approved this nomination. Martin Van Buren had no chance of winning, but his increasingly anti-slavery views made him a contestant to Cass. He also hoped to be able to retaliate against Cass, as this was decisive in the removal of the democratic nomination of Martin Van Buren in 1844. In the presidential election in 1848 , Martin Van Buren did not win a single state, but got enough votes in New York that the state could fall to Zachary Taylor .

John Van Buren is said to have been a most effective campaign speaker after Jon Earle , particularly among the urban working class audience. In this context, he listed the following:

"[In his speeches Van Buren] took Jacksonian antislavery arguments to new rhetorical height, excoriating the slavery conspirators, ridiculing comprising" doughfaces "and" meddlesome Whigs, "and above all, emphasizing the degrading influence of slavery on free labor. John Van Buren often stressed the Free Soil Party plank calling for free homesteads in his appeals to workingmen and freeholders, reminding them that reserving the public lands for settlers kept [the lands] out of the hands of speculators and land monopolies, as well as slaveholders . "

The Free Soil Party was against slavery as it believed it promoted comfort and was against free land / worker notions. As a strong supporter of this third party, he convinced his father to run for the party in 1848. The Free Soil Party split off from the Democratic Party shortly before, which was dominated by upper-class slave owners. Many of the members of the Free Soil Party joined the Republican Party in 1860 when Abraham Lincoln was running for the presidency. Hannibal Hamlin was even nominated by her party as Vice President of the United States . The Republican Party endorsed many, if not most, of the values ​​of the Free Soil Party. Martin Van Buren, John Van Buren, and most of their supporters in New York chose to remain Democrats.

Death and burial

John Van Buren ran as a Democrat for the post of Attorney General of New York in 1865, but suffered a defeat to the Republican John H. Martindale . He then traveled to Europe with his daughter and niece in 1866. They visited England , Sweden , Norway and Russia . Van Buren died on the way back from Liverpool to New York City on board the Scotia. A storm came up after his death. The sailors saw an omen in this and tried to surrender his body to the sea, but the captain would not allow it. After the ship reached New York, funerals were held at Grace Church in New York City and St. Peter's Church in Albany, New York. His body was buried in the Albany Rural Cemetery .

Rumors

John Van Buren was a man who was surrounded by innuendo even after his death. There were rumors that he had lost $ 5,000,  his father Lindenwald's house south of Albany, New York, and a mistress, Elena America Vespucci, descendant of Amerigo Vespucci , to George Parish of Ogdensburg, New York in a card game at the LeRay Hotel in Evans Mills (New York). This story was never confirmed, but it severely damaged Van Buren's reputation. The proverb Vote early and vote often is ascribed to him.

The other John Van Buren

John Van Buren, the son of Martin Van Buren, is sometimes confused with Judge and Congressman John Van Buren of Kingston, New York. President Van Buren's son was born in 1810 and died in 1866. John Van Buren of Kingston was born in 1799 and died in 1855. While both John Van Buren were active in the New York Democratic Party, President Van Buren's son never lived in Kingston , served as a judge or was elected to Congress.

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b} Miller, Peyton F .: A Group of Great Lawyers of Columbia County, New York, Privately Printed, 1904, pp. 184-196
2. ↑ John Van Buren's diary
3. ^ Cayuga County Courthouse and the Case that Helped Establish the Insanity Defense in New York , Benchmarks: Journal of the New York State Unified Court System, Spring 2007
4. ↑ Earle, Jonathan Halperin: Jacksonian antislavery & the politics of free soil, 1824-1854, UNC Press, 2004, pp. 167f
5. ↑ Harwood, John: National Register of Historic Places Registration: LeRay Hotel, New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, September 1982
6. ↑ David Wallechinsky and Irving Wallace: Biography of Adventurer Elena America Vespucci, Part 2 Trivia Library, 2013
7. ^ Wead, Doug: All the Presidents' Children , Simon and Schuster, 2004, ISBN 978-0-7434-4631-0 , pp. 69 and 313
8. ^ Sandra L. Quinn and Sanford Kanter: America's Royalty , Greenwood Publishing Group, 1995, ISBN 978-0-313-29535-5 , pp. 40ff
9. ^ Miller, Richard F .: States at War , Volume 2, University Press of New England, 2014, ISBN 978-1-61168-266-3 , p. 383
10. ^ William Barclay Napton, Christopher Phillips and Jason L. Pendleton: The Union on Trial , University of Missouri Press, 2005, ISBN 978-0-8262-1571-0 , p. 145
11. ^ Obituary , The New York Times, October 17, 1866
12. ↑ John Van Buren in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)