Why was Martin Van Buren a one-term president?
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Figure false: Panic of 1837 Cartoon
Figure false: A sad family with an unemployed father faces sudden hardship in this cartoon showing the consequences of the panic of 1837. The wife and children complain of hunger, the house is stripped nearly bare, and rent collectors loom in the doorway. Faint pictures on the wall show Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren presiding over the economic devastation of the family. Library of Congress.
CHRONOLOGY
1835
- – Abolitionist literature is burned in Charleston, South Carolina.
1836
- – Martin Van Buren is elected president.
- – Congress institutes “gag rule” against antislavery petitions.
1837
- – Economic panic.
1839
- – Economic panic.
1840
- – William Henry Harrison is elected president.
BY THE MID-1830s, a vibrant and tumultuous political culture occupied center stage in American life. Andrew Jackson, too ill to stand for a third term, made way for Martin Van Buren, who faced tough opposition from an array of opposing Whigs and even from slave-owning Jacksonians. Van Buren was a skilled politician, but soon after his inauguration the country faced economic collapse. A shattering panic in 1837, followed by another in 1839, brought the country its worst economic depression yet.