[17] Also during his childhood, Van Buren learned at his father's inn how to interact with people from varied ethnic, income, and societal groups, which he used to his advantage as a political organizer.

[31] The couple had six children, four of whom lived to adulthood: Abraham (1807–1873), unnamed daughter (stillborn around 1809), John (1810–1866), Martin Jr. (1812–1855), Winfield Scott (born and died in 1814), and Smith Thompson (1817–1876).

[40] Later in the year, the United States entered the War of 1812 against Great Britain, while Clinton launched an unsuccessful bid to defeat President James Madison in the 1812 presidential election.

Van Buren moved from Hudson to the state capital of Albany, where he established a legal partnership with Benjamin Butler,[47] and shared a house with political ally Roger Skinner.

[86] Meanwhile, Clinton's death from a heart attack in 1828 dramatically shook up the politics of Van Buren's home state, while the Anti-Masonic Party emerged as an increasingly important factor.

[99] No serious diplomatic crises arose during Van Buren's tenure as Secretary of State, but he achieved several notable successes, such as settling long-standing claims against France and winning reparations for property that had been seized during the Napoleonic Wars.

Items on which he did not achieve success included settling the Maine-New Brunswick boundary dispute with Great Britain, gaining settlement of the U.S. claim to the Oregon Country, concluding a commercial treaty with Russia, and persuading Mexico to sell Texas.

[100][101] In addition to his foreign policy duties, Van Buren quickly emerged as an important advisor to Jackson on major domestic issues like the tariff and internal improvements.

[102] The Secretary of State was instrumental in convincing Jackson to issue the Maysville Road veto, which both reaffirmed limited government principles and also helped prevent the construction of infrastructure projects that could potentially compete with New York's Erie Canal.

[111] As the debate over the tariff and the proposed ability of South Carolina to nullify federal law consumed Washington, Van Buren, not Calhoun, increasingly emerged as Jackson's likely successor.

[124] Van Buren won the nomination over Philip P. Barbour (Calhoun's favored candidate) and Richard Mentor Johnson due to the support of Jackson and the strength of the Albany Regency.

[135] He also helped undermine a fledgling alliance between Jackson and Daniel Webster, a senator from Massachusetts who could have potentially threatened Van Buren's project to create two parties separated by policy differences rather than personalities.

Besides endorsing internal improvements and a national bank, the Whigs tried to tie Democrats to abolitionism and sectional tension, and attacked Jackson for "acts of aggression and usurpation of power".

[144] To demonstrate consistency regarding his opinions on slavery, Van Buren cast the tie-breaking Senate vote for a bill to subject abolitionist mail to state laws, thus ensuring that its circulation would be prohibited in the South.

He solicited advice from department heads, tolerated open and even frank exchanges between cabinet members, perceiving himself as "a mediator, and to some extent an umpire between the conflicting opinions" of his counselors.

Two months into his presidency, on May 10, 1837, some important state banks in New York, running out of hard currency reserves, refused to convert paper money into gold or silver, and other financial institutions throughout the nation quickly followed suit.

Constitutional scruples and fear of war with Mexico were the reasons given for the rejection,[176] but concern that it would precipitate a clash over the extension of slavery undoubtedly influenced Van Buren and continued to be the chief obstacle to annexation.

[180] Van Buren, looking to avoid a war with Great Britain, sent General Winfield Scott to the Canada–United States border with large discretionary powers for its protection and its peace.

[192] The unique nature of the case heightened public interest in the saga, including the participation of former president Adams, Africans testifying in federal court, and their representation by prominent lawyers.

[195] For the first half of his presidency, Van Buren, who had been a widower for many years, did not have a specific person to act as White House hostess at administration social events, but tried to assume such duties himself.

After the 1839 New Year's Eve reception, The Boston Post raved: "[Angelica Van Buren is a] lady of rare accomplishments, very modest yet perfectly easy and graceful in her manners and free and vivacious in her conversation ... universally admired.

Newspaper coverage of this, and the claim that she intended to re-landscape the White House grounds to resemble the royal gardens of Europe, was used in a political attack on her father-in-law by a Pennsylvania Whig Congressman Charles Ogle.

Van Buren was reluctant to drop Johnson, who was popular with workers and radicals in the North[199] and added military experience to the ticket, which might prove important against likely Whig nominee William Henry Harrison.

[148] Whigs also depicted Van Buren as an aristocrat living in high style in the White House, while they used images of Harrison in a log cabin sipping cider to convince voters that he was a man of the people.

[203] Issues of policy were not absent from the campaign; the Whigs derided the alleged executive overreaches of Jackson and Van Buren, while also calling for a national bank and higher tariffs.

[207] He continued to closely watch political developments, including the battle between the Whig alliance of the Great Triumvirate and President John Tyler, who took office after Harrison's death in April 1841.

[210] Van Buren remained silent on major public issues like the debate over the Tariff of 1842, hoping to arrange for the appearance of a draft movement for his presidential candidacy.

[238] Though reluctant to bolt from the Democratic Party, Van Buren accepted the nomination to show the power of the anti-slavery movement, help defeat Cass, and weaken the Hunkers.

In a public message accepting the nomination, Van Buren gave his full support for the Wilmot Proviso, a proposed law that would ban slavery in all territories acquired from Mexico in the Mexican–American War.

Although "OK" was initially popularized as a humorous abbreviation for "oll korrect" (a deliberate misspelling of "all correct") in newspapers during the late 1830s, its association with Van Buren's campaign helped solidify its place in American vernacular.