America First Politician

The first chief executive not born a British citizen and the first to use the party system to chart his way from tavern-keeper's son to the pinnacle of power.

In Martin Van Buren: America's First Politician, James M. Bradley provides a portrait of the man and a portrait of his time. The latter is the book's strongest suit. Martin Van Buren was a politician's politician. He deemed political parties a positive good. More than anyone, he founded today's Democratic party. Having already read Cole's biography of Martin Van Buren, I wasn't sure how much I'd learn from Bradley's. I learned a lot. Not so much about Van Buren, but Bradley's detailed account of antebellum history filled in countless holes in my knowledge. I've been studying American History for more than five years, full time for more than two. Bradley gives us lots of details so that, for example, I finally understand the anti-Masonic movement, the Maysville Road veto, why the Locofocos were radicals (you would think that hard money people would be conservative), the Antirent War, the Canadian independence movement, the motives behind the Tariff of Abominations, and countless other antebellum issues and events. It's in the details that Bradley's book shines as a history book, and Bradley provides plenty of scholarly sources to shore up what is not in other books. From now on it's picky stuff. Bradley never stops reminding us of slavery. If Joel Poinsett has a "grand, lush estate" in South Carolina, do we need to be told he owned slaves? President Polk's father was "prosperous enough to own slaves." Polk's wife Sarah had "enslaved workers running the estate". There are many other examples. One rule of good writing is to never explain what does not need to be explained. Bradley is a fine writer, but why offer sops to those who see American history one-dimensionally? Similarly, I see nothing "predatory" about Richard Mentor Johnson, a man of principle and a great American. Another sop? There are a few errors to be fixed in the next edition. Gallstone surgery was unlikely to have led to President Polk's sterility. Polk's biographer, Borneman, points to stones in the urinary tract. I forget exactly where. On p. 166 (hardcover), Bradley gives us the Ninth Amendment when he means the Tenth. On p. 191, Charlestown should be Charleston. On p. 287, we see "misfire", but a misfire is when you pull the trigger, and the gun goes click. On p. 291, English Whigs appeared in the seventeenth century, not the eighteenth. (The book I wrote has errors too.) Overall, it's five stars for James M. Bradley's Martin Van Buren: America's First Politician.