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 MARTIN VAIV BUREIV 
 
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 TO THE 
 
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 FAIRL.Y REPRESENTED, 
 
 IN A SKETCH OF THE 
 
 eMtMBW rOI^MTie^Is Tlt^J^*S*tCTMO*VS 
 
 OF HIS LIFE. 
 
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 PRE FACE. 
 
 ELECTORS OF THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 Before any citizen of the United States deposites 
 his ballot for electors of President, we beseech him 
 CO read the following enumeration of the principal 
 events in the public life of Martin Van Buren. 
 They are faithfully and plainly stated, so that eve- 
 ry man may judge for himself. There is not one 
 of them which might not be substantiated in a court 
 of justice before an impartial jury. 
 
 Read then, and consider, before you finally en- 
 trust the destinies of your country again to such 
 weak and wicked hands. If, after all that Mr. Van 
 Buren has done, he should be replaced in power to 
 carry into effect the plans he has avowed, it is 
 very questionable whether you will again have 
 the opportunity of expressing either your appro- 
 bation or censure of the acts of the government. 
 
 /7 
 
MExlIORABLE STENTS 
 
 IN THE 
 
 POLITICAL LIFE OF 
 
 After James Madison had recommended a dq 
 claration of war against Great Britain, while en^ 
 gaged in its prosecution and needing the encourj 
 agement and support of the whole country for it i 
 successful termination, his re-election was openh 
 and violently opposed by Martin VanBuren, whc 
 voted for and procured the appointment of electors 
 in the State of New- York pledged to support 
 another candidate, and who gave the vote of the 
 State against Mr. Madison. Thus betraying the 
 confidence of the democrats who elected him to 
 the Senate, desertmg the party which had fostered 
 and cherished him, and doing all in his power to 
 bring disgrace upon the Government for its efforts 
 to maintain the character of the nation, and assert 
 the rights of its citizens. 
 
 When the honor of the country had been vindi} 
 Gated and democracy was again triumphant, Mrf 
 Van Buren advocated and caused the election t| 
 
tlic Senate of the TJiMtetJ States of Rufiis Kin^^ 
 ^vliomhe and his partizan presses had denounced, 
 Jind to this day continually represent as a Federal- 
 ist of the Hamilton schoo!. 
 
 Martin Van Buren openly and violently resisted 
 the demands of the People of the State of New- 
 ^ ork to be restored to the right of choosing Elec- 
 tors of President, w^hich had been usurped by the 
 Legislature, and his train-band in the Senate* con- 
 sistmg of the men ever since denominated' « the 
 infamous seventeen," acting under his personal in- 
 stigation, defeated the measure. One of these men,. 
 Edward P. Livingston, is now appropriately pre- 
 sented by the friends of Van Buren as a candidate 
 for Elector. 
 
 His contempt of the rights and intelligence of 
 the People was further evinced by his vote in the 
 Convention of this State against their electing their 
 own justices, and his impudent declaration that 
 ^*the further this power was removed from the 
 People the better ;" 
 
 And by his vote in the same body against the 
 proposition for a broad and liberal extension of the 
 elective franchise so as to allow any male citizen 
 of lawful age to vote who had resided in the State 
 three years and in the town one year, whether he 
 had or had not paid taxes, and supporting this vote 
 by the most violent denunciations against universal 
 suffrage. 
 
 The electors of the State availed themselves of 
 the first opportunity to rebuke the course of Mr. 
 Van Buren, by adopting amendments to the Con- 
 
stitution giving the election of justices to the Peo- 
 ple, and providing that a residence of one year in 
 the State and six months in the county should en- 
 title every citizen of full age to vote for every 
 officer. 
 
 His contempt of the People was still further ex- 
 hibited by his audacious charge in an annual mes- 
 sage to Congress and in the face of the civilized 
 world that the whole State had been bribed and 
 corrupted by banking institutions to vote against 
 him and his measures. 
 
 And again, his utter contempt of popular rights 
 and public sentiment was exhibited in his arrogant 
 declaration that the People expected too much from 
 the Governmem ; and that the Government must 
 lake care of itself and the people of themselves; 
 thus disclaiming the first principle of our institu- 
 tions engrafted in the Declaration of our Indepen- 
 dence, that "Government was instituted for the 
 benefit of ih^ governed," 
 
 He has openly and contumaciously resisted the 
 clearly expressed will of the People in relation to 
 his proposed measures, appealing to what he called 
 their sober second thoughts, and after a second and 
 a third expression of those thoughts, still persisting 
 in the obnoxious measures thus condemned, and by 
 dint of proscribing the most prominent of their op- 
 ponents, by the appliances of terror and patronage 
 10 others, and above all by a shameless COALI- 
 TION he has finally succeeded in fastening them 
 \ipon the country after they had been thrice rejected 
 by the Representatives of the People in Con- 
 gress* 
 
He has thus usurped the functions vested by 
 the Constitution in the Legislature chosen by teh 
 People, has bi-okendown the independence of Cort- 
 gress, by rendering it the mere echo of the Execu- 
 tive will, and has evinced an utter disregard and 
 contempt for the democratic principles of our gov- 
 ernment which recognized the will of the People 
 as paramount to all other authority. 
 
 At the instigation of Martin Van Buren, the foul 
 act was committed, by which De Witt Clinton, 
 to whom the State is indebted for h6r Canals, was 
 removed from the office of Canal Commissioner, 
 which he had filled without emolument, but with 
 so much advantage and honor to the State, ih^t 
 the People rose in their majesty and avenged the 
 insult by placing him in the office of Governor. 
 "" Martin Van Buren caused himoelf to be nomi- 
 nated for Governor and was elected by a minority 
 of the votes of the electors, at the very time when 
 he had determined not to discharge its duties, and 
 after being in office less than three months, left the 
 government of the State in theh ands of an imbe^ 
 cile whom his own party subsequently rejected. 
 
 In the office of Secretary of State, he disgraced 
 the country and degi-aded the station, by instruc- 
 tions to our Minister at London to represent to the 
 British Government that a new party had g-ained 
 the ascendancy, more favorable to the views of that 
 government ; — thus mingling our foreign relations 
 with our domestic politics and seeking to interest 
 the British Government in the maintenance of the 
 power of the administration to which he belonged. 
 
7 
 
 He condemned the Bank of the United States aa 
 nnconstituiional, and signed a petition to its Di- 
 rectors to establish u Branch at Albany. 
 
 As a Senator in Congress he expressed the de- 
 liberate and decided opinion that the General Goy- 
 ernment had no authority to include corporations 
 in a Bankrupt law ; and as President of the United 
 States he recommended the passage of such a law 
 which should include corporations. 
 
 He and his partizans denounced the "unregu- 
 lated spirit of speculation" at the very time when 
 he was connected with a company of speculators 
 in buying up village lots and an immense quanti- 
 ty of land in and about the village of Auburn, and 
 when the speculat ion turned out to be a loss, meanly 
 shrunk from his share of the deficiency. 
 
 Although placed for more than thirty years in 
 public stations the most favorable for accomplish- 
 ing designs for the public good, it is a fact as well 
 known as it is astonishing that he cannot point to 
 one solitary measure during his whole life, origi- 
 nated by him for the improvement of the condition 
 of his fellow -^Tiien. Not one proposition to advance 
 education, to improve jurisprudence, to increase the 
 public revenue, to facilitate trade, to encourage 
 enterprise or to reward labor, was ever made by 
 him in the Legislature of New- York or in the 
 Congress of the United States. And in looking 
 back upon a long life, he can find it occupied only 
 with petty schemes of political intrigue for his 
 own selfish purposes. 
 
 He was elected to the Presidency, not for any 
 
merits or virtues of his own, but wholly in conse- 
 quence of iiaving gained the favor of Gen. Jackson, 
 by means of a female intrigue, by which he was 
 nominated as his successor, and was chosen in 
 obedience to the wishes of the General. 
 
 To accomplish his own elevation, he ruined the 
 political fortunes of John C. Calhoun, and drove 
 him to acts of desperation, little short of treason 
 to his country ; and thus stained with the deepest 
 political crimes and an object of abhorrence to the 
 American people, he formed with him the most 
 unprincipled COALITION recorded in history, 
 and received him into his confidence and his coun- 
 sels. 
 
 For the purpose of purchasing the support of 
 Calhoun and his contemptible faction, Martin Van 
 Buren consented to the insertion of the Specie 
 clause in the Sub-Treasury Bill requiring gold and 
 silver in all payments to the Government, by which 
 the currency will be diminished, trade and com- 
 merce embarrased, free labor at the orth reduced 
 to the standard of slave labor at the South, and 
 industry checked and enterprise baffled. 
 
 The character which his own political friends 
 at the South give him, "a northern man with 
 southern principles" while it illustrates his duplici- 
 ty, is in itself a reproach which every honorable 
 man would spurn. 
 
 He has had the unblushing audacity to declare 
 in a letterto a committee of his friends in Kentucky 
 that the system of finance which has prevailed in 
 our country for the last fifty years,^was a departure 
 
from the principles of the Revohition, and was de- 
 vised for the purpose of strangUng our liberty : — 
 thus libelling the patriotism and wisdom of Wash- 
 ington, Jefferson and Madison, and vaunting his 
 own- virtue and intelligence as superior to theirs ! 
 
 To find a system congenial with the republican 
 principles of our Revolution, he made inquiries of 
 the monarchies and despotisms of the old world, 
 and discovered that hard-money and low wages 
 were best adapted to the enterprise, the industry 
 and the skill of free Americans, — and gravely ur- 
 ges upon them a plan which has been so beneficial 
 in keeping the subjects of Kings and Emperors in 
 due subordination. 
 
 This system thus imported from Cuba, Russia 
 and Austria, he has caused to be adopted through 
 the forms of legislation, as avowed by him, solely 
 for the benefit of the Government. It affords no. 
 currency for the People ; it supplies no aid to busi- 
 ness, no facilities to enterprise ; and thus he car- 
 ries out his own principle, that the Government 
 must take care of itself, and the People of them- 
 selves. . 
 
 While he would thus reduce the means of the 
 People, he is himself indulging in princely extrava- 
 srance surpassed by few of the monarchs of Europe* 
 Despising the artists of his own country, he has 
 introduced into his palace the most expensive 
 fabrics of foreign manufacture, and lavishes the 
 public treasure upon baubles and trinkets adapted 
 to the effeminate court of some degenerate Oriental 
 Nabob, 
 
He has brought mdehble disgrace upon out 
 arms, by the conduct of his war against a few 
 miserable Indians of Florida, by the sanction of 
 the inhuman employment of blood hounds and by 
 the imbecile movements which have cost the Na- 
 tion millions upon millions, without accomplishing 
 any thing but disaster and dishonor. 
 
 Professing economy, he has increased the ex- 
 penditures of the Government from 13 millions to 
 39 millions annually, and has actually incurred a 
 National debt to sustain the extravagance of his 
 administration, in the very form which his adhe- 
 rents have most loudly condemned, — that of irre- 
 deemable Post Notes. 
 
 And such have been the prodigality and extrava- 
 gance of his administration, that works which 
 had been commenced in various parts of the Union, 
 for the improvement of harbors and the navigation 
 of rivers, have been suspended, and the materials 
 and implements sold at public auction ; — an( 
 those which are continued, are carried on by re^ 
 quiring the workmen to give credit to the govern- 
 ment until April next. 
 
 He has brought the patronage of the Executive 
 in direct conflict with the freedom of election, by 
 instigating and sanctioning the interference of his 
 mercenary army of office-holders in the elections 
 for State and United States officers, and we be- 
 hold ihem at this moment traversing the country 
 in every direction, and endeavoring to smother th4 
 voice of an indignant People. Ships of war ar«J 
 ordered to ports where elections are about to b 
 
1 
 
 jield, that their crews may be marched to th« 
 'oils and overcome the votes of our citizens. The 
 iarpies of the Custom houses, whose name is le- 
 jion, and whose number has been increased to 
 5uit the occasion ; the pirates of the Post Office, 
 and the deputy marshals appointed to take the 
 census, overspread the land like the locusts of 
 Egypt, to influence, control, and overawe the 
 ELECTIONS OF THE PEOPLE. 
 
 He has retained in office PUBLIC DEFAULT- 
 ERS, with full knowledge of their delinquency, 
 and after they had been repeatedly threatened 
 with his "displeasure" for not rendering their ac- 
 
 oounts and paying over tho pnblio monies, hc haS 
 
 not only permitted them to resign with the public 
 treasure in their pockets, without punishment or 
 exposure, but has appointed the successors whom 
 they were pleased to recommend. Millions upon 
 millions have been lost by the peculations of the 
 receivers and collectors of the public revenue, ex- 
 ceeding in his administration the whole am^ount 
 that had occurred previously since the adoption 
 of the Constitution ; and " public defaulter" has 
 become as familiar to our ears as " the spoils of 
 victory." 
 
 He has trafficked the PUBLIC LANDS, the 
 common heritage of all the citizens of America, 
 for political support, and has sanctioned a system 
 of rapacious plunder, alike violating the rights of 
 the States and destructive of a fund adequate to 
 the education of all the children of the United 
 iBtates. 
 
12 v^l 
 
 And that there might not be a single odious 
 feature wanting, he has recommended to Con- 
 gress a plan for a standing army of 200,000 men, 
 to consist of the militia of the States, and to be 
 called into the service of the United "States for 
 the avowed purpose of being drilled and disci- 
 plined under officers of the Federal Government, 
 in direct opposition to the very words of the Con- 
 stitution, which give to the States exclusively the 
 power of training their militia, and which limit 
 the cases in which they can be called into the 
 service of the United States, to those of insurrec- 
 tion, invasion, and the execution of the laws. 
 
 It is submitted to the Pooplo of iho TTnaoa 
 States whether a ruler, whose character is thus 
 marked by every act which may define a heart- 
 less, unprincipled demagogue, whose professions 
 of love for the People are equalled only by his 
 acts of contempt and insolence, and by his mea- 
 sures to degrade and impoverish them,— is fit to 
 be affain elevated to the same station. 
 
HBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 It 111 
 
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