Martin Van Buren Papers

A Finding Aid to the Collection in the Library of Congress

Prepared by Mary Wolfskill, John McDonough, David Mathisen, and Nan Ernst

Manuscript Division, Library of Congress

Washington, D.C.

2009

Contact information: http://lcweb.loc.gov/rr/mss/address.html

Finding aid encoded by Library of Congress Manuscript Division, 2001

Finding aid URL: http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.mss/eadmss.ms001044

Latest revision: 2009 April

Table of Contents

Collection Summary

Selected Search Terms

Personal Names

Organizations

Subjects

Locations

Related Names

Occupations

Administrative Information

Provenance:

Processing History:

Additional Guides:

Related Material:

Copyright Status:

Access and Restrictions

Microfilm:

Preferred Citation:

Biographical Note

Scope and Content Note

Organization of the Papers

Description of Series

Container List

Collection Summary

Selected Search Terms

The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the Library's online catalog. They are grouped by name of person or organization, by subject or location, and by occupation and listed alphabetically therein.

Administrative Information

The papers of Martin Van Buren, attorney, senator from New York, secretary of state, and vice president and president of the United States, were acquired by the Library of Congress through gift and purchase beginning in 1902. The largest group of papers was given to the Library in 1904-1905 by Mrs. Smith Thompson Van Buren and Stuyvesant Fish Morris. There have been numerous additions to the collection since 1906, most of which were acquired through purchase.

The papers of Martin Van Buren were arranged and described in 1980. Additional material was incorporated into the collection in 1985, 1986, and 1996. The finding aid was revised in 2009.

Series 2, General Correspondence, of the collection is listed and indexed in Calendar of the Papers of Martin Van Buren (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1910).

An edition of fifty-five reels of positive microfilm reproducing the papers of Martin Van Buren from the originals in the Library of Congress and in over 260 other repositories and private collections was produced in 1987 by Chadwyck-Healey, Inc. It is available for consultation in the Manuscript Division Reading Room with accompanying reel notes and item index.

The status of copyright in the unpublished writings of Martin Van Buren is governed by the Copyright Law of the United States (Title 17, U.S.C.).

The Van Buren Papers are open to research. Researchers are advised to contact the Manuscript Reading Room prior to visiting. Many collections are stored off-site and advance notice is needed to retrieve these items for research use.

A microfilm edition of part of these papers is available on thirty-seven reels. Consult reference staff in the Manuscript Division concerning availability for purchase or interlibrary loan. To promote preservation of the originals, researchers are required to consult the microfilm edition as available.

Researchers wishing to cite this collection should include the following information: Container or reel number, Martin Van Buren Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

Biographical Note

Scope and Content Note

The papers of Martin Van Buren (1782-1862) extend from 1787 to 1910, although they principally relate to the period from 1820 to 1850. The papers are organized in eight series: Autobiography, General Correspondence, Additional Correspondence, Messages, Legal Record Book, Estate Record Book, Miscellany, and Addenda. Letters received by Van Buren constitute the bulk of his papers, but many drafts, contemporary copies, and original letters sent are also preserved, as well as transcripts and photocopies of letters written by Van Buren. The collection includes notes, drafts, and typescripts for some of Van Buren's writings, notably his autobiography; drafts of his messages to Congress, 1837-1838; drafts and notes for other addresses and speeches; a legal record book, 1807-1813, relating to matters handled by Van Buren; and an estate record book, 1862-1863, containing a copy of his will and entries relating to the settlement of his estate. The Addenda includes correspondence and a travel journal kept by John Van Buren during his trip to England and the European continent in 1838-1839.

Correspondence in Series 2- 3 and Series 8 covers a wide range of subjects related to Martin Van Buren and his close associates. Among these subjects are slavery, the abolitionist and antislavery movements, banking and the Second Bank of the United States, party politics in New York state and on the national level involving the Federalist, National Republican, Whig, and Democratic parties, and the policies and programs of such opposition figures as John C. Calhoun, Henry Clay, DeWitt Clinton, William Henry Harrison, Winfield Scott, Zachary Taylor, John Tyler, and Daniel Webster. Other topics represented in the Van Buren Papers are Indian affairs, internal improvements, the annexation of Texas and the war with Mexico, the Free Soil movement, tariff questions, the affairs of the Washington Globe, foreign relations particularly with France and England, the Northeast Boundary Question, and Van Buren's home, "Lindenwald," in Kinderhook, New York. Preeminently, however, Van Buren's papers relate to the politics and policies of his own administration and to the presidency of Andrew Jackson.

Correspondents include George Bancroft, Thomas Hart Benton, Francis P. Blair, James Buchanan, Benjamin F. Butler (1795-1858), Churchill C. Cambreleng, John A. Dix, John Fairfield, Azariah Cutting Flagg, Henry D. Gilpin, James Hamilton, Jr., Jesse Hoyt, Charles Jared Ingersoll, Andrew Jackson (more than 130 letters), Amos Kendall, William L. Marcy, Louis McLane, Richard Elliot Parker, James Kirke Paulding, Joel R. Poinsett, James K. Polk, Thomas Ritchie, William Cabell Rives, Andrew Stevenson, Levi Woodbury, and Silas Wright.

A Calendar of the Papers of Martin Van Buren (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1910) provides a list and index for Series 2, General Correspondence, except for the one hundred and forty-eight letters received by the Library after 1910 that have been interfiled within the series. Typescripts of selected letters in Series 2 are included in Series 7, Miscellany.

Series 8, Addenda, formerly designated as Series 8 through Series 10, includes small additions in four separate subseries grouped according to the year the material was added to the Van Buren Papers. The 1980 Addition, consisting of correspondence, certificates, an indenture, and other material dated 1799-1861, has been microfilmed. Subsequent additions are not microfilmed.

The 1985 Addition, formerly designated as Series 9, includes a letter from Van Buren to Benjamin F. Butler, 1847, and a maritime document dated 1839.

The 1986 Addition, formerly designated as Series 10, contains correspondence and a travel journal dated 1838-1839 of the president's son, John Van Buren.

The 1996 Addition includes correspondence, principally letters from Van Buren to Benjamin F. Butler and wife, Harriet Allen Butler. Butler was an early law partner of Van Buren's who served as attorney general and secretary of war for Andrew Jackson and was appointed United States attorney for southern New York by Van Buren and James K. Polk. His son, William Allen Butler, an attorney in New York known for legal treatises and light verse, published a eulogy of Van Buren which is included in the 1996 Addition. Also included is a letter dated 1822 from Van Buren to Stephen Decatur Miller concerning an act for the reduction of the army and other matters before Congress.

An edition of fifty-five reels of positive microfilm reproducing the papers of Martin Van Buren from the originals in the Library of Congress and in over 260 other repositories and private collections was produced in 1987 by Chadwyck-Healey, Inc. It is available for consultation in the Manuscript Division Reading Room with accompanying reel notes and item index.

Organization of the Papers

The collection is arranged in nine series:

• Series 1, Autobiography, 1854-1862
• Series 2, General Correspondence, 1787-1868
• Series 3, Additional Correspondence, 1811-1853
• Series 4, Messages, 1837-1838
• Series 5, Legal Record Book, 1807-1813
• Series 6, Estate Record Book, 1862-1863
• Series 7, Miscellany, 1814-1910
• Series 8, Addenda, 1799-1862
• Oversize, 1839

Description of Series

Container List