Martin Van Buren (1782–1862), president of the United States, 1837–41, was born in Kinderhook, New York. There he apprenticed to an attorney, and after a further stint working in a law office in New York City for two years, he returned to Kinderhook in 1803 and started his own practice. Five years later Van Buren moved to Hudson. A staunch Republican, he sat in the New York state senate, 1812–20, and also served as the state’s attorney general, 1815–19, having moved to Albany in 1816. Van Buren helped form the new Bucktail faction in New York and was elected to the United States Senate, 1821–28. He visited TJ at Monticello in 1824. Van Buren was elected governor of New York but only held the position for two months in 1829, resigning to become the United States secretary of state under Andrew Jackson. He soon influenced Jackson to embrace the political spoils system. In 1831 Van Buren left the cabinet to become envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary to Great Britain. After the Senate rejected this appointment early the next year, he returned to the United States and was elected vice president. In 1835 a Democratic convention unanimously nominated Van Buren to be its presidential candidate, and he narrowly won the ensuing election. He lost his bid for a second term in 1840, then failed to gain the Democratic nomination in 1844 and was defeated as the Free Soil candidate in 1848. Van Buren’s Inquiry into the Origin and Course of Political Parties in the United States was edited and published posthumously by his sons in 1867. He died at his home in Kinderhook (ANB description begins John A. Garraty and Mark C. Carnes, eds., American National Biography, 1999, 24 vols. description ends ; DAB description begins Allen Johnson and Dumas Malone, eds., Dictionary of American Biography, 1928–36, 20 vols. description ends ; DLC: Van Buren Papers; John C. Fitzpatrick, ed., “The Autobiography of Martin Van Buren,” Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the year 1918 [1920], vol. 2; JEP description begins Journal of the Executive Proceedings of the Senate of the United States description ends , 4:6, 7, 494, 507–8 [6 Mar. 1829, 7 Dec. 1831, 25 Jan. 1832]; Donald B. Cole, Martin Van Buren and the American Political System [1984]; New York Evening Post, 24 July 1862).