Van Buren Avoided Wars with Britain and Mexico, Delayed Genocide of California Indians
* What: By his principled opposition to slavery (though he felt bound by the Constitution's recognition of it) Van Buren delayed both a war of aggression with Mexico to expand slavery and the genocide of California Indians that followed. He also twice avoided another likely disastrous war with Britain.
* The Number of Lives Saved: The later war with Mexico begun by President Polk killed 19,000. Genocide against California Indians killed 120,000 to 300,000. An earlier war with Britain killed 20,000, though this potential war likely would have been longer, cost more lives, and inconclusive.
* Who Also Gets the Credit:
* The Whig Party led opposition in Congress to slavery and war with Mexico.
* Abolitionists were the main force nationwide opposing the taking of Texas from Mexico.
* Van Buren spent most of his life as a pure political climber, working his way up the ladder building a political machine, then joining the Jackson administration, going from Secretary of State to Vice President and finally candidate for President. He spent most of his life trying to get the office only to be hated once he was president, and happy to leave the office after one term where he acquired the nickname “Martin Van Ruin.”
* Yet simply by being more independent minded and decent once he was in office, Van Buren prevented two wars, one very useless and the other a war of aggression, and held off a genocide for a decade. Doing so disappointed his sponsor, Andrew Jackson, and other Democrats wanting conquest. That makes Van Buren all the more admirable. A final two points, these sure to anger anti-immigrant types: Van Buren was the only US president to speak English as his second language. He was also the first US-born president, all the previous ones having been born on British territory.
* Almost immediately, Van Buren faced a possible war with Britain. In two separate incidents, some Americans tried to provoke war. In Canada, independence fighters rose up, fled to upstate New York and recruited Americans to their side. British forces attacked their refuge, an island in between the two nations, killing an American. Some Americans in the area burned a British ship and then called for war.
* Van Buren sent General Winfield Scott to make it clear he would meet vigilante violence with his own violence. He declared the US neutral on Canadian independence, and passed through Congress a neutrality law making it illegal for Americans to invade another nation. Only a year later, trouble broke out in Maine. Some Americans occupied disputed territory and the British removed them. The Governor of Maine called for troops.
* Again, Van Buren sent Scott. This time the two countries signed the Webster-Ashburton Treaty. Both crises made Van Buren very unpopular in New York and Maine. But a war with Britain over small pieces of unimportant territory would have cost thousands of lives and likely still ended in US defeat. The treaty also helped stop the illegal slave trade, saving thousands of Africans. (See the prior entry.)*
* In stopping a war with Mexico, Van Buren showed even greater courage. He was the only president between Jefferson and Lincoln to stand up to the power of slave owning elites and prevent an expansion of slavery. In doing so, Van Buren also unintentionally helped delay a genocide in California.
* Anglo-American colonists tried to take over Texas. Though invited in by the government of Mexico, they quickly began to defy the nation's laws, especially on owning slaves. Many were also deeply racist towards indigenous Mexicans, who they regarded as barbaric for their Indian ancestry. Some exaggerated Mexican government infighting among elites as “tyranny.” Santa Ana, the President of Mexico, was quite incompetent, but never killed any opponents except insurgents committing treason.
* Despite most Anglo-Americans living in Texas less than a year, they declared the land to be theirs and rose up in an insurgency. Their intent from the beginning was to take Texas away from Mexico to be a slave state in the US. Anglo-American insurgents applied to be a US state only two days after beginning their uprising.
* Van Buren publicly opposed taking Texas from Mexico. At the time of the insurgents' call, their uprising was far from a sure thing. The insurgents made enormous tactical mistakes and were so badly defeated at the Battles of the Alamo and Goliad that both rebel groups were entirely wiped out. The remains of the entire insurgency fled east, most of the way to the US border. Only a clumsy tactical mistake (forgetting to post sentries) by Santa Ana at the Battle of San Jacinto brought a chance victory.
* Santa Ana was captured and forced to sign an invalid treaty, pretending Texas was independent. But in fact Texas was never truly independent. No nation recognized them except France, whose ambassador failed to show, and later on the US once the government decided it wanted Texas. Then it suited the federal government to agree to the legal fiction of Texas independence.
* But that would be nine years in the future. When news hit the US of the insurgents' call for a US takeover of Texas, many Americans were outraged. The Whig Party, with many antiwar and antislavery voters, opposed such a theft of Mexico's territory. Van Buren's own Democratic Party was split down the middle.
* Van Buren wisely came out against the takeover of Texas from Mexico. The insurgent call to be part of the US appealed to both American patriotism and racism. They stressed how much in common they had with the US, where most had come from only months or even weeks before. They also race baited, referred to Mexicans as “barbarians.”
* Van Buren's reply was far more diplomatic than the insurgents' crude appeal. He did not tackle the question of Texas' dubious claim of independence. Though there were ministers from the Texas insurgents in Washington, the US sent only a series of charge d'affairs to the area the invaders semi-controlled, lower ranked officials sent to assess a situation.
* Van Buren in his reply stated there was no US precedent for taking another (alleged) nation. He also stated correctly that claiming Texas would start a war with Mexico. This implied he recognized Mexico's right to its own territory of Texas. Van Buren went on to say he saw no conflict in treaties between Texas and the nations of Europe. In essence he challenged insurgents to prove their independence and get recognition from Europe first.
* This angered the insurgents. Their plans to be a US slave state fell apart for now. They turned to trying to get recognition from Britain, the Netherlands, Belgium, Prussia, and France. Every nation turned them down except for France, and that attempt faltered due to the failure to exchange ambassadors. The takeover of Texas by the US would have to wait until a pro slavery president (even a slave trader, in secret) named James Polk took office.
* An earlier war with Mexico would likely have killed even higher numbers. Such a war would have happened not only at the same time as US conflicts with Britain, but close to the same time as Mexico's conflicts with France over unpaid debts led to the Pastry War. With both the US and Mexico likely fighting other nations at the same time, an earlier US-Mexico War would have been longer, bloodier, and maybe inconclusive. The US was also in the middle of losing the Second Seminole War. That war took over 10,000 US troops, over 1,600 of them dying in war. The Seminole Wars began 30 years before Van Buren and continued almost 20 years after he left office.
* As an alternative to stop the US-Mexico War, Van Buren's diplomatic nature could have proposed a compromise with Mexico. Both could have accepted the actual Texas border at the Nueces River rather than the ludicrous claims of the Rio Grande boundary extending all the way to modern day Wyoming. Texas would be perhaps half the size it is today, without the southern and western areas that are far more Latino than the rest of the state culturally. That assumes Mexico would take the offer, since they had turned down two previous US offers to buy Texas. What may make a settlement more likely is not just the other conflicts complicating the war. Van Buren was not nearly the fanatic believer in American conquest that Polk was.
* There were also several minor revolts in California, somewhat like Texas, insurgencies by foreign invaders from the US. Unlike Texas, they were not trying to take the state away for a slave state. None of the revolts lasted even a month, and some involved only a few dozen rebels. Had US-Mexico conflict stopped with a Texas compromise, there is every reason to believe California and the rest of the northern territory (what became the southwest US) would remain part of Mexico.
* The final and most important thing Van Buren did was purely unintentional. He stopped the genocide of California Indians. There is no sign that Van Buren had any concern for Natives in California. This work has argued that presidents should get at least some credit for doing the right thing for the wrong reason. Should a president also be given partial credit for accidentally halting an evil for entirely unrelated reasons, one he does not even recognize as evil?
* Van Buren certainly was indifferent to Native lives. For it was he who partly carried out the forced removal of one of the Five Tribes, the Trail of Tears. Forced removal was pushed, planned, and engineered by Jackson for his entire two terms in office. In fact Jackson made it a central part of his election strategy. But it was Van Buren who sent troops to remove the Cherokee less than a year into his own term. This is a further reason an earlier US-Mexico War would be disastrous, more drawn out, and cost more lives. Most of the US Army was forcibly removing the Five Tribes.
* Over time Van Buren became more strongly opposed to slavery. As president he considered it an evil but vowed to protect it where it already existed while blocking its spread. He ran for president again in 1848 for the Free Soil Party, whose position was the same as his own. Van Buren later supported Lincoln for president. The political climber became more principled with time.