Once he held the reins of power, however, Van Buren found the road rougher. His failure to find a middle ground on the most pressing issues of his day - such as the growing conflict over slavery - eroded his effectiveness. But it was his inability to prevent the great banking panic of 1837, and the ensuing economic depression, that all but ensured his defeat for a second term in 1840. His many years of outfoxing his opponents finally caught up with him." Still, Van Buren enjoyed a remarkably long career following his presidency, nearly launching a new political party in 1848 and living until the Civil War, when a young lawyer he had once befriended in Illinois occupied the White House. Despite his short and troubled tenure in office, he fundamentally shaped the politics of the early republic and our modern party system.
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Background Information
The Democratic Party formed around Andrew Jackson in 1828 as the party representing the frontier and the common man. Daniel Webster of New Hampshire was a force in the United States Senate for the preservation of the Union above all else. Henry Clay promoted a system, known as the American System, which entailed government expenditures to promote the development of national infrastructure, paid by a protective tariff. John C. Calhoun of South Carolina was a vigorous Congressional exponent of the inteterest of the South in the decades before the Civil War.