Presidency of Martin Van Buren

The Van Buren Cabinet
Office	Name	Term
President	Martin Van Buren	1837–1841
Vice President	Richard Mentor Johnson	1837–1841
Secretary of State	John Forsyth	1837–1841
Secretary of Treasury	Levi Woodbury	1837–1841
Secretary of War	Joel R. Poinsett	1837–1841
Attorney General	Benjamin Butler	1837–1838
	Felix Grundy	1838–1840
	Henry D. Gilpin	1840–1841
Postmaster General	Amos Kendall	1837–1840
	John M. Niles	1840–1841
Secretary of the Navy	Mahlon Dickerson	1837–1838
	James K. Paulding	1838–1841

The presidency of Martin Van Buren began on March 4, 1837, when Martin Van Buren was inaugurated as President of the United States, and ended on March 4, 1841. Van Buren, the incumbent Vice President and chosen successor of President Andrew Jackson, took office as the eighth United States president, after winning the 1836 presidential election. A Democrat, he garnered 170 electoral votes to 124 for William Henry Harrison and 3 other Whig Party candidates. Along with John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and George H. W. Bush, Van Buren is one of four sitting vice presidents to win a presidential election.

The primary problem his administration faced was a sustained, long-term downturn in the nation's economy following the Panic of 1837 (occurring just weeks after his presidency began). While he opposed any direct federal government intervention, he was committed to keeping the United States solvent, thus he cut back federal spending. He proposed keeping control of federal funds in an independent treasury—rather than in state banks—but Congress would not approve of this until 1840. As a result, the 1840 presidential election was held in the middle of a depression.

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