Martin Van Buren was born December 5, 1782, in Columbia County, New York. He studied law and was admitted to the New York bar in 1803. Van Buren was a surrogate of Columbia County (1808-1813) before serving in the New York Senate (1813-1820). From 1816 to 1819, he was attorney general of New York, and later he was elected to the U.S. Senate as a Republican (1821-1828). Van Buren was then elected governor of New York, serving only from January through March 1829, before President Andrew Jackson tapped him to become secretary of state. Van Buren resigned from that post in 1831 amid cabinet infighting and was appointed minister plenipotentiary to the United Kingdom of Great Britain. He was recalled to the United States in 1832 when the Senate rejected his nomination and dispatch. Van Buren would later be elected vice president of the United States as a Democrat in the second Jackson administration (1833-1837). Thereafter, he was elected President of United States on the Democratic ticket (1837-1841). Van Buren lost presidential elections in 1840 and 1848, as a Democratic and Free-Soil candidate, respectively. He retired to Kinderhook, New York, where he died on July 24, 1862.

For further reading: Van Buren, Martin. "The Autobiography of Martin Van Buren". Edited by John C. Fitzpatrick, in Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1918. Vol. 2. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1920.

Niven, John. Martin Van Buren and the Romantic Age of American Politics. New York: Oxford University Press, 1983.

Cole, Donald B. Martin Van Buren and the American Political System. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1984.