Martin Van Buren Trivia

1. President Martin Van Buren did not speak English as his first language growing up as a child in Kinderhook, New York. Which was his native language?

From Quiz President Martin Van Buren's Life

Answer: Dutch

Martin Van Buren was born December 5, 1782, and spoke Dutch as a child in the small primarily Dutch community of Kinderhook, 20 miles south of Albany. He shared Dutch ancestral heritage with Presidents Theodore and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Van Buren was the first U.S. President who was not of British paternal descent. Others over time included the two Roosevelts (Dutch), Herbert Hoover (German), Dwight D. Eisenhower (German), and Barack Obama (Kenyan).

From Quiz Martin Van Buren

Answer: Netherlands

Van Buren's great great grandfather, Cornelius Maesen, hailed from Buurmalsen in the Netherlands.

From Quiz President Martin Van Buren's Life

Answer: His deceased common-law wife, Julia Chinn was a slave

Virginia withheld its electoral votes from Johnson because of amorous relationships that Johnson publicly acknowledged and pursued with his own female slaves. He acknowledged Julia Chinn, a slave he had inherited from his father, to be his common-law wife. When Chinn died in 1833 during a cholera epidemic, Johnson forged a second common-law relationship with another of his slaves. When she in turn left him for another man, Johnson had her captured and sold at auction. He subsequently began a third relationship with the second slave's sister. Because the electors from Virginia withheld their votes from Johnson, the election resulted in an insufficient number of votes for Johnson (147) to gain a majority and the election (148 required for election). For the first time in the history of the United States, the election of the Vice President was thrown into the Senate, where Richard Mentor Johnson won handily on a party-line vote of 33 for Johnson, and 16 for Francis Granger.

From Quiz Martin Van Buren

Answer: Theodore Roosevelt

Truman is a distant relative of John Tyler. Nixon is a distant relative of both William Howard Taft and Herbert Hoover. Cleveland was a 6th cousin, once removed of Ulysses S. Grant.

From Quiz President Martin Van Buren's Life

Answer: Vice President John Calhoun

On January 25, 1832, the United States Senate considered the question of "consent" to Jackson's nomination of Martin Van Buren as ambassador to Great Britain. The vote for approval tied at 23-23. As the presiding officer of the Senate, Vice President John C. Calhoun cast the tie-breaking negative vote, depriving Jackson and Van Buren of the nomination. Calhoun was already at odds with President Andrew Jackson over the refusal of Mrs. Floride Bonneau Calhoun, to associate with Peggy Eaton during the "Petticoat Affair". Additionally, Calhoun stead-fastly championed South Carolina's Nullification Law in opposition to Jackson's support of federal tariffs (also supported by Van Buren). The strain between Jackson and Calhoun was such that in the election of November 1832. Jackson was re-elected with Martin Van Buren as his Vice President replacing Calhoun. Calhoun and Jackson finally broke with one another irrevocably, when Calhoun resigned as Vice President on December 28, 1832, to serve as the newly elected Senator from the State of South Carolina. Although Calhoun only had three more months to serve as Vice President when he resigned, he was nonetheless the first Vice President of the United States to voluntarily resign his office while serving in the office.

From Quiz Martin Van Buren

Answer: four boys

The names of Van Buren's children were: Abraham, John, Martin Jr., and Smith.

From Quiz Martin Van Buren

Answer: William Crawford

Crawford was considered the likely winner of the 1824 election until he suffered a stroke. Even after suffering the stroke, Van Buren still supported him for the office.

From Quiz President Martin Van Buren's Life

Answer: The Little Magician

Because of his many differences with John C. Calhoun, many were amazed that he still overcame all those differences, and was elected Vice President in 1832, then President in 1836. Van Buren was only 5'6" as documented by White House official documents.

From Quiz Martin Van Buren

Answer: 3 months

Van Buren only ran for Governor of New York to improve Andrew Jackson's chances of winning the state in the election of 1828. Van Buren was sworn in as governor in January 1829 and resigned the office in March to become Jackson's secretary of state.

From Quiz President Martin Van Buren's Life

Answer: Missouri

In 1838, Governor Lilburn Boggs of Missouri authorized the use of military troops to forcibly remove 20,000 Mormons from the state of Missouri.

From Quiz Martin Van Buren

Answer: Great Britain

This was during a period when Jackson was fighting with the Congress on a regular basis.

From Quiz President Martin Van Buren's Life

Answer: The Blue Room

The oval or elliptical Blue Room is the centermost of the state rooms on the first floor of the White House. It is the traditional place for Presidents to formally receive a guest to the White House. Prior to Van Buren's administration, various color schemes and furnishings had been used by previous Presidents to decorate the room. The designation of the color blue by Van Buren in 1837 for the furnishings of the room, had remained an ongoing tradition enduring through each of the successive Presidencies. President Grover Cleveland married Frances Folsom in the Blue Room on June 2, 1886.

From Quiz President Martin Van Buren's Life

Answer: The legislation was not presented with the required congressional signatures

March 5, 1839, Official Communication of the Office of President to the Joint Houses of Congress: "The annexed joint resolution was presented to me by Messrs. Foster and Metrick, of the Senate, on the 4th of March at half past 3 o'clock a.m. at the President's house, after a joint committee had informed me at the Capitol that the two Houses had completed their business and were ready to adjourn, and had communicated my answer that I had no further communication to make to them. The committee of the Senate, on presenting the joint resolution for my signature, stated in explanation of the circumstance that they were not attended by the Committee on Enrolled Bills of the House of Representatives (as is required by the joint rules of the two Houses); that that body had adjourned about two hours before. The joint resolution is not certified by the clerk of the House in which it originated, as is likewise required by the joint rules. Under these circumstances and without reference to its provisions, I withheld my approval from the joint resolution."

From Quiz Martin Van Buren

Answer: Willie Magnum

Willie Magnum was the US senator from North Carolina. Hugh White had originally won the electorial votes of South Carolina but the electors refused to support him because of his stand during the nullification crisis.

From Quiz President Martin Van Buren's Life

Answer: Woodley

Woodley was built in 1803 on a 250-acre tract of land owned by Philip Barton Key, uncle of Francis Scott Key. Situated on a plateau above the District of Columbia, Woodley benefitted from cool breezes from the Potomac River and offers respite from the stagnant heat of downtown Washington. Later, the edifice is home to the Maret School. During his summers as President, Van Buren closed the residential living quarters at the White House and rented the Woodley estate. Each morning he would ride on horseback to the White House office, and return to Woodley in the evening. Rentals of Woodley by Presidents Tyler and Buchanan are less certifiable than those of Van Buren and Cleveland. During Cleveland's first administration (1885-1889), he purchased a 27-acre working farm with a house known as "Red Top". The property was sold at a considerable profit when he left office in 1889. During the second administration, he leased the Woodley property from 1893 until leaving office in 1897.

From Quiz Martin Van Buren

Answer: Virginia

Johnson was a controversial man at this period in history. He claimed that he was the one that killed Tecumseh at the Battle of the Thames and Johnson had taken a slave as his common-law wife. The senate elected Johnson vice-president by a vote of 33-16 over Francis Granger.

From Quiz President Martin Van Buren's Life

Answer: No one. He stood for re-election alone

The Democratic Party Convention was held in Baltimore during May 1840. It refused to re-nominate Richard Mentor Johnson as Van Buren's Vice Presidential running mate (although Van Buren continued to support him). Instead, the individual states' Democratic members were left to vote for whom ever they desired for the office of Vice President, effectively leaving Van Buren to run alone without a running mate. In the Electoral College voting for Vice President, John Tyler (Virginia) received 234 votes; Richard Mentor Johnson (Kentucky) received 48 votes; Littleton W. Tazewell (Virginia) received 11 votes, and James Knox Polk (Tennessee) received 1 vote. Van Buren lost the Electoral College vote for the Presidency. Martin Van Buren (New York) received 60 votes, and William Henry Harrison (Ohio) received 234 votes.

From Quiz Martin Van Buren

Answer: widower

Van Buren's wife, Hannah, died February 5, 1819 from tuberculosis. He never remarried.

From Quiz Martin Van Buren

Answer: Aroostook War

In dispute was 12,000 square miles of land on the Aroostook River between Maine and New Brunswick. The dispute was settled as part of the Webster-Ashburton Treaty of 1842.

From Quiz Martin Van Buren

Answer: Nigel Hawthorne

Hopkins played former president John Quincy Adams in the movie. George C. Scott played fictional president Samuel Tresch in the 80's Fox series "Mr. President" and Kline played the president in "Dave". Hawthorne received an Oscar nomination for playing another world leader, England's King George III, in "The Madness of King George" in the mid 90's.

From Quiz Martin Van Buren

Answer: Free Soil

Van Buren was the front-runner for the Democratic nomination in 1844 but his opposition to the annexation of Texas eventually cost him the nomination. In 1848, the Free-Soil Party, meeting in Buffalo, nominated him and Charles Francis Adams, the son of John Qunicy Adams, for vice-president. They won no electorial votes but drew enough votes away from Democratic nominee Lewis Cass to give the election to the Whig candidate Zachary Taylor.

From Quiz Martin Van Buren

Answer: Abraham Lincoln

Van Buren died July 24, 1862, during Lincoln's first term. Until the election of Bill Clinton in 1992, Lincoln's election in 1861 was the only time in US History that five ex-presidents were still alive. Alive at the time of Lincoln's first election were Van Buren, Tyler, Fillmore, Pierce and Buchanan. Alive at the time of Clinton's first election were Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan and Bush.

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