I have not read your material, so I’m going to read this article, and I’m going to read your chapter concerning Van Buren’s creation of a national political party in seven events that changed america. And after that, I’ll get back to you! My MA was on Jackson and the Nullification Crisis; my knowledge of the Bank war is decent, and my knowledge of Jackson historiography is really good, but not necessarily on the bank war. After I’ve read, I’ll let you know what I think.
By your last post, are you suggesting that Van Buren was more of a creator of the Democratic Party than Jackson himself?
As I show in the book chapter, the Pendleton Act, designed to "reform" this, really made it worse because after the PA, pols could no longer give away a few thousand jobs to supporters, they now had to promise huge blocs worth of jobs (ethanol subsidies, gay rights, whatever) to different groups of people to get out the vote.