Pelahm: "That doesn’t fit the time line.
Van Buren was Andrew Jackson’s VP and was President from 1837-1841.
The Tammany Hall machine had been around since the 1790s but it wasn’t all that big until after the Irish Potato Famine circa 1845.
By that time Van Buren was an anti-slavery leader in the Free Soil Party.
Most of that machine stuff occurred after the Civil War during the Gilded Age when the lone Democrat President was Grover Cleveland, a Bourbon Democrat to the right of most modern conservatives."
No offense to Cleveland ("ma, ma, where's my pa?") at the time there were genuinely conservative Democrats.
Unfortunately neither Southerner Wilson nor New Yorker Franklin Roosevelt were amongst them.
But Martin Van Buren is the important point here.
Years ago he was identified by our own LS as the Founder of the Northern-Southern Democrat party alliance which ruled Washington, DC from the time of Andrew Jackson (circa 1828) until secession in 1861.
Van Buren's contribution was to forge Northern big-city immigrant populations into Democrat voting blocks firmly allied with the Southern slave-power.
Indeed, the Northern component included those "Northeastern power brokers" that so exercise DiogenesLamp.
They were business partners, political allies and social companions to Southern planters.
They loaned money, provided shipping & warehouses, their sons & daughters married and moved to start plantations of their own.
When Deep South Fire Eaters began declaring secession, in late 1860, those New Yorkers wanted to join them.
Point is this: long before D'Souza identified Martin Van Buren as the key player in cementing the Democrat North-South alliance, our own LS wrote books on it, and I'm satisfied the idea is simple fact.
Right. VB the vice president or president was unimportant.
It was Congressman Van Buren in 1825 who was the enemy of the American people.
“But Martin Van Buren is the important point here. Years ago he was identified by our own LS as the Founder of the Northern-Southern Democrat party alliance which ruled Washington, DC from the time of Andrew Jackson (circa 1828) until secession in 1861.
“Van Buren’s contribution was to forge Northern big-city immigrant populations into Democrat voting blocks firmly allied with the Southern slave-power.”
There’s no disputing Van Buren’s role in assembling the Democratic Party out of the wreckage of the Democratic-Republican Party around 1828. But the Whigs also formed from elements of that old party, plus Federalists.
The problem is trying to connect Van Buren with “big city machine politics supporting Southern slave power”. By 1844 Van Buren sided with New York’s anti-slavery Barnburner Democrats. By 1848 Van Buren was running for President on the anti-slavery Free Soil Party. When the Civil War began Van Buren supported Abe Lincoln.
New York’s Tammany Hall was the only real big city machine and Van Buren was a member. Tammany overwhelmingly supported the Jackson-Calhoun ticket in 1828 and Jackson rewarded them with patronage.
Tammany backed Van Buren in the 1836 Presidential election but only managed a meager 1,124 win for him in NYC. In 1840 Tammany’s help failed to win Van Buren a second term. In the 1844 Democratic Convention Tammany ended up voting for dark horse James Polk. In the 1848 Democratic Convention the Barnburner Democrats withdrew and joined the Free Soil Party in nominating Van Buren for President. Most of Tammany remained with the Democrats and nominated Lewis Cass.
Republicans/Whigs took advantage of political patronage, the spoils system, the same as Democrats. Patronage finally lost some of its power with the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act of 1883, named for a Democratic Senator from Ohio.