Unlike most other Presidents of his era, Martin Van Buren, America’s 9th President, was opposed to slavery. On that basis, he opposed the admission of Texas to the United States because he did not wish to admit another slave state. Nor was that his only concern – the Second Seminole war dragged on throughout his term and on, eventually proving the longest and most costly of all the Indian Wars. And he was widely thought to have responded poorly to the financial crisis now called the Panic of 1837, an opinion still held today.
As a result, he is generally seen as a middling at best President, and few were at all surprised that he lost the 1840 election or failed to secure the Democratic nomination again in 1844 or 1848.
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