Papers of Martin Van Buren

Dr. Tom Balcerski standing at podium with Powerpoint slide in the background

Four white men standing in front of a banner of Martin Van Buren

If you missed last night's lecture by Dr. Tom Balcerski, you can watch it at the link below.

www.youtube.com/live/YdSFauS...

Flyer for Cynthia Van Buren Lecture, with events details and photo of Dr. Tom Balcerski

Tonight's lecture will be livestreamed for those not able to attend.

www.youtube.com/live/YdSFauS...

Flyer with photo of event speaker and details about event

Dr. Tom Balcerski will be delivering the Fall 2025 Cynthia Van Buren Lecture on campus tomorrow.

Image of Dewitt Clinton pouring water from Lake Erie into New York Harbor as part of the celebration of the opening of the Erie Canal.

"We have now all the information we can wish—We must make up our minds either to be expending large sums in Legislation, year after year,—or we must go on with the project. After so much has been done and said upon this subject, it would belittle the state to abandon it. He considered it the most important vote which he ever gave in his life;—but the project, if executed, would raise the state to the highest possible pitch of fame and grandeur.—He repeated that we were bound to consider that the people have given their assent.—Twelve thousand men of wealth and respectability in the city of New-York, last year petitioned for the canal; and at all events, before the operations would be commenced, the people, if opposed to the measure, would have ample time to express their will upon the subject."

On this date in 1825, the Erie Canal opened. Martin Van Buren explained his support of the canal's construction in an 1817 speech that he gave while a New York state senator.

Credit: New York State Archives Partnership Trust and vanburenpapers.org/document-mvb...

Logo of NEH: Seal with an eagle on left, NEH on the right

NHPRC logo: Text reads National Archives and National Historical Publications and Records Commission

at Cumberland Univ.’s Alumni Hall on Tues., Oct. 28, at 7:00P. PMVB is making approximately 15,000 Van Buren documents freely accessible to the public. Cumberland University, the NHPRC, and the NEH sponsor PMVB, produced in partnership with the Center for Digital Editing at the Univ. of Virginia.

Smiling white man dressed in brown checked blazer and red sweater

Dr. Thomas J. Balcerski, professor of history at Eastern Connecticut State Univ. & director of the Center for Connecticut Studies, will deliver the Fall 2025 Cynthia Van Buren Lecture, “The Democracy and the Partisan Historians: Writing Party History in the Nineteenth Century United States,”

White woman standing in front of posterboard sitting on a table

Posterboard showing images, letters, and lesson plans centered on Martin Van Buren

Former PMVB intern Alexis Tomlinson presented her work on developing lesson plans using Van Buren documents at the recent Tennessee Council for History Education conference.

YouTube video by Professor Benjamin Park Joseph Smith Papers Project Explained

A good overview of a significant documentary edition: The Joseph Smith Papers Project.

youtu.be/RVeAp7zUU5s?...

Political cartoon of Andrew Jackson trying to free Van Buren from a log house.

Political cartoon of Jackson and Van Buren, with a signpost reading "To O[ld] Kinderhook."

Let us be clear: we will not be bullied by log cabin and hard cider humbuggery. Not now. Not ever.

To our loyal users: With your faith in us and with your steadfast support, we will be OK.

Colorized image of Van Buren holding a goblet of champagne and appearing inebriated

2. Some critics (many of them funded by Whig PACs, to be clear) have demanded that our project be renamed the Papers of Martin Van Ruin and that our logo incorporate a gold spoon. We categorically reject that demand.

1. Despite public outcry, we are going to continue to transcribe Van Buren's handwriting into text that can be easily read. Some members of the public have called for us to only publish documents in his original cursive, but we are standing firm on our commitment to accessibility. vanburenpapers.org

For that reason, we have made two decisions that reaffirm our commitment to our core principles:

PMVB logo: Name of project superimposed over image of Van Buren's Lindenwald home.

There's been a lot of talk of rebranding, logo changes, etc., to make sure companies are aligned with the needs of 21st-c. consumers. We understand that perspective here at the Papers of Martin Van Buren, and we always want to be responsive to the needs of our users.

Political cartoon of Andrew Jackson trying to free Van Buren from a log house.

Political cartoon of Jackson and Van Buren, with a signpost reading "To O[ld] Kinderhook."

Let us be clear: we will not be bullied by log cabin and hard cider humbuggery. Not now. Not ever.

To our loyal users: With your faith in us and with your steadfast support, we will be OK.

Colorized image of Van Buren holding a goblet of champagne and appearing inebriated

2. Some critics (many of them funded by Whig PACs, to be clear) have demanded that our project be renamed the Papers of Martin Van Ruin and that our logo incorporate a gold spoon. We categorically reject that demand.

1. Despite public outcry, we are going to continue to transcribe Van Buren's handwriting into text that can be easily read. Some members of the public have called for us to only publish documents in his original cursive, but we are standing firm on our commitment to accessibility. vanburenpapers.org

For that reason, we have made two decisions that reaffirm our commitment to our core principles:

PMVB logo: Name of project superimposed over image of Van Buren's Lindenwald home.

There's been a lot of talk of rebranding, logo changes, etc., to make sure companies are aligned with the needs of 21st-c. consumers. We understand that perspective here at the Papers of Martin Van Buren, and we always want to be responsive to the needs of our users.

Image of original and new Cracker Barrel logo.

Watch this space for a new project announcement soon!

(Hint: The Papers of Martin Van Buren are located in Lebanon, TN, home of the original Cracker Barrel and Cracker Barrel corporate headquarters.)

Travis and Taylor lokking at each other in lurvvv!

Martin and Hannah with heart hands emoji

As some of us at the project celebrate the engagement of Taylor and Travis, it's worth remembering that Martin Van Buren also married the love of his life, Hannah Hoes.

Van Buren Papers Project Awarded Library of Congress Grant to Support High School Curriculum - Cumberland University The Papers of Martin Van Buren (PMVB), in partnership with the University of Virginia’s Center for Digital Editing, recently received a $25,000 grant from the Teaching with Primary Sources Mid-Atlanti...

Our thanks to Rebecca Shulman and the Center for Digital Editing for leading this initiative to assist high school teachers and their students!

www.cumberland.edu/van-buren-pa...

You can read more about Van Buren's purported last words here: vanburenpapers.org/content/mvb-...

Image credit: harvardartmuseums.org/collections/...

At his funeral, Rev. Benjamin R. Berry reported that one of MVB’s last statements was, “There is but one reliance.” Later accounts gave Van Buren's last words as “The atonement of Jesus Christ is the only remedy and rest for my soul,” but there is no extant evidence for this supposed "confession."

c1855 framed daguerreotype of Van Buren facing forward

On this date in 1862, Martin Van Buren died at Lindenwald, his home in Kinderhook, New York. As one obituary noted, his death at the age of 79 was "not unexpected," as he had been ill for some time.

Images: Henry D. Northrop, Our Greater Country (1901), p506; Albany Institute of History and Art; Northern Whig (Hudson, NY), 23 December 1811, p3; Find a Grave

With the intervention of mutual friends, cooler heads prevailed, & the two settled their dispute without resorting to a deadly confrontation. In fact, Van Buren later wrote that Sudam "became my zealous friend and supporter and remained so till he died" in 1835.

Portrait of Van Buren as NY governor

“No one entertains a more contemptuous opinion of the bravery of the Duel field than myself,” MVB later wrote, “or holds the practice in less respect, but I deemed it indispensable to the maintenance of my position to follow the bad examples which publick opinion had sanctioned if not required.”

Portrait of Sudam later in life

Van Buren & fellow NY attorney John Sudam were on opposite sides of a heated case in 1811. The two men exchanged insults in court. Sudam, probably drunk, continued his attack on Van Buren at a dinner party & eventually posted a public attack in Hudson, where the two men were practicing law.