The Democratic Idea And Political Career Of Martin Van Buren

Martin Van Buren was8th President of the United States and also acontroversial political figure of first half of the19th century. He was one of thedesigner and founder of the Democratic Party of the United States, and makes aseries of efforts to expand the democratic rights of people. He claims to defend therights of states and interpret the Constitution strictly, and was the spokesman of thepeople of the middle and lower classes and the petty bourgeois, so he wasconsidered to be the successor of “Jeffersonian democracy”. His democratic ideasnot only has great influence on the “Jackson Epoch” and the American politics atthat time, but also made an important contribution to the development ofdemocratic politics in the United States.Van Buren had spent most of his lifetime in politics, and have successively asstate legislator, governor, U.S. Senator, Secretary of State, Vice President andPresident. In political terms, Van Buren limited the expansion of the federal powerand kept the balance of the legislative, judicial and executive power, andparticipates in and promotes the formulation of a series of laws to expand the rightto vote of the people to furtherance of the political democratization process, and The Democratic Party that he created has laid the basis of party politics in theUnited States. On the economic front, the “Free banking” reforms he implementedhave far-reaching influence on later generations. During the political career of VanBuren lasted for more than40years, he practicing his democratic ideas on the onehand and, on the other hand, also made a significant contribution to thedevelopment of American society.The paper will be based on selecting on and analyzing the first hand data aswell as the research achievements by the predecessors, a research will besystematically put up from influencing factors, meaning and practice and theinfluences on American society of democratic ideas and political career of VanBuren.The paper including five parts:In the introduction part, the research meaning is firstly introduced and thenpresent research situation is reviewed. It put some forward issues already solved bythe research as well as those unsolved.The first part focuses on the factors that influence on the democratic ideas andpolitical career of Van Buren. There are three points about that: the influence of hisgrowth experience and family, the nurturing of democratic ideas of Jefferson and enormous impact of Jackson on him at the important stage in his political life. Inaddition, the social environment also has a certain impact on his democratic ideasand political career.The second part of the paper focuses on the content of democratic ideology ofVan Buren. The diversification of influencing factors determined that democraticideas of Van Buren with rich content. Its main contents include: the ideology ofrights of states, the sovereignty of the people thought, separation of powers andchecks and balances ideological, political parties thinking.The third part concentrates on the practice of democratic ideas in Van Burenpolitical career. This paper selects some representative events in Van Burenpolitical career to reveal his democratic ideas embodied by the political behavior,for example, the actions of Van Buren changed the U.S. banking system, againstinternal improvements, curtail of judicial power, created a modern political partymachine.The fourth part of the text is a brief evaluation of democratic ideas andpolitical career of Martin Van Buren. The political talent of Van Buren brings aboutoutstanding achievements, his democratic thought and practice of it has had aprofound impact on democratic politics of the United States. But also because of his personal shortcomings and style of doing things, he has been a lot ofcontroversy and doubts.