ce-president on
the ticket with General Jackson, and was elected. The Democratic
National Convention, which met at Baltimore May 20th, 1835, unanimously
nominated him for the presidency, and in the ensuing election he
received 170 electoral votes out of a total of 283,--73 being cast for
his principal antagonist, General Harrison. The country was now plunged
into the deepest pecuniary embarrassments, the result of previous
hot-house schemes and speculations, rather than the result of the
administrative measures of Van Buren. He had succeeded to the presidency
at a most unfortunate time. Commerce was prostrate; hundreds of
mercantile houses in every quarter were bankrupt; imposing public
meetings attributed these disasters to the policy of the government.

On May 15th, he summoned an extraordinary session of congress to meet
the following September. The president in his message advised that a
bankrupt law for banking and other incorporations be enacted; and that
the approaching deficit in the treasury be made good by withholding from
the States the fourth and last installment of a previous large surplus
ordered to be deposited with them by act of June 23rd, 1836, and by the
temporary issue of $6,000,000 of treasury notes. He also recommended the
adoption of what was called the independent treasury system, which was
passed in the senate, but was laid on the table in the other branch of
congress. The payment of the fourth installment to the States was
postponed, and the emission of $10,000,000 of treasury notes was
authorized.

Again the President in his next annual message recommended the passage
of the independent treasury bill, but the measure was again rejected.
Another presidential measure, however, was more fortunate, a so-called
pre-emption law being enacted, giving settlers on public lands the right
to buy them in preference to others. Van Buren's third annual message
was largely occupied with financial discussions and especially with
argument in favor of the divorcement of the national government from the
banks throughout the country, and for the exclusive receipt and payment
of gold and silver in all public transactions; that is to say, for the
independent treasury. Through his urgent arguments in its favor it
became a law June 30, 1840, and it is the distinguishing feature in his
administration. The canvass of 1840 was early begun by the opposition,
and became a bitterly contested one. The Whigs placed Harrison