When one thinks of a nineteenth century political machine, a few images come to mind. Perhaps one’s immediate association is with William “Boss” Tweed, whose infamous reign over New York’s Tammany Hall nearly upended decades of political power. Maybe one thinks of the Democratic Party more broadly, since they, as Thomas Jefferson did, ultimately tied themselves to the masses. One could be forgiven, however, for ignoring Martin Van Buren.

Nevertheless, the titanic empires that politically dominated America’s big cities for roughly a century would never have come to pass without the Dutch-speaking native of Kinderhook, who is remembered more for his ultimately unsuccessful presidency than his rich partisan career. Yet beginning with his establishment of the Holy Alliance—later the Albany Regency—in 1828, Van Buren laid the organizational, logistical, and theoretical groundwork that enabled Democratic machines to form and proliferate. Their primary calling card, the mobilization of Irish Catholic immigrants in support of Democratic causes, was arguably Van Buren’s idea. 

But Van Buren did not aspire to create the Democratic Party, and the many political machines it constituted, simply because he wanted to win. Not only was Van Buren not a power-hungry monster, he also had a sophisticated, liberal theory of political parties and civic integration. It was his broader views on partisan politics, as well as his genuine commitments to the welfare and success of Irish Catholic immigrants, that set Van Buren on his path—one that has gone previously unnoticed by scholars. 

In stark contrast to the founding generation, who, for the most part, considered political parties to be a necessary evil intrinsic to a republican government, Van Buren argued that they were instead a positive good. More specifically, he believed that political parties served as an essential mediating institution between the masses of farmers, artisans, and urban laborers—who he deemed “landed interests” or the “working class”—and the government that was ostensibly meant to serve them. 

This need for mediation stemmed from Van Buren’s beliefs on democracy more broadly. An avowed Jeffersonian, Van Buren had great faith in the average voter, and he firmly believed that the masses were usually right on any given political issue in the long run. However, he fretted that anger and the mob’s hot-headed impulses could lead government astray in the short term. A political party’s responsibility was to train citizens to act responsibly, control their negative or violent impulses, and implement good ideas in the long run. 

Ergo, according to Van Buren, anyone who loves America and liberal democracy should “give [political parties] the credit they deserve, and to devote ourselves to improve and to elevate the principles and objects of our own and to support it ingenuously and faithfully.” In other words, he thought that the United States needed effective political parties to function properly, but those political parties would only ever be as good as the people running them. 

Irish Catholics, who constituted much of the urban labor class, were prime candidates for the Democratic Party. The Federalists, and later the Whigs, had ignored their interests, and, in some cases, accused them of being un-American, or ultimately loyal to the Pope. They were ready and willing to support whoever ensured that they would not be actively persecuted, much less a party that would legitimately support and represent them. Van Buren and his associates were more than happy to fill the void. 

But again, Van Buren’s efforts to integrate Irish Catholic immigrants were not purely out of political expediency. He seems to have supported and assisted Irish immigrants even when it had few if any political benefits for him. He willingly embraced Catholic traditions and oratory practices when they were unpopular, integrating them into the American mainstream. He criticized hate against Irish immigrants as bigotry, and made private, quiet donations to numerous Irish charities and community organizations. Even after his political retirement, he continued to support Irish community advocates and workers. 

Van Buren’s influence on American political development cannot be understated. When Tammany Hall first began to mobilize Irish immigrants in 1828, it was at a time where the organization was under the Albany Regency, and thereby Van Buren’s, direct control. Later on, in Van Buren’s retirement, he connected liberal Irish immigrants to prominent newspapers, who inculcated a generation of readers in Jeffersonian, liberal-democratic ideas. Simply put, they took the universal part of the universal rights of man seriously. 

Though the organization would eventually part ways with Van Buren’s Jeffersonian roots, they maintained his methods and strategies. Get-out-to-vote efforts, mass mobilization, canvassing, and more can be traced back to him. Tammany’s efforts to include Irish immigrants and their descendants in the party machinery and within the civil service were an exact copy of Van Buren’s work within the previous Albany Regency. In short, Martin Van Buren built the modern New York just as much as Alexander Hamilton did. 

These changes went far beyond New York. In the early 20th century, when Italians began emigrating to the United States in search of economic opportunity, Republican political machines around the country—but especially in the Midwest—took Van Buren’s tools for civically integrating Irish immigrants and applied them to the Italians. Though many of these efforts quickly became mired in corruption, and were eventually subsumed into the New Deal’s progressive politics, they also necessitated genuine care into how Italian immigrants adjusted to life and politics in the United States. 

In the late 1990s, California Democrats applied similar tactics, namely capitalizing on personal relationships and inclusion within the political process, to farm and domestic workers who had previously emigrated from Latin America, which is one of the main reasons why Hispanic communities has become a longstanding bulwark for the California Democratic Party. 

For better or for worse, many of the institutions that define American politics can be traced back to Martin Van Buren. But it is important to note that he would have been appalled by the grift, backstabbing, and shameless self-interest that are now commonplace. Van Buren was no stranger to cynicism, but he developed these strategies out of genuine, liberal conviction, and a moral desire to turn Irish Catholic immigrants into his fellow citizens. When looking at the history of immigration, political parties, and American political ideas in general, Van Buren is worth greater attention.