Based on the character traits and early experiences depicted—such as his "patient" pursuit of law, "intelligent observation of public events," and "attentively watching the drift of political events"—what kind of leader would you anticipate Van Buren becoming, and what potential strengths or weaknesses might these traits present during a major national crisis like the Panic of 1837 mentioned in the title?

From the book

the red rag of “Hamiltonian Federalism,” he never carried the contentions of the political arena into the social sphere. The asperities of personal rivalry estranged him for a time from Calhoun, after the latter denounced him in the senate in 1837 as “a practical politician,” with whom “justice, right, patriotism, etc., were mere vague phrases,” but with his great Whig rival, Henry Clay, he maintained unbroken relations of friendship through all vicissitudes of political fortune. As a lawyer his rank was eminent. Though never rising in speech to the heights of oratory, he was equally fluent…

practical” appointment. As a statesman he had his compact fagot of opinions, to which he adhered in evil or good report. It might seem that the logic of his principles in 1848, combined with the subsequent drift of events, should have landed him in the Free-soil party that Abraham Lincoln led to victory in 1860; but it is to be remembered that, while Van Buren's political opinions were in a fluid state, they had been cast in the doctrinal moulds of Jefferson, and had there taken rigid form and pressure. In the natural history of American party-formations he supposed that an enduring…

nson, and Wendell. As a debater in the senate, he always went to the pith of questions, disdaining the arts of rhetoric. As a writer of political letters or of state papers, he carried diffusiveness to a fault, which sometimes hinted at a weakness in positions requiring so much defence. As a politician he was masterful in leadership — so much so that, alike by friends and foes, he was credited with reducing its practices to a fine art. He was a member of the famous Albany regency which for so many years controlled the politics of New York, and was long popularly known as its “director.”…

he early stages of his career, it was only as to men and minor measures of policy that he practised a prudent reticence. On questions of deeper principle — an elective judiciary, negro suffrage, universal suffrage, etc. — he boldly took the unpopular side. In a day of unexampled political giddiness he stood firmly for his subtreasury system against the doubts of friends, the assaults of enemies, and the combined pressure of wealth and culture in the country. Dispensing patronage according to the received custom of his times, he yet maintained a high standard of appointment. That he could rise…

to meet in special session, September 4, 1837, he struck in his first message the key-note of his whole administration. After a detailed analysis of the financial situation, and of the causes in trade and speculation that had led to it, he proceeded to develop his favorite idea of an independent treasury for the safe-keeping and disbursement of the public moneys. This idea was not new. It was as old as the constitution. The practice of the government had departed from it only by insensible degrees, until at length, in spite of the protests of Jefferson, it had been consolidated into a formal…