Martin Van Buren Trivia
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49 free Martin Van Buren trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Martin Van Buren grew up speaking Dutch in a Kinderhook tavern, stood five foot six, and built the first modern political machine before he built the Democratic Party itself. He was Andrew Jackson's fixer, secretary of state, rejected ambassador, vice president and chosen heir, and then the president who got the Panic of 1837 two months into the job and never recovered from it. This quiz covers the whole arc: the Bucktails and the Albany Regency, the Tariff of Abominations, the forty-three-day governorship, the Petticoat Affair, Calhoun's tie-breaking vote that 'killed him dead', the 1836 win over four Whigs, the Independent Treasury, the Trail of Tears, the Caroline and Aroostook crises, the Amistad case, the Gold Spoon Oration, the log-cabin campaign of 1840, the Texas letter that cost him the 1844 nomination, the Free Soil ticket of 1848, and the OK slogan that outlived him. Early questions suit anyone who remembers the presidents in order; later ones ask for cabinet members, vote counts and the name of his estate. Fifty questions, every one sourced.
30 of 49 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Martin Van Buren was which number president of the United States?
Eighth
Eighth: he took office in March 1837 after four years as Jackson's vice president, and within weeks a financial panic struck that shadowed his whole single term.
Q 02Van Buren was a principal founder of which political party?
The Democratic Party
The Democratic Party: after the disputed 1824 election he stitched rival factions into a new coalition behind Andrew Jackson, which won the White House in 1828.
Q 03Which language did Van Buren grow up speaking at home in his Hudson Valley village?
Dutch
Dutch: the village had kept the language for generations after English rule began, and he was baptised Maarten.
Q 04Van Buren was the first president born after which document?
The Declaration of Independence
The Declaration of Independence: he was born in December 1782, six years after it was adopted, while all seven presidents before him had been born subjects of the British crown.
Q 05Which nickname did the 5-foot-6 Van Buren earn in New York politics?
The Little Magician
The Little Magician: the name stuck because of the skill with which he worked New York's party machinery, a knack that admirers and critics alike remarked on.
Q 06Whom did Van Buren marry in 1807?
Hannah Hoes
Hannah Hoes: his childhood sweetheart and distant cousin died of tuberculosis in 1819, and he never remarried, leaving even her name out of his autobiography.
Q 07Van Buren named his fourth son after which general of the War of 1812?
Winfield Scott
Winfield Scott: the infant named for him died soon after his birth in 1814, and as president Van Buren twice sent the general to calm crises on the Canadian border.
Q 08Van Buren led which anti-Clintonian faction in New York politics?
The Bucktails
The Bucktails: they made party loyalty their creed, and Van Buren used their discipline as the model for the statewide machine he built in the 1820s.
Q 09What name was given to the political machine Van Buren built in New York?
The Albany Regency
The Albany Regency: it ran New York for years through patronage and a loyal newspaper, the Argus, and later party machines copied its methods.
Q 10Despite leading the anti-Clinton faction, Van Buren supported which Clinton project?
The Erie Canal
The Erie Canal: allies urged him to block his rival's bill in 1817, but he judged the canal good for New York and helped it through the legislature.
Q 11In 1821 the legislature elected Van Buren to which body?
The United States Senate
The United States Senate: legislatures, not voters, chose senators until 1913, and his New York political machine delivered him the seat.
Q 12Before he allied with Andrew Jackson, whom did Van Buren back for president in 1824?
William H. Crawford
William H. Crawford: the Georgian shared his Jeffersonian, small-government creed, but a stroke left him paralysed and nearly blind, and he finished a distant third.
Q 13What did opponents call the 1828 import duties Van Buren helped pass?
The Tariff of Abominations
Q 21What kind of business did Van Buren's father run, where the boy grew up listening to passing politicians?
A tavern
A tavern: it doubled as the local polling place and sat on the road to the state capital, so travelling lawmakers gave him an early schooling in politics.
Q 22Whigs blamed the Panic of 1837 on which 1836 Jackson order?
The Specie Circular
The Specie Circular: by demanding gold or silver for public land it choked off paper credit, and Congress finally repealed it in May 1838.
Q 23Van Buren's answer to the Panic was a plan to store federal funds where?
In government vaults
The Tariff of Abominations: meant to shield northern and western farm goods, it enraged the South and fed South Carolina's nullification crisis four years later.
Q 14Van Buren quit as Governor of New York within weeks in 1829 to take which post?
Secretary of State
Secretary of State: he was already expecting a cabinet offer when he took the oath as governor, and resigned as soon as President Jackson made it.
Q 15Van Buren's 1829 Safety Fund, which made New York banks jointly cover failed banks' debts, foreshadowed which New Deal agency?
The FDIC
The FDIC: the 1829 fund was the first such scheme in any state, and its designer borrowed the idea from Canton's Hong merchants, who answered for one another's debts.
Q 16Van Buren helped persuade Jackson to veto federal funding for which 1830 project?
The Maysville Road
The Maysville Road: the route lay entirely inside Kentucky, so Jackson vetoed it as a purely local project that federal money should not build.
Q 17The Petticoat Affair, which helped Van Buren win Jackson's trust, began when Washington society shunned which woman?
Peggy Eaton
Peggy Eaton: cabinet wives refused to receive the War Secretary's bride, but Van Buren, a widower with no wife to object, paid her every courtesy and won Jackson's lasting regard.
Q 18Who cast the deciding Senate vote rejecting Van Buren as ambassador to Britain in 1832?
John C. Calhoun
John C. Calhoun: the vice president broke a tie to sink his rival and believed it would end his career, but the snub won Van Buren sympathy and, by year's end, election to Calhoun's own office.
Q 19Which Van Buren running mate did the Senate elect?
Richard Johnson
Richard Johnson: Virginia's electors refused to vote for him, leaving him one short of a majority, so the Senate chose him over the Whig Francis Granger, the only time it has picked a vice president.
Q 20Who was the next sitting vice president after Van Buren to win the presidency?
Bush
Bush: the elder George Bush won in 1988 as Reagan's vice president, ending a 152-year run in which sitting vice presidents such as Nixon in 1960 and Humphrey in 1968 ran and lost.
In government vaults: his Independent Treasury would cut public money loose from the banks altogether, but conservatives in his own party helped stall it until 1840.
Q 24Which 1913 law created the system that replaced the Independent Treasury?
The Federal Reserve Act
The Federal Reserve Act: it created the central banking system that replaced the scheme, which the Whigs had scrapped in 1841 and Congress revived in 1846.
Q 25The forced Cherokee removal Van Buren ordered in 1838 is called what?
The Trail of Tears
The Trail of Tears: troops rounded up Cherokee who had not moved west under an 1835 treaty, and thousands died in the camps and on the march.
Q 26Which writer sent Van Buren a letter protesting his treatment of the Cherokee?
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson: his April 1838 letter from Concord called the removal a crime of confounding magnitude and said New Englanders had read the Cherokee's own newspapers with respect.
Q 27Which costly war against a Native nation lasted Van Buren's whole presidency?
The Second Seminole War
The Second Seminole War: fought in Florida's swamps from 1835 to 1842, it outlasted his term, and its length and cost eroded his popularity.
Q 28Van Buren helped prosecute a general court-martialed for surrendering which city without a fight in 1812?
Detroit
Detroit: General William Hull gave it up despite having the larger force, and the court sentenced him to death before President Madison spared him.
Q 29Which American steamboat did British forces burn and sink on the Niagara River in December 1837?
The Caroline
The Caroline: it had been carrying supplies to Canadian rebels, and the raid killed an American crewman, bringing the two countries close to war before Van Buren proclaimed neutrality.
Q 30Van Buren finished his legal training under William Van Ness, who soon acted as whose second in a famous 1804 duel?
Aaron Burr
Aaron Burr: Van Ness was his political lieutenant and stood beside him at the duel with Hamilton, not long after his clerk Van Buren went home to open a law practice.