Martin Van Buren and the Emergence of American Popular Politics (American Profiles)Martin Van Buren was a one term president whose public life has long been overshadowed by the more fiery personalities of his dayAndrew Jackson, Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and John C. Calhoun. Nevertheless, Van Buren was a transforming political figure in American history, one of the first of the new republic's professional politicians. In the early part of the nineteenth century, America was skeptical of popular politics, distrustful of political