Martin Van Buren: America's First Politician w/ James M Bradley
The Road to Now
Benjamin Sawyer
4.8 • 628 Ratings
🗓️ 23 March 2026
⏱️ 85 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Martin Van Buren served just one term as President from 1837 to 1841, but as the architect behind the founding of the Democratic Party, his legacy lives on in the US today. In this episode, we speak with James M. Bradley, author of the new book Martin Van Buren: America's First Politician, to learn how Van Buren helped reshape politics in the 19th century and laid the groundwork for America's two-party system.
You can learn more about the work being done to preserve the papers of Martin Van Buren at VanBurenPapers.org.
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And don't forget that Bob's new book America's Founding Son: John Quincy Adams from President to Political Maverickis now available! Click here to get your copy!
This episode was edited by Gary Fletcher and originally aired as episode 324 in January 2025.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I'm Ben Sawyer and this is The Road to Now. |
| 0:08.3 | And welcome to all of the new listeners who have started joining us here since Bob's book came out. |
| 0:14.8 | If for some reason you haven't heard about this, welcome to The Road to Now in general. |
| 0:18.9 | But Bob's new book is out. |
| 0:20.4 | It is America's founding son, |
| 0:22.5 | John Quincy Adams, from president to political Maverick. And the book is all about this fascinating |
| 0:27.4 | period, kind of between the end of the revolution, maybe the War of 1812, maybe Jackson, |
| 0:34.6 | and into the years just before the Civil War. |
| 0:38.8 | In today's episode, if you like that book, you're going to love this one. |
| 0:42.0 | It's a conversation about Martin Van Buren, the guy who basically created the entire party |
| 0:47.5 | structure we know today. |
| 0:49.4 | We recorded this episode in 2025, the very beginning of it. |
| 0:53.8 | It is before Bob's book came out, but you can hear |
| 0:57.6 | his joy at getting to talk about this. You know, Bob used to say that Van Buren was his favorite |
| 1:02.4 | president, but I think maybe he's gotten into a tie situation ever since Bob started doing the |
| 1:07.0 | deep dive on old JQA. So anyway, that's our topic. Our guest is James and Bradley. |
| 1:12.3 | Great conversation and a real deep dive into politics in the mid, the early mid-19th century. |
| 1:19.4 | Before we go, just a couple of things. |
| 1:21.5 | First of all, patrons, thank you. |
| 1:24.2 | You're amazing. |
| 1:25.0 | You help keep the show going. |
| 1:26.3 | So thank you for your support. If you're already there, we're grateful if not. And you want to're amazing. You help keep the show going. So thank you for your support. If you're |
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