Book Review

While the late Joseph Rayback was involved in research for Free Soil: The Election of 1848 (Lexington, 1971) he became acutely aware of the absence of a modern scholarly biography of Martin Van Buren. Familiar with Robert Remini's Martin Van Buren and the Making of the Democratic Party (New York, 1959) and The Election of Andrew Jackson (Philadelphia, 1963), both of which concentrated on the period 1821–1828, Rayback set out to write a full biography of Van Buren. At the time of his death in 1983, he had accumulated not only a vast array of research notes, but had completed the first volume of a projected two-volume study of Van Buren's life and times.	1
By the time Rayback died, however, the work of a number of other historians who had been diligently pursuing their own studies of Martin Van Buren began to appear. These included two full biographies--John Niven's Martin Van Buren: The Romantic Age of American Politics (New York, 1983) and Donald B. Cole's Martin Van Buren and the American Political System (Princeton, 1984)--as well as Major Wilson's The Presidency of Martin Van Buren (Lawrence, 1984), which added fresh insights to James C. Curtis's The Fox at Bay: Martin Van Buren and the Presidency (Lexington, 1970).	2
During this same time James M. Rayback, Joseph's son and literary trustee, searched for a historian to complete his father's work. After a thorough assessment of the manuscript, Jerome Mushkat, convinced that scholars still had failed to demonstrate the exact nature of the vital relationship between the law and politics in the life and career of Van Buren, agreed to assume the task. Certain that yet another Van Buren study could reveal fresh insights, he began to condense and rearrange the material in Rayback's completed first volume in order to focus more sharply on Van Buren's career as a lawyer and politician. To do this, Mushkat employed republicanism as the unifying thread in Van Buren's life and his dual career as a lawyer-politician. The result is Martin Van Buren: Law, Politics, and the Shaping of Republican Ideology, which follows Van Buren's legal and political career through 1828.	3
The thesis that provides structure for this book is Mushkat's contention that Van Buren's devotion to republicanism informed his career as an attorney, which in turn shaped his approach to politics throughout his life and eventually contributed mightily to Jacksonianism. In his attempt to substantiate this theme, Mushkat traces the evolution of Van Buren's dual career through four discrete stages: "the rising lawyer and political apprentice; the lawyer-politician; the politician-lawyer; and the full-time politician" (ix). In the process he touches on Van Buren's Dutch ancestry, his life among New York's manor lords, his limited education, and his entry into the legal profession and politics, but devotes the bulk of his attention to Van Buren's rise to power within the New York bar as well as in state politics. He follows his subject through the various state courts while simultaneously tracing his ascension from state senator, to state attorney general, to the United States Senate, and finally to his triumph as New York's governor in 1828. In order to flesh out the story of Van Buren's success in both aspects of his dual career, Mushkat deals extensively with individual legal cases in which Van Buren became intimately involved as well as the political machinations that culminated in his becoming titular head of the powerful Albany Regency.	4
In each instance along Van Buren's path to power as both an attorney and a politician Mushkat posits a dynamic relationship between his subject's republicanism, his guiding legal principles, and his cherished political goals. For example, he writes: "Above all, the practical way Van Buren implemented classical republicanism and liberal republicanism through the law forged the basis for party principles and programs, many of which anticipated Jacksonianism. In short, whatever Van Buren achieved in politics was impossible without his life in the law" (143).	5
Statements such as this, which literally permeate the book, reveal both the strength and the weakness of Mushkat's analysis. His thesis--that Van Buren's melding of the principle tenets of classical and liberal republicanism with vital new legal concepts helped shape not only New York's political and legal environment, but Jacksonianism as well--is provocative and merits careful investigation. Indeed, the author's final chapter, "Martin Van Buren's Legal and Political World," offers quite a wonderful summary of this interpretation of early nineteenth-century American society. The problem is, however, that Mushkat never substantiates his thesis. His conclusions do not emerge from the evidence; instead he simply imposes them on whatever specific issue is under consideration. As a result, concepts such as "classical republicanism," "liberal republicanism," "legal instrumentalism," "distributive justice," "legal positivism," "will theory of contracts," and the "Americanization of the common law" appear and reappear constantly throughout the course of the book devoid of any meaningful context. Worse still, Mushkat himself does not appear to be in full command of these important concepts. Not only does he constantly forge inappropriate links between various of these ideas, but quite often he attempts to meld immiscible concepts or modes of thought in his quest to shape Martin Van Buren in the pattern he wishes to establish.	6
In essence, Martin Van Buren: Law, Politics, and the Shaping of Republican Ideology provides suggestive ideas, but lacks substance. There is simply too great a disparity between Rayback's detailed research and the analytic interpretation Mushkat attempts to impose upon it. Consequently, scholars seeking fresh insights into the law, politics, and republican ideology in the early nineteenth century will be disappointed. For those interested in the early life and career of Martin Van Buren, the work of John Niven, Donald Cole, and Robert Remini still remain their best sources.	7
Robert E. Shalhope University of Oklahoma

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