Page:The Presidents of the United States, 1789-1914, v. II.djvu/32

U LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS presided with unvarying suavity and fairness. Taking no public part in the envenomed discussions of the time, he was known to sympathize with Jack son in his warfare on the United States bank, and soon came to be generally regarded by his party as the lineal successor of that popular leader, He was formally nominated for the presidency on May 20, 1835, and was elected in 1836 over his three competitors, William H. Harrison, Hugh L. White, and Daniel Webster, by a majority of 57 in the electoral college, but of only 25,000 in the popular vote. The tide of Jacksonism was begin ning to ebb. South Carolina, choosing her electors by state legislature and transferring to Van Buren her hatred of Jackson, voted for Willie P. Man- gum. During the canvass Van Buren had been opposed at the north and championed at the south as "a northern man with southern principles." As vice-president, he had in 1835 given a casting-vote for the bill to prohibit the circulation of "incen diary documents" through the mails, and as a can didate for the presidency he had pledged himself to resist the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia without the consent of the slave-states and to oppose the "slightest interference" with slavery in the states. He had also pledged himself against the distribution of surplus revenues among the states, against internal improvements at Fed eral expense, and against a national bank.