Martin Van Buren; by Ted Widmer.

A good many firsts - first president to be born after US independence, first professional politician, first one of Dutch descent, and so forth. A curious one in this collection of phrases in the editorial introduction is the phrase "first ethnic president", exposing a mindset where not only everyone from outside European descent but in fact everyone not of Anglo Saxon WASP descent (and male, obviously) is seen as "ethnic", granted a knowledge and a right to think only within the context of his own limited circle (women get a more limited circle, again obviously) while only Anglo Saxon descent is granted a normality and WASP males a birthright to think over universally and make decisions regarding any and all spheres of considerations for everyone.

Martin Van Buren is worth reading about for more than his background, of course - he supported the excellent Andrew Jackson and attempted to find a solution to the then growing question of slavery related conflict of states. Southern states were using them for plantation work, heavily dependent on manual labour, while northern states were industrial and increasingly mechanised. However, the ships that had brought slaves, the slavers that had captured people in Africa and those that had sold them - and sometimes those that bought them to settle in western new states - were northerners. It was not as obvious a moral picture as north good south bad. His attempts to find a solution were to cost him, however, as often good intentions do.