Democrat · 1837–1841
Martin Van Buren
Party builder. Hard money and an independent treasury through a depression.
Martin Van Buren was president 1837–1841. The party color on the chart is Democrat. Early presidents are not forced into today’s party names. The placement note is: Party builder. Hard money and an independent treasury through a depression.
The dot is economics +18 and authority +22. That is right of center on economics. The other axis sits toward authority. Color and place are allowed to disagree. Theodore Roosevelt sits left of Grover Cleveland on economics.
What was said, and what the administration did, are filed separately. Said: Hard money and a treasury free of the pet banks. Done: The independent treasury became law. The depression defined the term more than the theory. Where those two sentences pull apart, the dot follows the governing record, not the slogan.
The nearest other presidents on these two numbers are George Washington (1789–1797, +16 / +24) and Benjamin Harrison (1889–1893, +22 / +22). A small distance can join people who would have disliked each other. The chart is a compression, not a claim that they were alike.
Presidents are not placed with the Voteview roll-call score used for the current Congress. Two axes cannot carry a war, a court, a tariff, and a civil-rights record as separate facts.