ABSTRACT
Party formation, which had begun as a consequence of the election of 1824, was still incomplete after the election of 1832. Although Andrew Jackson had won reelection with 55 percent of the popular vote against three opposition candidates, this triumph was largely personal and the future of the party created around him largely uncertain. The questions for Jackson’s followers were: Could his popularity be transferred to a successor, and could the Jackson Party be turned into a permanent political organization? From the time of his nomination for vice president at the Jackson Party convention in 1831, Martin Van Buren (see fact box, p. 253), the former New York senator, was the person anointed by the president to be his successor. Despite some opposition, Van Buren was largely able to convert the machinery of the party to his own use as he looked toward the election in 1836.
