When Van Buren entered office, it was clear that the nation’s economic health had taken a turn for the worse and that the prosperity of the early 1830s was over. The financial crisis of 1837 was based on speculative fever and contributed to a five-year economic depression. The worst yet faced by the young nation, would become known as the Panic of 1837. Van Buren blamed the current problems not on the Jackson administration’s policies but instead on what he viewed as greedy American and foreign business and financial institutions.
