On December 5, 1782, as George Washington waited at Newburgh, New York, for news of the peace treaty with Great Britain, Martin Van Buren was born in the town of Kinderhook farther up the Hudson River. Almost 80 years later on July 24, 1862, as Abraham Lincoln continued his search for a general to oppose the Confederate army,...Van Buren died in his home town. Born at the end of the Revolution and dying during the Civil War, Van Buren represented the second generation of American political leaders--those who lived between the generation of Washington and that of Lincoln...The key to Van Buren's career is the way in which he adapted to the new society and the part he played in building the new political system....He spent half a century building, perfecting, and defending a new system of political parties at first the state and then the national level...In making hundreds of political decisions and moral choices during his career, Van Buren sought to maintain a balance between what he considered the republican principles of his youth and the demands of the democratic system that he was building ... He was never as republican as he might have liked and never as democratic as he might have been. But he cared about ideology and he was more than just a self-seeking politician. In the end he became quintessential party man who represented the best and worst in the new politics.