buren's future. >> martin van buren comes to the white house, the first northerner, far northerner, new york state. >> from new york state. >> he was the first born as an american. >> first born with american citizenship as his birth right. >> and another first, the adams were of english heritage. he was dutch. >> he grew up speaking dutch. english was a second language to him so he was from a different culture. >> and a widower president coming to the white house. his wife died many years before and to set the stage for our conversation on his white house and first lady who served him, we're going to listen now to white house historian bill seale. >> president truman's favorite portrait because she was pretty. she was a southern belle, a tall girl. today you would say she was athletic looking. she married abraham van buren, met him at saratoga springs. she was from columbia, south carolina, was a belle and had plenty of money at the time. the singletons were a big, big family. she had plenty of money, bought pretty clothes. she was apparently a lot of fun so she and abraham went to

so sorry, martin van buren, you can't come. the building would have opened sooner but there was a delay after the plan to get w himself design the sign on the front of the building. the event will be not be attended by nancy reagan. so what is the point? one branch will be dedicated to the literary classics that inspired w this branch will be known as the empty branch. >> michael: thanks for joining us here in "the war room" tonight. have a great night. cenk uygur and ben mankiewicz are hosting "the young turks" next. ♪ young turks is that we're honest. they can question whether i'm right, but i think that the audience gets that this guy, to the best of his ability, is trying to look out for us.

there's a street gang named after president martin van buren? oh, yeah, and they're just as mean as he was. so i make a move to the door, you know? they block it. so i lunged for the bathroom. i grabbed the knob. ocupado. then they backed me up against the cartoon map of italy and all of a sudden, they just stop. what? what happened? because i'm still holding the garlic shaker like this. i'm only showing 8 fingers. what does that mean? that's their secret sign. see, van buren he was the eighth president. they thought i was a former van b. boy. oh, jerry, can you hold on a sec? i just want to check my messages. oh, melissa, kim. ellen. hey. you guys, i want you to meet jerry. oh, we've heard a lot about you. it is so sweet of you to take her out. yeah. you don't even know how much she needs this. she coming off a bad breakup? no. see ya. get your messages? yeah. no one called. they act like it was some act of charity just going out with her. so she's the loser of the group. every group has someone that they all make fun of. like us with elaine. t

martin van buren comes from a middle-class family. millard fillmore grows up in abject poverty as does andrew jackson. millard fillmore's family does not own their land. abigail fillmore, abigail powers grows up, her father dies when she is two. they don't have very much money. she becomes a schoolteacher. she is the first first lady to have worked outside the home. she not only worked outside the home before she was married, but after she is married for the first few years, she works as a schoolteacher. people who have experienced poverty and have not achieved anything other than middle-class status. marriedr death, millard very well. >> paul has written a book on millard fillmore. here is his biography if your interested in reading more about our 13th president. it is still available where you shop for books. we have about 20 minutes to learn about the fillmore presidency and about abigail. she brings a sensibility to the role of first lady. how'd she approach the job at a >> what she is known for, her legacy, is that she created th

martin van buren, he was actively involved in saving jews from being massacred in syria. the ordeal began in 1840, when an italian servant reported missing. somebody suggested they be murdered. although there was no suspect, the cry went up, the jews did it. the government then arrested and im-- imprisoned most of the male jewish population in damascus, all the cities rabbis, jewish grave diggers, and even young jewish schoolboys. they then began to torture the rabbis, forcing their wives and daughters to watch. excuse me. but the they killed them all and maimed them for life. when americans jews told van buren about the ongoing massacre, he went in to action. he, together with british and european leaders, pressured syria to stop the massacre and to free the surviving prisoners. for syrian government eventually admitted they had no absolutely no evidence against the jews, incidentally the murders of the priests and servant, if in fact they were murders, were never solved. fortunately, in syria today there are either none or very few jews. abraham lincoln -- his close fri

since thomas jefferson, only martin van buren had made it as vice president and tyler did only because of the death of the president. >> sandy is watching from new new castle, delaware. >> my question is, what did sarah think about slavery and was she a kind slave master? >> the -- james k. polk in his will made an expression that he hoped that when she died she would manumit their slaves. as it turned out, she sold plantation before the civil war but the issue of rlly brought forefront during - either in this marriage or during his administration. it became much more crical widmth theistrations that follow polk. >> i think in some ways that's not true. >> go ahead. >> the politics of america from the 1830's to the 1860's is swirling around slavery all the time. the opposition to the mexican war which polk starts andch we did not have to have, the opposition to the mexican war in part comes from northerners who see it as a vast conspiracy to steal mexico so that slave owners can have someplace to go and southerners say as much. they say we want mexico because want a place for slavery t

since thomas jefferson, only martin van buren had made it as vice president and tyler did only because of the death of the president. >> sandy is watching from new new castle, delaware. >> my question is, what did sarah think about slavery and was she a kind slave master? >> the -- james k. polk in his will made an expression that he hoped that when she died she would manumit their slaves. as it turned out, she sold their plantation before the civil war but the issue of slavery was not really brought to the forefront during -- either in this marriage or during his administration. it became much more critical with the administrations that follow polk. >> i think in some ways that's not true. >> go ahead. >> the politics of america from the 1830's to the 1860's is swirling around slavery all the time. the opposition to the mexican war which polk starts and which we did not have to have, the opposition to the mexican war in part comes from northerners who see it as a vast conspiracy to steal mexico so that slave owners can have someplace to go and southerners say as much. they say we want

martin van buren comes from a middle-class family. millard fillmore grows up in abject poverty as does andrew jackson. millard fillmore's family does not own their land. abigail fillmore, abigail powers grows up, her father dies when she is two. they don't have very much money. she becomes a schoolteacher. she is the first first lady to have worked outside the home. she not only worked outside the home before she was married, but after she is married for the first few years, she works as a schoolteacher. when he is starting his law career. these are people who have experienced poverty and have not achieved anything other than middle-class status. after her death, millard married very well. >> paul has written a book on millard fillmore. here is his biography if your interested in reading more about our 13th president. it is still available where you shop for books. we have about 20 minutes to learn about the fillmore presidency and about abigail. she brings a sensibility to the role of first lady. how'd she approach the job at a >> wh

martin van buren had been working on with people in the south. this was a time of great technological change. we had real growth and newspapers and new communication methods coming to bear as well as a much larger electorate. we had general white male suffrage in all of the states. there were more people taking and there was more opportunity to hear about it. >> the western states had come in. >> rachel jackson became an issue. this is the first time in our early country's history that people targeted the wife of a presidential candidate. >> abigail adams had taken some hard hits from the press. that sort of thing had happened. this was the first time someone actually went out trying to find what they thought was a search and publicize it widely. >> was the first one looking for dirt? and man who hated jackson wanted to see jackson go down. when he thought out she had been the voice, he really despise her. he was rigorously fundamentalists. it was a moral issue for him. he really thought she would disgrace the white house. >> he did not do it, bu

two of the most interesting in the room are the bust of martin van buren, and the portrait of his daughter in law. angelica, that has the white marble bust painted into the back ground. and the fact that dolley madison is connected to that store years later. when president van buren was inaugurated, president madison had died the year before and she had moved back to washington. she was the most important woman in washington. president van buren was a widower. dolley madison basically introduced angelica to her husband to be, the president's eldest son. she became the hostess for the white house. in the chain of first ladies, she is strictly a wife largely as a result of dolley madison doing matchmaking. >> what condition was the white house and washington, d.c. as a new capital city? >> well, washington, d.c. was a very muddy place. abigail had written home it was the very dirties hall of a place that she had ever been in her life. the rooms were rutted, the houses were separated, far apart. itis not like we think of today at all. it is very rudimentary. so i think part of what she is doi