Martin Van Buren, National Parties, and the Return of the Working Man’s Guilds

Abstract

Catholic social teaching prescribes decentralized politics and protections for workers, once traditionally provided by associations such as medieval workers’ guilds. The animating principle behind this idea is subsidiarity. This article considers the political actions of Martin Van Buren, the eighth president of the United States (1837–1841), which resulted in the creation of the two-party system now used in America. Van Buren was not Catholic, and his actions were motivated by a desire to prevent the rise of oligarchy in American. Nevertheless, by providing a careful analysis of the term “subsidiarity” and the actions of Van Buren, the author concludes Van Buren’s political actions were a very good illustration Catholic social teaching in action, and, by extension, how deeply (and unwittingly!) the United States has been influenced by Catholic precepts.