The Presidency of Martin Van Buren is the subject of a talk by DMA member Mark Nunan. Van Buren, our eighth president from 1837 to 1841, is not well known, but arguably he transformed US politics, uniting factions into workable two-party system. Amazingly, having along with Andrew Jackson been instrumental in founding the Democratic Party, late in life he was influential in the launching of the Republican Party. As a boy growing up modestly at the close of the Revolutionary era, Van Buren knew personally Alexander Hamilton and other prominent leaders of the new country. America and its institutions were still young and as Van Buren reached political prominence he was a keen analyst of the factional, cultural and regional interests of his time. He became critical of Federalist dominance, including Hamilton’s success in establishing the Bank of the United States. It cost him dearly when as president he was blamed for the “Panic of 1837” and he was not re-elected. Van Buren continued to press for financial and labor reforms through three presidential runs at a time of changing politics in the country and the run-up to the Civil War. His career contains lessons about how to mitigate the potential for factional feuds and political violence through the unifying power of a strong and successful party system.
Mark Nunan, who has previously spoken to the DMA about the lives of Robert Moses and Fiorello LaGuardia, was born in Cork, Ireland. At an early age his family moved to Alabama. He graduated from the University of Alabama in 1976 and continued his education at Stanford University where he was awarded a master’s degree in 1979 and a Ph.D. in 1983. During that same period, he was a Fellow at L’ENS normale superieure at the University of Paris-Sorbonne as part of his Ph.D. program. In 1984, he joined COS, Inc., a firm that assists companies and governments in researching and implementing new business opportunities, retiring as a senior vice president in 2018. He splits his time between Darien and Slovenia where he has family connections.
Hamish Lutris is Associate Professor of History and Political Science at Capital Community College, Hartford, where he receives top ratings from students as an engaging lecturer. He credits his ability to teach with a job when he was in college as an interpretive ranger at Gettysburg National Military Park, where his job was to talk about the battle and cemetery where Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg address. “With over 1.5 million visitors a year, not only was my job to provide accurate information, but to also entertain.” He has worked in some of America’s premier natural and historical sites, leading hiking and historical programs. He has also lectured extensively in the United States, Europe, and Canada, presenting programs on wide-ranging historical topics, including Native American history, the Civil War, Scientific History, Social and cultural history, World War I, World War II, and the American West
Mark Albertson, who is well known to DMA members as an entertaining and informative speaker and historian, will talk about George Washington’s Farewell Address, delivered in 1796. It’s one of the best by any departing president. Washington offers an array of prognostications along with his concerns, a number of which, unfortunately, have arisen over the course of our history. Washington himself, of course, is fascinating. He was a large landowner. He was a slaveowner. But here is a man who had the opportunity to take control of the country as General of the Army and refused to do so. Here is a man who served his two terms as president and then willingly vacated the highest political office in the land, setting the precedent of the two-term presidency. Into the 20th century all second term presidents willingly leave office. That is American Exceptionalism. America was blessed from the historical perspective that George Washington was not another Julius Caesar, Oliver Cromwell, or Napoleon Bonaparte, which is something that comes around once every Haley’s Comet.
Basil Hero is an award-winning former investigative reporter with NBC News television stations. For his book, “The Mission of aLifetime: The Men Who Went to the Moon,” he interviewed the twelve remaining lunar explorers. They talk at length about the real right stuff, the true source of courage, leadership, and the quiet patriotism that it took to risk their lives going to the moon. Their voyages led them to the most incredible discovery of all: our home planet and its precious place in the universe. They fear for earth’s future and offer sensible solutions to its mounting crises and the path to future space exploration.