Free The Book of Bastards by Brian Thornton Page A

acquitted, but had become a persona non grata after being thrown in jail yet again on an unrelated charge of savagely beating his own daughter. Disgraced, he quit New York, and headed west.
    BASTARD'S SERVANT
    Isabella Van Wagener, Matthias's housekeeper and accomplice in a variety of scams, went on to great fame. She changed her name to Sojourner Truth and established herself as one of the foremost female abolitionists with her “Ain't I a Woman?” speech.
    In 1836 Matthias turned up at the Ohio settlement of Joseph Smith's nascent sect of Mormons. Smith welcomed this man who called himself “Jeremiah the Jew” for a few days, even encouraging him to preach a sermon before his own congregation. But the interlude ended with both latter-day prophets denouncing the other as “satanic.” Smith went on to be revered as the founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, while Matthias went on perish in obscure poverty.
    In this case the bastard in question spent time in jail, didn't die rich, and didn't escape judgment. Perhaps this was because Matthias's greatest sin was to have been born poor?
    â€œI never shake hands with mere mortals. Know ye 'tis written ‘touch not the prophet of the lord’?”
    â€” Robert Matthews (AKA “Matthias the Prophet”)

26
MARTIN VAN BUREN
The Original Herbert Hoover (1782–1862)
    â€œThe less government interferes with private pursuits, the better for general prosperity.”
    â€” Martin Van Buren
    The first American president born after the signing of the Declaration of Independence was also the first career politician to become chief executive. Born into a well-to-do New York family, Van Buren came to be known as the “Fox of Kinderhook” and the “Little Magician” in part because of his ability to make political deals happen.
    In other words he was a fixer.
    Van Buren was also (as many fixers are) an opportunist of the first order. He rode the populist coattails of Andrew Jackson into the presidency, supporting such scurrilous Jacksonian policies as Indian Removal and the destruction of the nation's fledgling banking system. “Martin Van Ruin” got his comeuppance seven weeks into his administration. On May 10, 1837, the nation faced its first stock market crash.
    Picture it if you will: the U.S. government relaxed certain banking regulations. Fewer restrictions allowed for the rise of undercapitalized banks that in turn lent more money than they actually had. Speculation in currency and other areas ran rampant as a result of this loosening of banking rules.
    The resulting crash was inevitable: banks that over-lent their resources had trouble collecting some of the money that was owed to them. This resulted in a domino effect that eventually left bank after bank insolvent. Within weeks the entire American financial system was in danger of total collapse.
    Sound familiar? It ought to.
    But this collapse was not like the stock market crashes of 1929 and 2008. The Panic of 1837 was the first far-reaching, major economic crisis in American history. In 1837 there was no Work Projects administration to employ the destitute masses. No one took drastic measures (rightly or wrongly) to bail out the financial sector in order to avert a total economic catastrophe. President Van Buren refused to involve the government in the private sector's economic woes. It was bad government and would set a terrible precedent, he said. But because he supported and continued Jackson's ridiculous economic policies, Van Buren was partly at fault for allowing it to happen in the first place.
    REHABILITATED BASTARD?
    Van Buren would later say of his time as president, “the two happiest days of my life were those of my entrance upon the office and my surrender of it.” That hardly meant that he stopped having political ambitions, though. He certainly intended to return to the White House. After his retirement from politics