without apology......................

Van Buren's wooing of Jefferson captured the changing mores in US politics.  The Revolutionary Era system of deference was rapidly crumbling.  In most states, property qualifications were no longer a prerequisite for voting.  A growing number of Americans—all white men, of course—were enfranchised and participating in the political process.  The forty-one-year-old Van Buren typified this brash new style of egalitarian politics.  He played the game of politics to win elections and build power, and he pursued those goals without apology.

-James M. Bradley, Martin Van Buren: America's First Politician