The Amistad case drew attention to the personal tragedies of slavery and attracted new support for the growing abolition movement in the North. It also transformed the courts into the principal forum for a national debate on the legal foundations of slavery.[194]

Judicial appointments[edit]
Main article: Martin Van Buren judicial appointments
Van Buren appointed two Associate Justices to the Supreme Court:[195] John McKinley, confirmed September 25, 1837, and Peter Vivian Daniel, confirmed March 2, 1841. He also appointed eight other federal judges, all to United States district courts.[196]

White House hostess[edit]
For the first half of his presidency, Van Buren, who had been a widower for many years, did not have a specific person to act as White House hostess at administration social events, but tried to assume such duties himself. When his eldest son Abraham Van Buren married Angelica Singleton in 1838, he quickly acted to install his daughter-in-law as his hostess. She solicited the advice of her distant relative, Dolley Madison,[197] who had moved back to Washington after her husband's death,[198] and soon the president's parties livened up. 