Correspondence, drafts of writings, speeches, and messages to Congress, autobiographical material, notes, legal record book, estate record book, and other papers pertaining to slavery and the antislavery movement; banking and the Second Bank of the United States; party politics in New York state and at the national level relating to the Federalist, National Republican, Whig, and Democratic parties, particularly during the Jackson and Van Buren administrations; and the opposition politics of John C. Calhoun, Henry Clay, DeWitt Clinton, William Henry Harrison, Winfield Scott, Zachary Taylor, John Tyler, and Daniel Webster. Other topics include the Washington Globe, Indian affairs, the annexation of Texas and war with Mexico, Free Soil Movement, tariffs, relations with France and England, and the northeast boundary question. Also includes material pertaining to Van Buren's home, Lindenwald, in Kinderhook, N.Y., and correspondence and a travel journal (1838-1839) kept by John Van Buren during a trip to England and Europe.

Of particular significance is the correspondence (1828-1845) with Andrew Jackson. Other correspondents include George Bancroft, Thomas Hart Benton, Francis Preston Blair, James Buchanan, Benjamin F. Butler, Harriet Allen Butler, Churchill Caldom Cambreleng, John A. Dix, John Fairfield, Azariah C. Flagg, Henry D. Gilpin, James Hamilton, Jr., Jesse Hoyt, Charles Jared Ingersoll, Amos Kendall, William L. Marcy, Louis McLane, Richard Elliot Parker, James Kirke Paulding, Joel Roberts Poinsett, James K. Polk, Thomas Ritchie, William C. Rives, Andrew Stevenson, Levi Woodbury, and Silas Wright.