But besides the natural craving for rest, it is quite possible that he believed that a withdrawal from active and official participation in politics was the best preparation for a successful candidacy for the presidency in 1840.

This certainly was in his mind in the following year (1838), when the rumor was abroad that he was again contemplating retirement from the Senate; and it is highly probable that the same motive was at bottom the controlling one in 1837.

But whatever the cause of his wish to resign, the opposition of his friends everywhere, and of the Legislature of Massachusetts, formally and strongly expressed, led him to forego his purpose.

He consented to hold his seat for the present, at least, and in the summer of 1837 made an extended tour through the West, where he was received as before with the greatest admiration and enthusiasm.
The distracted condition of the still inchoate Whig party in 1836, and the extraordinary popularity of Jackson, resulted in the complete victory of Mr.Van Buren.

But the General's chosen successor and political heir found the great office to which he had been called, and which he so eagerly desired, anything but a bed of roses.