The electoral count was conducted in the usual manner, and there was no incident to mark the proceedings. The result was declared as follows:

XVI.

THE FIRST "DARK HORSE."

THE canvass for the election of 1844 may be said to have begun before Harrison was inaugurated as President on the 4th of March, 1841. The Democrats, disgusted as well as angry at the success of the Whigs, ascribing it in one breath to fraud and in the next to the momentary madness of the people, were resolved to bring forward Mr. Van Buren again, and to elect him. The spirit of the party at that time is illustrated by an incident. A St. Louis paper placed Mr. Van Buren's name at the head of its columns as a candidate in 1844, and "nailed its colors to the mast," almost as soon as the result of the election of 1840 was known. Thereupon Senator Benton wrote a letter of commendation to the editor, saying that the Democratic party had won a victory twice before, after its only two national defeats, by adopting at once the candidate in whose person it had suffered a reverse. Mr. Benton, it is true, had been an ardent admirer and unwavering follower of Jackson, and had transferred his allegiance in all its fervor to Jackson's political heir; but, as subsequent events indicated, an overwhelming majority of the party took the same view of political policy and duty during the next three years.

The Whigs were doomed to a sad disappointment. One month after General Harrison took the oath of office he died, and John Tyler became President. Congress was summoned in extra session on the 31st of May, 1841. Among the first subjects to which the attention of Congress was called by the President was the question what

should be substituted for the sub-treasury system,—a financial device which had certainly been condemned by the popular voice in the then recent elections. It would be profitless, if this were the place for such a discussion, to consider whether Mr. Tyler gave the Whigs to understand that he would sign some bill creating a bank, or not. What is certain is that the Whigs thought he gave them such an assurance; but when a bill which they supposed to have been drawn in accordance with his views was presented to him for approval he vetoed it, and the Whig majority was not strong enough to pass it over the veto. A second bill was prepared, after a conference with the President, submitted to him after it was drafted and approved, and then passed without the alteration of a word. The President, possibly in a fit of very natural anger at a letter written by John M. Botts, a leading Whig member from Virginia, which was published by a breach of confidence, in which Mr. Botts spoke of Mr. Tyler's "turns and twists" with contempt, vetoed that also.

It is needless to say that this act was received with uncontrollable indignation by the Whigs throughout the country. All the members of the cabinet except Mr. Webster, the Secretary of State, who retained office for reasons which were approved by the Whigs, resigned. A caucus of members of the Senate and House of Repre sentatives adopted an address in which they announced that all political alliance between them and John Tyler was at an end, and that henceforth "those who brought the President into power can no longer, in any manner or degree, be justly held responsible or blamed for the administration of the executive branch of the government." It is matter of history that Mr. Tyler continued to the end of his term to be what his early acts as President had in

dicated that he would be. It may be said that he was what his whole political life had indicated that he would be. The only inconsistency of which he was guilty was in supposing, honestly no doubt, that he was "a firm and decided Whig," when he was opposed to a bank, opposed to a protective tariff, opposed to the distribution of the proceeds of the public lands, opposed to internal improvements, and devoted to the principle of "strict construction" of the Constitution. The Whigs had not, to be sure, formally professed different principles from his in resolutions adopted by a national convention; but they were really unanimous, or substantially so, in holding all the views from which he dissented.

Whatever part an ambition to be re-elected, not by the Whigs, but by the Democrats, had in determining Mr. Tyler's course, he did not gain new political friends when he lost old ones. The Democrats were glad enough that the fruits of victory were snatched away from the Whigs; but, though they took advantage of the opportunity which chance threw in their way, they made no pretence of taking the President up as their own man. They loved the sin, but hated the sinner. There were some Democrats and Democratic papers slightly tinctured with "Tylerism," but they were few and uninfluential. By far the largest number of the Democrats were zealous and unwavering in their adherence to the fortunes of Mr. Van Buren. Yet it was not their unanimous sentiment. South Carolina was in favor of Mr. Calhoun, and so was Georgia; and that gentleman carried his sense of propriety so far that, in the autumn of 1843, he declined an invitation to visit Ohio in a semi-public way, on the ground that he ought not to do so while his name was before the country as a candidate for its highest office. Colonel R. M. Johnson,

then lately Vice-President, was also advocated by the anti