under the charge of a political magnate of Plaquemines, and that these passengers stopped at three different places and cast each time a unanimous vote for Polk and Dallas. The steamboat Planter took down one hundred and forty others, who also voted early and often for the same ticket. These assertions were not only made, but sworn to, by many witnesses, including some persons, one of them a minor, who voted several times each, under the direction of the learned judge who managed the affair. The story bears all the marks of truth. If it is not true, it is at least singular that it was ten years after 1844 before Plaquemines parish could muster half as many Democratic votes as it gave that year to Polk.

Though the Whig newspapers rang with the charges of fraud, and though the accusation was supported by strong testimony, nothing was done about it. The election was lost, and a rectification of the fraud would not have changed the result. The Whigs submitted quietly; and when the electoral count took place in 1845, in the usual manner, no objection whatever was made, and Polk and Dallas were in due form declared elected.

The inauguration took place in the form which had now become usual. The President and the President-elect rode together, this time, in an open carriage; and a feature of the procession was a small band of Revolutionary veterans on foot. Inasmuch as this ceremony took place sixty-two years after the treaty of peace, the political enthusiasm of these aged men was as remarkable as was the inhumanity of the managers who suffered them to take such a part in the display of the day.

XVIII

THE "FREE SOIL" CAMPAIGN OF 1848

THE slavery question, which had been growing in importance fitfully, as a political issue, since the contest and compromise on the admission of Missouri in 1820, dominated the politics of the country in the election of 1844, and thereafter until it was decided by secession, war, and emancipation. Not that parties, statesmen, and politicians ranged themselves as advocates or opponents either of slavery as an existing institution or of the extension of slavery, until the critical moment of the struggle was near at hand. But every great measure, beginning with the annexation of Texas, was considered and decided with chief reference to the extension, the maintenance, the restriction, or the overthrow of the "peculiar institution" of the South. The opponents of slavery became bolder and more aggressive; its defenders more vigilant, more resentful of attacks upon it, more rigid in their ostracism of public men at the North who did not accept their principles, more resolute, in the event of a denial of their "rights," in their purpose to seek those rights by a separation from the Union. As the feeling grew more intense, and the language of extreme partisans increased in violence, well-meaning men tried to prolong the peace by compromises and by endeavors to turn the current of political thought to other subjects. How vain it was to attempt to reconcile irreconcilable things, to repress the "irrepressible conflict," the history of the next few years shows most plainly.

The South was better prepared for the conflict when it be came acute than was the North. It was more united. It had control of one of the parties; it terrorized the other. It knew what it desired, and was ready to make demands and to insist upon them, no matter what might be the consequences. Thus it won the first victory of the great campaign, in the annexation of Texas, and followed it up during the next administration by the war with Mexico and the acquisition of

more territory available, as was supposed, for the spread of the slavery system. Soon after the shocking accident on the "Princeton," on February 28, 1844, in which the Secretary of State, Mr. Upshur, and the Secretary of the Navy, Mr. Gilmer, lost their lives, Mr. Calhoun was made Secretary of State. Henry A. Wise asserts, in his "Seven Decades of the Union," that he offered the position to Mr. Calhoun without authority from the President, who nevertheless acquiesced in the selection so irregularly made of the most important member of his cabinet. Mr. Calhoun negotiated a treaty for the annexation of Texas, and was believed to be the active agent in defeating the nomination of Van Buren, who opposed the measure. The Senate rejected the treaty, 16 senators only favoring and 35 opposing it. Subsequently joint resolutions were offered, and passed by the House of Representatives, providing for the annexation. The resolutions would surely have failed in the Senate but for the addition of an amendment giving the President discretionary power to bring in Texas under a new treaty to be submitted to the Senate. Even this could not secure the bare majority required until Mr. Polk, the Presi dent-elect, was known to have pledged himself to act, not under the House resolutions, but under the Senate amendment. Mr. Tyler affixed his signature to the resolutions on March 1, 1845. The same night he dispatched a special messenger to Texas to consummate the annexation. Mr. Polk, inaugurated three days afterward, refused to recall the messenger. The opponents of annexation regarded the proceeding as a case of remarkably sharp practice.

Mr. Polk was not a great man. His Democratic supporters, and particularly the Southern men who controlled the party, had no cause of complaint either of unwillingness on his part to take the radical views they entertained on questions between the South and the North, or of lack of courage in acting upon those views. The Mexican war, which every one knew to be an inevitable consequence of the intrigue to annex Texas, was entered upon without hesitation. The Independent Treasury,

Van Buren's pet measure, - which had been overthrown by the Whigs, was reëstablished. The Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. Robert J. Walker, was given a free hand in drafting a tariff bill, and Congress passed it, the famous tariff of 1846, framed in the most strict conformity to the wishes of the Southern Democrats. In the platform of the party the title of

66

the United States to "the whole of the territory of Oregon" was asserted to be "clear and unquestionable; " and the " reoccupation" of Oregon was linked with the "reannexation" of Texas, as great American measures." The whole of Oregon, as spoken of in those times, meant the territory lying north of Dakota, Montana, Idaho, and Washington, to the line of 54° 40′ north latitude. 66 Fifty-four forty, or fight," was a Democratic rallying cry in the North, as the acquisition of Texas was in the South. After the election there was no enthusiasm on the Oregon question; an agreement was made, without a murmur of Democratic dissatisfaction, upon the line of 49°.

On every one of the three questions the Whigs were decidedly against the administration. They deprecated the Mexican war; they opposed the sub-treasury and the ad valorem low tariff of 1846; they jeered at the government for the meekness shown in accepting the northern boundary line offered by Great Britain. Yet slavery was to decide the canvass of 1848, not as a direct issue between the two great parties, but by dividing one of them and so giving the victory to the other. The opportunity of the anti-slavery men came to them from a peculiar situation developed in the politics of the State of New York. It would be almost true to say that there has never been a time when the Democrats of New York have not been divided into at least two factions. They have exhibited a remarkable power of getting together on election day, but at all other times they have been at war with each other. Some of their dissensions have already been mentioned. In the early days of the republic the contests were largely personal struggles between rival leaders, Burr, the Clintons, and the Livingstons. During the second administration of Jackson a large faction was formed, professing extremely radical views, which called itself the Equal Rights party, but was termed by its adversaries the Loco-foco party. The name originated in an incident that occurred in New York city just before the election in 1835.1 It was the custom to submit nominations to a general meeting of Democratic citizens. The Equal Rights men, determined to oppose the Tammany nominations, appeared in large numbers at the meeting called in Tammany Hall. A scene of great confusion

1 Some authorities give the date erroneously as 1834. See History of the Loco-foco Party, by F. Byrdsall, chap. i.

between the two factions ensued. At last the Tammany men withdrew, and as they left the hall extinguished the gaslights. The radicals, anticipating this, had provided themselves with candles and the then new "loco-foco" matches, by means of which the hall was relighted and the meeting proceeded. Some years later the Whigs called all Democrats "Loco-focos."

The division of the party continued, with some changes in the causes of dissension, as well as changes in their designations. During Polk's administration they were known as "Hunkers" and " Barnburners," Hunkers, because they "hunkered" for office; Barnburners, because they were so much in earnest for the reforms they advocated that, as one of their orators put it, they were willing to imitate the Dutchman who burned his barn in order to destroy the rats which infested it.

It was narrated in the last chapter that Silas Wright refused to profit by the intrigue that defeated his friend Van Buren's nomination for the presidency. Nevertheless, as a good party man, he did all in his power to help the Polk and Dallas ticket, and at the solicitation of the Democrats accepted reluctantly a nomination as governor of New York. He was elected by about twice the majority given to Mr. Polk. Whether intentionally or not, every step of the administration was hostile to the faction represented by Governor Wright and Mr. Van Buren, and in favor of the Hunkers. Governor Marcy, a leader of the Hunkers, was Secretary of War; all the federal office-holders appointed were of the same faction. Silas Wright was regarded as one of the most promising candidates for the nomination in 1848; and if it had been the intention of the administration to prevent his success, it could not have employed more effectual measures than it did. When he was again a candidate for governor in 1846, he was defeated. His friends all believed that his defeat was the act of the President and his friends, although at the last moment a great show was made of anxiety for his election. Indeed,

a circular was sent to all office-holders in New York forbidding them, under penalty of dismissal, to vote against Governor Wright.

This long explanation of the situation in New York has been necessary because the Democratic division in that State lost the election of 1848. It not only deprived the Democrats of electoral votes which would have changed the result, but