Review of events before 1860 (_continued_).--Early Efforts to
acquire Texas.--Course of President Tyler.--Mr. Calhoun appointed
Secretary of State.--His Successful Management of the Texas Question.
--His Hostility to Mr. Van Buren.--Letters of Mr. Clay and Mr. Van
Buren opposing the Annexation of Texas.--Mr. Clay nominated as the
Whig Candidate for the President in 1844.--Van Buren's Nomination
defeated.--Mr. Polk selected as the Democratic Candidate.--Disquietude
of Mr. Clay.--His Change of Ground.--His Defeat.--Prolonged Rivalry
between Mr. Clay and General Jackson.--Texas formally annexed to
the Union.
Soon after the failure of the Abolitionists to exhibit popular
strength, the slavery question was forced upon public attention
independently of their efforts, and by causes whose operation and
effect were not distinctly forseen by those who set them in motion.
The Americans who, in a spirit of adventure, migrated to Texas
after that province had revolted from Mexico, became the controlling
power in the young republic, and under the lead of General Sam
Houston, in the month of April, 1836, won a memorable victory over
the Mexican army at San Jacinto. Thenceforward, in differing
degrees of earnestness, the annexation of Texas became a subject
of consideration in the United States, but it was never incorporated
in the creed of either of the great parties until the Presidential
canvass of 1844. Not long after the death of President Harrison
in April, 1841, his successor, John Tyler, had serious disagreements
with the leading Whigs, both in his cabinet and in Congress,
respecting the establishment of a national bank. Mr. Clay led the
attack upon him openly and almost savagely, arraigning him as a
traitor to the principles upon which he had been elected, and
pursuing the quarrel so violently, that in September, five months
after Tyler's accession, every member of his cabinet resigned except
Mr. Webster. He lingered, unwelcome if not distrusted, until July,
1843, for the purpose of conducting the negotiations in regard to
the North-eastern boundary, which he brought to a termination by
the Ashburton Treaty. The new secretary of State, Abel P. Upshur
of Virginia,--who had been at the head of the Navy Department for
a few months,--was a man of strong parts and brilliant attainments,
but not well known outside of his own commonwealth, and subject
therefore to disparagement as the successor of a man so illustrious
as Mr. Webster. He grasped his new duties, however, with the hand
of a master, and actively and avowedly pursued the policy of
acquiring Texas. His efforts were warmly seconded by the President,
whose friends believed with all confidence that this question could
be so presented as to make Mr. Tyler the Democratic candidate in
the approaching Presidential election. What Mr. Upshur's success
might have been in the difficult field of negotiation upon which
he had entered, must be left to conjecture, for his life was suddenly
destroyed by the terrible accident on board the United-States
steamer "Princeton," in February, 1844, but little more than seven
months after he had entered upon his important and engrossing
duties.
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT TYLER.
Mr. Tyler's administration being now fully committed to the scheme
of Texas annexation, the selection of a new secretary of State was
a matter of extreme importance. The President had been finally
separated from all sympathy with the party that elected him, when
Mr. Webster left the cabinet the preceding summer. But he had not
secured the confidence or the support of the Democracy. The members
of that party were willing to fill his offices throughout the
country, and to absorb the honors and emoluments of his administration;
but the leaders of positive influence, men of the grade of Van
Buren, Buchanan, Cass, Dallas, and Silas Wright, held aloof, and
left the government to be guided by Democrats who had less to risk,
and by Whigs of the type of Henry A. Wise of Virginia and Caleb
Cushing of Massachusetts, who had revolted from the rule of Mr.
Clay. It was the sagacity of Wise, rather than the judgment of
Tyler, which indicated the immense advantage of securing Mr. Calhoun
for the head of the cabinet. The great Southern leader was then
in retirement, having resigned from the Senate the preceding year.
By a coincidence worth nothing, Webster, Clay, and Calhoun were
all at that moment absent from the Senate, each having voluntarily
retired. In later life, chastened by political adversity, they
returned to the chamber where, before their advent and since their
departure, there have been no rivals to their fame.
Naturally, Mr. Calhoun would have been reluctant to take office
under Tyler at any time, and especially for the brief remainder of
an administration which had been continually under the ban of public
opinion, and which had not the slightest prospect of renewal. With
quick observation and keen insight, however, he perceived a great
opportunity to serve the South, and to serve the South was with
him not only a principle, but a passion. He realized, moreover,
that the hour was at hand for an historic revenge which the noblest
of minds might indulge. He saw intuitively that the Texas question
was one of vast importance, with untold possibilities. He saw with
equal clearness that it had never been presented in such manner as
to appeal to the popular judgment, and become an active, aggressive
issue in the struggle for the Presidency. A large section of the
Democratic party had looked favorably upon annexation ever since
1836, but the leaders had dared not to include the scheme in the
avowed designs of party policy. They had omitted it purposely in
making up the issues for the Van Buren campaign of 1840, and, up
to the hour when Mr. Calhoun entered the State Department, the
intention of the managers was to omit it in the contest of 1844
against Mr. Clay. Mr. Tyler's advocacy of Texas annexation had
injured rather than promoted it in the estimation of the Democratic
party; but when Mr. Calhoun, with his astute management, and his
large influence in the slave-holding States, espoused it, the whole
tenor of Southern opinion was changed, and the Democracy of that
section received a new inspiration.
Mr. Van Buren, aspiring again to the Presidency, desired to avoid
the Texas issue. Mr. Calhoun determined that he should meet it.
He had every motive for distrusting, opposing, even hating, Van
Buren. The contest between them had been long and unrelenting.
When Van Buren, as secretary of State, was seized with the ambition
to succeed Jackson, he saw Calhoun in the Vice-Presidency, strongly
intrenched as heir-apparent; and he set to work to destroy the
friendship and confidence that existed between him and the President.
The rash course of Jackson in the Seminole campaign of 1818 had
been severely criticised in the cabinet of Monroe, and Mr. Calhoun,
as secretary of War, had talked of a court of inquiry. Nothing,
however, was done and the mere suggestion had been ten years
forgotten, when Jackson entered upon the Presidency, entertaining
the strongest friendship, both personal and political, for Calhoun.
But the damaging fact was unearthed and the jealousy of Jackson
was aroused. Calhoun was driven into a deadly quarrel, resigned
the Vice-Presidency, and went back to South Carolina to engage in
the nullification contest. Van Buren quickly usurped his place in
the regard and confidence of Jackson, and succeeded to the Presidency.
Calhoun, denounced in every paper under the control of the
administration, was threatened with prosecution, and robbed for a
time of the confidence of the Democratic party. By the strangely
and rapidly changing fortunes of politics, it was now in his power
to inflict a just retribution upon Van Bren. He did not neglect
the opportunity.
SECRETARY CALHOUN'S DIPLOMACY.
Mr. Calhoun urged the scheme of annexation with intense earnestness.
Taking up the subject where Mr. Upshur had left it, he conducted
the negotiation with zeal and skill. His diplomatic correspondence
was able and exhaustive. It was practically a frank avowal that
Texas must be incorporated in the Union. He feared that European
influence might become dominant in the new republic, and, as a
consequence, that anti-slavery ideas might take root, and thence
injuriously affect the interests, and to some extent the safety,
of the Southern States. In an instruction to William R. King, our
minister at Paris, Mr. Calhoun called his attention to the fact
that England regarded the defeat of annexation "as indispensable
to the abolition of slavery in Texas." He believed that England
was "too sagacious not to see what a fatal blow abolition in Texas
would give to slavery in the United States." Then, contemplating
the effect of the general abolition of slavery, he declared that
"to this continent it would be calamitous beyond description." It
would "destroy in a great measure the cultivation and production
of the great tropical staples, amounting annually in value to nearly
$300,000,000." It is a suggestive commentary on Mr. Calhoun's evil
foreboding, that the great tropical staple of the South has steadily
increased in growth under free labor, and that the development of
Texas never fairly began until slavery was banished from her soil.
Discussing the right of Texas to independence, in an instruction
to Wilson Shannon, our minister to Mexico, Mr. Calhoun averred that
"Texas had never stood in relation to Mexico as a rebellious province
struggling to obtain independence. The true relation between them
is that of independent members of a federal government, the weaker
of which has successfully resisted the attempts of the stronger to
conquer and subject her to its power." This was applying to the
constitution of Mexico the same construction which he had so long
and so ably demanded for our own. It was, indeed, but a paraphrase
of the State-sovereignty and State-rights theory, with which he
had persistently indoctrinated the Southern mind. Ten years after
Mr. Calhoun was in his grave, the same doctrine, in almost the same
form of expression, became familiar to the country as the Southern
justification for resorting to civil war.
The prompt result of Mr. Calhoun's efforts was a treaty of annexation
which had been discussed but not concluded under Mr. Upshur. It
was communicated to the Senate by the President on the 12th of
April, 1844. The effect which this treaty produced on the political
fortunes of two leading statesmen, one in each party, was extraordinary.
Prior to its negotiation, the Democrats throughout the Union were
apparently well united in support of Mr. Van Buren as their
Presidential candidate. Mr. Clay was universally accepted by the
Whigs,--his nomination by a national convention being indeed but
a matter of form. Relations of personal courtesy and confidence,
if not of intimate friendship, had always subsisted between Mr.
Clay and Mr. Van Buren during their prolonged public service. It
was now believed that they had come to an understanding, through
the negotiation of friends, to eliminate the Texas question from
the campaign of 1844 by defeating the Tyler-Calhoun treaty, and
agreeing to a general postponement of the subject, on the ground
that immediate annexation would plunge the country into war. Very
soon after the treaty was sent to the Senate by the President, Mr.
Clay published in the "National Intelligencer" his famous Raleigh
letter against annexation. The "Globe" of the same day contained
a more guarded communication from Mr. Van Buren, practically taking
the same ground. Considering the widely different characteristics
of the two men, the letters were singularly alike in argument and
inference. This fact, in connection with the identical time of
publication, strengthened the suspicion, if not the conclusion,
that there was a pre-arranged understanding between the eminent
authors.
The letter of Mr. Van Buren was fatal to his prospects. He was
caught in the toils prepared by Mr. Calhoun's diplomacy. His
disastrous defeat four years before by General Harrison had not
injured him within the lines of his own party, or shorn him of his
prestige in the nation. He still retained the undiminished confidence
of his old adherents in the North, and a large support from the
Southern Democracy outside of the States in which Mr. Calhoun's
influence was dominant. But the leading Democrats of the South,
now inflamed with the fever of annexation, determined upon Van
Buren's defeat as soon as his letter opposing the acquisition of
Texas appeared. They went to work industriously and skillfully to
compass that end. It was not a light task. The force of New York,
as has been so frequently and so signally demonstrated, is difficult
to overcome in a Democratic National Convention; and New York was
not only unanimously, but enthusiastically, for Mr. Van Buren.
Hitherto New York and the South had been in alliance, and their
joint decrees were the rule of action inside the Democratic party.
They were now separated and hostile, and the trial of strength that
ensued was one of the most interesting political contests ever
witnessed in the country. The Democratic masses had so long followed
Southern lead that they were bewildered by this new and unexpected
development. From the organization of the Federal Government to
that hour, a period of fifty-six years, Mr. Van Buren was the only
Northern man whom the Democracy had supported for the Presidency;
and Mr. Van Buren had been forced upon the party by General Jackson.
His title to his political estate, therefore, came from the South.
It remained strong because his supporters believed that Jackson
was still behind him. One word from the great chief at the Hermitage
would have compelled Mr. Van Buren to retire from the field. But
the name of Jackson was powerful with the Democratic masses.
Against all the deep plots laid for Van Buren's overthrow, he was
still able, when the national convention assembled at Baltimore in
May, 1844, to count a majority of the delegates in favor of his
nomination.
VAN BUREN AND THE TWO-THIRDS RULE.
The Texas treaty of annexation was still pending in the Senate with
a decided majority committed against its confirmation, both upon
public and partisan grounds. The Whig senators and the friends of
Van Buren had coalesced for its defeat after their respective chiefs
had pronounced against it. Mr. Crittenden of Kentucky and Colonel
Benton were the leaders under whose joint efforts the work of
Calhoun was to be set at naught. But, in fact, the work of Calhoun
had already been effectually done and he could afford to disregard
the fate of the treaty. He had consolidated the Democratic delegates
from the slave-holding States against Mr. Van Buren, and the decree
had gone forth for his political destruction. Mr. Van Buren, with
the aid of the more populous North, had indeed secured a majority
of the convention, but an instrumentality was at hand to overcome
this apparent advantage. In the two preceding national conventions
of the Democratic party, the rule requiring a two-thirds vote of
all the delegates to make a nomination had been adopted at the
instance of Mr. Van Buren's friends in order to insure his victory.
It was now to be used for his defeat. Forseeing the result, the
same zealous and devoted friends of Mr. Van Buren resisted its
adoption. Romulus M. Sanders of North Carolina introduced the
rule, and was sustained with great vigor by Robert J. Walker of
Mississippi, and George W. Hopkins of Virginia. The leading
opponents of the rule were Marcus Morton of Massachusetts, Nathan
Clifford of Maine, and Daniel S. Dickinson of New York. The
discussion was conducted by Southern men on one side and by Northern
men on the other,--the first division of the kind in the Democratic
party. Slavery was the ominous cause! The South triumphed and
the rule was fastened upon the convention.
Immediately after this action Mr. Van Buren received a majority of
the votes on the first ballot, and it was not unnaturally charged
that many of those supporting him must have been insincere, inasmuch
as they had the full right, until self-restrained by the two-thirds
rule, to declare him the nominee. But this conclusion does not
necessarily follow. Mr. Van Buren had been nominated in the National
Democratic Conventions of 1835 and 1839 with the two-thirds rule
in operation; and now to force his nomination for a third time by
a mere slender majority was, in the judgment of wise and considerate
party leaders among his own friends, a dangerous experiment. They
instinctively feared to disregard a powerful and aggressive minority
stubbornly demanding that Mr. Van Buren should be subjected to the
same test which his friends had enforced in previous conventions.
Their argument was not satisfactorily answered, the rule was adopted,
and Mr. Van Buren's fate was sealed.
CALHOUN DEFEATS VAN BUREN.
The Southern men who insisted upon the rule had the courage to use
it. They had absolute control of more than one-third of the
convention; and, whatever might come, they were determined that
Mr. Van Buren should not be nominated. As the most effective mode
of assailing his strength, they supported a Northern candidate
against him, and gave a large vote for General Cass. This wrought
the intended result. It demoralized the friends of Mr. Van Buren
and prepared the way for a final concentration upon Mr. Polk, which
from the first had been the secret design of the Southern managers.
It was skillfully done, and was the direct result of the Texas
policy which Mr. Calhoun had forced the Democratic party to adopt.
To Mr. Van Buren it was a great blow, and some of his friends were
indisposed to submit to a result which they considered unfair.
For the first time in history of any convention, of either party,
a candidate supported by a majority of the delegates failed to be
nominated. The two-thirds rule, as Colonel Benton declared, had
been originally framed, "not to thwart a majority, but to strengthen
it." But it was remorselessly used to defeat the majority by men
who intended, not only to force a Southern policy on the government,
but to intrust that policy to the hands of a Southern President.
The support of Cass was not sincere, but it served for the moment
to embarrass the friends of Van Buren, to make the triumph of what
Benton called the Texas conspiracy more easy and more sure, and in
the end to lay up wrath against the day of wrath for General Cass
himself. Calhoun's triumph was complete. Politically he had gained
a great victory for the South. Personally he had inflicted upon
Mr. Van Buren a most humiliating defeat, literally destroying him
as a factor in the Democratic party, of which he had so long and
so successfully been the leader.
The details of Mr. Van Buren's defeat are presented because of its
large influence on the subsequent development of anti-slavery
strength in the North. He was sacrificed because he was opposed
to the immediate annexation of Texas. Had he taken ground in favor
of annexation, he would in all probability have been nominated with
a fair prospect of election; though the general judgment at that
time was that Mr. Clay would have defeated him. The overthrow of
Mr. Van Buren was a crisis in the history of the Democratic party,
and implanted dissensions which rapidly ripened into disaster.
The one leading feature, the forerunner of important political
changes, was the division of delegates on the geographical line of
North and South. Though receiving a clear majority of the entire
convention on the first ballot, Mr. Van Buren had but nine votes
from the slave States; and these votes, singularly enough, came
from the northern side of the line of the Missouri Compromise.
This division in a Democratic National Convention was, in many of
its relations and aspects, more significant than a similar division
in the two Houses of Congress.
Though cruelly wronged by the convention, as many of his supporters
thought, Mr. Van Buren did not himself show resentment, but
effectively sustained his successful competitor. His confidential
friend, Silas Wright, had refused to go on the ticket with Mr.
Polk, and George M. Dallas was substituted by the quick and competent
management of Mr. Robert J. Walker. The refusal of Mr. Wright led
the Whigs to hope for distraction in the ranks of the New-York
Democracy; but that delusion was soon dispelled by Wright's acceptance
of the nomination for governor, and his entrance into the canvass
with unusual energy and spirit. It was widely believed that
Jackson's great influence with Van Buren was actively exerted in
aid of Polk's election. It would have cruelly embittered the few
remaining days of the venerable ex-president to witness Clay's
triumph, and Van Buren owed so much to Jackson that he could not
be indifferent to Polk's success without showing ingratitude to
the great benefactor who had made him his successor in the Executive
chair. Motives of this kind evidently influenced Mr. Van Buren;
for his course in after years showed how keenly he felt his defeat,
and how unreconciled he was to the men chiefly engaged in compassing
it. The cooler temperament which he inherited from his Dutch
ancestry enabled him to bide his time more patiently than men of
Scotch-Irish blood, like Calhoun; but subsequent events plainly
showed that he was capable of nursing his anger, and of inflicting
a revenge as significant and as fatal as that of which he had been
made the victim,--a revenge which would have been perfect in its
gratification had it included Mr. Calhoun personally, as it did
politically, with General Cass.
Mr. Clay's letter opposing the annexation of Texas, unlike the
letter of Mr. Van Buren, brought its author strength and prestige
in the section upon which he chiefly relied for support in the
election. He was nominated with unbounded manifestations of
enthusiasm at Baltimore, on the first of May, with no platform
except a brief extract from one of his own letters embraced in a
single resolution, and containing no reference whatever to the
Texas question. His prospects were considered most brilliant, and
his supporters throughout the Union were absolutely confident of
his election. But the nomination of Mr. Polk, four weeks later,
surprised and disquieted Mr. Clay. More quickly than his ardent
and blinded advocates, he perceived the danger to himself which
the candidacy of Mr. Polk inevitably involved; and he at once became
restless and dissatisfied with the drift and tendency of the
campaign. The convention which nominated Mr. Polk took bold ground
for the immediate re-annexation of Texas and re-occupation of
Oregon. This peculiar form of expression was used to indicate that
Texas had already belonged to us under the Louisiana purchase, and
that Oregon had been wholly ours prior to the treaty of joint
occupancy with Great Britain. It further declared, that our title
to the whole of Oregon, up to 54 deg. 40' north latitude, was "clear
and indisputable"; thus carrying our claim to the borders of the
Russian possessions, and utterly denying and defying the pretension
of Great Britain to the ownership of any territory bordering on
the Pacific.
FATAL CHANGE IN MR. CLAY'S POSITION.
By this aggressive policy the Democratic party called forth the
enthusiasm of the people, both North and South, in favor of
territorial acquisition,--always popular with men of Anglo-Saxon
blood, and appealing in an especial manner to the young, the brave,
and the adventurous, in all sections of the country. Mr. Clay, a
man of most generous and daring nature, suddenly discovered that
he was on the timid side of all the prominent questions before the
people,--a position occupied by him for the first time. He had
led public sentiment in urging the war of 1812 against Great Britain;
had served with distinction in negotiating the Treaty of Peace at
Ghent; had forced the country into an early recognition of the
South-American republics at the risk of war with Spain; had fiercely
attacked the Florida Treaty of 1819, for surrendering our rightful
claim to Texas as part of the Louisiana purchase; and had, when
secretary of State, held high ground on the Oregon question in his
correspondence with the British Government. With this splendid
record of fearless policy throughout his long public career, a
defensive position, suddenly thrust upon him by circumstances which
he had not foreseen, betrayed him into anger, and thence naturally
into imprudence. All his expectations had been based upon a contest
with Mr. Van Buren. The issues he anticipated were those of national
bank, of protective tariff, of internal improvements, and the
distribution of the proceeds from the sale of the public lands,--
on all of which he believed he would have the advantage before the
people. The substitution of Mr. Polk changed the entire character
of the contest, as the sagacious leaders of the Southern Democracy
had foreseen. To extricate himself from the embarrassment into
which he was thrown, Mr. Clay resorted to the dangerous experiment
of modifying the position which he had so recently taken on the
Texas question. Apparently underrating the hostility of the Northern
Whigs to the scheme of annexation, he saw only the disadvantage in
which the Southern Whigs were placed, especially in the Gulf region,
and, in a less degree, in the northern tier of slave-holding States.
Even in Kentucky--which had for years followed Mr. Clay with immense
popular majorities--the contest grew animated and exciting as the
Texas question was pressed. The State was to vote in August; and
the gubernatorial canvass between Judge Owsley, the Whig candidate,
and General William O. Butler, the nominee of the Democrats, was
attracting the attention of the whole nation. This local contest
not only enlisted Mr. Clay's interest, but aroused his deep personal
feeling. In a private letter, since made public, he urged the
editors of the Whig press "to lash Butler" for some political
shortcoming which he pointed out. In a tone of unrestrained anger,
he declared that "we should have a pretty time of it with one of
Jackson's lieutenants at Washington, and another at Frankfort, and
the old man in his dotage at the Hermitage dictating to both." To
lose Kentucky was, for the Whigs, to lose every thing. To reduce
the Whig majority in Mr. Clay's own State would be a great victory
for the Democracy, and to that end the leaders of the party were
straining every nerve.
Mr. Clay realized that it was his position on the Texas question,
as defined in the Raleigh letter, which was endangering his prestige
in Kentucky. This fact, added to the pressure upon him from every
other slave-holding State, precipitated him into the blunder which
probably cost him his election. A few weeks after the nomination
of Mr. Polk, on the first day of July, 1844, Mr. Clay, while resting
quietly at Ashland, wrote to Stephen Miller of Tuscaloosa what has
since been known as his Alabama letter. It was written to relieve
the Southern Whigs, without anticipation of its effect upon the
fortunes of Northern Whigs. Mr. Clay was surrounded by men of the
South only, breathed their atmosphere, heard their arguments; and,
unmindful of the unrepresented Northern sentiment, he took the
fatal step. He declared, that, "far from having any personal
objection to the annexation of Texas," he "would be glad to see it
annexed, without dishonor, without war, with the common consent of
the Union, and upon just and fair terms." This letter received
the popular designation of Mr. Clay's political "death-warrant,"
from the disastrous effect it produced on his prospects in certain
free States where before its appearance he had been considered
irresistibly strong.
TRIUMPH OF POLK OVER CLAY.
The immediate and palpable effect of the Alabama letter in the
North was an increase of power and numbers to the Abolitionists.
To Mr. Clay this was its most destructive result. Prior to 1840
the Abolitionists had been so few and so scattered that they had
not attempted a national organization, or taken any part in the
political contests of the country. In that year, however, they
named James G. Birney as their candidate for the Presidency, and
cast for him only 6,745 votes out of a total of 2,410,778. In 1844
the Abolitionists again named Mr. Birney as their Presidential
candidate; and, until the appearance of the Alabama letter, the
general impression was that their vote would not be larger than in
1840. Indeed, so long as Mr. Clay held firmly to his opposition
to Texas annexation, the tendency of the Abolitionists was to prefer
him to Mr. Polk. But the moment the letter of surrender appeared
thousands of anti-slavery Whigs who had loyally supported Mr. Clay
went over at once to the Abolitionists. To the popular apprehension,
Mr. Clay had changed his ground, and his new position really left
little difference between himself and his opponent on the absorbing
question of Texas annexation, but it still gave to Mr. Polk all
the advantage of boldness. The latter was outspoken for the
annexation of Texas, and the former, with a few timid qualifications,
declared that he would be glad to see Texas annexed. Besides this,
Mr. Polk's position on the Oregon question afforded some compensation
by proposing to add a large area of free territory to offset the
increase of slave territory in Texas. Under such arguments the
Abolition party grew rapidly and steadily until, at the election,
they polled for Mr. Birney 58,879 votes. This vast increase over
the vote of 1840 was very largely at the expense of the Whig party,
and its specific injury to Mr. Clay is almost a matter of mathematical
demonstration. In New York the vote stood for Polk 237,588, for
Clay 232,482, for Birney, 15,812. The plurality for Mr. Polk was
only 5,106. In 1840 the vote for Mr. Birney in New York was
2,798.* But for the Alabama letter it has always been believed
that Mr. Clay would have received a sufficient number of the Birney
votes to give him a plurality. The election hinged on the result
in New York. One hundred and thirty-eight electoral votes were
necessary to a choice. With New York, Mr. Clay would have had a
total of one hundred and forty-one. Mr. Polk, with New York added
to his vote, received a total of one hundred and seventy, and was
elected President of the United States.
No contest for the Presidency, either before or since, has been
conducted with such intense energy and such deep feeling. Mr.
Clay's followers were not ordinary political supporters. They had
the profound personal attachment which is looked for only in
hereditary governments, where loyalty becomes a passion, and is
blind and unreasoning in its adherence and its devotion. The
logical complement of such ardent fidelity is an opposition marked
by unscrupulous rancor. This case proved no exception. The love
of Mr. Clay's friends was equaled by the hatred of his foes. The
zeal of his supporters did not surpass the zeal of his opponents.
All the enmities and exasperations which began in the memorable
contest for the Presidency when John Quincy Adams was chosen, and
had grown into great proportions during the long intervening period,
were fought out on the angry field of 1844. Mr. Polk, a moderate
and amiable man, did not represent the acrimonious character of
the controversy. He stood only as the passive representative of
its principles. Behind him was Jackson, aged and infirm in body,
but strong in mind, and unbroken in spirit. With him the struggle
was not only one of principle, but of pride; not merely of judgment,
but of temper; and he communicated to the legions throughout the
country, who regarded him with reverence and gratitude, a full
measure of his own animosity against Clay. In its progress the
struggle absorbed the thought, the action, the passion, of the
whole people. When its result was known, the Whigs regarded the
defeat of Mr. Clay, not only as a calamity of untold magnitude to
the country, but as a personal and profound grief, which touched
the heart as deeply as the understanding. It was Jackson's final
triumph over Clay. The iron-nerved old hero died in seven months
after this crowning gratification of his life.
GENERAL JACKSON AND MR. CLAY.
For twenty years these two great, brave men headed the opposing
political forces of the Union. Whoever might be candidates, they
were the actual leaders. John Quincy Adams was more learned than
either; Mr. Webster was stronger in logic and in speech; Calhoun
more acute, refined, and philosophic; Van Buren better skilled in
combining and directing political forces; but to no one of these
was given the sublime attribute of leadership, the faculty of
drawing men unto him. That is natural, not acquired. There was
not in the whole country, during the long period of their rivalry,
a single citizen of intelligence who was indifferent to Clay or to
Jackson. For the one without qualification, against the other
without reservation, was the rule of division from the northernmost
township of New England to the mouths of the Mississippi. Both
leaders had the highest courage; physical and moral, in equal
degree. Clay held the advantage of a rare eloquence; but Jackson
had a splendid military record, which spoke to the hearts of the
people more effectively than words. Members for twenty years of
the same party, they differed slightly, if at all, in political
principles when the contest began; but Jackson enjoyed the prestige
of a more lineal heirship to the creed of Jefferson, Madison, and
Monroe; while Clay, by his imprudence in becoming secretary of
State, incurred not only the odium of the "bargain and sale," but
a share of the general unpopularity which at that time attached to
the name of Adams. It is not in retrospect difficult to measure
the advantages which Jackson possessed in the long contest, and to
see clearly the reasons of his final triumph over the boldest of
leaders, the noblest of foes. Still less is it difficult to see
how largely the personality of the two men entered into the struggle,
and how in the end the effect upon the politics and prosperity of
the country would have been nearly the same had the winner and the
loser exchanged places. In each of them patriotism was a passion.
There never was a moment in their prolonged enmity and their
rancorous contests when a real danger to the country would not have
united them as heartily as in 1812, when Clay in the House and
Jackson on the field co-operated in defending the national honor
against the aggressions of Great Britain.
The election of Mr. Polk was an unquestionable verdict from the
people in favor of the annexation of Texas. Mr. Clay and Mr. Van
Buren had been able to defeat the treaty negotiated by Mr. Calhoun;
but the popular vote overruled them, and pronounced in favor of
the Democratic position after full and fair hearing. Mr. Tyler
was anxious that the scheme so energetically initiated by him should
be fully accomplished during his term. The short method of joint
resolution was therefore devised by the ever fertile brain of Mr.
Calhoun, and its passage through Congress intrusted to the skilful
management of Robert J. Walker, then a senator from Mississippi,
and already indicated for the portfolio of the Treasury in the new
administration. Mr. Polk was in consultation with Mr. Tyler during
the closing weeks of the latter's administration, and the annexation
by joint resolution had his full concurrence. It was passed in
season to receive the approval of President Tyler on the first day
of March, three days before the eventful administration of Mr. Polk
was installed in power. Its terms were promptly accepted by Texas,
and at the next session of Congress, beginning December, 1845, the
constitution of the new State was approved. Historic interest
attached to the appearance of Sam Houston and Thomas J. Rusk as
the first senators from the great State which they had torn from
Mexico and added to the Union.
The lapse of forty years and the important events of intervening
history give the opportunity for impartial judgment concerning the
policy of acquiring Texas. We were not guiltless towards Mexico
in originally permitting if not encouraging our citizens to join
in the revolt of one of the States of that Republic. But Texas
had passed definitely and finally beyond the control of Mexico,
and the practical issue was, whether we should incorporate her in
the Union or leave her to drift in uncertain currents--possibly to
form European alliances which we should afterwards be compelled,
in self-defense, to destroy. An astute statesman of that period
summed up the whole case when he declared that it was wiser policy
to annex Texas, and accept the issue of immediate war with Mexico,
than to leave Texas in nominal independence to involve us probably
in ultimate war with England. The entire history of subsequent
events has vindicated the wisdom, the courage, and the statesmanship
with which the Democratic party dealt with this question in 1844.
[* Total vote cast for James G. Birney, Abolition candidate for
President, in 1840 and in 1844:--
1840. 1844. 1840. 1844.
Connecticut . . . . 179 1,943 New York . . . . 2,798 15,812
Illinois . . . . . -- 149 Ohio . . . . . . 903 8,050
Indiana . . . . . . -- 2,106 Pennsylvania . . 343 3,138
Maine . . . . . . . 194 4,836 Rhode Island . . 42 107
Massachusetts . . . 1,621 10,860 Vermont . . . . 319 3,954
Michigan . . . . . 321 3,632
New Hampshire . . . 126 4,161 6,745 58,879
New Jersey . . . . 69 131 ]