Mr. Polk did not stop with one exaction. Addressing Mr. Buchanan as if he were about to become a department clerk, he informed him that he disapproved "the practice which has sometimes prevailed of cabinet officers absenting themselves for long periods from the seat of government," and practically demanded a pledge that Mr. Buchanan would remain at his post, and be punctual in the discharge of his official duties. In reading Mr. Polk's letter, the inference seems natural that he felt under some pressing obligation to tender to Mr. Buchanan the appointment of secretary of State, but desired to accompany it with conditions which would subordinate him in the general conduct of the administration. With a spirit of docility, if not humility, altogether incomprehensible, Mr. Buchanan "accepted the position cheerfully and cordially on the terms on which the offer was made."

It is not surprising that, after agreeing to enter Mr. Polk's cabinet on these conditions, Mr. Buchanan had abundant reason to complain afterwards that the President did not treat him with "delicacy and confidence." On several occasions he was on the point of resigning his position. He was especially aggrieved that the President refused to nominate him to the Supreme Bench in 1846 as the successor of Henry Baldwin. In view of Mr. Buchanan's career, both before and after that time, it seems strange that he should have desired the position. It seems stranger still that Mr. Polk, after refusing to appoint him, should have nominated George W. Woodward, a Pennsylvania Democrat, who was unacceptable to Mr. Buchanan. Mr. Polk, however, appreciated the temperament of Mr. Buchanan, and apparently knew how much he would endure without resentment. While his presence in the cabinet was evidently not a source of pleasure to the President, he realized that it brought character, strength, and power to the administration. Mr. Buchanan was an older man than Mr. Polk, was superior to him intellectually, had seen a longer and more varied public service, and enjoyed a higher personal standing throughout the country.

The timidity of Mr. Buchanan's nature made him the servant of the administration when, with boldness, he might have been its master. Had he chosen to tender his resignation in resentment of his treatment by Mr. Polk, the administration would have been seriously embarrassed. There was, at the time, no Northern Democrat of the same rank to succeed him, except General Cass, and he was ineligible by reason of his uncompromising attitude on the Oregon question. Mr. Polk could not call a Southern man to the State Department so long as Robert J. Walker was at the head of the Treasury. He could not promote Mr. Marcy from the War Department without increasing the discontent already dangerously developed in the ranks of the New-York Democracy. Mr. Buchanan, therefore, held absolute control of the situation had he chosen to assert himself. This he failed to do, and continued to lend his aid to an administration whose policy was destroying him in his own State, and whose patronage was persistently used to promote the fortunes of his rivals and his enemies.

Mr. Polk was by singular fortune placed at the head of one of the most vigorous and important administrations in the history of the government. He had not been trained in the higher duties of statesmanship, and was not personally equal to the weighty responsibilities which devolved upon him. He was overshadowed by the ability of at least three members of his cabinet, and was keenly sensible of their superiority. He had, however, a certain aptitude for affairs, was industrious, and in personal character above reproach. Mr. Webster described him with accuracy when he spoke of him as "respectable but never eminent."

EARLY CAREER OF JAMES K. POLK.

When first elected to the House of Representatives in 1824, Mr. Polk was but twenty-nine years of age. He was re-elected continuously for fourteen years. He was one of the most pronounced adherents of Jackson, and joined in the extreme and unreasonable opposition to the administration of John Quincy Adams. The period of his service in the House was distinguished by partisanship of a more bigoted and vindictive type than prevailed at any other time in the history of that body. He was Speaker during the last Congress of Jackson's Presidency and during the first under the administration of Van Buren. When the Whig members forced an inquiry in to the conduct of Samuel Swartwout, the defaulting collector of customs for the port of New York,—a case which figured prominently in the exciting Presidential canvass of 1840,—they would not trust Mr. Polk with the duty of naming the committee of investigation. The House itself exercised the power of appointment, to the great disparagement of the Speaker.

When Mr. Polk closed his service in the Chair, at the end of the Twenty-fifth Congress, no Whig member could be found who was willing to move the customary resolution of thanks,—an act of courtesy which derives its chief grace by coming from a political opponent. When the resolution was presented by a Democratic Representative from the South, it was opposed in debate by prominent Whig members. Henry A. Wise, who five years later supported Mr. Polk for the Presidency, desired to have the resolution peremptorily ruled out on a point of order. Sergeant S. Prentiss, the incomparably brilliant member from Mississippi, attacked it most violently. His impassioned invective did not stop short of personal indignity and insult to Mr. Polk. He denied with emphatic iteration that the Speaker had been "impartial." On the contrary he had been "the tool of the Executive, the tool of his party." He analyzed Mr. Polk's course in the appointment of committees, and with much detail labored to prove his narrowness, his unfairness, his injustice as a presiding officer. For one, he said, he was "not wiling to give to Mr. Polk a certificate of good behaviour, to aid him in his canvass for the governorship of Tennessee, for which he is known to be a candidate." He believed "this vote of thanks was to be used as so much capital, on which to do political business," and he declared with much vehemence that he "was not disposed to furnish it."

The opprobrious language of Prentiss did not wound Mr. Polk so seriously as did the vote of the House on the resolution of thanks. The Whigs, as a party, resisted its adoption. The Democrats could not even bring the House to a vote upon the resolution without the use of the previous question, and this, as a witty observer remarked, was about as humiliating as to be compelled to call the previous question on resolutions of respect for a deceased member. When the demand was made for "the main question to be put," the Whigs, apparently eager to force the issue to the bitter end, called for the ayes and noes. John Quincy Adams, who headed the roll, led off in the negative, and was sustained by such able and conservative members as John Bell from Mr. Polk's own State, McKennan of Pennsylvania, Evans of Maine, Corwin of Ohio, Menifee from the Ashland district in Kentucky, and William Cost Johnson of Maryland. The vote stood 92 to 75. Mr. Polk had been chosen Speaker by a majority of thirteen. The Whigs had thus practically consolidated their party against a vote of courtesy to the presiding officer of the House.

Mr. Polk's situation was in the highest degree embarrassing, but he behaved with admirable coolness and self-possession. He returned his thanks to the "majority of the House," which had adopted the resolution, significantly emphasizing the word "majority." He said he regarded the vote just given "as of infinitely more value than the common, matter-of-course, customary resolution which, in the courtesy usually prevailing in parliamentary bodies, is passed at the close of their deliberations." His reference "to the courtesy usually prevailing in parliamentary bodies" was made, as an eye- witness relates, with "telling accent, and with a manner that was very disconcerting to the Whigs." His address was scrupulously confined to "the majority of the House," and to the end Mr. Polk exhibited, as was said at the time, "a magnificent contempt for the insulting discourtesy of the Whigs."

EARLY CAREER OF JAMES K. POLK.

The incident was made very prominent in the ensuing canvass in Tennessee, where Mr. Polk won a signal victory, and was installed as governor. The Democrats treated the action of the House as a deliberate insult, not merely to the Speaker, but to his State, and not only to his State, but to the venerable ex-president, whose residence at the Hermitage, in the judgment of his devoted followers, made Tennessee illustrious and almost sacred ground. Jackson himself was roused to intense indignation, and, though beyond threescore and ten, was active and unceasing in his efforts to insure a victory to Mr. Polk. The contest, though local in its essential character, attracted observation and interest far beyond the borders of the State.

The political importance of Mr. Polk was enhanced by the proscriptive course of his opponents in the House of Representatives. The refusal to join in the resolution of thanks operated in a manner quite contrary to the expectations of the Whigs, and was indeed effectively turned against them. The generous instincts of the people condemned an attempt to destroy the honorable fame of a public man by what they considered to be an act of spiteful persecution. It was the opinion of John Bell, who of all men had the best opportunity for impartial judgment in the premises, that the vote of himself and his fellow Whigs on the resolution was an indirect but potential cause of Mr. Polk's nomination and election to the Presidency. It gave him prominence as a friend of Jackson, and made him available as a candidate against Van Buren for the Democratic nomination. The opponents of the latter instinctively knew that it would be dangerous to defeat him with any one who did not stand well with Van Buren's powerful patron. The events of 1839 and 1844 in the life of Mr. Polk have therefore an interesting relation to each other.

CHAPTER IV.

Review (continued).—Relations with Mexico.—General Taylor marches his Army to the Rio Grande.—First Encounter with the Mexican Army.—Excitement in the United States.—Congress declares War against Mexico.—Ill Temper of the Whigs.—Defeat of the Democrats in the Congressional Elections of 1846.—Policy of Mr. Polk in Regard to Acquisition of Territory from Mexico.—Three- Million Bill.—The Famous Anti-slavery Proviso moved by David Wilmot.—John Quincy Adams.—His Public Service.—Robert C. Winthrop chosen Speaker.—Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.—Presidential Election of 1848.—Effort of the Administration to make a Democratic Hero out of the Mexican War.—Thomas H. Benton for Lieutenant-General. —Bill defeated.—Nomination of General Taylor for the Presidency by the Whigs.—Nomination of General Cass by the Democratic Party. —Van Buren refuses to support him.—Democratic Bolt in New York. —Buffalo Convention and the Organization of the Free-soil Party. —Nomination of Van Buren and Charles Francis Adams.—Mr. Clay's Discontent.—Mr. Webster's Speech at Marshfield.—General Taylor elected.—The Barnburners of New York.—Character and Public Services of Mr. Van Buren.

By a suggestive coincidence, the practical abandonment of the line of 54 deg. 40' by the administration was contemporaneous with the outbreak of the Mexican war. The modified resolution of notice to Great Britain was finally passed in both branches of Congress on the 23d of April, and on the succeeding day the first blood was shed in that contest between the two Republics which was destined to work such important results in the future and fortunes of both.

The army of occupation in Texas, commanded by General Zachary Taylor, had, during the preceding winter, been moving westward with the view of encamping in the valley of the Rio Grande. On the 28th of March General Tyler took up his position on the banks of the river, opposite Matamoros, and strengthened himself by the erection field-works. General Ampudia, in command of the Mexican army stationed at Matamoros, was highly excited by the arrival of the American army, and on the 12th of April notified General Taylor to break up his camp within twenty-four hours, and to retire beyond the Nueces River. In the event of his failure to comply with these demands, Ampudia announced that "arms, and arms alone, must decide the question." According to the persistent claim of the Mexican Government, the Nueces River was the western boundary of Texas; and the territory between that river and the Rio Grande—a breadth of one hundred and fifty miles on the coast—was held by Mexico to be a part of her domain, and General Taylor consequently an invader of her soil. No reply was made to Ampudia; and on the 24th of April General Arista, who had succeeded to the command of the Mexican army, advised General Taylor that "he considered hostilities commenced, and should prosecute them."

BEGINNING OF MEXICAN WAR.

Directly after this notification was received, General Taylor dispatched a party of dragoons, sixty-three in number, officers and men, up the valley of the Rio Grande, to ascertain whether the Mexicans had crossed the river. They encountered a force much larger than their own, and after a short engagement, in which some seventeen were killed and wounded, the Americans were surrounded, and compelled to surrender. When intelligence of this affair reached the United States, the war-spirit rose high among the people. "Our country has been invaded," and "American blood spilled on American soil," were the cries heard on every side. In the very height of this first excitement, without waiting to know whether the Mexican Government would avow or disavow the hostile act, President Polk, on the 11th of May, sent a most aggressive message to Congress, "invoking its prompt action to recognize the existence of war, and to place at the disposition of the Executive the means of prosecuting the contest with vigor, and thus hastening the restoration of peace." As soon as the message was read in the House, a bill was introduced authorizing the President to call out a force of fifty thousand men, and giving him all the requisite power to organize, arm, and equip them. The preamble declared that "war existed by the act of Mexico," and this gave rise to an animated and somewhat angry discussion. The Whigs felt that they were placed in an embarrassing attitude. They must either vote for what they did not believe, or, by voting against the bill, incur the odium which always attaches to the party that fails by a hair's-breadth to come to the defense of the country when war is imminent.

Prominent Whigs believed, that, as an historical and geographical fact, the river Nueces was the western boundary of Texas, and that the President, by assuming the responsibility of sending an army of occupation into the country west of that river, pending negotiations with Mexico, had taken a hostile and indefensible step. But all agreed that it was too late to consider any thing except the honor of the country, now that actual hostilities had begun. The position of the Whigs was as clearly defined by their speakers as was practicable in the brief space allowed for discussion of the war bill. Against the protest of many, it was forced to a vote, after a two hours' debate. The administration expected the declaration to be unanimous; but there were fourteen members of the House who accepted the responsibility of defying the war feeling of the country by voting "no"—an act which required no small degree of moral courage and personal independence. John Quincy Adams headed the list. The other gentlemen were all Northern Whigs, or pronounced Free-Soilers.

The Senate considered the bill on the ensuing day, and passed it after a very able debate, in which Mr. Calhoun bore a leading part. He earnestly deprecated the necessity of the war, though accused by Benton of plotting to bring it on. Forty senators voted for it, and but two against it,—Thomas Clayton of Delaware and John Davis of Massachusetts. Mr. Crittenden of Kentucky and Mr. Upham of Vermont, when their names were called, responded, "Ay, except the preamble." The bill was promptly approved by the President, and on the 13th of May, 1846, the two Republics were declared to be at war. In the South and West, from the beginning, the war was popular. In the North and East it was unpopular. The gallant bearing of our army, however, changed in large degree the feeling in sections where the war had been opposed. No finer body of men ever enlisted in an heroic enterprise than those who volunteered to bear the flag in Mexico. They were young, ardent, enthusiastic, brave almost to recklessness, with a fervor of devotion to their country's honor. The march of Taylor from the Rio Grande, ending with the unexpected victory against superior numbers at Buena Vista, kept the country in a state of excitement and elation, and in the succeeding year elevated him to the Presidency. Not less splendid in its succession of victories was the march of Scott from Vera Cruz to the city of Mexico, where he closed his triumphal journey by taking possession of the capital, and enabling his government to dictate terms of peace.

DEMOCRATIC DEFEAT IN 1846.

For the first and only time in our political history, an administration conducting a war victorious at every step, steadily lost ground in the country. The House of Representatives which declared war on the 11th of May, 1846, was Democratic by a large majority. The House, elected in the ensuing autumn, amid the resounding acclamations of Taylor's memorable victory at Monterey, had a decided Whig majority. This political reverse was due to three causes,—the enactment of the tariff of 1846, which offended the manufacturing interest of the country; the receding of the administration on the Oregon question, which embarrassed the position and wounded the pride of the Northern Democrats; and the wide-spread apprehension that the war was undertaken for the purpose of extending and perpetuating slavery. The almost unanimous Southern vote for the hasty surrender of the line of 54 deg. 40', on which so much had been staked in the Presidential campaign, gave the Whigs an advantage in the popular canvass. The contrast between the boldness with which the Polk administration had marched our army upon the territory claimed by Mexico, and the prudence with which it had retreated from a contest with Great Britain, after all our antecedent boasting, exposed the Democrats to merciless ridicule. Clever speakers who were numerous in the Whig party at that day did not fail to see and seize their advantage.

The Mexican war had scarcely begun when the President justified the popular suspicion by making known to Congress that one of its objects was to be the acquisition of territory beyond the Rio Grande. Perhaps it would be fairer to say that he expected such acquisition to be one of its results. He ably vindicated the policy of marching a military force into the territory between the Nueces and the Rio Grande, by the fact that he was memorialized to do so by the still existing Congress of Texas, on the urgent plea that Mexico was preparing to move upon the territory with a view to its recapture. In this Congress of Texas, the same body that completed the annexation, there were representatives from the territory in dispute beyond the Nueces; and the President felt that they were in an eminent degree entitled to the protection of our government. Events were so hurried that in three months from the formal declaration of war, and before any victory of decisive significance had been achieved, the President sent a special message to Congress, in which he suggested that "the chief obstacle to be surmounted in securing peace would be the adjustment of a boundary that would prove satisfactory and convenient to both republics." He admitted that we ought to pay a fair equivalent for any concessions which might be made by Mexico, and asked that a sum of money should be placed in his hands to be paid to Mexico immediately upon the ratification of a treaty of peace. As a precedent for this unusual request, the President cited the example of Mr. Jefferson in asking and receiving from Congress, in 1803, a special appropriation of money, to be expended at his discretion. As soon as the reading of the message was concluded, Mr. McKay of North Carolina, chairman of the committee of ways and means, introduced a bill, without preamble or explanation, directing that two millions of dollars be appropriated, to be "applied under the direction of the President to any extraordinary expenses which may be incurred in our foreign intercourse." The war was not referred to, Mexico was not named, and the simple phraseology of the Jefferson Act of 1803 was repeated word for word.

A very animated debate followed, in which Northern men took the lead. Mr. Robert C. Winthrop spoke of the administration with unwonted harshness, declaring that "it and its friends had thought fit, during the present session, to frame more than one of these important measures, so as to leave their opponents in a false position whichever way they voted." . . . He "could not and would not vote for this bill as it now stood. . . . It was a vote of unlimited confidence in an administration in which, he was sorry to say, there was very little confidence to be placed." Mr. John Quincy Adams differed from Mr. Winthrop, and could not refrain from a pardonable thrust at that gentleman for his previous vote that "war existed by act of Mexico." He differed from his colleague, Mr. Adams demurely affirmed, with a regret equal to that with which he had differed from him on the bill by which war was declared. He should not vote for this bill in any form, but suggested that it be so amended as to specify expressly that the money is granted for the purpose of negotiating peace with Mexico.

THE WILMOT PROVISO.

The bill was promptly modified in accordance with the desires of Mr. Adams, and at the moment when its passage seemed secure it was arrested by an amendment of momentous character, submitted by a young member from Pennsylvania. David Wilmot represented a district which had always given Democratic majorities, and was himself an intense partisan of that political school. He was a man of strong physique and strong common sense; of phlegmatic temperament, without any pretension to genius; a sensible speaker, with no claim to eloquence or oratory. But he had courage, determination, and honesty. He believed the time had come to arrest the progress and extension of slavery. He knew that the two-million bill was urged by the President because he wished to use the money to promote the acquisition of territory, and he determined then and there to make a stand in favor of free soil. He thereupon, on the 8th of August, 1846, moved a proviso to the two-million bill, declaring it to be "an express and fundamental condition to the acquisition of any territory from Mexico, that neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall ever exist therein."

Mr. Wilmot was in the first session of his first Congress, was but thirty-three years of age, and up to that moment had not been known beyond his district. His amendment made his name familiar at once throughout the length and breadth of the Republic. No question had arisen since the slavery agitation of 1820 that was so elaborately debated. The Wilmot Proviso absorbed the attention of Congress for a longer time than the Missouri Compromise: it produced a wider and deeper excitement in the country, and it threatened a more serious danger to the peace and integrity of the Union. The consecration of the territory of the United States to freedom became from that day a rallying cry for every shade of anti-slavery sentiment. If it did not go as far as the Abolitionists in their extreme and uncompromising faith might demand, it yet took a long step forward, and afforded the ground on which the battle of the giants was to be waged, and possibly decided. The feeling in all sections became intense on the issue thus presented, and it proved a sword which cleft asunder political associations that had been close and intimate for a lifetime. Both the old parties were largely represented on each side of the question. The Northern Whigs, at the outset, generally sustained the proviso, and the Northern Democrats divided, with the majority against it. In the slave States both parties were against it, only two men south of Mason and Dixon's line voting for free soil,—John M. Clayton of Delaware in the Senate, and Henry Grider of Kentucky in the House. Mr. Grider re-entered Congress as a Republican after the war. Among the conspicuous Whigs who voted for the proviso were Joseph R. Ingersoll and James Pollock of Pennsylvania, Washington Hunt of New York, Robert C. Winthrop of Massachusetts, Robert C. Schenck of Ohio, and Truman Smith of Connecticut. Among the Democrats were Hannibal Hamlin, and all his colleagues from Maine, Simon Cameron of Pennsylvania, Preston King of New York, John Wentworth of Illinois, Allen G. Thurman of Ohio, and Robert McClelland of Michigan, afterwards Secretary of the Interior under President Pierce.

Mr. Webster voted for the proviso, but with gloomy apprehensions. He could "see little of the future, and that little gave him no satisfaction." He spoke with portentous gravity, and arrested the attention of the country by the solemnity of his closing words: "All I can scan is contention, strife, and agitation. The future is full of difficulties and full of dangers. We appear to be rushing on perils headlong, and with our eyes all open." There was a singular disagreement between the speech and the vote of Mr. Webster. The speech indicated his real position. His vote was in deference to the opinion of Massachusetts. The most conspicuous Northern Whigs who voted against the proviso were Alexander Ramsey of Pennsylvania, since the distinguished Republican senator from Minnesota, and Secretary of War under President Hayes; and Samuel F. Vinton of Ohio, one of the oldest and ablest representatives in Congress.

The House attached the proviso to the two-million bill, and thus defeated it for the session. The Democratic Senate took it up on the day fixed for final adjournment. The majority were not willing to accept the appropriation with the anti-slavery condition upon it, and John Davis of Massachusetts, fearing if the bill went back to the House the proviso might on reconsideration be defeated, deliberately held the floor until the session expired. In the next session the two-million bill, increased to three millions, was passed without the proviso, the administration being strong enough, with the persuasions of its patronage, to defeat the anti-slavery amendment in both branches.

During the proceedings on the three-million bill, an interesting and instructive incident occurred. The venerable John Quincy Adams appeared in the House for the first time during the session, on the 13th of February (1847), having been detained by a very severe illness. As he passed inside the door the entire House voluntarily rose, business was suspended, and Mr. Andrew Johnson of Tennessee (afterwards President of the United States), addressing the Chair, said, that in compliance with the understanding with which he selected a seat at the beginning of the session, he now tendered it to the venerable member from Massachusetts, and congratulated him on being spared to return to the House. Mr. Adams, enfeebled by disease, tremulous with age, returned his thanks, regretting that he had not "voice to respond to the congratulations of his friends for the honor which had been done him." Among those who paid this unusual, indeed unprecedented, mark of respect to a fellow- member, were many from the South, who within a few years had voted to censure Mr. Adams, and had endeavored in every way to heap obloquy upon him for his persistent course in presenting anti- slavery petitions. Spontaneous in impulse, momentary in duration, simple in form, it was yet one of the most striking tributes ever paid to moral dignity and lofty character.

PUBLIC LIFE OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS.

Mr. Adams was nearing the end of his illustrious life, and a year later was stricken down in the seat which had been so graciously tendered him. His career was in many respects remarkable. He had been minister to five different European courts, senator of the United States, appointed to the Supreme Bench, had been eight years Secretary of State, and four years President. His opportunities were great, his advantages rare, his natural abilities strong. To those he added a high standard of morality, and a love and endurance of labor possessed by few. But it may fairly be doubted whether, if his Presidency had closed his public life, his fame would have attracted special observation. He would scarcely have ranked above Monroe, and would have borne no comparison with Madison. In the Senate he had made no impression. His service abroad was one of industrious routine. His career as Secretary of State was not specially distinguished. The only two treaties of marked importance that were negotiated during his incumbency, were carried, on test questions, by the Cabinet against his judgment. His dispatches have been little quoted as precedents. His diplomatic discussions were not triumphs. Indeed, he was not felicitous with his pen, and suffers by contrast with some who preceded him and many who followed him in that office. But in his sixty-fifth year, when the public life of the most favored draws to a close, the noble and shining career of Mr. Adams began. He entered the House of Representatives in 1831, and for the remainder of his life, a period of seventeen years, he was the one grand figure in that assembly. His warfare against those who would suppress free speech, his heroic contest in favor of the right of the humblest to petition for redress of grievances, are among the memorable events in the parliamentary history of the United States. The amplitude of his knowledge, his industry, his unflagging zeal, his biting sarcasm, his power to sting and destroy without himself showing passion, made a combination of qualities as rare as it was formidable. His previous career had been one of eminent respectability, to be coldly admired and forgotten. His service in the House gave him a name as enduring as the Republic whose history he adorned.

In breadth and thoroughness of learning, Mr. Adams surpassed all his contemporaries in public life. His essays, orations, and addresses were surprisingly numerous, and upon a great variety of subjects. It cannot be said, however, that he contributed any thing to the permanent literature of the country. Nor, in a true estimate of his extraordinary career in Congress, can it be asserted that he attained the first rank as a parliamentary debater. It must be borne in mind that much of his fame in the House of Representatives was derived from the nature of the one question with which he became so conspicuously identified. It was in large degree the moral courage of his position which first fixed the attention of the country and then attracted its admiration. The men with whom he had exciting scenes in regard to the "right of petition" and its cognate issues were in no case the leading statesmen of the day. Wise, Bynum, Dromgoole, Pinckney, Lewis, Thomas F. Marshall, and the other Southern representatives with whom Mr. Adams came in conflict, were ready and brilliant men, but were far below the first rank of debaters. Indeed, with few exceptions, the really eminent debaters were in the Senate during the period of Mr. Adams's service in the House. Mr. Clay, Mr. Webster, Mr. Calhoun, Mr. Benton, Mr. Hayne, Mr. Silas Wright, Mr. Crittenden, Mr. Ewing, Mr. Watkins Leigh, Mr. Rives, Mr. Choate, Mr. John M. Clayton, Mr. Berrien, were an altogether higher and abler class of men than those with whom Mr. Adams had his frequent wrangles in the House. The weapons which he so successfully employed against the young "fire-eaters" would have proved pointless and valueless in a contest with any one of the eminent men who in that long period gave character to the Senate.

The only time Mr. Adams ever crossed swords in the House with a man of commanding power was in the famous discussion of January, 1836, with George Evans of Maine. Mr. Adams had made a covert but angry attack on Mr. Webster for his opposition to the Fortification Bill in the preceding Congress, when President Jackson was making such energetic demonstrations of his readiness to go to war with France. To the surprise of his best friends, Mr. Adams warmly sustained Jackson in his belligerent correspondence with the government of Louis Philippe. His position probably cost him a seat in the United States Senate for which he was then a candidate. Mr. Webster preferred John Davis, who had the preceding year beaten Mr. Adams in the contest for governor of Massachusetts. These circumstances were believed at the time to be the inciting cause for the assault on Mr. Webster. The duty of replying devolved on Mr. Evans. The debate attracted general attention, and the victory of Mr. Evans was everywhere recognized. The Globe for the Twenty- fourth Congress contains a full report of both speeches. The stirring events of forty years have not destroyed their interest or their freshness. The superior strength, the higher order of eloquence, the greater mastery of the art of debate, will be found in the speech of Mr. Evans.

GEORGE EVANS AS A DEBATER.

As a parliamentary debater, using that term in its true signification and with its proper limitations, George Evans is entitled to high rank. He entered the House in 1829, at thirty-two years of age, and served until 1841, when he was transferred to the Senate. He retired from that body in 1847. Upon entering the Senate, he was complimented with a distinction never before or since conferred on a new member. He was placed at the head of the Committee on Finance, taking rank above the long list of prominent Whigs, who then composed the majority in the chamber. The tenacity with which the rights of seniority are usually maintained by senators enhances the value of the compliment to Mr. Evans. Mr. Clay, who had been serving as chairman of the committee, declined in his favor with the remark that "Mr. Evans knew more about the finances than any other public man in the United States." The ability and skill displayed by Mr. Evans in carrying the tariff bill of 1842 through the Senate, fully justified the high encomiums bestowed by Mr. Clay. The opposition which he led four years after to the tariff bill of 1846 gave Mr. Evans still higher reputation, though the measure was unexpectedly carried by the casting vote of the Vice-President.

When Mr. Evans's term of service drew near to its close, Mr. Webster paid him the extraordinary commendation of saying in the Senate that "his retirement would be a serious loss to the government and the country." He pronounced the speech just then delivered by Mr. Evans, on the finances, to be "incomparable." The "senator from Maine," continued Mr. Webster, "has devoted himself especially to studying and comprehending the revenue and finances of the country, and he understand that subject as well as any gentleman connected with the government since the days of Gallatin and Crawford,—nay, as well as either of those gentlemen understood it." This was the highest praise from the highest source! Of all who have represented New England in the Senate, Mr. Evans, as a debater, is entitled to rank next to Mr. Webster!

The next Congress met in December, 1847. Besides the venerable ex- president, there were two future Presidents among its members— Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson. Mr. Robert C. Winthrop was chosen Speaker. He was nominated in the Whig caucus over Samuel F. Vinton of Ohio, because he had voted for the Wilmot Proviso, and Mr. Vinton against it.* Mr. Vinton was senior in age and long senior in service to Mr. Winthrop. Mr. Vinton had entered the House in 1823 and Mr. Winthrop in 1840. Mr. Vinton had moreover been selected as the Whig candidate for Speaker in the preceding Congress, when that party was in minority. The decision against him now created no little feeling in Whig circles, especially in the West where he was widely known and highly esteemed. But, while Mr. Winthrop was rewarded by this nomination for his vote in favor of the Wilmot Proviso, the more pronounced anti-slavery men were hostile to him. In the end he owed his election to timely aid from Southern Whigs. This fact, no doubt, had its effect on Mr. Winthrop's mind, and with other influences tended to separate him rapidly and conclusively from the anti-slavery wing of the Whig party.

It would, however, be unjust to Mr. Winthrop not to recognize that the chief reason for his selection as Speaker was his pre-eminent fitness for the important post. He was a young man, and, other conditions being equal, young men have been uniformly preferred for the arduous duties of the Chair. From the organization of the government the speakers, at the time of their first election, have been under forty-five years of age,—many, indeed, under forty. In only four instances have men been selected beyond the age of fifty. Mr. Clay when first chosen was but thirty-four, Mr. Polk thirty-nine, Mr. John Bell thirty-seven, Mr. Howell Cobb thirty- three, and Mr. Robert M. T. Hunter, the youngest man ever elected Speaker, was but thirty. Mr. Winthrop was thirty-eight. He was bred to the law in the office of Mr. Webster, but at twenty-five years of age entered political life as a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives. He was soon after promoted to the speakership of that body, where he earned so valuable a reputation as a presiding officer that some of his decisions have been quoted as precedents in the National House, and have been incorporated in permanent works on Parliamentary Law. He was chosen in Congress when he was but thirty, and was in his fifth term in the House when he was advanced to the Speakership. As an orator he was always graceful and effective, but never took high rank in the House as a debater. His early life gave promise of a long public career in Massachusetts as the successor of the older Whig leaders who were passing off the stage. He followed Mr. Webster in the Senate for a brief period, when the latter became Secretary of State under Mr. Fillmore. His conservative tendencies on the Slavery question, however, were not in harmony with the demands of public opinion in Massachusetts, and in 1851 he was defeated for the governorship by George S. Boutwell, and for the senatorship by Charles Sumner. Mr. Winthrop's political career closed when he was forty-two years of age.

WHIGS ABANDON THE WILMOT PROVISO.

The events of the year 1847 had persuaded the Whig leaders that, if they persisted in the policy embodied in the Wilmot Proviso, they would surrender all power to control the ensuing Presidential election. By clever management and the avoidance of issues which involved the slavery question, they felt reasonably sure of the votes of Delaware, Maryland, North Carolina, Kentucky, and Tennessee, with a probability of securing Georgia, Louisiana, and Florida. To throw these States away by an anti-slavery crusade was to accept inevitable defeat, and disband the Whig party. Mr. Winthrop was therefore representing the prevailing wishes of Northern Whigs when he used his influence to restrain rather than promote the development of the anti-slavery policy which had been initiated with such vigor. The result of this change was soon visible. In the preceding House, with a large Democratic majority, the Wilmot Proviso had been adopted. In the Whig House, over which Mr. Winthrop presided, it was found impossible to repeat the vote during the preparations for the national contest then impending. The treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, by which we acquired a vast territory from Mexico, was ratified by the Senate, and the House voted the fifteen millions demanded by it without adding a restriction of any kind on the subject of slavery. Every acre of the nine hundred thousand square miles was free territory while under the rule of Mexico, and the Commissioners of that government were extremely anxious that the United States should give a guaranty that its character in this respect should not be changed. They urged that to see slavery recognized upon soil once owned by Mexico would be so abhorrent to that government as it would be to the United States to see the Spanish Inquisition established upon it. Mr. Nicholas F. Trist, the American commissioner, gave a reply which a free Republic reads with increasing amazement. He declared that if the territory proposed to be ceded "were increased tenfold in value, and, in addition to that, covered a foot thick with pure gold, on the single condition that slavery should be forever excluded," he would not "entertain the offer for a moment, nor even think of sending it to his government. No American President would dare to submit such a treaty to the Senate."

With this suppression, if not indeed re-action, of the popular feeling in the North, on the subject of slavery, the two great parties approached the Presidential election of 1848. Each was under peculiar embarrassment in the selection of a candidate, and the presentation of the principles on which support was to be asked. The anomaly presented in the Congressional election of 1846, where an administration conducting a successful war was defeated before the people, promised to be repeated. The Democratic party had precipitated the war, had organized the military force that prosecuted it, had controlled its immense patronage, and had brought it to a victorious conclusion, yet had gained no political strength in the country. The two gallant soldiers who had so largely shared, if indeed they had not absorbed, its glory, were Whigs, and both were in ill-humor with the administration. After the battle of Buena Vista, Taylor's victorious progress had been checked and his army crippled by orders from Washington, which reduced his force, and turned the Regulars over to Scott. Scott ended his brilliant campaign in a flagrant quarrel with the Secretary of War, and was summoned home peremptorily with the prospect of a court-martial. He was ordered to leave General William O. Butler, a Democratic general, in command of the army in the city of Mexico after resistance had ceased.

DEMOCRATIC OFFICERS IN MEXICAN WAR.

The administration had obviously endeavored from the first to create a Democratic hero out of the war. Authorized to appoint a large number of officers in the increased military force, raised directly by the United States, an unjust discrimination was made in favor of Democrats. Thus William O. Butler, John A. Quitman, and Gideon J. Pillow, prominent Democratic leaders in their respective States, were appointed Major-generals directly from civil life. Joseph Lane, James Shields, Franklin Pierce, George Cadwalader, Caleb Cushing, Enos D. Hopping, and Sterling Price, were selected for the high rank of Brigadier-general. Not one Whig was included, and not one of the Democratic appointees had seen service in the field, or possessed the slightest pretension to military education. Such able graduates of West Point as Henry Clay, jun., and William R. McKee, were compelled to seek service through State appointments in volunteer regiments, while Albert Sidney Johnston, subsequently proved to be one of the ablest commanders ever sent from the Military Academy, could not obtain a commission from the General Government. In the war between Mexico and Texas, by which the latter had secured its independence, Johnston had held high command, and was perhaps the best equipped soldier, both by education and service, to be found in the entire country outside the regular army at the time of the Mexican war. General Taylor urged the President to give Johnston command of one of the ten new regiments. Johnston took no part in politics; but his eminent brother, Josiah Stoddard Johnston, long a senator from Louisiana, was Mr. Clay's most intimate friend in public life, and General Taylor's letter was not even answered. The places were wanted for adherents of the administration, and Tibbatts of Kentucky, Jere Clemens of Alabama, Milledge L. Bonham of South Carolina, Seymour of Connecticut, and men of that grade,—eminent in civil life, active partisans, but with no military training,—were preferred to the most experienced soldiers. This fact disfigures the energetic record of Mr. Marcy as secretary of War, and was eminently discreditable to the President and all his advisers.

Perhaps the most inexcusable blunder of the administration was the attempt to take Thomas H. Benton from the Senate, where he was honored, eminent, and useful, make him Lieutenant-general, and send him out to Mexico to supersede both Scott and Taylor in command of the army. The bill to enable this to be done actually passed the House. When under discussion in that branch, a prominent Democratic member from Ohio declared, as one reason for passing the bill, that two of the generals are opposed politically to the Democratic party, and "by their own acts or those of their friends are candidates for the Presidency." The evident basis of this argument was, that the Mexican war being a Democratic venture, no Whig had the right to profit by it. The bill was fortunately stopped in the Senate, though that body at the time had a Democratic majority. The measure was killed by one convincing speech from Mr. Badger of North Carolina. The senators knew Colonel Benton's temper and temperament, and understood how completely unfitted he was for military command, and how his appointment would demoralize and practically destroy the army. To the end of his life, however, Colonel Benton himself believed a serious mistake had been made. He had been commissioned colonel in the war of 1812, but though of unquestioned bravery, and deeply read in military science, it had never been his fortune to engage in battle, or to see the face of an enemy. Yet in the autobiographical sketch which precedes his "Thirty Years' View," he complacently assured himself that his appointment as Lieutenant- general over Scott and Taylor "could not have wounded professional honor," as at the time of his retiring from the army he "ranked all those who have since reached its head."

WHIG OPPOSITION TO GENERAL TAYLOR.

But all the efforts to make a Democratic hero out of the war failed. The line-officers appointed from civil life behaved gallantly. The volunteers under their command were exceptionally excellent,— almost competent themselves to the conduct of a campaign. The political generals who vaulted from law-offices into the command of brigades and divisions were furnished by the War Department with staff-officers carefully chosen from the best educated and most skillful of the regular army. All would not suffice, however, to displace Taylor and Scott from the post of chief heroes. "Old Rough and Ready," as Taylor was called by his troops, became a popular favorite of irresistible strength, and in the Whig convention of 1848 was chosen over Mr. Clay as the standard-bearer of his party. He was placed before the people on his record as a soldier, unhampered by the political declarations which make up the modern platform. Mr. Clay had expected the nomination, and General Scott had offered to run on the same ticket as Vice-President; but against the constantly rising tide of Taylor's popularity both ordinary and extraordinary political combinations gave way. Even the Kentucky delegation divided,—in accordance with Mr. Crittenden's judgment, though not by his advice. To the overwhelming chagrin and mortification of Mr. Clay, a man unknown in political circles was preferred as the candidate of the party of which he felt himself to have been the creator. Mr. Clay was enraged by the result, and never became reconciled to it. Though he gave in the end a quiet vote at the polls for Taylor, he stubbornly refused during the campaign to open his lips or write a word in favor of his election. Mr. Webster, though without the keen personal disappointment of Mr. Clay, was equally discontented with the nomination. He had spoken in a semi-public way for several months previous to the convention, of the folly of nominating "a swearing, swaggering, frontier colonel" for the Presidency,—an allusion to General Taylor, which was scandalously unjust, and which was contradicted by his whole life. When Taylor was finally nominated, Mr. Webster resented the selection as an indignity to the statesmen of the Whig party. His only ray of comfort was the defeat of Abbott Lawrence for the Vice-Presidency by Millard Fillmore. Mr. Lawrence was a man of wealth, the most prominent manufacturer at the time in the country, of high personal character, and of wide political influence. He was the leading Taylor-Whig in New England, and his course had given offense to Mr. Webster to such an extent indeed, that on a public occasion, after the Presidential election, he referred to Mr. Lawrence in an unfriendly and discourteous manner.

The situation became still further complicated. The Whigs believed they had avoided the responsibility of positive declaration on either side of the issue embodied in the Wilmot Proviso, by selecting a military hero as their candidate. In the phrase of the day, he could make a "Star and Stripe" canvass, with fair chance of success, on both sides of Mason and Dixon's line. There was loss to be incurred by either course. The Whig managers saw plainly that an anti-slavery policy would give almost the entire South to the Democrats, and a pro-slavery policy would rend the Whig party throughout the North. They wisely concluded, if the canvass were merely a game to win votes, that the non-committal plan was the safe one. But this evasive course was not wholly successful. There was a considerable body of men in New England, and especially in Massachusetts, known as "Conscience Whigs," who had deep convictions on the subject of slavery, and refused to support General Taylor. Conspicuous among these were Henry Wilson, E. Rockwood Hoar, and Charles Francis Adams. A defection of the same kind among the Whigs of New York was prevented by the active influence of Mr. Seward, but it developed rapidly in the northern section of Ohio. Throughout the country the Whigs began to fear that a mistake had been made, and that the old leaders had been thrown overboard without due thought of the consequences. Mr. Clay's private correspondence exhibited unmistakable gratification at this aspect of affairs, for he felt assured that the influential Whigs who were now organizing against Taylor would have supported him as cordially as they had done in 1844.

These troubles in the Whig ranks tended, of course, to encourage the Democrats, and to give them for a time great promise of success. The selection of their own candidate, however, had not been unattended with difficulty and dissension. Mr. Polk was from the first out of the question,—verifying the Scripture that those who draw the sword shall perish by the sword. The war inaugurated by him had been completely successful; "a glorious peace," as it was termed, had been conquered; a vast addition to our territory had been accomplished. Yet by common consent, in which Mr. Polk had gracefully concurred in advance, it was admitted that he was not available for re-election. He had sown the dragon's teeth, and the armed men who sprang forth wrested his sceptre from him. But it would not be candid to ascribe his disability solely to events connected with the war. He had pursued the most unwise course in dealing with the New-York Democracy, and had for himself hopelessly divided the party. He made the great blunder of not recognizing the strength and leadership of Van Buren and Silas Wright. He had been led to distrust them, had always felt aggrieved that Wright refused to run on his ticket as Vice-President, and was annoyed by the fact that, as candidate for governor, Wright received several thousand votes more than the electoral ticket which represented his own fortunes. This fact came to him in a manner which deeply impressed it upon his memory. At that time, before railroad or telegraph had hastened the transmission of news beyond the Alleghanies, Mr. Polk in his Tennessee home was in an agony of doubt as to the result in New York. The first intelligence that reached him announced the certain victory of Wright, but left the electoral ticket undecided, with very unpleasant rumors of his own defeat. When at last the returns showed that he had a plurality of five thousand in New York, and was chosen President, it did not suffice to remove the deep impressions of those few days in which, either in the gloom of defeat or in the torture of suspense, he feared that he had been betrayed by the Barnburners of New York as a revenge for Van Buren's overthrow at Baltimore. As matter of fact the suspicion was absolutely groundless. The contest for governor between Silas Wright and Millard Fillmore called out intense feeling, and the former had the advantage of personal popularity over the latter just as Mr. Clay had over Mr. Polk. Mr. Wright's plurality was but five thousand greater than Mr. Polk's, and this only proved that among half a million voters there may have been twenty-five hundred who preferred Mr. Clay for President and Mr. Wright for governor.

PRESIDENT POLK AND MR. VAN BUREN.

But there was no manifestation of feeling or apparent withholding of confidence on the part of Mr. Polk when the result was finally proclaimed. On the contrary he offered the Treasury Department to Mr. Wright, feeling assured in advance, as the uncharitable thought, that Wright could not leave the governorship to accept it. When the office was declined, Mr. Polk again wrote Mr. Wright, asking his advice as to the New-York member of the cabinet. Mr. Wright submitted the names of three men from whom wise choice could be made,—Benjamin F. Butler, who had been attorney-general under President Jackson; John A. Dix, then recently chosen to the United- States Senate; and Azariah C. Flagg, eminent in the party, and especially distinguished for his administration of financial trust. Mr. Polk, under other and adverse influence, saw fit to disregard Mr. Wright's counsel, and selected William L. Marcy, who was hostile to Wright, and distrusted by Van Buren, for Secretary of War. From that moment the fate of Mr. Polk as candidate for re-election was sealed. The cause might seem inadequate, but the effect was undeniable. The Democratic party at the outbreak of the civil war, sixteen years afterwards, had not wholly recovered from the divisions and strifes which sprung from the disregard of Mr. Van Buren's wishes at that crisis. No appointment to Mr. Polk's cabinet could have been more distasteful than that of Mr. Marcy. He had lost the State during Mr. Van Buren's Presidency in the contest for the governorship against Mr. Seward in 1838, and thus laid the foundation, as Mr. Van Buren believed, for his own disastrous defeat in 1840. The disputes which arose from Marcy's appointment in the cabinet led to Wright's defeat for re-election in 1846, when John Young, the Whig candidate, was chosen governor of New York. To three men in the cabinet the friends of Mr. Wright ascribed the Democratic overthrow,—Mr. Buchanan, Mr. Robert J. Walker, and Mr. Marcy,— each anxious for the Presidency, and each feeling that Mr. Wright was in his way. Mr. Wright died suddenly the year after his defeat, and it was supposed for a time that harmony in the New-York Democracy might be restored over his grave. But his friends survived, and their grief was the measure of their resentment.

The course of events which disabled Mr. Polk as a candidate proved equally decisive against all the members of his cabinet; and by the process of exclusion rather than by an enthusiastic desire among the people, and still less among the leaders, General Cass was selected by the Democratic Convention as candidate for the Presidency, and William O. Butler of Kentucky for the Vice-Presidency. The Democracy of New York, in consequence of the divisions arising under the governorship of Mr. Wright, sent two full delegations to the convention, bearing credentials from separate organizations. The friends of Mr. Marcy bore the name of Hunkers; the followers of Mr. Wright ranged themselves under the title of Barnburners,— distinctions which had prevailed for some years in New York. It was in fact the old division on the annexation of Texas, and now represented the pro-slavery and the anti-slavery wing of the Democratic party. The National Convention sought in vain to bridge the difficulty by admitting both delegations, giving to them united the right to cast the vote of the State. But the Barnburners declined thus to compromise a principle. On a question of bread, the half-loaf is preferable to starvation, but when political honor and deep personal feeling are involved, so material an adjustment is not practicable. The Barnburners retired from the convention, disclaimed all responsibility for its conclusions, and proceeded in due time to organize against the ticket of Cass and Butler. The Hunkers, left in the convention as the sole representatives of the New-York Democracy, were startled at the situation and declined to vote. They were anxious that the nomination of Cass should not appear to be forced on the Barnburners by the rival faction. It thus happened that New York, which for twenty years under the skillful leadership of Mr. Van Buren had dictated the course of the Democracy, was now so shorn of influence through the factions engendered by his defeat, that a Presidential nomination was made, not only without her lead, but without her aid or participation.

CASS BOLTED BY VAN BUREN'S FRIENDS.

The Democratic candidate was a man of high character. He had served creditably in the early part of the war of 1812, had been governor of Michigan Territory from 1813 to 1831, had been five years Secretary of War under General Jackson, and had gone to France as minister in 1836. He remained at the court of Louis Philippe, where he received eminent consideration, for six years. When he returned to this country in 1842, at sixty years of age, he undoubtedly intended to re-enter political life. He landed at Boston, and was received with enthusiasm by the New-England Democrats, especially of that class who had not been in special favor during the long rule of Jackson and his successor. Popular ovations were arranged for him as he journeyed westward, and, by the time he reached his home in Detroit, General Cass was publicly recognized as a candidate for the Presidency. These facts did not escape the jealous and watchful eye of Mr. Van Buren. He was aggrieved by the course of General Cass, feeling assured that its direct effect would be to injure himself, and not to promote the political fortunes of the General. But the rivalry continued to develop. Cass remained in the field, a persistent candidate for nomination, and in the end proved to be, perhaps, the most powerful factor in the combination which secured the triumph of Polk. He had deeply wounded Mr. Van Buren, and, as the latter thought, causelessly and cruelly. He had disregarded a personal and political friendship of thirty years' duration, and had sundered ties which life was too short to re- unite. Cass had gained no victory. He had only defeated old friends, and the hour of retribution was at hand.

When the delegation of Barnburners withdrew from the Baltimore Convention of 1848, they were obviously acting in harmony with Mr. Van Buren's wishes. Had they been admitted, according to their peremptory demand, as the sole delegation from New York, they could have defeated Cass in the convention, and forced the nomination of some new man unconnected with the grievances and enmities of 1844. But when the demand of the Barnburners was denied, and they were asked to make common cause with the assassins of Wright, as James S. Wadsworth had denominated the Hunkers, the indignantly shook the dust of the city from off their feet, returned to New York, and forthwith called a Democratic convention to meet at Utica on the 22d of June.

Before the time arrived for the Utica Convention to assemble, the anti-slavery revolt was widely extended, and was, apparently, no less against Taylor than against Cass. There was agitation in many States, and the Barnburners found that by uniting with the opposition against both the old parties, a most effective combination could be made. It was certain to profit them in New York, and it promised the special revenge which they desired in the defeat of Cass. The various local and State movements were merged in one great convention, which met at Buffalo on the 9th of August, with imposing demonstrations. Many of those composing it had held high rank in the old parties. Salmon P. Chase of Ohio was selected as president. The convention represented a genuine anti-slavery sentiment, and amid excitement and enthusiasm Martin Van Buren was nominated for President, and Charles Francis Adams for Vice-President. The Barnburners, the anti-slavery Whigs, and the old Abolitionists, co-operated with apparent harmony under the general name of the Free-soil party; and the impression with many when the convention adjourned was, that Mr. Van Buren would have a plurality over both Cass and Taylor in the State of New York. The management of the popular canvass was intrusted to Democratic partisans of the Silas Wright school, and this fact had a significant and unexpected influence upon the minds of anti-slavery Whigs.

In the first flush of the excitement, the supporters of the regular Democratic nominee were not alarmed. They argued, not illogically, that the Free-soil ticket would draw more largely from the Whigs than from the Democrats, and thus very probably injure Taylor more than Cass. But in a few weeks this hope was dispelled. The Whigs of the country had been engaged for a long period in an earnest political warfare against Mr. Van Buren. In New York the contest had been personal and acrimonious to the last degree, and ordinary human nature could hardly be expected the bury at once the grievances and resentments of a generation. Nor did the Whigs confide in the sincerity of Mr. Van Buren's anti-slavery conversion. His repentance was late, and even the most charitable suspected that his desire to punish Cass had entered largely into the motives which suddenly aroused him to the evils of slavery after forty years of quiet acquiescence in all the demands of the South. Mr. Seward, who possessed the unbounded confidence of the anti-slavery men of New York, led a most earnest canvass in favor of General Taylor, and was especially successful in influencing Whigs against Van Buren. In this he was aided by the organizing skill of Thurlow Weed, and by the editorial power of Horace Greeley. Perhaps in no other National election did three men so completely control the result. They gave the vote of New York to General Taylor, and made him President of the United States.

MR. WEBSTER'S MARSHFIELD SPEECH.

At an opportune moment for the success of the Whigs, Mr. Webster decided to support General Taylor. He thoroughly distrusted Cass, —not in point of integrity, but of discretion and sound judgment as a statesman. He had rebuked Cass severely in a diplomatic correspondence touching the Treaty of Washington, when he was Secretary of State and Cass minister to France. The impression then derived had convinced him that the Democratic candidate was not the man whom a Whig could desire to see in the Presidential chair. In Mr. Van Buren's anti-slavery professions, Mr. Webster had no confidence. He said pleasantly, but significantly, that "if he and Mr. Van Buren should meet under the Free-soil flag, the latter with his accustomed good-nature would laugh." He added, with a touch of characteristic humor, "that the leader of the Free- spoil party suddenly becoming the leader of the Free-soil party is a joke to shake his sides and mine." Distrusting him sincerely on the anti-slavery issue, Mr. Webster showed that on every other question Mr. Van Buren was throughly objectionable to the Whigs.

The Marshfield speech, as this effort was popularly known at the time, had great influence with the Northern Whigs. Mr. Webster did not conceal his belief that General Taylor's nomination was "one not fit to be made," but by the clearest of logic he demonstrated that he was infinitely to be preferred to either of his competitors. Mr. Webster at that time had the confidence of the anti-slavery Whigs in a large degree; he had voted for the Wilmot Proviso, and his public course had been that of a just and conservative expositor of their advanced opinion. From the day of the Marshfield speech, the belief was general that Van Buren would draw far more largely from the Democrats than from the Whigs; that his candidacy would give the State of New York to Taylor, and thus elect him President. The loss of Whig votes was not distasteful to Mr. Van Buren after the prospect of his securing the electors of New York had vanished. Had he drawn in equal proportion from the two parties, his candidacy would have had no effect. It would have neutralized itself, and left the contest between Cass and Taylor as though he had not entered the race. By a rule of influence, whose working is obvious, the tenacity of the Democratic adherents of Van Buren increased as the Whigs withdrew. The contest between Cass and Van Buren finally became in New York, in very large degree, a struggle between Democratic factions, in which the anti-slavery profession was an instrumentality to be temporarily used, and not a principle to be permanently upheld. As the Whigs left Van Buren, the Democrats left Cass, and the end of the canvass gave a full measure of satisfaction, not only to the supporters of Taylor, but to the followers of Van Buren, who polled a larger vote for him than was given to Cass. New York, as in 1844, decided the contest. The friends of Van Buren had not simply beaten Cass at the polls, they had discredited him as a party leader. In the pithy phrase of John Van Buren, they had exposed him to the country as the candidate "powerful for mischief, powerless for good."

The total vote of New York was, for Taylor, 218,603; for Cass, 114,318; for Van Buren, 120,510. The canvass for the governorship was scarcely less exciting than that for the Presidency. Hamilton Fish was the Whig candidate; John A. Dix, then a senator of the United States, ran as the representative of Mr. Van Buren's Free- soil party; while the eminent Chancellor Walworth, who had recently lost his judicial position, was nominated as a supporter of Cass by the Regular Democracy. Mr. Fish had been candidate for Lieutenant- governor two years before on the Whig ticket with John Young, and was defeated because of his outspoken views against the Anti-Renters. Those radical agitators instinctively knew that the descendant of Stuyvesant would support the inherited rights of the Van Rensselaers, and therefore defeated Mr. Fish while they elected the Whig candidates for other offices. Mr. Fish now had his abundant reward in receiving as large a vote as General Taylor, and securing nearly one hundred thousand plurality over the Van Buren candidate, while he in turn received a small plurality over the representative of General Cass.

The result of the two contests left the Van Buren wing, or the Barnburners, in majority over the Hunkers, and gave them an advantage in future contests for supremacy, inside the party. Truthful history will hold this to have been the chief object of the struggle with many who vowed allegiance at Buffalo to an anti-slavery creed strong enough to satisfy Joshua R. Giddings and Charles Sumner. With Cass defeated, and the Marcy wing of the party severely disciplined, the great mass of the Van Buren host of 1848 were ready to disavow their political escapade at Buffalo. Dean Richmond, Samuel J. Tilden, John Van Buren, C. C. Cambreleng, and Sanford E. Church, forgot their anti-slavery professions, reunited with the old party, and vowed afresh their fidelity to every principle against which they had so earnestly protested. Mr. Van Buren himself went with them, and to the end of his life maintained a consistent pro-slavery record, which, throughout a long public career was varied only by the insincere professions which he found it necessary to make in order to be revenged on Cass. But it would be unjust to include in this condemnation all the New-York Democrats who went into the Buffalo movement. Many were honest and earnest, and in after life followed the principles which they had then professed. Chief among these may be reckoned Preston King, who exerted a powerful influence in the anti-slavery advances of after years, and James S. Wadsworth, who gave his name, and generously of his wealth, to the cause, and finally sealed his devotion with his blood on the battle-field of the Wilderness.

CHARACTER OF MR. VAN BUREN.

Mr. Van Buren spent the remainder of his life in dignified retirement —surviving until his eightieth year, in 1862. In point of mere intellectual force, he must rank below the really eminent men with whom he was so long associated in public life. But he was able, industrious, and, in political management, clever beyond any man who has thus far appeared in American politics. He had extraordinary tact in commending himself to the favor and confidence of the people. Succeeding to political primacy in New York on the death of De Witt Clinton in 1828, he held absolute control of his party for twenty years, and was finally overthrown by causes whose origin was beyond the limits of his personal influence. He stood on the dividing-line between the mere politician and the statesman,— perfect in the arts of the one, possessing largely the comprehensive power of the other. His active career began in 1812, and ended in 1848. During the intervening period he had served in the Legislature of New York, had been a member of the Constitutional Convention of 1820, had been attorney-general of the State, and had been chosen its governor. In the national field he had been senator of the United States, Secretary of State, minister to England, Vice- President, and President. No other man in the country has held so many great places. He filled them all with competency and with power, but marred his illustrious record by the political episode of 1848, in which, though he may have had some justification for revenge on unfaithful associates in his old party, he had none for his lack of fidelity to new friends, and for his abandonment of a sacred principle which he had pledged himself to uphold.

[* NOTE.—An error of statement occurs on page 72, Volume I, in regard to the action of the Whig caucus for Speaker in December, 1847. Mr. Winthrop was chosen after Mr. Vinton had declined, and was warmly supported by Mr. Vinton. The error came from an incorrect account of the caucus in a newspaper of that time.]

CHAPTER V.

Review (continued).—Contrast between General Taylor and General Cass.—The Cabinet of President Taylor.—Political Condition of the Country.—Effect produced by the Discovery of Gold in California. —Convening of Thirty-first Congress.—Election of Howell Cobb as Speaker.—President Taylor's Message.—His Recommendations Distasteful to the South.—Illustrious Membership of the Senate.—Mr. Clay and the Taylor Administration.—Mr. Calhoun's Last Speech in the Senate. —His Death.—His Character and Public Services.—Mr. Webster's 7th of March Speech.—Its Effect upon the Public and upon Mr. Webster.—Mr. Clay's Committee of Thirteen.—The Omnibus Bill.— Conflict with General Taylor's Administration.—Death of the President.—Mr. Fillmore reverses Taylor's Policy and supports the Compromise Measures.—Defeat of Compromise Bill.—Passage of the Measures separately.—Memorable Session of Congress.—Whig and Democratic Parties sustain the Compromise Measures.—National Conventions.—Whigs nominate Winfield Scott over Fillmore.—Mr. Clay supports Fillmore.—Mr. Webster's Friends.—Democrats nominate Franklin Pierce.—Character of the Campaign.—Overwhelming Defeat of Scott.—Destruction of the Whig Party.—Death of Mr. Clay.— Death of Mr. Webster.—Their Public Characters and Services compared.

With the election of General Taylor, the various issues of the slavery question were left undecided and unchanged. Indeed, the progress of the canvass had presented a political anomaly. General Cass was born in New England of Puritan stock. All his mature life had been spent in the free North-West. He was a lawyer, a statesman, always a civilian, except for a single year in the volunteer service of 1812. General Taylor was born in Virginia, was reared in Kentucky, was a soldier by profession from his earliest years of manhood, had passed all his life in the South, was a resident of Louisiana, engaged in planting, and was the owner of a large number of slaves. Yet in the face of these facts General Cass ran as the distinctively pro-slavery candidate, and General Taylor received three-fourths of the votes of New England, and was supported throughout the North by the anti-slavery Whigs, who accepted William H. Seward as a leader and Horace Greeley as an exponent. But his contradiction was apparent, not real. It was soon found that the confidence of the Northern men who voted for Taylor had not been misplaced.

CABINET OF PRESIDENT TAYLOR.

As his inauguration approached, the anxiety in regard to his public policy grew almost painfully intense throughout the country. There had never been a cabinet organized in which so deep an interest was felt,—an interest which did not attach so much to the persons who might compose it as to the side—pro-slavery or anti-slavery— to which the balance might incline. When the names were announced, it was found that four were from the south side of Mason and Dixon's line, and three from the north side. But a review of the political character of the members showed that the decided weight of influence was with the North. John M. Clayton of Delaware, Secretary of State, nominally from the South, had voted for the Wilmot Proviso, and had defended his action with commanding ability. William M. Meredith of Pennsylvania was one of the ablest lawyers of the country, a scholar, a wit, an orator; his training had not, however, fitted him for the Treasury Department to which he was called. Thomas Ewing of Ohio, selected to organize the Department of the Interior, just then authorized by law, was a man of intellectual power, a lawyer of the first rank, possessing a stainless character, great moral courage, unbending will, an incisive style, both with tongue and pen, and a breadth of reading and wealth of information never surpassed by any public man in America. Jacob Collamer of Vermont, Postmaster-general, was an able, wise, just, and firm man, stern in principle, conservative in action. The Attorney-general was Reverdy Johnson of Maryland, an ardent Whig partisan, distinguished in his profession, born and living in a slave State, but firmly devoted to the Union, as in later life he abundantly proved. The pronounced Southern sentiment, as represented by Toombs and Stephens, had but two representatives in the cabinet,—George W. Crawford of Georgia (nephew of the eminent William H. Crawford), Secretary of War; and William Ballard Preston of Virginia, Secretary of the Navy,—able and upright men, but less distinguished than their associates.

The country was in an expectant and restless condition. The pro- slavery leaders, who had counted upon large political gain to their section by the acquisition of territory from Mexico, were somewhat discouraged, and began to fear that the South had sown, and that the North would reap. They had hoped to establish their right by positive legislation to enter all the territories with slave property. If they should fail in this, they believed with all confidence, and had good reason at the time for their faith, that they would be able to carry the line of 36 deg. 30' to the Pacific by an extension of the Missouri Compromise of 1820, and that in this way the political strength of their section would be vastly enhanced. But not long after the signing of the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, an event happened which put to naught the anticipations of Southern statesmen. Gold was discovered in California late in the autumn of 1848, and by one of those marvels of emigration which the Anglo- Saxon race have more than once achieved, the Pacific slope was immediately filled with a hardy, resolute, intelligent population. In less than a year they organized a State government, adopted a constitution in which slavery was forever prohibited, and were ready by the close of 1849 to apply for admission to the Union. The inhabitants had no powers of civil government conferred by Congress; the only authority exercised by the United States being that of Colonel Bennett Riley of the regular army, who had been placed in command immediately after the Treaty of Peace by President Polk, and who was left undisturbed by President Taylor.

Congress convened on the first Monday of December, 1849, amid deep feeling, rapidly growing into excitement throughout the country. For three weeks the House was unable to organize by the choice of a speaker. The Democratic candidate was Howell Cobb; the Whig candidate, Robert C. Winthrop. The contest was finally settled on the sixty-third ballot, in accordance with a previous agreement that a plurality should elect. Mr. Cobb received one hundred and two votes; Mr. Winthrop ninety-nine, with twenty votes scattering, principally anti-slavery Whigs and Free-Soilers. It was the first time that such a step had been taken; and its constitutionality was so doubtful, that after the ballot, a resolution declaring Mr. Cobb to be speaker was adopted by general concurrence on a yea and nay vote.

The message of the President was immediately transmitted, and proved a tower of strength to the friends of the Union, and a heavy blow to the secession element, which was rampant in Congress. The President recommended that California, with her constitution, already known to be anti-slavery, be promptly admitted to the Union. He also suggested that New Mexico, already better protected in property, life, liberty, and religion than she had ever been before, be quietly left under her existing military government until she should form a State constitution, and apply for admission,—an event deemed probable in the very near future. That accomplished, as he added in a special message a few days later, the claims of Texas to a portion of New Mexico could be judicially determined, which could not be done while New Mexico remained a territory, organized or unorganized. These recommendations were intensely distasteful to the South, and grew to be correspondingly popular in the North. The sectional feeling rapidly developed and the agitation in Congress communicated itself to the entire country.

THE UNITED STATES SENATE IN 1850.

The character and eminence of the men who took part in the discussion gave it an intense, almost dramatic interest. Mr. Clay in his seventy-third year was again in the Senate by the unanimous vote of the Kentucky Legislature, in the belief that his patriotic influence was needed in the impending crisis. Webster and Cass, natives of the same New-England State, Benton and Calhoun, natives of the Carolinas, all born the same year and now approaching threescore and ten, represented in their own persons almost every phase of the impending contest. Stephen A. Douglas had entered the preceding Congress at the early age of thirty-four, and the ardent young Irish soldier, James Shields, was now his colleague. Jefferson Davis had come from Mississippi with the brilliant record of his achievements in the Mexican war, already ambitious to succeed Mr. Calhoun as the leader of the extreme South, but foiled in his Disunion schemes by his eloquent but erratic colleague, Henry S. Foote. William H. Seward of New York was for the first time taking position under the National Government, at the age of forty-nine, and Salmon P. Chase of Ohio, five years younger, was beginning his political career as the colleague of Thomas Corwin. John Bell was still honorably serving Tennessee, and John McPherson Berrien was still honoring Georgia by his service. The amiable and excellent William R. King, who had entered the Senate when Alabama was admitted in 1819, and who was Colonel Benton's senior in service by two years when he resigned in 1844 to accept the French mission, now returned, and remained until he was chosen Vice-President in 1852. Hannibal Hamlin had entered the preceding year, and was still leading a bitter fight on the slavery question against a formidable element in his own party headed at home by Nathan Clifford and represented in the Senate by his colleague, James W. Bradbury. John P. Hale, a New-Hampshire Democrat whom Franklin Pierce had attempted to discipline because as representative in Congress he had opposed the annexation of Texas, had beaten Pierce before the people, defied the Democratic party, and was promoted to the Senate an outspoken Free-Soiler. Willie P. Mangum and George E. Badger, able, graceful, experienced statesmen, represented the steadfast Union sentiment of the "Old North State" Whigs; while Andrew P. Butler, impulsive and generous, learned and able, embodied all the heresies of the South-Carolina Nullifiers. James M. Mason, who seemed to court the hatred of the North, and Robert M. T. Hunter, who had the cordial respect of all sections, spoke for Virginia. Pierre Soule came from Louisiana, eloquent even in a language he could not pronounce, but better fitted by temperament for the turbulence of a revolutionary assembly in his native land than for the decorous conservatism of the American Senate. Sam Houston was present from Texas, with a history full of adventure and singular fortune, while his colleague, Thomas J. Rusk, was daily increasing a reputation which had already marked him in the judgment of Mr. Webster as first among the younger statesmen of the South. Dodge of Wisconsin and Dodge of Iowa, father and son, represented the Democracy of the remotest outposts in the North-West, and, most striking of all, William M. Gwin and John C. Fremont, men of Southern birth and pro-slavery training, stood at the door of the Senate with the constitution of California in their hands to demand her admission to the Union as a free State. At no time before or since in the history of the Senate has its membership been so illustrious, its weight of character and ability so great. The period marked the meeting and dividing line between two generations of statesmen. The eminent men who had succeeded the leaders of the Revolutionary era were passing away, but the most brilliant of their number were still lingering, unabated in natural force, resplendent in personal fame. Their successors in public responsibility, if not their equals in public regard and confidence, were already upon the stage preparing for, and destined to act in, the bloodiest and most memorable of civil struggles.

Mr. Clay had re-entered the Senate with no cordial feelings toward President Taylor's administration. The events of the preceding year were too fresh, the wounds too deep, to be readily forgotten or quickly healed. But he desired no quarrel and was incapable of showing petty resentment. His mind was intent on harmonizing the serious differences between North and South, and he believed the President's plan would fall short and fail. He desired, in the same spirit of compromise which had been so distinguishing a mark of his statesmanship in former crises, to secure "an amicable arrangement of all questions in controversy between the free and slave States growing out of the subject of slavery." He was so accustomed to lead, that the senators involuntarily waited for him to open the discussion and point the way. He as naturally accepted the responsibility, and in January (1850) began by submitting a series of resolutions reciting the measures which were necessary for the pacification of all strife in the country. These resolutions embraced the admission of California; governments for the territory acquired from Mexico without prohibition or permission of slavery; adjustment of the disputed boundary of Texas and the allowance of ten millions of dollars to that State for the payment of her debt; the abolition of the slave trade in the District of Columbia; more effectual provision for the restitution of fugitive slaves.

DEATH OF JOHN C. CALHOUN.

It was on these resolutions that Mr. Calhoun prepared his last formal speech. He attempted to deliver it in the Senate on the 4th of March, but was so weak that he requested Mr. Mason of Virginia to read it for him. On two or three subsequent occasions Mr. Calhoun made brief extempore remarks showing each time a gradual decay of strength. He died on the last day of March. Most touching and appreciative eulogies were delivered by Mr. Clay and Mr. Webster, after his death had been announced by his colleague, Judge Butler. Mr. Clay spoke of his "transcendent talents," of his "clear, concise, compact logic," of his "felicity in generalization surpassed by no one." He intimated that he would have been glad to see Mr. Calhoun succeed Mr. Monroe in the Presidency in 1820. Mr. Webster, who always measured his words, spoke of him as "a man of undoubted genius and commanding talent, of unspotted integrity, of unimpeached honor." Mr. Calhoun had been driven by his controversies with Jackson into a position where he was deprived of popular strength in the free States. But this very fact enhanced his power with the South, and increased his hold upon his own people. To the majority of the people in the slave-holding States he was as an inspired leader for more than twenty years. He taught the philosophy and supplied the arguments to the ambitious generation of public men who came after him, and who were prepared, as he was not, to force the issue to the arbitrament of arms. Deplorable as was the end to which his teachings led, he could not have acquired the influence he wielded over millions of men unless he had been gifted with acute intellect, distinguished by moral excellence, and inspired by the sincerest belief in the righteousness of his cause. History will adjudge him to have been single-hearted and honest in his political creed. It will equally adjudge him to have been wrong in his theory of the Federal Government, and dead to the awakened sentiment of Christendom in his views concerning the enslavement of man.

Mr. Calhoun's published works show the extent of his participation in the national councils. They exhibit his zeal, the intensity of his convictions, and at the same time the clearness and strength of his logic. His premises once admitted, it is difficult to resist the force of his conclusions. Mr. Webster assailed his premises, and in their debate of February 16, 1833, defeated him, as another senator remarked, "by the acuteness of his definitions,"—thus meeting Mr. Calhoun on his own ground. The war and its results have in large degree remanded the theories of Mr. Calhoun to the past, but no intelligent student of the institutions of the United States can afford to neglect his elaborate, conscientious, able discussions. Taken with Mr. Webster's works they exhibit the most complete examination, the most comprehensive analysis of the often tortuous and ill-defined line which separates the powers of the National Government from the functions which properly belong to the States. Mr. Calhoun's public service may be regarded as continuous from 1810, when he was elected to Congress at twenty- eight years of age, till his death,—a period of forty years. He took his seat in the House in December, 1811, and was placed by the speaker, Mr. Clay (with whom he was then in accord), on the Committee of Foreign Affairs. He was earnest and influential in supporting the war policy of the Madison administration, and gained so rapidly in public estimation that six years later he was appointed secretary of War by President Monroe. Thenceforward his career was illustrious. As Vice-President, as secretary of State, above all as senator from South Carolina, he gained lasting renown. His life was eminently pure, his career exceptional, his fame established beyond the reach of calumny, beyond the power of detraction.