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ory of its disastrous results made them fear to let the Whigs do all the shouting.

Clay's utterances during the campaign did little to help the Whigs. While he declared himself against immediate annexation, he did not dare to speak without equivocation, and he explained until none knew just what his views were and what policy he would probably adopt if elected. In his so-called "Raleigh letter," in which he first came out against the policy, he had said that he did not think "that Texas ought to be received into the Union, as an integral part of it, in decided opposition to the wishes of a considerable and respectable portion of the confederacy"; and this cost him many votes in the South, where he was charged with courting the abolitionists. Seeking to defend himself against the charge in one of his "Alabama letters," he declared that he did not think "that the subject of slavery ought to affect the question, one way or the other";" and this lost him many northern votes. He did not venture to invoke, except in the most negative way, the support of those who were opposed to the expansion of slavery, nor could he afford to do so; for it would have broken his hold upon the states most faithful to him. The result was that his explanations simply contributed to his defeat.

It is an unfortunate aspect of national politics in the United States that a single clearly defined and 1 Niles' Register, LXVI., 153. • Ibid., 439.

uncomplicated issue is rarely submitted to the mass of voters. Thus it becomes exceedingly difficult to ascertain the true significance of a national election; platforms are too often simply evasive; principles are presented in groups with the emphasis undistributed. The mere fact of material prosperity or depression during the time in which a political party has been in control of the government, though due to causes purely economic in their nature, counts for much in determining whether that party shall be continued in power. Shrewd campaign management is itself a most important factor. On the whole, American political struggles are so complicated and confused that it is often hard to tell the real causes of victory or defeat. Under such conditions the value of political experience is greatly reduced. It is to be hoped that in the course of time the development of a simpler system will reduce or destroy the chance to cloud issues and win by deception, and will make the popular verdict at the polls more understandable.

Nevertheless, no political campaign in the history of the United States has been more thoroughly dominated by a single issue than that of 1844. The situation seems to have been well understood by all parties, and there appears no sufficient reason why the possible operation of the disturbing factors in the contest should not have been clearly foreseen by those who permitted them to enter it. The best explanation of the result undoubtedly is that Polk

won because the people of the United States wanted Texas.

The election was close. Polk had an electoral majority of sixty-five, but not a majority of the popular vote, and his plurality was less than forty thousand.1 This, however, would have been considerably larger but for the fact that there was no popular vote for presidential electors in South Carolina; for in that state they were chosen by the legislature. Seven free states voted for Polk, and six for Clay; while Polk carried eight slave states and Clay five. New York and Michigan were lost to Clay by the defection of the abolitionists. Benton alleges that New York would have been carried by the Whigs but for the strength of Silas Wright, who was the Democrats' candidate for governor at the same election and ran several thousand votes ahead of his ticket. It is an interesting and peculiar fact that the combined influence of Jackson and Polk was unable to save Tennessee for the Democracy; the contest was exceedingly strenuous, but the state went for Clay by a majority of one hundred and thirteen.

If, in seeking to determine the true popular verdict, it were assumed that New York and Michigan were really opposed to the annexation of a slaveholding Texas, and the electoral vote of those states were transferred to Clay, it would give him a ma

1 Stanwood, Hist. of the Presidency, 223.
'Benton, Thirty Years' View, II., 626.

VOL. XVII.-10

jority of seventeen in the electoral college.1 On the other hand, it would be a much safer assumption that Kentucky and Tennessee-not to speak of Ohio and North Carolina-went for Clay on purely personal grounds; and that the people of those two states, if they had faced only the simple question of annexation, would have voted in favor of acquiring Texas as soon as possible. But with Michigan and New York transferred to Clay, and Kentucky and Tennessee to Polk, the election would still have gone to Polk. On the whole, it seems impossible to interpret the vote otherwise than as an approval of the policy of annexation.

Charges of fraud in the election were freely made on both sides. The canvass was marked by the circulation of various far-fetched and unnecessary falsehoods, and the Whigs especially charged the Democrats with flagrant misconduct in New York and Louisiana. Unfortunately we have become only too familiar with such charges, and are too often forced to credit them; yet it is by no means easy to sift the evidence concerning them, to fix the responsibility, or to ascertain precisely how they affect results. The most strongly emphasized charge against the Louisiana Democrats referred to the socalled "Plaquemines fraud," which deserves a brief examination.

1 Cf. Hart, Slavery and Abolition (Am. Nation, XVI.), 319. 2 Tyler, Tylers, II., 352; Niles' Register, LXVI., 372, LXVII.,

It was charged that the Democratic majority in the parish of Plaquemines, which decided the election for the state, was due to illegal voting and repeating by a boat-load of people brought into the parish from New Orleans by a group of persons including John Slidell, who was afterwards sent by President Polk as envoy to Mexico, and was one of the Confederate commissioners involved in the Trent affair of 1861. That a large part of the Democratic vote in Plaquemines Parish was cast by persons brought there for the purpose from New Orleans is frankly admitted in an address to the citizens of Louisiana, in the New Orleans Courier of November 13, 1844, signed by Slidell and eight others who had been concerned in conveying the contingent from the city to Plaquemines; but they positively denied either the intention or the actuality of fraud. They asserted that they carried only those who had not already voted in the city, where the election was held two days earlier than in Plaquemines, and that all proper precautions were used to prevent unqualified persons from voting. The signers of the address declared that this action was strictly in accord with the constitution and laws of the state, and with the opinions and acts of various prominent Whigs, whose names were given, and they invited the most rigid scrutiny of their con

1 Sargent, Public Men and Events, II., 248; Stanwood, Hist. of the Presidency, 224.

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