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was again a candidate for governor and was beaten, the president ascribed his defeat to the Hunkers, and recorded his intention to extend them no more favors. The next year, however, his condemnation fell on the Barnburners, whom he charged with the defeat of the New York Democracy in the November election; and from that time on his tolerance for them grew steadily less. In May, 1848, he complained that neither faction was concerned about anything except the offices. As the time appointed for the Free Soil convention at Buffalo drew near, his cabinet was unanimously of the opinion that the Barnburner Federal officials who were taking part in the movement should be dismissed; and after the convention he removed B. F. Butler from his office of Federal district-attorney." After the fall elections, when Buchanan gave a share of government printing to a Barnburner paper - the Rochester Daily Advertiser-Polk interfered, and directed that the arrangement be cancelled.3

It was, however, from the first impossible to keep up neutrality towards the New York factions. The loss of the nomination by Van Buren in 1844, after he had obtained, through personal leaning or instructions, a clear majority of delegates, could not easily be forgiven. If the larger vote for Wright than for Polk in the New York election was not the

1 Polk, MS. Diary, November 5, 1846, November 8, 1847'Ibid., August 5, September 1, 1848.

Ibid., December 16, 1848.

VOL. XVII.-18

effect of a blow in return, then it meant that the president was under obligations to the followers of Van Buren that could not easily be discharged. No doubt he honestly tried to square the account; but the fact that Wright and Butler were successively offered a place in the cabinet, before Polk turned to the Hunkers, did not make Marcy less objectionable to the Barnburners. With each succeeding year the relations of the president with this faction grew less cordial, and at length the Barnburners seized upon the Wilmot Proviso as a weapon which might be used effectively both against the administration and against the Hunkers.

To the national Democratic convention of 1848 came two sets of delegates, one from each faction. The Hunkers obtained control of the regular state convention of the party, tabled a resolution containing the substance of the Wilmot Proviso, and issued an address in the name of the New York Democracy. Then the factions held separate conventions, that of the Barnburners declaring in favor of the proviso; and the result was that both sent delegates to the national convention. That body tried to compromise the matter by admitting both delegations and giving them each one-half of the vote of the state, but both then refused to take part. The Hunkers promised to support the nominee of the convention, but the Barnburners would not.1

1 Niles' Register, LXXIV., 325; Von Holst, United States, III.,

In the balloting for the nomination of candidates by the national convention, Cass was far in the lead from the beginning, and on the fourth ballot he obtained the requisite majority, which, by the rule adopted by the convention, was two-thirds. The only other candidates that had any following worth mention were Buchanan and Woodbury. Wright would doubtless have played an important part in the campaign, and possibly in the convention, had he been still alive, but he died in August, 1847. For vice-president was nominated, on the second ballot, General W. O. Butler of Kentucky.'

It would have been difficult for the Democrats to find a stronger man for the first place on their ticket than Cass; he was an intelligent and conservative leader, unrivalled in his party for prestige and popularity. In his support of the doctrine of squatter sovereignty he was only working out the crude political philosophy of the West, and following what seemed to be the line of least resistance in his efforts to harmonize sectional differences and promote healthy national growth. An interesting specimen of the genuine American type, a product of the old Northwest, he has, through lack of insight on the part of his critics, been greatly misunderstood and misinterpreted. This unfair judgment has been due to the fact that a great political and social revolution has made it difficult for a younger generation to see his problems from his own point 1 Stanwood, Hist. of the Presidency, 234.

of view. The abolitionists regarded him as a truckler to the interests of slavery,' while to the more partisan defenders of the institution he was only an unprincipled seeker after the presidency." Neither the northern nor the southern radicals could see him as he really was. Like the great majority of westerners, he was a thorough-going expansionist, and in common with Webster, Clay, and Lincoln he regarded the preservation of the Union as a more important object than the extinction or even the repression of slavery. These facts constitute the fundamental explanation of his policy and his career.

Finally came the shaping of the platform. The draught adopted by the majority of the committee on resolutions began with a substantial repetition of the platform of 1844-there being one or two slight variations-down to the resolution in favor of the "re-occupation of Oregon and the re-annexation of Texas." The seventh resolution of the report denied the power of Congress to interfere with the domestic institutions of the states, and condemned all efforts to induce that body to deal with the question of slavery at all. In the place of the resolution concerning Oregon and Texas and the four

that followed it in the platform of 1844, now ap

1 Cf. McLaughlin, Cass, 233.

'See Crallé's expression to Calhoun, in Am. Hist. Assoc., Report, 1899, II., 1201.

Cf. McLaughlin, Cass, 210, 271–273.

peared a series of eight. The first three of these referred to the Mexican War, asserting that it was begun by Mexico and that it was, on the part of the United States, "a just and necessary war"; condemning the opposition to it, declaring it to be a duty to sustain the administration in the measures necessary to carry on the conflict if Mexico rejected the treaty; and extolling the virtues of those who had belonged to the army of invasion. The next three referred to the contemporaneous revolution in Paris. Fraternal congratulations were tendered to the national convention of France, and the duty of resisting "all monopolies and exclusive legislation" in America was acknowledged. Then followed a strong general indorsement of the administration and congratulations to the president on its "brilliant success." 1 A minority of the platform committee, led by William L. Yancey, offered a resolution favoring "non-interference with the rights of property of any portion of the people of this confederation, be it in the States or in the Territories, by any other than the parties interested in them," but the motion was lost by a vote of 36 to 216.2 If the party was to adopt the principle of squatter sovereignty, it must be in some other formula or at some other time.

The progress of sectionalization is illustrated by

1 Text in Niles' Register, LXXIV., 328; Stanwood, Hist. of the Presidency, 234–236.

Niles' Register, LXXIV., 348.

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