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messages of President Polk and the reports of Secretary Walker.

It may here be mentioned that the sub-treasury so quickly abolished in Tyler's administration was re-established under Polk.

With the approach of the nominating conventions of 1848 the slavery question again began to show itself a troublesome one for both parties. The anti-slavery Whigs of the North were not friendly to Mr. Clay, and the breach between the Northern and Southern Whigs was rapidly widening. Nor was there unity in the Democratic party. There were two factions in the State of New York, known respectively as the "Hunkers" and the "Barnburners," the latter being an anti-slavery faction. When the Democratic Convention met at Baltimore, on May 22, 1848, each of these two factions was present with a full delegation, and each stoutly demanded recognition as the regular party; and, after a long debate, the convention decided to admit them both, each to cast one-half of the vote of New York. This was satisfactory to neither, and the Barn-burners withdrew from the convention, while the Hunkers refused to take part in its proceedings.

Lewis Cass, of Michigan, was nominated for President on the fourth ballot, and General William O. Butler, of Kentucky, for Vice-President, on the second ballot. Mr. Cass was opposed to the Wilmot Proviso, as were also the other candidates for the nomination.

The platform was that of 1844, with congratulatory resolutions on the result of the Mexican war. A resolution of sympathy to the National Convention of the Republic of

France, then assembled, was adopted. They endorsed the administration of Polk, and rehearsed the benefits which it had conferred upon the people.

The Whig Convention met at Philadelphia on the 7th of June. Zachary Taylor, of Louisiana, was nominated for President on the fourth ballot, the opposing candidates being Clay, Webster, General Scott. Millard Fillmore, of New York, was nominated for Vice-President on the second ballot.

The convention adopted no platform, and, indeed, there was doubt up to its very meeting as to whether General Taylor was a Whig or a Democrat.

The Barn-burners, who had withdrawn from the Democratic Convention at Baltimore, met at Utica, N. Y., and nominated Van Buren for President, who accepted their nomination. Henry Dodge, a Senator from Wisconsin, was named for Vice-President, but he declined, and afterwards Charles Francis Adams, of Massachusetts, was joined with Van Buren as candidate for Vice-President. John P. Hale, of New Hampshire, who had been nominated by the Liberty or Abolition party, withdrew in favor of Van Buren. The platform of the Barn-burners, or, as they were now called, the Free Soil Democrats, referred almost entirely to the slavery question, and may be summed up in the words, "Free soil, free labor, free speech, and free men."

Thirty States took part in this election. Taylor received 1,360,099 votes, Cass 1,220,544, and Van Buren 291,263. Of the electoral votes Taylor received 163, carrying the States of Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island,

Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, North Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Louisiana, Tennessee, and Kentucky. Cass carried the remaining States, and received 127 electoral votes.

Van Buren received a larger vote in Massachusetts and New York than Cass, the vote in the latter State being, Taylor 218,603, Cass 114,318, Van Buren 120,510.

CHAPTER XII.

HISTORY UNDER PRESIDENTS

TAYLOR AND FILLMORE, 1849-1853.

ENERAL TAYLOR was a Louisiana planter and a

G large slaveholder. He had no experience as a

civilian and no previous identification with either party. He was taken up by the Whigs solely because of his availability. Webster, who was bitterly disappointed at his own failure to secure the nomination, pronounced that of Taylor as one unfit to be made, but did not refuse to support him.

The old questions on which parties had divided disappeared. The National Bank was dead. The tariff controversies seemed settled by the act of 1846. A succession of Presidential vetoes, together with the rise of our railroad system, had settled the question of internal improvements adversely. The sub-treasury kept up the divorce between bank and State. The proposition for distribution of the proceeds of the sale of public lands was not agitated. But for the slavery question there might almost have been another "era of good feeling." The growing alienation of the two sections was increased when California applied for admission as a free State at the meeting of the first Congress under this administration. Mr. Clay,

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