singular ability of the leaders—The effect of Clay's defeat upon the Whigs —Causes of the defeat—The Abolitionists, and the abuse heaped upon them—Cassius M. Clay—Mr. Hoar's mission to South Carolina— Election of John P. Hale—Annexation and war with Mexico—Polk's message, and the Wilmot proviso—The Oregon question, and Alex. H. Stephens.

The times were serious. The fun and frolic of 1840 had borne no fruit, and that part of our history could not be repeated. The campaign of 1844 promised to be a struggle for principle; and among the Whigs all eyes were turned for a standard-bearer to Mr. Clay, who had been so shabbily treated four years before. He was unanimously nominated on the first of May, with Theodore Frelinghuysen as the candidate for Vice President. The party issues were not very sharply defined, but this was scarcely necessary with a candidate who was proverbially regarded as himself "the embodiment of Whig principles." On the subject of annexation, he clearly defined his position in his letter of the 17th of April to the "National Intelligencer." He declared that annexation and war with Mexico were identical, and placed himself squarely against it, except upon conditions specified, which would make the project of immediate annexation impossible. On the slavery question, he had not yet seriously offended the anti-slavery element in his own party, and was even trusted by some of the voting anti-slavery men. In a speech at Raleigh, in April of this year, he declared it to be "the duty of each State to sustain its own domestic institutions." He had publicly said that the General Government had nothing to do with slavery, save in the matters of taxation, representation, and the return of fugitive slaves. He had condemned the censure of Mr. Giddings in 1842 as an outrage, and indorsed the principles laid down in his tract, signed "Pacificus," on the relations of the Federal Government to slavery, and the rights and duties of the people of the free States. In his earlier years, he had been an outspoken emancipationist, and had always frankly expressed his opinion that slavery was a great evil. These considerations, and especially his unequivocal utterances against the annexation scheme, were regarded as hopeful auguries of a thoroughly united party, and its triumph at the polls; while Mr. Webster, always on the presidential anxious-seat, and carefully watching the signs of the political zodiac, now cordially lent his efforts to the Whig cause.

With the Democracy, Mr. Van Buren was still a general favorite. His friends felt that the wrong done him in 1840 should now be righted, and a large majority of his party undoubtedly favored his renomination. But his famous letter to Mr. Hammet, of Mississippi, dated March 27th, on the annexation of Texas, placed a lion in his path. In this lengthy and elaborate document he committed himself against the project of immediate annexation, and the effect was at once seen in the decidedly unfriendly tone of Democratic opinion in the South. He had been faithful to the Slave oligarchy in many things, but his failure in one was counted a breach of the whole law. By many acts of patient and dutiful service he had earned the gratitude of his Southern task-masters; but now, when driven to the wall, he mustered the courage to say, "Thus far, no farther"; and for this there was no forgiveness. General Jackson came to his rescue, but it was in vain. The Southern heart was set upon immediate annexation as the golden opportunity for rebuilding the endangered edifice of slavery, and Mr. Van Buren's talk about national obligations and the danger of a foreign war was treated as the idle wind. The Southern Democrats were bent upon his overthrow, and they went about it in the Baltimore Convention of the 27th of May as if perfectly conscious of their power over the Northern wing of the party. They moved and carried the "two-thirds rule," which had been acted on in the National Convention of 1832, and afterward in that of 1835, although this could not have been done without the votes of a majority of the convention, which was itself strongly for Van Buren. The rule was adopted by a considerable majority, the South being nearly unanimous in its favor, while the North largely "supplied the men who handed Van Buren over to his enemies with a kiss." Even General Cass, the most gifted and accomplished dough-face in the Northern States, failed to receive a majority of the votes of the Convention on any ballot, and James K. Polk was finally nominated as the champion of immediate annexation, with George M. Dallas as the candidate for Vice President.

The nomination was a perfect surprise to the country, because Mr. Polk was wholly unknown to the people as a statesman. Like Governor Hayes, when nominated in 1876, he belonged to the "illustrious obscure." The astonished native who, on hearing the news, suddenly inquired of a bystander, "Who the devil is Polk?" simply echoed the common feeling, while his question provoked the general laughter of the Whigs. For a time the nomination was somewhat disappointing to the Democrats themselves; but they soon rallied, and finally went into the canvass very earnestly, and with a united front. The Whigs began the campaign in high hopes and in fact with unbounded confidence in their success. Their great captain was in command, and they took comfort in his favorite utterance that "truth is omnipotent, and public justice certain." To pit him against such a pigmy as Polk seemed to them a miserable burlesque, and they counted their triumph as already perfectly assured. They claimed the advantage on the question of annexation, and still more as to the tariff, since the act of 1842 was popular, and Polk was known to be a free-trader of the Calhoun school. As the canvass proceeded, however, it became evident that the fight was to be fierce and bitter to the last degree, and that the issue, after all, was not so certain. Mr. Polk, notwithstanding his obscurity, was able to rouse the enthusiasm of his party, North and South, to a very remarkable degree. The annexation pill was swallowed by many Democrats whose support of him had been deemed morally impossible. In New York, where the opposition was strongest, leading Democrats, with William Cullen Bryant as their head, denounced the annexation scheme and repudiated the paragraph of the National platform which favored it, and yet voted for Polk, who owed his nomination solely to the fact that he had committed himself to the policy of immediate and unconditional annexation, thus anticipating the sickly political morality of 1852, when so many men of repute tried in vain to save both their consciences and their party orthodoxy by "spitting upon the platform and swallowing the candidate who stood upon it." History will have to record that the action of these New York Democrats saved the ticket in that State, and justly attaches to them the responsibility for the very evils to the country against which they so eloquently warned their brethren. The power of the spoils came in as a tremendous make-weight, while the party lash was vigorously flourished, and the "independent voter" was as hateful to the party managers on both sides as we find him to-day. Those who refused to wear the party collar were branded by the "organs" as a "pestiferous and demoralizing brood," who deserved "extermination." Discipline was rigorously enforced, and made to take the place of argument. As regards the tariff question, Mr. Polk's letter to Judge Kane, of Philadelphia, of the 19th of June, enabled his friends completely to turn the tables on the Whigs of Pennsylvania, where "Polk, Dallas, and the tariff of 1842," was blazoned on the Democratic banners, and thousands of Democrats were actually made to believe that Polk was even a better tariff man than Clay. This letter, committing its free-trade author to the principle of a revenue tariff, with "reasonable incidental protection to our home industries," was translated into German and printed in all the party papers;