USA > New York > History of the state of New York, political and governmental, Vol. VI > Part 7
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44
"A well-regulated currency; a tariff for revenue to defray the necessary expenses of the government, and discriminating with spe- cial reference to the protection of the domestic labor of the country; the distribution of the proceeds from the sales of the public lands; a single term for the Presidency; a reform of Executive usurpations; and generally such an administration of the affairs of the country as shall impart to every branch of the public service the greatest prac- tical efficiency, controlled by a well-regulated and wise economy."
Clay, reappearing as a Presidential nominee after an interval of twelve years since his last candidacy, was still regarded as the great leader of his party. High hopes were entertained for his success. But events, and certain bearings of popular opinion concerning questions, placed him at a disadvantage. He was obliged to conduct his campaign mainly on the defen- sive.
91
NATIONAL PARTY PLATFORMS
1844]
The remarkable triumph of the Whigs in 1840 was supposed at that time to assure the execution of all their policies, including those for restoring the United States Bank, maintaining the protective tariff idea, and carry- ing out internal improvements. The death of Presi- dent Harrison, however, after only one month in office, proved a terrible disaster to the party. His successor, President Tyler, vetoed the Bank bill that was passed by Congress, and even on the questions of tariff and internal improvements his acts were out of harmony with the traditional Whig ideas. Meantime the coun- try turned again to the Democratic party, giving it a large majority in Congress at the elections of 1842. It was evident that the favorite Bank issue of the Whigs was dead, and that the country did not desire to give any further extension to the protective system.
Hence the notably retrograde course of the Whigs in their national platform of 1844, which embodied only a perfunctory expression on the tariff and made no mention of the bank or internal improvements.
Democratic Party
National convention held in Baltimore, May 27-29, 1844; temporary and permanent chairman, Hendrick B. Wright, of Pennsylvania. Every State except South Carolina was represented, 325 delegates attend- ing, but the vote of the convention was limited to 266.
Martin Van Buren, having served acceptably to his party as President for one term and then unfortunately experienced defeat, was strongly urged for the nomina- tion. A determined effort was made to abolish the two-
92
POLITICAL AND GOVERNMENTAL HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK
[1844
thirds rule, but after a day and a half of discussion the convention voted to retain it. The balloting began with Van Buren in the lead, 146 votes being cast for him, a few more than a majority. His strength then declined, and when the fifth ballot was taken he was passed by Lewis Cass, of Michigan. On the eighth bal- lot James K. Polk, of Tennessee, who so far had not received a vote, was given 44; and on the ninth ballot he was nominated unanimously.
Silas Wright, of New York, was chosen for Vice- President, but declined, whereupon the nomination went to George M. Dallas, of Pennsylvania.
Platform :
"1. Resolved, That the American Democracy place their trust not in factitious symbols, not in displays and appeals insulting to the judgment and subversive of the intellect of the people, but in a clear reliance upon the intelligence, the patriotism, and the discriminating justice of the American people.
"2. Resolved, That we regard this as a distinctive feature of our political creed, which we are proud to maintain before the world as the great moral element in a form of government springing from and upheld by the popular will; and we contrast it with the creed and practice of Federalism, under whatever name or form, which seeks to palsy the will of the constituent and which conceives no imposture too monstrous for the popular credulity.
"3. Resolved, Therefore, That, entertaining these views, the Democratic party of this Union, through the delegates assembled in a general convention of the States, coming together in a spirit of con- cord, of devotion to the doctrines and faith of a free representative government, and appealing to their fellow-citizens for the rectitude of their intentions, renew and reassert before the American people the declaration of principles avowed by them on a former occasion
---
93
NATIONAL PARTY PLATFORMS
1844]
when, in general convention, they presented their candidates for the popular suffrage.
[Resolutions 4 to 12, inclusive, consisted of the nine resolutions of the platform of 1840; to which were added the following:]
"13. Resolved, That the proceeds of the public lands ought to be sacredly applied to the national objects specified in the Constitu- tion, and that we are opposed to the laws lately adopted, and to any law, for the distribution of such proceeds among the States, as alike inexpedient in policy and repugnant to the Constitution.
"14. Resolved, That we are decidedly opposed to taking from the President the qualified veto power by which he is enabled, under restrictions and responsibilities amply sufficient to guard the public interest, to suspend the passage of a bill whose merits cannot secure the approval of two-thirds of the Senate and House of Representa- tives, until the judgment of the people can be obtained thereon, and which has thrice saved the American people from the corrupt and tyrannical domination of the Bank of the United States.
"15. Resolved, That our title to the whole of the Territory of Oregon is clear and unquestionable; that no portion of the same ought to be ceded to England or any other power; and that the reoccupation of Oregon and the reannexation of Texas at the earliest practicable period are great American measures, which this conven- tion recommends to the cordial support of the Democracy of the Union."
The pith of the platform was in its concluding reso- lution, which made it, indeed, as important and far- reaching a political deliverance as has ever been issued in American history. It committed the country, in the event of Democratic success, first, to the acquisition of complete and permanent title to the Oregon country ; and second, to the absorption of Texas into the Union and accordingly, in all probability, a war with Mexico.
Concerning the first of these policies, the Democratic party simply expressed in terms of finality the over-
+
94
POLITICAL AND GOVERNMENTAL HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK
[1844
whelming desire of the country for an immediate set- tlement with England of the northwestern boundary on a basis of enforcement of the territorial rights of the United States. This matter had for long years in- volved exasperating diplomatic delays and equivoca- tions, the sole result being to continue the "joint occupa- tion" agreement of 1818. During Tyler's administra- tion negotiations had been progressing in which, it was later shown, the contention of the United States was firmly maintained; but on account of the delicate nature of the controversy it was impossible at the time to disclose the exact facts, and public opinion was therefore in a high state of excitement. It was gener- ally understood that England laid claim to the Colum- bia River as the boundary; whereas the minimum American demand was for the forty-ninth parallel, and in the condition of popular feeling there arose an in- sistent sentiment for the line of 54° 40'. "Fifty-four forty or fight!" became the Democratic slogan in the 1844 canvass.
The word "reannexation," as applied in the platform to the intended procedure regarding Texas, was a euphemism to give a suggestion of constructive right to the comprehensive plan of Texan annexation upon which the party had fully decided. The territory con- stituting Texas had never been recognized as belonging to the United States, although at an early period-fol- lowing the purchase of the Louisiana Territory from France in 1803-our government had maintained a strong and undoubtedly reasonable claim to a portion of Texas as comprised within the understood bounds of
95
NATIONAL PARTY PLATFORMS
1844]
Louisiana. But whatever presumptive right the United States may have originally had to any part of Texas was formally waived at the time of Spain's cession of Flor- ida in 1819. Subsequently Mexico achieved her inde- pendence, and with it acquired Spain's title to all of Texas. Then followed the steady increase of settlement in Texas by Americans (mostly southerners), their re- volt against Mexico under the flag of the Lone Star, and the establishment of the republic of Texas (1836), with, however, only a modicum of the territory to which its people aspired, and, moreover, but a precarious future unless admission to the United States could be obtained. The Texans, in offering themselves to us, proposed to get all the advantages of territorial greatness possible to be derived; and this meant war between the United States and Mexico unless the latter country should ex- hibit an altogether unimaginable pusillanimity. As a matter of fact, when the annexation treaty (negotiated by the Tyler administration and the Texan govern- ment) was presented to the United States Senate in April, 1844, it stipulated that Texas should embrace all the country to the Rio Grande River from its mouth to its source-which was a peremptory defiance of the claim of Mexico; and when the treaty was acted on by the Senate in June, 1844, it was rejected, only sixteen voting for it.
Inextricably connected with the Texas question was that of slavery. From the beginning of the discussion relating to the possible acquisition of Texas, it was fore- seen that adoption of the proposed policy would surely revive the political slavery issue, with incalculable con-
96
POLITICAL AND GOVERNMENTAL HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK
[1844
sequences. Whilst most of the people of the north be- lieved it would be unwise to interfere with slavery in its existing status, they were everlastingly opposed to positive steps looking to its spread. As early as 1837 Daniel Webster had said: "Gentlemen, we all see that by whomsoever possessed, Texas is likely to be a slaveholding country; and I frankly avow my entire unwillingness to do anything which shall extend the slavery of the African race on this continent, or add other slaveholding States to the Union." When the question became acute at the time of the original sub- mission of the treaty to the Senate in April, 1844, the Whigs were quite generally against annexation ; but, as they desired to retain all the strength possible in the south, they made no party issue on the subject in the ensuing Presidential campaign. Clay, as their leader, at first declared his hostility to annexation, not on anti- slavery grounds but because he did not desire to pro- voke war. Later in the canvass he further explained his views in letters that were regarded as having been writ- ten from politic motives; and his feeling of resent- ment toward the Abolitionists led him to refer to them in terms of contumely. Among the northern Democrats there were serious divisions of opinion. Van Buren, in advance of the assembling of the national convention, wrote a letter objecting to immediate an- nexation; and his failure to secure the Presidential nomination was attributed to the attitude thus taken. Silas Wright's declination of the nomination for Vice- President was occasioned by his loyalty to Van Buren, in whose anti-annexationist views he fully coincided.
97
NATIONAL PARTY PLATFORMS
1844]
The Election
From the preceding comments on the Democratic and Whig national platforms, it will be seen that both parties were under no small embarrassment in the con- test. The result turned on the Texas question, and its closeness was a convincing proof of the latent power of anti-slavery. If the slavery issue had not been con- cerned, the party standing for so valuable a territorial accession as Texas could hardly have failed to win a most decisive victory. Yet the Democrats would have been defeated if New York had gone against them, and in that State Polk's plurality was only 5,000. The Whigs bitterly reproached the third-party Abolition- ists, who polled for their ticket in New York 15,812 votes ; but the latter retorted that they could not under- stand how a legitimate claim upon their support could have been advanced by Clay, who had temporized during the canvass in order to satisfy the south and had accordingly carried five slave States.
For President and Vice-President, Electoral vote :
James K. Polk and George M. Dallas, Democrats :- Alabama, 9; Arkansas, 3; Georgia, 10; Illinois, 9; Indiana, 12; Louisiana, 6; Maine, 9; Michigan, 5; Mississippi, 6; Missouri, 7; New Hamp- shire, 6; New York, 36; Pennsylvania, 26; South Carolina, 9; Vir- ginia, 17. Total, 170. Elected.
Henry Clay and Theodore Frelinghuysen, Whigs :- Connecticut, 6; Delaware, 3; Kentucky, 12; Maryland, 8; Massachusetts, 12; New Jersey, 7; North Carolina, 11; Ohio, 23; Rhode Island, 4; Tennessee, 13; Vermont, 6. Total, 105.
Popular vote :
Polk, 1,337,243; Clay, 1,300,518; Birney, 62,300.
1848
The great and historic administration of President Polk (March, 1845, to March, 1849) brought to com- pletion the continental development of the United States in its comprehensive expanse from the Atlantic to the Pacific and from north to south.1 The total gain in square miles was 1,201,178, which exceeded by more than 350,000 the area of the original States as estab- lished by the peace of 1783, and by more than 300,000 that of the vast Louisiana Purchase. This gain was divided as follows :- territory claimed by Texas, an- nexed in 1845, 389,610 square miles ; territory compris- ing the present States of Oregon, Washington, and Idaho, and parts of Montana and Wyoming, confirmed to us by treaty with Great Britain in 1846, 285,123 square miles; cession by Mexico in 1848 of all de- manded territory west of Texas, inclusive of California, 526,445 square miles.
The Oregon dispute was adjusted by acceptance of the forty-ninth parallel as the boundary; the Texas question was settled by the Mexican War. In reality the previous opposition to Texan annexation repre- sented only certain scruples and misgivings, which
1The only continental territory afterward added (except the detached possessions of Alaska and the Panama Canal Zone) was the Gadsden Pur- chase, a strip of 31,017 square miles acquired from Mexico by peaceful treaty in 1854, embracing portions of the present States of Arizona and New Mexico.
Our authority for the various areas of territorial acquisition given above is the Cyclopedia of American Government, article on Area of the United States.
98
99
NATIONAL PARTY PLATFORMS
1845-8]
were without the sustaining and binding force of de- clarative support by a great party. The decisive steps concerning Texas were taken during the last days of Tyler's administration, and, with annexation thus made an accomplished fact, public sentiment was for pursuing all the subsequent measures and realizing all the national advantages logically involved. At the foundation of the question was the claim made for the Texans as our own people, entitled to our active sym- pathy and cooperation-a claim that could no more be ignored or treated indifferently than the demand of the American pioneers in Oregon for due maintenance by the government of their rights and interests. In view of the undoubted national character of the response to Texas's appeal, the charge urged by not a few orators and publicists of that period, that the annexation and the war were purely enterprises of slavery aggression, was certainly most unjust to the country. The slavery aggressions that followed were indeed numerous and intolerable, and moreover were not unforeseen; but in heartily supporting the war the northern people de- prived the south of any reasonable pretension to either a superior sectional interest in it or special sectional advantages from its results. In truth the south, in all its later reproaches and allegations against the north, never raised a question concerning the Mexican War except in relation to the decided refusal of northern sentiment to regard its outcome as establishing new "rights" for slavery.
The issue of slavery extension, which the Missouri Compromise of 1820 had settled for the unorganized
100
POLITICAL AND GOVERNMENTAL HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK
[1846
territory at that time existing, took on a new and por- tentous aspect with the prodigious increase of the national possessions in 1845-48. Incidentally to the annexation of Texas in 1845 and its prompt admission as a State, the slave system that had been instituted and maintained throughout its jurisdiction by its American settlers was fully sanctioned by the national govern- ment. This was expected by everyone. It was even arranged and stipulated that the State of Texas might, at discretion, carve out of its territory four additional States "of convenient size," and that each of the new States should, if lying south of the line 36° 30', be en- titled, upon acquiring sufficient population, to admis- sion to the Union "with or without slavery, as the peo- ple of each State asking admission may desire" ;- an arrangement, however, that never came to anything practically.
The real contest on the slavery questions springing out of the war was with reference to the ceded territory outside of Texas-a territory comprehending the entire present States of Arizona, Utah, Nevada, and Califor- nia, and parts of New Mexico, Colorado, and Wyo- ming. Toward the end of the Congressional session in the summer of 1846-the war being in progress but its result mainly a question of the territory to be ac- quired,-President Polk requested an appropriation with a view to initiating peace negotiations. David Wilmot, a Democratic Congressman from Pennsylva- nia, after consulting with influential members of his party from the north, thereupon offered the very famous proposal known as the "Wilmot Proviso," as follows :
101
1846]
NATIONAL PARTY PLATFORMS
"Provided, That as an express and fundamental condition to the acquisition of any territory from the republic of Mexico by the United States, by virtue of any treaty which may be negotiated between them, and to the use by the Executive of the moneys herein appropriated, neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall ever exist in any part of the said territory, except for crime, whereof the party shall be first duly convicted."
The House passed the bill with the Proviso, 87 to 64, anti-slavery Democrats and Whigs supporting it, but owing to the adjournment of Congress without day it did not come to a vote in the Senate. It was never favorably acted on by the latter body, but on frequent occasions was reaffirmed by the House. The principle laid down was of immense significance, and the stead- fast support accorded it gave mortal affront to the south. Perhaps equally exasperating to the south was the constant northern contention that, as Mexico had abolished slavery, its reestablishment in the territory in question would mean a reversion to an archaic condi- tion. It was well known that the Mexican slavery- abolition was not based on humanitarian grounds, but inspired by recognition of the social and political equal- ity of the inferior races with the Spanish elements con- sequent upon their long reciprocal intermixture, legit- imately as well as otherwise. The high-spirited slaveholders of the United States did not for a moment admit that the systemic introduction of their "domestic institution" on the conquered soil would be equivalent to a retrogression from the existent Mexican standard.
In the interval remaining before the Presidential campaign of 1848 the southerners, on their part,
102
POLITICAL AND GOVERNMENTAL HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK
[1847-8
brought forward several proposals of slavery extension and formulations of fundamental ideas which clearly indicated their aggressive designs for the future. Of these, the measure most truly representative of the spirit and intentions of the south was a series of resolutions presented in the Senate (February, 1847) by John C. Calhoun, of South Carolina, which declared that the Territories belonged to the States in common; that a law depriving any citizen of his right to emigrate with his property (i. e., slaves) to any Territory would be violative of the Constitution; and that no condition should be imposed on new States except that they should have a republican form of government-meaning that the Constitution of its own force carried slavery into the Territories. Although these resolutions were not acted on by the Senate, it soon became well under- stood that the doctrine they proclaimed was con- sidered vital by the south and likely ultimately to prove its last word in the whole disputation.
Various' attempts were made to secure action by Congress permitting the entrance of slavery into the region to be taken from Mexico, which at that period was tentatively divided into two Territories with the names of New Mexico and California. But all of them proved abortive, and up to the Presidential elec- tion, as well as the end of the Polk administration, there was no conclusive result respecting slavery in those Territories.
Oregon, meantime, was established as a Territory without slavery (August, 1848), but not until after much debate and several votes in both branches of
103
NATIONAL PARTY PLATFORMS
1848]
Congress; on the final division twenty-five southern Senators opposed the bill because of its anti-slavery provision.
Concerned in the discussion about Oregon was the very important question of projecting the Missouri Compromise line (36° 30') to the Pacific. The pro- jection was chiefly favored by the south on account of the associated principle of slavery recognition and the sure gain for the slave States to a large extent. Sena- tor Stephen A. Douglas, of Illinois, was the proponent of the leading measure on the subject, which the Sen- ate passed but the House overwhelmingly rejected in compliance with the strong northern feeling against any new territorial concession whatever to slavery.
The momentous national events and Congressional proceedings of the four years 1845-48, which we have succinctly reviewed in the preceding pages, formed the foundation of the entire political history of the next two decades; there was not a question or develop- ment leading to or connected with the Civil War that did not trace its origin immediately to them. The basic idea of Douglas's great "popular sovereignty" panacea was propounded and explicated in the Con- gressional transactions of this period; and the same may be said of the favorite device of many per- plexed people for leaving all questions as to the right- ful existence or extent of slavery in the Territories to the decision of the United States Supreme Court. Only the formative stage of the conflict was reached; but the inevitable issues on each side were plainly defined in principle, with the certainty that the politi-
104
POLITICAL AND GOVERNMENTAL HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK
[1848
cal adjustments necessary to their settlement would involve the most positive and critical differences.
Democratic Party
National convention held in Baltimore, May 22-26, 1848; temporary chairman, J. S. Bryce, of Louisiana ; permanent chairman, Andrew Stevenson, of Virginia. The two-thirds rule was readopted. This convention appointed the first national committee ever constituted in the history of American parties.
Nominations :- Lewis Cass, of Michigan, was nomi- nated for President on the fourth ballot by 179 votes to 33 for James Buchanan, of Pennsylvania; 38 for Levi Woodbury, of New Hampshire; 1 for W. J. Worth, of Tennessee, and 3 for William O. Butler, of Kentucky. For Vice-President, William O. Butler received a unanimous nomination on the third ballot after a struggle in which five other candidates were voted for.
An incident of sensational character, and destined to have notable consequences, was the appearance be- fore the convention of two rival delegations from New York-one representing the Hunker faction of con- servatives, opposed to the Wilmot Proviso and in favor of accepting any Presidential candidate upon whom the party should decide; the other representing the Barnburners or radicals, who were supporters of the Wilmot Proviso and reserved to their own judgment the question of endorsing the nominee to be chosen. Not wishing to antagonize any party element in the great State of New York, the convention voted to
JOHN QUINCY ADAMS
John Quincy Adams, 6th president; born at Baintree, Mass., July 11, 1767; lawyer; elected to state senate 1802; defeated for congress, 1802; elected to U. S. senate, serving from March 4, 1803, to June 8, 1808; resigned; minister to Russia, 1809-14; minister to England, 1815-17; secretary of state under Monroe, 1817-25; chosen president of United States by house of repre- sentatives, 1825; term ended, 1829; defeated for governor of Massachusetts, 1834; representative in congress from March 4, 1831 until his death, which took place in the capital at Wash- ington, February 23, 1848.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.