Political Recollections | Page 9

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