As a rule, they were liberally educated, many of them graduates of Northern colleges, a still larger number taking their degrees at Transylvania in Kentucky, at Chapel Hill in North Carolina, and at Mr. Jefferson's peculiar but admirable inst.i.tution in Virginia.

Their secluded life on the plantation gave them leisure for reading and reflection. They took pride in their libraries, pursued the law so far as it increased their equipment for a public career, and devoted themselves to political affairs with an absorbing ambition. Their domestic relations imparted manners that were haughty and sometimes offensive; they were quick to take affront, and they not infrequently brought needless personal disputation into the discussion of public questions; but they were, almost without exception, men of high integrity, and they were especially and jealously careful of the public money. Too often ruinously lavish in their personal expenditures, they believed in an economical government, and, throughout the long period of their domination, they guarded the Treasury with rigid and unceasing vigilance against every attempt at extravagance, and against every form of corruption.

Looking into the future, the Southern men took alarm lest the equality of their section should be lost in the Senate, and their long control of the Federal Government ended. Even with Texas added to the Union, this equality was barely maintained, for Wisconsin was already seeking admission; and the clause in the articles of annexation providing that four new States might be carved out of the territory of Texas whenever she asked it, gave no promise of speedy help to the South. Its operation would, in any event, be distant, and subject to contingencies which could not be accurately measured. There was not another foot of territory south of 36 30', save that which was devoted to the Indians by solemn compact, from which another slave State could be formed.

North of 36 30' the Missouri Compromise had dedicated the entire country to freedom. In extent it was, to the Southern view, alarmingly great, including at least a million square miles of territory. Except along its river boundaries it was little known.

Its value was underrated, and a large portion of it was designated on our maps as the Great American Desert. At the time Texas was annexed, and for several years afterwards, not a single foot of that vast area was organized under any form of civil government.

Had the Southern statesmen foreseen the immense wealth, population, and value of this imperial domain in the five great States and four Territories into which it is to-day divided, they would have abandoned the struggle for equality. But the most that was hoped, even in the North, within any near period, was one State north of Iowa, one west of Missouri, and one from the Oregon country. The remainder, in the popular judgment, was divided among mountain gorges, the arid plains of the middle, and the uninviting region in the north, which the French _voyaguers_ had cla.s.sed under the comprehensive and significant t.i.tle of _mauvaises terres_. With only three States antic.i.p.ated from the great area of the north-west, it was the evident expectation of the Southern men who then had control of the government, that, if war with Mexico should ensue, the result would inevitably be the acquisition of sufficient territory to form slave States south of the line of the Missouri Compromise as rapidly as free States could be formed north of it; and that in this way the ancient equality between North and South could be maintained.

OUR RELATIONS WITH MEXICO.

But the scheme of war did not develop as rapidly as was desired by the hot advocates of territorial expansion. A show of negotiation for peace was kept up by dispatching Mr. John Slidell as minister to Mexico upon the hint that that government might be willing to renew diplomatic relations. When Mr. Slidell reached the city of Mexico he found a violent contest raging over the Presidency of the republic, the princ.i.p.al issue being between the war and anti- war parties. Mr. Slidell was not received. The Mexican Government declared, with somewhat of reason and consistency, that they had been willing to listen to a special envoy who would treat singly and promptly of the grave questions between the two republics, but they would not accept a minister plenipotentiary who would sit down near their government in a leisurely manner, as if friendly relations existed, and select his own time for negotiation,--urging or postponing, threatening or temporizing, as the pressure of political interests in the United States might suggest. Mr. Slidell returned home; but still the conflict of arms, though so imminent, was not immediately precipitated. Mr. Polk's cautious and somewhat timid course represented the resultant between the aggressive Democrat of the South who was for war regardless of consequences, and the Free-soil Democrat of the North who was for peace regardless of consequences; the one feeling sure that war would strengthen the inst.i.tution of slavery, the other confident that peace would favor the growth of freedom. As not infrequently happens in the evolution of human events, each was mistaken in the final issue. The war, undertaken for the extension of slavery, led in the end to its destruction.

The leading influence in Mr. Polk's cabinet was divided between Mr. Buchanan, secretary of State, and Mr. Marcy, secretary of War.

Both were men of conservative minds, of acute judgment in political affairs of long experience in public life; and each was ambitious for the succession to the Presidency. Neither could afford to disregard the dominant opinion of the Southern Democracy; still less could either countenance a reckless policy, which might seriously embarra.s.s our foreign affairs, and precipitate a dangerous crisis in our relations with England. These eminent statesmen quickly perceived that the long-standing issue touching our north- western boundary, commonly known as the Oregon question, was surrounded with embarra.s.sments which, by mismanagement, might rapidly develop into perils of great magnitude in connection with the impending war with Mexico.

The Oregon question, which now became a.s.sociated, if not complicated, with the Texas question, originated many years before. By our treaty with Spain in 1819, the southern boundary of our possessions on the Pacific had been accurately defined. Our northern boundary was still unadjusted, and had been matter of dispute with Great Britain ever since we acquired the country. By the treaty of Oct.

20, 1818, the 49th parallel of north lat.i.tude was established as the boundary between the United States and British America, from the Lake of the Woods to the Stony Mountains, as the Rocky Mountains were then termed. In the same treaty it was agreed that any country claimed by either the United States or Great Britain westward of the Stony Mountains should, with its harbors, bays, and rivers, be open for the term of ten years to the vessels, citizens, and subjects of either power. This agreement was entered into solely for the purpose of preventing disputes pending final settlement, and was not to be construed to the prejudice of either party. This was the beginning of the joint occupancy of the Oregon country, England having with prompt and characteristic enterprise forced her way across the continent after she had acquired Canada in 1763.

Stimulated by certain alleged discoveries of her navigators on the north-west coast, Great Britain urged and maintained her t.i.tle to a frontage on the Pacific, and made a bold claim to sovereignty, as far south as the mouth of the Columbia River, nearly, indeed, to the northern border of California.

OUR CLAIM TO THE OREGON COUNTRY.

Nothing had been done towards an adjustment during the ten years of joint occupancy, and when the term was about to expire, the arrangement was renewed by special convention in 1827, for an indefinite period,--each power reserving the right to terminate the convention by giving twelve-months' notice to the other. The President, John Quincy Adams, made the briefest possible reference to the subject in his message to Congress, December, 1827; speaking of it as a temporary compromise of the respective rights and claims of Great Britain and the United States to territory westward of the Rocky Mountains. For many years thereafter, the subject, though languidly pursued in our diplomatic correspondence, was not alluded to in a President's message, or discussed in Congress. The contracting parties rested content with the power to join issue and try t.i.tles at any time by simply giving the required notice.

The subject was also overshadowed by more urgent disputes between Great Britain and the United States, especially that relating to the North-eastern boundary, and that touching the suppression of the African slave-trade. The latter involved the old question of the right of search. The two governments came to an agreement on these differences in 1842 by the negotiation of the convention known as the Ashburton Treaty. In transmitting the treaty to Congress, President Tyler made, for the first time since the agreement for a joint occupancy was renewed in 1827, a specific reference to the Oregon question. He informed Congress, that the territory of the United States commonly called the Oregon country was beginning to attract the attention of our fellow-citizens, and that "the tide of our population, having reclaimed from the wilderness the more contiguous regions, was preparing to flow over those vast districts which stretch from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean;" that Great Britain "laid claim to a portion of the country and that the question could not be well included in the recent treaty without postponing other more pressing matters." He significantly added, that though the difficulty might not for several years involve the peace of the two countries, yet he should urge upon Great Britain the importance of its early settlement.

As this paragraph was undoubtedly suggested and probably written by Mr. Webster, it attracted wide attention on both sides of the Atlantic; and from that moment, in varying degrees of interest and urgency, the Oregon question became an active political issue.

Before the next annual meeting of Congress, Mr. Upshur had succeeded Mr. Webster in the State department; and the message of the President took still more advanced ground respecting Oregon. For political reasons, there was an obvious desire to keep the action of the government on this issue well abreast of its aggressive movements in the matter of acquiring Texas. Emboldened by Mr. Webster's position of the preceding year, Mr. Upshur, with younger blood, and with more reason for a demonstrative course, was evidently disposed to force the discussion of the question with the British Government. Under his influence and advice, President Tyler declared, in his message of December, 1843, that "after the most rigid, and, as far as practicable, unbiased, examination of the subject, the United States have always contended that their rights appertain to the entire region of country lying on the Pacific, and embraced between lat.i.tude 42 and 54 40'." Mr. Edward Everett, at that time our minister in London, was instructed to present these views to the British Government.

Before the President could send another annual message to Congress, Mr. Calhoun had been for several months at the head of the State Department, engaged in promoting, with singular skill and ability, his scheme for the annexation of Texas. With his quick perception, he discerned that if the policy apparently indicated by Mr. Webster and aggressively pursued by Mr. Upshur, on the Oregon question, should be followed, and that issue sharply pressed upon Great Britain, complications of a most embarra.s.sing nature might arise, involving in their sweep the plans, already well matured, for acquiring Texas. In order to avert all danger of that kind, Mr.

Calhoun opened a negotiation with the British minister in Washington, conducting it himself, for the settlement of the Oregon question; and at the very moment when the Democratic National Convention which nominated Mr. Polk was declaring our t.i.tle to the whole of Oregon as far as 54 40' to be "clear and unquestionable," the Democratic secretary of State was proposing to Her Majesty's representative to settle the entire controversy by the adoption of the 49th parallel as the boundary!

The negotiation was very nearly completed, and was suspended only by some dispute in regard to the right of navigating the Columbia River. It is not improbable that Mr. Calhoun, after disclosing to the British Government his willingness to accept the 49th parallel as our northern boundary, was anxious to have the negotiation temporarily postponed. If the treaty had been concluded at that time, it would have seriously interfered with the success of Mr.

Polk's candidacy by destroying the prestige of the "Fifty-four forties," as Colonel Benton termed them. In Mr. Polk's election, Mr. Calhoun was deeply and indeed doubly interested; first, because of his earnest desire to defeat Mr. Clay, with whom he was at swords'

points on all public issues; and again, because, having a.s.sumed the responsibility of defeating the nomination of Mr. Van Buren, he was naturally desirous that his judgment should be vindicated by the election of the candidate whom his Southern friends had put forward. Urgently solicitous for the annexation of Texas, those friends were indifferent to the fate of the Oregon question, though willing that it should be made a leading issue in the North, where it was presented with popular effect. The patriotic spirit of the country was appealed to, and to a considerable extent aroused and inflamed by the ardent and energetic declaration of our t.i.tle to the whole of Oregon. "Fifty-four forty or fight" became a Democratic watchword; and the Whigs who attempted to argue against the extravagance or inexpediency of the claim continually lost ground, and were branded as cowards who were awed into silence by the fear of British power. All the prejudice against the British Government which had descended from the Revolution and from the war of 1812 was successfully evoked by the Democratic party, and they gained immeasurably by keeping an issue before the people which many of their leaders knew would be abandoned when the pressure of actual negotiation should be felt by our government.

PRESIDENT POLK ON THE OREGON QUESTION.

Mr. Polk, however, in his Inaugural address, carefully re-examined the position respecting Oregon which his party had taken in the national canva.s.s, and quoted part of the phrase used in the platform put forth by the convention which nominated him. The issue had been made so broadly, that it must be squarely met, and finally adjusted. The Democrats in their eagerness had left no road for honorable retreat, and had cut themselves off from the resources and convenient postponements of diplomacy. Dangerous as it was to the new administration to confront the issue, it would have been still more dangerous to attempt to avoid it. The decisive step, in the policy to which the administration was committed, was to give formal notice to Great Britain that the joint occupancy of the Oregon country under the treaty of 1827 must cease. A certain degree of moral strength was unexpectedly imparted to the Democratic position by the fact that the venerable John Quincy Adams was decidedly in favor of the notice, and ably supported, in a unique and powerful speech in the House of Representatives, our t.i.tle to the country up to 54 40'. The first convention for joint occupancy had been negotiated while Mr. Adams was secretary of State, and the second while he was President; so that, in addition to the weight of authority with which he always spoke, his words seemed ent.i.tled to special confidence on a question with which he was necessarily so familiar. His great influence brought many Whigs to the support of the resolution; and on the 9th of February, 1846, the House, by the large vote of 163 to 54, declared in favor of giving the treaty notice to Great Britain.

The country at once became alarmed by the growing rumors that the resolution of the House was a direct challenge to Great Britain for a trial of strength as to the superior t.i.tle to the Oregon country, and it was soon apparent that the Senate would proceed with more circ.u.mspection and conservatism. Events were rapidly tending toward hostilities with Mexico, and the aggrandizement of territory likely to result from a war with that country was not viewed with a friendly eye, either by Great Britain or France.

Indeed, the annexation of Texas, which had been accomplished the preceding year, was known to be distasteful to those governments.

They desired that Texas might remain an independent republic, under more liberal trade relations than could be secured from the United States with its steady policy of fostering and advancing its own manufacturing interests. The directors of the administration saw therefore more and more clearly that, if a war with Mexico were impeding, it would be sheer madness to open a quarrel with Great Britain, and force her into an alliance against us. Mr. Adams and those who voted with him did not believe that the notice to the British Government would provoke a war, but that firmness on our part, in the negotiation which should ensue, would induce England to yield her pretensions to any part of Oregon; to which Mr. Adams maintained, with elaboration of argument and demonstration, she had no shadow of right.

Mr. Adams was opposed to war with Mexico, and therefore did not draw his conclusions from the premises laid down by those who were charged with the policy of the administration. They naturally argued that a war with Great Britain might end in our losing the whole of Oregon, without acquiring any territory on our south- western border. The bare possibility of such a result would defeat the policy which they were seeking to uphold, and would at the same time destroy their party. In short, it became apparent that what might be termed the Texas policy of the administration, and what might be termed the Oregon policy, could not both be carried out.

It required no prophet to foresee which would be maintained and which would be abandoned. "Fifty-four forty or fight" had been a good cry for the political campaign; but, when the fight was to be with Great Britain, the issue became too serious to be settled by such international law as is dispensed on the stump.

COMPROMISE ON THE OREGON QUESTION.

A very bitter controversy over the question began in the Senate as soon as the House resolution was received. But from the outset it was apparent that those who adhered to the 54 40' policy, on which Mr. Polk had been elected, were in a small minority. That minority was led by General Ca.s.s; but its most brilliant advocate in debate was Edward A. Hannegan, Democratic senator from Indiana, who angrily reproached his party for playing false to the pledges on which it had won a victory over the greatest political leader of the country.

He measured the situation accurately, read with discrimination the motives which underlay the change of policy on the part of the administration and its Southern supporters, and stated the whole case in a quick and curt reply to an interruption from a pro-slavery senator,--"If Oregon were good for the production of sugar and cotton, it would not have encountered this opposition. Its possession would have been at once secured." The change in the Democratic position was greatly aided by the att.i.tude of the Whig senators, who almost unanimously opposed the resolution of notice to Great Britain, as pa.s.sed by the House. Mr. Webster, for the first if not the only time in his senatorial career, read a carefully prepared speech, in which he did not argue the question of rightful boundary, but urged that a settlement on the line of the 49th parallel would be honorable to both countries, would avert hostile feeling, and restore amity and harmony. Mr. Berrien of Georgia made an exhaustive speech, inquiring into the rightfulness of t.i.tle, and urged the line of 49. Mr. Crittenden followed in the same vein, and in a reply to Senator William Allen of Ohio, chairman of Foreign Affairs, made a speech abounding in sarcasm and ridicule. The Whigs having in the campaign taken no part in the boastful demand for 54 40', were not subjected to the humiliation of retracing imprudent steps and retracting unwise declarations.

Under the influences at work in the Senate, events developed rapidly.

The House resolution of notice was defeated; and the Senate pa.s.sed a subst.i.tute of a less aggressive type, in which the House, through the instrumentality of a conference committee, substantially concurred. The resolution as finally adopted authorized the President "at his discretion" to give notice for the termination of the treaty to Great Britain. The preamble further softened the action of Congress by declaring that the notice was given in order that "the attention of the governments of both countries may be the more earnestly directed to the adoption of all proper measures for a speedy and amicable adjustment of the differences and disputes in regard to said territory."

The Southern Democrats in the House receded from their action, and the modified resolution was carried by nearly as large a vote as had been the previous one for decided and peremptory notice. In short, the great ma.s.s of the Southern Democrats in both Houses precipitately threw the Oregon issue aside. They had not failed to perceive that the hesitation of the administration in forcing an issue with Mexico was due to the apprehension of trouble with Great Britain, and they made haste to promote schemes of territorial acquisition in the South-West by withdrawing the pretensions so imprudently put forth in regard to our claims in the North-West.

Only forty-six votes were given in the House against what was termed a disgraceful surrender. These were almost entirely from Northern Democrats, though a few Southern Democrats refused to recede.

Among those who thus remained firm were Andrew Johnson, Stephen A.

Douglas, Howell Cobb, Preston King, and Allen G. Thurman.

The pa.s.sage of the modified and friendly resolution of notice dispelled all danger of trouble with Great Britain, and restored a sense of security in the United States. Immediately after its adoption, Mr. Buchanan, Secretary of State, under direction of the President, concluded a treaty with the British minister on the basis discussed by Mr. Calhoun two years before. The 49th parallel was agreed upon as the boundary between the two countries, with certain concessions for a defined period, touching the rights of the Hudson-bay Company, and the navigation of the Columbia River by the British. This treaty was promptly confirmed by the Senate, and the long controversy over the Oregon question was at rest. It had created a deep and wide-spread excitement in the country, and came very near precipitating hostilities with Great Britain. There is no doubt whatever that the English Government would have gone to war rather than surrender the territory north of the 49th parallel. This fact had made the winter and early spring of 1846 one of profound anxiety to all the people of the United States, and more especially to those who were interested in the large mercantile marine which then sailed under the American flag.

UNWISE AGITATION OF THE QUESTION.

In simple truth, the country was not prepared to go to war with Great Britain in support of "our clear and unquestionable t.i.tle"

to the whole of Oregon. With her strong naval force on the Pacific, and her military force in Australasia, Great Britain could more readily and more easily take possession of the country in dispute than could the United States. We had no way of reaching Oregon except by doubling Cape Horn, and making a dangerous sea-voyage of many thousand miles. We could communicate across the continent only by the emigrant trail over rugged mountains and almost trackless plains. Our railway system was in its infancy in 1846. New-York City did not have a continuous road to Buffalo. Philadelphia was not connected with Pittsburg. Baltimore's projected line to the Ohio had only reached c.u.mberland, among the eastern foot-hills of the Alleghanies. The entire Union had but five thousand miles of railway. There was scarcely a spot on the globe, outside of the United Kingdom, where we could not have fought England with greater advantage than on the north-west coast of America at that time.

The war-cry of the Presidential campaign of 1844 was, therefore, in any event, absurd; and it proved to be mischievous. It is not improbable, that, if the Oregon question had been allowed to rest for the time under the provisions of the treaty of 1827, the whole country would ultimately have fallen into our hands, and the American flag might to-day be waving over British Columbia. The course of events and the lapse of time were working steadily to our advantage.

In 1826 Great Britain declined to accept the 49th parallel, but demanded the Columbia River as the boundary. Twenty years afterwards she accepted the line previously rejected. American settlers had forced her back. With the sweep of our emigration and civilization to the Pacific coast two years after the treaty of 1846, when gold was discovered in California, the tendency would have been still more strongly in our favor. Time, as Mr. Calhoun said, "would have effected every thing for us" if we could only have been patient and peaceful.

Taking the question, however, as it stood in 1846, the settlement must, upon full consideration and review, be adjudged honorable to both countries. Wise statesmen of that day felt, as wise statesmen of subsequent years have more and more realized, that a war between Great Britain and the United States would not only be a terrible calamity to both nations, but that it would stay the progress of civilization throughout the world. Future generations would hold the governing power in both countries guilty of a crime if war should ever be permitted except upon the failure of every other arbitrament. The harmless laugh of one political party at the expense of the other forty years ago, the somewhat awkward receding from pretensions which could not be maintained by the Executive of the nation, have pa.s.sed into oblivion. But a striking and useful lesson would be lost if it should be forgotten that the country was brought to the verge of war by the proclamation of a policy which could not be, and was not intended to be, enforced. It was originated as a cry to catch votes; and except with the ignorant, and the few whose judgment was carried away by enthusiasm, it was from the first thoroughly insincere. If the punishment could have fallen only upon those who raised the cry, perfect justice would have been done. But the entire country suffered, and probably endured a serious and permanent loss, from the false step taken by men who claimed what they could not defend and did not mean to defend.

The Secretary of State, Mr. Buchanan, gained much credit for his conduct of the Oregon question, both diplomatically and politically.

His correspondence with Mr. Pakenham, the British minister at Washington, was conspicuously able. It strengthened Mr. Buchanan at home, and gave him an enviable reputation in Europe. His political management of the question was especially adroit. His party was in sore trouble over the issue, and naturally looked to him for relief and escape. To extricate the Administration from the embarra.s.sment caused by its ill-timed and boastful pretensions to the line of 54 40' was a difficult and delicate task. To accomplish it, Mr. Buchanan had recourse to the original and long disused habit of asking the Senate's advice in advance of negotiating the treaty, instead of taking the ordinary but at that time perilous responsibility of first negotiating the treaty, and then submitting it to the Senate for approval. As a leading Northern Democrat, with an established reputation and a promising future, Mr. Buchanan was instinctively reluctant to take the lead in surrendering the position which his party had so defiantly maintained during the canva.s.s for the Presidency in 1844, and which he had, as Secretary of State, re-affirmed in a diplomatic paper of marked ability.

When the necessity came to retreat, Mr. Buchanan was anxious that the duty of publicly lowering the colors should not be left to him.

His device, therefore, shifted the burden from his own shoulders, and placed it on the broader ones of the Senate.

Political management could not have been more clever. It saved Mr. Buchanan in large degree from the opprobrium visited on so many leading Democrats for their precipitate retreat on the Oregon question, and commended him at the same time to a cla.s.s of Democrats who had never before been his supporters. General Ca.s.s, in order to save himself as a senator from the responsibility of surrendering our claim to 54 40', a.s.sumed a very warlike att.i.tude, erroneously supposing that popularity might be gained by the advocacy of a rupture with England. Mr. Buchanan was wiser. He held the middle course. He had ably sustained our claim to the whole of Oregon, and now, in the interest of peace, gracefully yielded to a compromise which the Senate, after mature deliberation, had advised. His course saved the administration, not indeed from a mortifying position, but from a continually increasing embarra.s.sment which seemed to force upon the country the cruel alternatives of war or dishonor.

THE PRESIDENT AND MR. BUCHANAN.

Mr. Polk was, from some cause, incapable of judging Mr. Buchanan generously. He seems to have regarded his Secretary of State as always willing to save himself at the expense of others. He did not fail to perceive that Mr. Buchanan had come out of the Oregon trouble with more credit, at least with less loss, than any other man prominently identified with its agitation and settlement. This was not pleasing to the President. He had evidently not concealed his distrust from the outset, and had c.u.mbered his offer of a cabinet position with conditions which seemed derogatory to the dignity of Mr. Buchanan,--conditions which a man of spirit might well have resented. He informed Mr. Buchanan that, as he should "take no part himself between gentlemen of the Democratic party who might become aspirants to the Presidency," he desired that "no member of the cabinet should do so." He indeed expressed himself to Mr. Buchanan in a manner so peremptory as to be offensive: "Should any member of my cabinet become a candidate for the Presidency or Vice-Presidency of the United States, it will be expected on the happening of such an event that he will retire from the cabinet."

Remembering that Madison, Monroe and John Quincy Adams had each been nominated for the Presidency while holding the position of Secretary of State in the cabinet of his predecessor, Mr. Polk was attaching a new and degrading condition to the inc.u.mbency of that office.

Mr. Polk did not stop with one exaction. Addressing Mr. Buchanan as if he were about to become a department clerk, he informed him that he disapproved "the practice which has sometimes prevailed of cabinet officers absenting themselves for long periods from the seat of government," and practically demanded a pledge that Mr.

Buchanan would remain at his post, and be punctual in the discharge of his official duties. In reading Mr. Polk's letter, the inference seems natural that he felt under some pressing obligation to tender to Mr. Buchanan the appointment of secretary of State, but desired to accompany it with conditions which would subordinate him in the general conduct of the administration. With a spirit of docility, if not humility, altogether incomprehensible, Mr. Buchanan "accepted the position cheerfully and cordially _on the terms on which the offer was made._"

It is not surprising that, after agreeing to enter Mr. Polk's cabinet on these conditions, Mr. Buchanan had abundant reason to complain afterwards that the President did not treat him with "delicacy and confidence." On several occasions he was on the point of resigning his position. He was especially aggrieved that the President refused to nominate him to the Supreme Bench in 1846 as the successor of Henry Baldwin. In view of Mr. Buchanan's career, both before and after that time, it seems strange that he should have desired the position. It seems stranger still that Mr. Polk, after refusing to appoint him, should have nominated George W. Woodward, a Pennsylvania Democrat, who was unacceptable to Mr. Buchanan. Mr. Polk, however, appreciated the temperament of Mr. Buchanan, and apparently knew how much he would endure without resentment. While his presence in the cabinet was evidently not a source of pleasure to the President, he realized that it brought character, strength, and power to the administration. Mr.

Buchanan was an older man than Mr. Polk, was superior to him intellectually, had seen a longer and more varied public service, and enjoyed a higher personal standing throughout the country.

The timidity of Mr. Buchanan's nature made him the servant of the administration when, with boldness, he might have been its master.

Had he chosen to tender his resignation in resentment of his treatment by Mr. Polk, the administration would have been seriously embarra.s.sed. There was, at the time, no Northern Democrat of the same rank to succeed him, except General Ca.s.s, and he was ineligible by reason of his uncompromising att.i.tude on the Oregon question.

Mr. Polk could not call a Southern man to the State Department so long as Robert J. Walker was at the head of the Treasury. He could not promote Mr. Marcy from the War Department without increasing the discontent already dangerously developed in the ranks of the New-York Democracy. Mr. Buchanan, therefore, held absolute control of the situation had he chosen to a.s.sert himself. This he failed to do, and continued to lend his aid to an administration whose policy was destroying him in his own State, and whose patronage was persistently used to promote the fortunes of his rivals and his enemies.

Mr. Polk was by singular fortune placed at the head of one of the most vigorous and important administrations in the history of the government. He had not been trained in the higher duties of statesmanship, and was not personally equal to the weighty responsibilities which devolved upon him. He was overshadowed by the ability of at least three members of his cabinet, and was keenly sensible of their superiority. He had, however, a certain apt.i.tude for affairs, was industrious, and in personal character above reproach. Mr. Webster described him with accuracy when he spoke of him as "respectable but never eminent."

EARLY CAREER OF JAMES K. POLK.

When first elected to the House of Representatives in 1824, Mr.

Polk was but twenty-nine years of age. He was re-elected continuously for fourteen years. He was one of the most p.r.o.nounced adherents of Jackson, and joined in the extreme and unreasonable opposition to the administration of John Quincy Adams. The period of his service in the House was distinguished by partisanship of a more bigoted and vindictive type than prevailed at any other time in the history of that body. He was Speaker during the last Congress of Jackson's Presidency and during the first under the administration of Van Buren. When the Whig members forced an inquiry in to the conduct of Samuel Swartwout, the defaulting collector of customs for the port of New York,--a case which figured prominently in the exciting Presidential canva.s.s of 1840,--they would not trust Mr.

Polk with the duty of naming the committee of investigation. The House itself exercised the power of appointment, to the great disparagement of the Speaker.