had not died shortly after his inauguration leaving his high office to the Vice President, John Tyler, they might have gone far on the way toward a restoration of the Hamilton system. At any rate, with the aid of protectionist Democrats speaking for special constituencies, they were able to push through the tariff act of 1842 raising the customs duties and destroying the compromise measure enacted nine years before. And, had no factional disputes intervened, they might have established a third United States Bank then and there.

Unfortunately for all designs veering in that direction, their two high captains, Tyler in the White House and Clay in the Senate, were looking beyond immediate results to their own possibilities in the coming election. The President, a Virginia man originally taken up by the Whigs to catch southern votes, knew very well how unpalatable were Hamilton's doctrines below the Potomac and he would only approve a national bank of restricted powers. On the other hand, Clay, long associated with financial interests in a prac tical way, deluded himself into believing that the country was ready for something more thorough. Neither one of the contestants, therefore, did his best to bring about an accommodation; a fight seemed better to them than a truce. So Tyler vetoed two bank bills in succession and Clay, turning back to the tactics of 1832, proposed to submit the issue to the voters at the polls.

As in the first instance, the solemn referendum of 1844 ended in the discomfiture of those who proposed it. Once more the shout of the Democratic masses rose to heaven against "the money power." Its machinations, they alleged, were more tyrannical than ever, citing for proof the increase in tariff duties and the effort to revive the hated Bank. In addition they drew attention to an attempt made in Congress in 1843 to force upon the federal government the assumption of bonds repudiated by a number of states in the late general panic. Though this scheme was not successful, as everybody knew, it furnished to the rural mind

conclusive evidence that eastern capitalists and English creditors were trying to make the whole nation pay debts which it had not contracted.

Furthermore, the Whigs were compelled to bear the brunt of a damaging attack on the score that their English sympathies were as strong as those of the Federalists half a century earlier. In 1842 Webster, as Secretary of State, they were reminded, had negotiated with Lord Ashburton, representing England, an agreement relative to the longdisputed boundary of Maine in which he surrendered to Great Britain a large section of land that, under the treaty of 1783 closing the war for independence, appeared to belong to the United States. In spite of the fact that this concession seemed to be the only alternative to war or continual quarreling, the American public was not at all happy with the outcome and Webster felt it necessary to sweeten the pill by spending some money out of the secret service funds of his department to carry on a favorable propaganda through the religious press of Maine. Though the treaty was eventually ratified, it was roundly condemned by discontented Democrats, and especially by the doughty old warrior, Benton, who called it "a shame and an injury”—“a solemn bamboozlement." When the use of public money in creating opinion for the support of the treaty became known through a congressional investigation, the wrath of the Democrats burst all bounds.

An accumulation of forces was certainly menacing the Whigs when the campaign of 1844 approached. Yet, determined to face the economic issues more firmly than in the previous contest, they nominated Clay-a threat which the Democrats answered by choosing as their candidate a friend and neighbor of Jackson, James K. Polk of Tennessee. In the referendum so clearly put the verdict of the voters was emphatic. The party of the Bank, sound money, and high protection was thoroughly routed, in a sweep as decisive as that of 1800 which ousted the Federalists from the national capital. Spokesmen of the planting aristocracy, now

alarmed by slavery agitation and deeply concerned over the fate of Texas, were beginning to comprehend that they had more to hope from leadership in a democracy of farmers, mechanics, and laborers in general, than from coöperation with the elements that composed the Whig party in the North.

On the other hand, the Whigs themselves were made dimly aware that the balance of power was shifting into western hands; but it took more defeats to convince them that they could not destroy their foes with Hamilton's weapons alone. Not until 1860 were they able to make an effective union with the western farmers under the traditional name of Republican-the name which Jefferson had chosen in the early days of his party's history and Clay had approved when in 1832 he had christened the Federalist faction anew.

B

CHAPTER XIII

Westward to the Pacific

EFORE the western outposts of Jacksonian Democracy,
Louisiana and Missouri, had settled down comfort-

ably in the Union a movement was in full swing to carry the Stars and Stripes through the neighboring territory of Mexico to the Pacific. Nothing could check its momentum; neither the protests of New England abolitionists nor the resistance of the Mexicans; neither the torrid heat of the desert nor the ice-bound passes of the mountains. Within a generation it came to a climax in the annexation of Texas, a war with Mexico, the conquest of California, and the adjustment of the Oregon boundary. In the eyes of abolitionists, the drive on Mexico was a slave-owners' plot, a conspiracy against a friendly country, the seizure of "more pens to cram slaves in."

Many incidents lent color to this thesis but the tough web of facts could not be stretched to cover it. There were other economic forces equally potent: the passion of farmers for more land, the lure of continental trade, and the profits of New England traffic in the Pacific Ocean. Besides

all that there was an active body of unknown citizens who held several million dollars worth of the debt and land scrip of Texas and looked to the United States for security-a sum which exceeded in value all the slaves in the Lone Star State in 1845.

Neither slavery nor profit explains, however, the whole westward movement. There was Manifest Destiny which covered a multitude of things and was tinged with mystery by the imagination of the esoteric. According to the version of the seers a virile people turned their resolute faces toward the setting sun. Some of them acquired by fair negotiation lawful possessions in Texas; others pierced the desert and crossed the mountains to gather peltries and engage in honest trade. Their rights were scorned and their flag was insulted by incompetent and dishonest Mexican officials. Innocent persons were imprisoned and some were murdered by barbarians. In such circumstances silence was dishonorable, peace a folly, annexation a virtue. Such was the case submitted in the name of Manifest Destiny.

But this shining shield had a reverse side. The nationalist historians of Mexico present a different version of Manifest Destiny. A ruthless and overbearing race of men, greedy for land and trade, respecting no rights or laws which barred their way, deliberately set themselves to the work of despoiling their neighbor. They violated contracts; they intruded themselves into Mexican territory without passports or permits. Their official representatives at the Mexican capital fomented domestic intrigues, attempted to buy for a song what they intended to take by violence, and shrank not from corruption in gaining their ends. American citizens took part in revolutionary movements to overthrow a friendly government; American naval officers seized Mexican ports in time of peace, pulled down the Mexican flag, and hoisted the Stars and Stripes. Finally, Americans raised a revolution in Texas, tore that province away from a peaceful republic, and then made war to get more territory. Such was the Mexican view of the drama.