fluential than these the reasonable certainty of success at the next presidential election.

On the 4th day of December, 1839, the Whig party held a national convention at Harrisburgh, Pennsylvania, where, after twenty-four ballotings in grand committee of delegates, who were divided in choice between the nominee, Henry Clay, and General Scott, General William Henry Harrison, of Ohio, the leading candidate four years before, was unanimously nominated for president; and John Tyler, of Virginia, (after this nomination had been offered to Nathaniel P. Tallmadge, by the delega tions from Ohio, Virginia, and North Carolina, and by him declined,) was designated for vice president. This convention was composed of men who were sagacious enough to adjourn after they had performed their delegated work, without incumbering themselves and their nominees with useless resolutions. It was the administration which they opposed-not the Whig party which had at that time public measures to defend. The convention formally declared no principles; it only authorized its presiding officer, Governor Barbour, of Virginia, to announce that it flung the broad banner of liberty and the constitution to the breeze, inscribed, "One presidential term; the integrity of public servants; the safety of the public money; and the general good of the people."

Nor were the masses of the party less sagacious in the management of the canvass which ensued. They resolved to waste neither time nor money in defending their candidates against any charges or aspersions which might be made against them by Democrats. Whatever epithets or sobriquiets the adverse party applied to General Harrison, and they were numerous as well as ludicrous, they readily and pleasantly adopted as their own; and thus reserved all their

energies for "rolling the ball" directly on against the forces of the adverse party. Their movements were all aggressive, not defensive; and the result of the election vindicated the policy.

CHAPTER VIII,

NOMINATION OF MARTIN VAN BUREN-CIRCUMSTANCES RELATING TO THE CANVASS-FORMATION OF A LOCO-FOCO PARTY IN NEW YORK-EFFORTS OF MR. VAN BUREN TO RE-UNITE THE DIVIDED PARTY-HIS ELECTION BY A SMALL MAJORITY-PECULIARITIES OF HIS INAUGURAL ADDRESSHIS OVERTURE TO THE SLAVE POWER-MONETARY PRESSURE-SUSPENSION OF SPECIE PAYMENTS-SPECIAL SESSION OF CONGRESS CALLEDPRESIDENT RECOMMENDS AN INDEPENDENT TREASURY-MEASURE FEATED ANNEXATION OF TEXAS PROPOSED-THE DEBATE THEREONPROPOSITION WITHDRAWN-ATHERTON'S GAG-PETITIONS FOR DIPLOMATIO RELATIONS WITH HAYTI-CONDUCT OF THE ADMINISTRATION CONCERNING THE AMISTAD NEGROES-REJECTION OF THE WHIG REPRESENTATIVES FROM NEW JERSEY-FURTHER MEASURES OF THIS ADMINISTRATION -THE SLAVE POWER STIMULATED-CONDITION OF PARTIES.

DE

MARTIN VAN BUREN, of New York, succeeded General Jackson in the presidency, and Colonel Richard M. Johnson, of Kentucky, was chosen vice president. They were nominated for these offices by a Democratic national convention, held at Baltimore on the 20th and 21st days of May, 1835. As this body was composed exclusively of the friends of General Jackson, who not only advised the meeting but also the nomination of Mr. Van Buren, it was attended only by delegates favorable to his nomination; and they were, consequently, unanimous. The vote was taken by states, the convention so requiring, and rendering it necessary for the several delegations to agree among themselves upon the person to cast the votes of their respective states. The two-third rule of 1832 was reädopted and enforced. Colonel Johnson's nomination was opposed by the Virginia delegation, who were anxious

NOMINATION OF VAN BUBEN.

271

for the nomination of William C. Rives; but he received one hundred and seventy-eight votes against eighty-seven cast for Mr. Rives, and was nominated.

The canvass which ensued was very exciting, as well by reason of questions extrinsic to national politics, as those which were directly in issue between the two principal parties in the country. A rupture had taken place during the previous year in the Democratic party in the city and county of New York. There had been an attempt to overslaugh the regular proceedings of the Tammany Hall nominating committee upon the occasion of their attempt to report certain nominations to a Democratic meeting, convened in that building; and by reason of a re-lighting of the gas which usually illumined the hall by means of locofoco matches, after it had been abruptly extinguished by the committee, the dissenters had provoked the sobriquet of Loco-focos. In the month of January, 1836, and cotemporaneously with incipient action on the part of the regular Democrats, with the view to a proper representation in the national convention, those Loco-focos, as they were termed, held a county convention, where they adopted, on the report of one Moses Jacques, the following declaration of rights:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created free and equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that the true foundation of republican government is the equal rights of every citizen in his person and property, and in their management; that the idea is quite unfounded that on entering into society we give up any natural right; that the rightful power of all legislation is to declare and enforce only our natural rights and duties, and to take none of them from us; that no man has the natural right

to commit aggressions on the equal rights of another, and this is all from which the law ought to restrain him; that every man is under the natural duty of contributing to the necessities of society, and this is all the law should enforce on him; that when the laws have declared and enforced all this, they have fulfilled their functions.

"We declare unqualified hostility to bank notes and paper money as a circulating medium, because gold and silver is the only safe and constitutional currency; hostility to any and all monopolies by legislation, because they are violations of equal rights of the people; hostility to the dangerous and unconstitutional creation of vested rights or prerogatives, by legislation, because they are usurpations of the people's sovereign rights; no legisla tive or other authority in the body politic can rightfully, by charter or otherwise, exempt any man or body of men, in any case whatever, from trial by jury and the jurisdiction or operation of the laws which govern the community.

"We hold that each and every law or act of incorporation, passed by preceding legislatures, can be rightfully altered and repealed by their successors; and that they should be altered or repealed, when necessary for the public good, or when required by a majority of the people."

To this platform various planks were afterward added, so that it became at length sufficiently attractive to call forth a respectable swarm of ultra Democrats from the Tammany hive. The Loco-focos were unsuccessful in their suggested reforms, and after a separate existence of two years, they fell back again into the Democratic ranks. But in 1836, during the pendency of the presidential election, they were a source of much trouble to Mr. Van Buren, who was laboring to reünite the party in New