These were: Ist. The repeal of the Sub-Treasury Act. 2d. The incorporation of a bank adapted to the wants of the people and of the government. 3d. The provision of an adequate revenue for the government by the imposition of duties, and including authority to contract a temporary loan to cover the public debt created by the last administration. 4th. The prospective distribution of the proceeds of the sale of the public lands. 5th. The passage of appropriation bills. 6th. Some modification of the banks of the District of Columbia for the benefit of the people of the District.

The first of these measures-the repeal of the Independent Treasury Act—was carried through rapidly and by a strictly party vote and was promptly approved by President Tyler.

Next in order, they framed and carried through a bill to incorporate the Fiscal Bank of the United States. Although framed at the Treasury Department and supposed to be approved by the President, it was, greatly to the surprise and indignation of the Whigs, vetoed by Tyler. He objected to the bank on constitutional grounds and declared that he would commit a crime, in view of his previous opinions on that subject, should he now approve this bill, but seemed to leave the way open for a bill that would meet his constitutional objections. The Whigs generally suppressed their annoyance, and went to work to frame another bill that would secure the President's approval, but Henry Clay could not forbear expressing strong criticism and censure of the President for his action. In his speech he said that "bank or no

bank had been the great issue of the Presidential canvass." A second bill was hastily prepared and passed, and this also the President vetoed September 9. This veto was received with unspeakable indignation by the Whigs, who began to realize that their success in the last campaign was to go for naught-the cup of power was to be dashed from their lips when they had scarcely sipped from it and that this President of their own making had set himself to break up their party and to become the leader, himself, of a new party much nearer to their opponents than to themselves. The reading of his veto message was received with hisses in the Senate, and his entire Cabinet, with the exception of Mr. Webster, his Secretary of State, resigned. The Whig members of Congress issued an address to the people, in which they repudiated the President and declared that all connection between them and John Tyler was at an end from that time forth.

Thus in this first extra session of Congress, extending from the 31st of May to the 13th of September, the Whig party had turned fiercely upon the President, and the Democratic party had begun to support him as being in the main favorable to their policies, and already through him they saw the road opening to their return to power. There was in Congress a small party called the "Corporal's Guard," or "Tyler men," which supported the administration and were the personal followers of the President. At the regular session of Congress the Whigs came into collision with the President on the tariff question also. An empty treasury called loudly for increased revenues. The Whigs passed a bill designed to continue the duties

under the tariff of 1833, coupled with a provision for distributing any surplus revenue among the States. This was vetoed by the President as a violation of the solemn adjustment of a great and agitating question made by the compromise of 1833. A second bill, differing not greatly from the first and still containing the land revenue distribution clause, was passed. This also was vetoed, and a third bill, which raised the duties above the 20 per cent. agreed upon in the compromise, but suspending land revenue distribution while such duties were above the compromise limit, was approved on the 30th of August, 1842, and became a law. The Congressional election of 1843 turned the House over to the Democratic party.

The question of the annexation of Texas was now becoming a prominent one and called forth the opposition of the anti-slavery people of the North. A treaty with Texas which provided for annexation, concluded by the administration, was rejected by the Senate by a more than two-thirds vote.

The Whig National Convention met in Baltimore on the first day of May, 1844. There was no division in their party now as to who should be their candidate. The party was united for Clay, and the divisions in the Democratic party gave every promise of success. Mr. Clay was nominated by acclamation, and on the fourth ballot Theodore Frelinghuysen, of New Jersey, was named for Vice-President-his opponents being John Davis, of Massachusetts, and Millard Fillmore, of New York. The platform was very brief, and in a single resolution summed up the principles of the party as favoring a well-regulated

currency, a tariff for revenue necessary to defray the expenses of the government, and discriminating for the protection of the domestic labor of the country, the distribution of the proceeds from the sales of public lands, a single term for the Presidency, a reform of executive usurpations, and generally such an administration of the affairs of the government that shall impart to every branch of the public service the greatest practical efficiency controlled by a well-regulated and wise economy.

The Democratic Convention met twenty-seven days later. From the hour it was known that Van Buren had been defeated there seemed an almost universal concentration on him as its standard bearer in 1844; but as the question of the annexation of Texas forged to the front, and it was found that he was committed against that, an opposition arose which finally succeeded in defeating him and bringing about the nomination of James K. Polk, of Tennessee, who had been little thought of and not voted for in the earlier ballots of the convention. Of the 266 votes Mr. Van Buren began with 146, a majority, but less than the necessary two-thirds. On the seventh ballot the vote stood: Van Buren, 99; Cass, 123; Johnson, 21, and James Buchanan, 22. On the eighth ballot James K. Polk received 44 votes, and by a stampede received the nomination of the convention on the ninth ballot. Silas Wright was nominated for Vice-President, but declined, and George M. Dallas, of Pennsylvania, was chosen as the candidate for Vice-President. The platform reaffirmed the resolutions of 1840, which we have already quoted, and made the fol

lowing somewhat satirical thrust at the Whig campaign of that year:

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 on the intelligence, patriotism and discriminating justice of the American people.

Additional resolutions declared that the proceeds of the public land sales ought to be sacredly applied to the objects specified in the Constitution, and opposed the laws lately adopted distributing such proceeds among the States as inexpedient in policy and unconstitutional; also opposing the taking from the President his qualified veto power, and asserting our title to the whole of the Territory of Oregon, and in favor of the reoccupation of Oregon, and the re-annexation of Texas, at the earliest practical period as great American measures, which this convention recommends, and the cordial support of Democratic union.

The Abolitionists met under the name of the Liberty party, at Buffalo, in the previous August, and nominated James G. Birney, of New York, for President, and Thomas Morris, of Ohio, for Vice-President. They adopted a long platform, which cannot be summarized.

A convention of Mr. Tyler's friends also met in Baltimore on the same day as the Democratic Convention and nominated him for re-election. He accepted the nomination, but subsequently withdrew, and threw his influence to the support of Polk.