leader had negotiated that treaty, and had announced during the negotiation that the chief purpose of the proposed annexation was the preservation of slavery and the extension of slave soil. The Northeastern and Northwestern groups were united in their opposition to the Tyler treaty, but differed in their reasons for opposition to it; the Northeastern group opposing it because Texas was slave soil, the Northwestern group because it was offered without compensating addition of free soil to the northward.

To meet the demands of the Northeastern Democrats Van Buren declared against immediate and unconditional annexation. To satisfy the Southern Democrats Calhoun meditated bolting the regular Baltimore convention and standing for election as a Southern candidate on a straight Southern platform. Then the Northwestern Democrats suggested that if the Southern Democracy were willing to combine Oregon, with Texas in the party platform, campaign, and subsequent congressional action, such a balancing of free and slave soil expansion would satisfy the Northwestern and some of the Northern Democrats, and bring about party harmony and victory instead of party division and defeat. So originated the "bargain of 1844"-the "Oregon and Texas" plank of the Democratic platform of 1844; not as a mere appeal to the Northern States in general, but as a definite means of party harmony and unity without the sacrifice of vital principle or interest by either the Southern or the Northwestern group of the party. The fact that such a bargain had been made was not published broadcast; in fact, it was kept most secret, but party leaders in the Northwest and Calhoun's lieutenants, if not Calhoun himself, knew of its arrangement and content.1

The "bargain" having been made and ratified by their party convention, the Southern Democrats at once-almost before the campaign opened-pressed for the completion of their half of the bargain, and demanded the immediate ratification of the Tyler treaty of annexation.2 But the Northwestern

1 It is intended to make the "bargain" itself the subject of another paper at a later date. 2 Letter from Glenville, Alabama, July, 1844. Niles' Register, LXVI, 314.

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Democrats as yet refused to vote for Texas. Hannegan, of Indiana, later explained his action by calling upon the Senators from Missouri and Tennessee to bear witness to the fact that "up to the Baltimore convention" he had been "a decided friend to the immediate annexation of Texas." "What I saw which induced me to apprehend a breach of faith at that convention," he said, "it is unnecessary at present to detail. But my friend knows that he repeatedly urged me to vote for the treaty, notwithstanding my apprehensions, and that I refused to do so, for I did apprehend that if Texas were brought in-if we annexed Texas without some definite action on Oregon-the Baltimore resolutions would be construed to mean all Texas and the half of Oregon with certain gentlemen"—and, looking at Colquitt, of Georgia, he repeated it, "with certain gentlemen." The Senator from Missouri testified that what Hannegan had said was "perfectly true," and the Senator from Tennessee confirmed the Hannegan explanation. Evidently Northwestern Democrats were already suspicious of Southern Democratic intentions as to Oregon and of the recently-made "bargain.”

In the exciting campaign that followed, Southern Democrats concerned themselves chiefly with Texas, but did not forget to show an occasional "Texas and Oregon" banner, nor occasionally to unite the two issues in their public utterances. Northeastern Democrats for awhile considered the advisability of bolting the Democratic congressional ticket in the hope of defeating the annexation of Texas, but finally gave it up as a hopeless task, and quietly voted the regular party ticket. Northwestern Democrats emphasized the advantages of Texan annexation, pledged the party faith to the "whole of Oregon," and united the two issues at every opportunity: "Texas and Oregon; Oregon and Texas, always went together"; "everywhere they were twins; everywhere they were united."3

When the campaign of 1844 ended in Democratic victory, the Southern group once more pressed for the carrying out of

1 Cong. Globe, 29 Cong., 1 sess., 15, 388.

2 Hannegan, of Indiana, Mar. 5, 1846, as reported in Niles' Register, LXX, 22. 3 Same, as reported in Cong. Globe, 29 Cong., I sess., 15, 460.

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the Texan portion of the "bargain." Texas, they said, was "an issue which had been made by the Baltimore convention * it had been submitted to the intelligent freemen of the United States * who had decided in favor of it," and now "the friends of that measure from the South called upon their representatives from the North to come forward and respond." "They did," said McDowell, of Ohio, in reviewing the record of that session, "come forward and respond." In doing so, it is true, some of them "conjured" the Southern Democrats "most earnestly" to "yield to the spirit of compromise, and give us a small portion of that territory," claiming it had been "held out to the North, that two of the five States to be formed out of Texas would be free"; and all demanded the carrying out of the remainder of the "bargain" by the passage of Oregon "notice" and territorial bills. But as to Texas the Southern Democracy would "yield to no division" beyond the illusive "extension" of the Missouri compromise line through it;3 and as for Oregon, so long as the Northwestern Democrats "held Texas in their hands," enough Southern Democrats voted for Oregon measures to nurse them along until Texas was out of danger, and then refused further to discuss such important questions so near the close of the session.4 A few of the Northwestern Democrats, interpreting this as a repudiation of their portion of the "bargain," refused to vote for Texas ;5 but the majority, evidently hoping more from the future than they were obtaining at the moment, helped to bring Texas in.

When Congress assembled again in the winter of 1845, Northwestern Democrats were prepared to insist on the prompt and decisive carrying out of the Oregon portion of the "bargain." Following the suggestion of the President, whose election had resulted from the "bargain" campaign, they introduced a series of measures looking to the final occupation of Oregon; the most important, of course, being that

to instruct the President to give immediate notice to Great Britain of our intention to abrogate the joint-occupancy agreement of 1828. To their apparent surprise, Calhoun led the Southern Democrats in opposition to the "notice" resolutions, insisting upon the certainty of war with Great Britain should our Government thus assert our exclusive claim to the "whole of Oregon." Hannegan, of Indiana, at once arose in the Senate and denounced the "singular course" of the Southern Democrats. "Texas and Oregon," he announced, "were born the same instant, nursed and cradled in the same cradle-the Baltimore convention-and they were at the same instant adopted by the Democracy throughout the land. There was not a moment's hesitation until Texas was admitted; but the moment she was admitted the peculiar friends of Texas turned and were doing all they could to strangle Oregon." Calhoun promptly replied to the charge of Southern Democratic treachery. "If I acted boldly and promptly on that occasion," he explained, "it was because boldness and promptness were necessary to success. If I am for deliberate measures on this occasion it is not because I am not a friend to Oregon. * If you institute a comparison between Oregon and Texas I would say that the former is as valuable to us as the latter and I would as manfully defend it. If the Senator and myself disagree, we disagree only as to the means of securing Oregon and not as to its importance." Calhoun's reply sounds candid and convincing, but Polk's "Diary" informs us that, while asserting and reasserting his disagreement with the Northwestern Democrats "only as to the means of securing Oregon," Calhoun was secretly confiding to Polk his opinion that "the two Governments" ought to settle the Oregon question "on the basis of 49°." Hannegan answered Calhoun's defense of the Southern Democratic position with the assertion that he "did not intend to charge any improper motives; but it appeared strange to him that when a question of territorial acquisition arises in the northwest

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1 Ibid., 15, 110.

2 Ibid., 110.

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3 Quaife, "Diary of Polk," I, 313.

there should be found such a backwardness on the part of southern gentlemen to give it their aid"; that if Calhoun were "a true mother" he would surely "not be willing to cut the child in two and give away one half."

Two or three days later, when "Mr. Rhett, Mr. Yancey, and others of the Southern phalanx" in the House took the same ground as Calhoun in the Senate, Douglas of Illinois "at first intimated, and subsequently rather broadly charged upon the Southern members of the party, an attempt to 'play a game' treacherous to the West. He asserted distinctly that the Oregon and Texas annexation projects had their birth in the Baltimore convention. There they were 'cradled together' with a distinct understanding that if the West sustained the South in securing Texas, the South would sustain the West in their claims to Oregon." Houston of Texas and Rhett of South Carolina entered formal denials of having had "any hand in the game;" but in milder form Douglas persisted in his charge and was supported in it by McDowell of Ohio and Smith of Indiana.1

If

Still, a few days later Wentworth of Illinois renewed the charge. "The South and West went together for Texas," he told the Southern Democrats, and now they should "go together for Oregon. The West certainly so expected. they did not go together, there was a class of politicians who would make a great deal of capital out of it;" they were already predicting that "the South, having used the West to get Texas, would now abandon it [the West] and go against Oregon." Yancey of Alabama demanding if he meant "to intimate that there was any bargain between the South and West" to that effect. Wentworth denied that he had "said there was any such bargain," for to say so "would only implicate himself as a party to it after having voted for Texas."5

So, through six of the nine months of this session of Congress, ran on charge, denial, and even countercharge; most

1 Cong. Globe, 15, 111.

2 As reported by Niles' Register, LXIX, 279 (Jan. 3, 1846).

3 Ibid., 289-290 (Jan. 10, 1846).

4 Cong. Globe, 15, 125, 140, 143, 159.

5 Cong. Globe, 206, 207.