Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 1.djvu/304

Rh The election of Mr. Polk, in 1844, to the presidency, was a decisive verdict of the people in favor of the annexation of Texas, the chief reason of which, as stated by statesmen of the period, probably was that it was wiser to annex Texas and incur war with Mexico than to abandon that rich empire to the control of England. The question of slavery was not so seriously involved as to be the sole reason why the South wanted it, or to override in the North the great considerations of public policy involved in this indispensable addition to the area of the Union.

But, unfortunately, the North began to suspect that all the annexation measures of 1844 were scarcely anything more than a purpose of &quot;the slave power&quot; to acquire territory in order to add more slave States to the Union. &quot;As soon as this impression or suspicion got abroad, the effect was an anti-slavery revival, which enlisted the feelings and influenced the political action of many who had never sympathized with the Abolitionists, and of many who had steadily opposed them.&quot; (Elaine, I, 42.) Leading politicians seized on this suspicion and made the most of it for creating public sentiment North against any extension of the territorial limits of the United States in Southern latitudes. Among these were men of great astuteness, such as John Quincy Adams, Seward, Wade, Giddings, Thaddeus Stevens, Hale, Hamlin and Wentworth. Through their exertions political party lines began to break down in the Northern States. Slavery and anti-slavery wings appeared in the two great political parties, Whig and Democratic.

In fact, Southern statesmen were simply striving to maintain the sectional equilibrium which had so long been the policy. With only three States anticipated from the great Northwest, it was the evident expectation of the Southern men who then (1844) had control of the government, that if war with Mexico should ensue, the result would inevitably be the acquisition of suffi-