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 LESTER BURRELL SHIPPEE

204

Franklin H. Elmore of South the Baltimore conspirators." Carolina was also invited to accept the post but he too declined it.

Louis McLane, of Delaware,

finally

consented to undertake

Mr. McLane had had wide experience in public service he had served in both houses of Congress, had been a minister to Great Britain, and had, under Jackson, been SecreNevertheless, tary of the Treasury and Secretary of State. from a party standpoint, his appointment was looked upon as the task.

peculiar.

"I do not understand the selection of McLane unless it was made under the excessive horror of 'cliques' about which poor old Mr. Ritchie proses so much, and it was thought that it was better to select for so high a mark of honour one who was no democrat at all than any of those who had the mis-

fortune as to be such prominent democrats as not to escape belonging to some clique or other north, east, south, or west. It has sometimes occurred to me that the President and the Secretary of State see that in the present public feeling about Oregon they cannot yield any thing and that (notwithstanding the disclaimers) they intend to let the negotiation be really in London, and to throw upon the minister there the concession which may be submitted to. I must say I have more confidence in Mr. McLane's spirit and sagacity than I have in those of the President or Secretary and think he will make an abler negotiator than either of them but I can hardly think of any one whose acts will be more jealously watched 20 by the democracy of every section of the country."

made



While Mr. Gilpin's surmises regarding the probable outcome were tinged with a certain shrewdness he was evidently unaware of the efforts Polk had made to obtain the services of eminent democrats before he turned to McLane. In the Cabinet there was, certainly until late in 1845, a conwould be a break with Great Britain before After the proposal of 49 the President would yield a point. viction that there

had been made and refused, and when the question of withdrawing the offer was being discussed, Buchanan struggled hard to leave a loophole through which the British minister ^~H.

D. Gilpin to Van Buren, 7 July, Ibid.