Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XVI.djvu/275

 VAN BUREN VANCOUVER 255 wonted energy by the opposition. The whig national convention on Dec. 4, 1839, nominated for president William' Henry Harrison, and for vice president John Tyler. On the democratic side Mr. Van Buren had no competitor, and he was definitively made the candidate of his party by its national convention on May 5, 1840. Never in the political history of the United States was a canvass conducted amid such ab- sorbing public excitement. The financial dis- tress which had existed more or less oppres- sively since Mr. Van Buren's inauguration was a standing text for the opposition journals and for the orators who assailed him at monster meetings in every part of the country. Charges of extravagance, of corruption, of indifference to the welfare of the laboring classes, were freely brought against the democratic candi- date ; while the enthusiasm of the supporters of Harrison was inflamed by log cabins emble- matic of his popular origin and habits, by songs, by processions, by assemblages counting tens and hundreds of thousands. The result was the discomfiture of the democrats in every state except Alabama, Arkansas, Illinois, Mis- souri, New Hampshire, Virginia, and South Carolina. Mr. Van Buren received only 60 electoral votes, while Gen. Harrison had 234 ; and yet so universal was the participation in the election, that the number of popular suf- frages cast for the former was now 1,128,702, or over 367,000 more than had sufficed to se- cure his return four years previously. His last annual message set forth anew the bene- fits of the independent treasury system ; an- nounced, not without a natural movement of satisfaction, that the country was without either a national debt or a national bank ; and con- cluded with advising the enactment of more stringent laws for the breaking up of the Af- rican slave trade. In 1844 Mr. Van Buren's friends once more urged his nomination for the presidency by the democratic national con- vention at Baltimore ; but he was rejected there on account of his opposition to the annexation of Texas to the Union, avowed in a public let- ter to a citizen of the state of Mississippi who had called for his opinion on that question. Though a majority of the delegates in the con- vention were pledged to support him, a rule fatal to this purpose was adopted making the votes of two thirds of the whole number neces- sary to the choice of a candidate. For several ballots he led all the competitors, when his name was withdrawn from the contest, and on the ninth ballot Mr. Polk was nominated. In 1848, when the democrats had nominated Gen. Cass, and avowed their readiness to tol- erate slavery in the new territories lately ac- quired from Mexico, Mr. Van Buren and his adherents, adopting the name of the free de- mocracy, at once began to discuss in public that new aspect of the slavery question. They held a convention at Utica on June 22, which nominated Mr. Van Buren for president and Henry Dodge of "Wisconsin for vice president. 813 VOL. xvi. 17 Mr. Dodge declined the nomination, and at a great convention in Buffalo on Aug. 9, Charles Francis Adams was substituted. The conven- tion declared that "congress has no more power to make a slave than to make a king;" and that " it is the duty of the federal govern- ment to relieve itself from all responsibility for the existence or continuance of slavery wherever the government possesses constitu- tional authority to legislate on that subject, and is thus responsible for its existence." In accepting the nomination of this new party, Mr. Van Buren declared his full assent to its anti-slavery principles. The result was that in the state of New York he received the suf- frages of more than half of those who had hitherto been attached to the democratic party; and that Gen. Taylor, the candidate of the whigs, was elected. After that time Mr. Van Buren remained in private life on his estate at Kinderhook, with the exception of a prolonged tour in Europe in 1853-'5. On the outbreak of the civil war he declared himself decidedly and warmly in favor of maintaining the repub- lic in its integrity. He left a work entitled " Inquiry into the Origin and Course of Polit- ical Parties in the United States," which was edited by his sons in 1867. II. John, an Amer- ican lawyer, son of the preceding, born in Hudson, Feb. 18, 1810, died at sea, Oct. 13, 1866. He graduated at Yale college in 1828, studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1830 ; was attached to the legation while his father was minister to England in 1831-'2 ; was elected in February, 1845, by the legisla- ture of New York, attorney general of the state ; and after the conclusion of his term of office on Jan. 1, 1847, was a prominent mem- ber of the bar in the city of New York. In the presidential canvass of 1848 Mr. Van Buren greatly distinguished himself as a popular ad- vocate of the free democratic party, and of the exclusion of slavery from the federal territo- ries. He afterward returned to the democratic party. In 1866 he made a tour in Europe, and died on his passage homeward. VANCOUVER, George, an English navigator, born about 1758, died near London, May 10, 1798. He entered the navy in 1771, and served as midshipman in the second and third voy- ages of Capt. Cook (1772-'5, and 1776-'80). In 1780 he was created a first lieutenant, and after several years' service in the West Indies returned to England in 1789. Some British subjects settled at Nootka having quarrelled with the Spanish officers, Vancouver with a small squadron was commissioned to go thith- er, and receive the surrender of Nootka under orders from the court of Madrid to the Span- ish commandant. He was also to make a sur- vey of the coast northward from lat. 30, and to ascertain if there was any communication between the coast and Canada by means of lakes, rivers, or inlets. He sailed from Eng- land April 1, 1791, and, after an examination of the Sandwich islands, crossed in March,