he rule was adopted,
and Mr. Van Buren's fate was sealed.

CALHOUN DEFEATS VAN BUREN.

The Southern men who insisted upon the rule had the courage to use
it. They had absolute control of more than one-third of the
convention; and, whatever might come, they were determined that
Mr. Van Buren should not be nominated. As the most effective mode
of assailing his strength, they supported a Northern candidate
against him, and gave a large vote for General Cass. This wrought
the intended result. It demoralized the friends of Mr. Van Buren
and prepared the way for a final concentration upon Mr. Polk, which
from the first had been the secret design of the Southern managers.
It was skillfully done, and was the direct result of the Texas
policy which Mr. Calhoun had forced the Democratic party to adopt.
To Mr. Van Buren it was a great blow, and some of his friends were
indisposed to submit to a result which they considered unfair.
For the first time in history of any convention, of either party,
a candidate supported by a majority of the delegates failed to be
nominated. The two-thirds rule, as Colonel Benton declared, had
been originally framed, "not to thwart a majority, but to strengthen
it." But it was remorselessly used to defeat the majority by men
who intended, not only to force a Southern policy on the government,
but to intrust that policy to the hands of a Southern President.
The support of Cass was not sincere, but it served for the moment
to embarrass the friends of Van Buren, to make the triumph of what
Benton called the Texas conspiracy more easy and more sure, and in
the end to lay up wrath against the day of wrath for General Cass
himself. Calhoun's triumph was complete. Politically he had gained
a great victory for the South. Personally he had inflicted upon
Mr. Van Buren a most humiliating defeat, literally destroying him
as a factor in the Democratic party, of which he had so long and
so successfully been the leader.

The details of Mr. Van Buren's defeat are presented because of its
large influence on the subsequent development of anti-slavery
strength in the North. He was sacrificed because he was opposed
to the immediate annexation of Texas. Had he taken ground in favor
of annexation, he would in all probability have been nominated with
a fair prospect of election; though the general judgment at that
time was that Mr. Clay would have defeated him