g, became President for nearly four years.

His administration is marked by the annexation of Texas to the United
States: a measure sure, in the belief of Calhoun, to confirm the empire
of Slavery,--sure, as others believed, to prevent the foundation of an
adventurous government, that, if left to independence, would have
reopened the slave-trade and subdued by force of arms all California and
Mexico to the sway of Slavery. The faith of the last proved the true
one. Under the administration of Polk, California was annexed, not to
independent, slaveholding Texas, but to the Union. This constitutes the
turning-point in the series of events; the first emigrants to her
borders formed a constitution excluding slavery.

At the next election a change took place, profoundly affecting the
Democratic party, and, as a consequence, the country. Hitherto the
position of the Northern Democracy had been that of Jefferson, that
slavery was altogether evil; and Cass, the Democratic candidate, still
expressed his prayer for the final doom of slavery. Against his election
a third party was formed; and Van Buren, a former Democratic President,
who had been sustained by the South as well as by the North, taking with
him one half the Democracy of New York, consented to be the candidate of
that party. We judge not his act; but the consequences were sad. To the
South his appearance as a candidate on that basis had the aspect of
treachery; at the North the Democratic party lost its power to resist
the arrogance of the South: for, in the first place, large numbers of
its best men had left its ranks; and next, those who remained behind
were eager to clear themselves of the charge of sectional narrowness;
and those who had gone out and come back, in their zeal to recover the
favor of the South, went beyond all bounds in their professions of
repentance. The old compromise of Jefferson fell into disrepute; the
Democratic party itself was thrown into confusion; the power of any one
of its distinguished men to resist the increasing arrogance of the
slaveholders was taken away; a word in public for what twenty years
before had been the creed of every one was followed by the ban of the
majority of the party. So fell one bulwark against slavery.

Still another bulwark against it was destined to fall away. The
annexation of California brought with it the question of the admission
of California as a State of freemen. The only way to have avoided
convulsin