tion,
the election of their candidate, James K. Polk, was generally accepted
as a popular approval of the annexation of Texas. Indeed, action
immediately followed the election and, before the President-elect had
been inaugurated, the joint resolution for the annexation of Texas
passed both Houses of Congress.

The popular vote was almost equally divided between Whigs and Democrats.
Had the vote for Birney, who was again the candidate of the Liberty
party, been cast for Clay electors, Clay would have been chosen
President. The Birney vote was over sixty-two thousand. The Liberty
party, therefore, held the balance of power and determined the result of
the election.

The Liberty party has often been censured for defeating the Whigs
at this election of 1844. But many incidents, too early forgotten by
historians, go far to justify the course of the leaders. Birney and Clay
were at one time members of the same party. They were personal friends,
and as slave holders they shared the view that slavery was a menace to
the country and ought to be abolished. It was just fourteen years before
this election that Birney made a visit to Clay to induce him to accept
the leadership of an organized movement to abolish slavery in Kentucky.
Three years later, when Birney returned to Kentucky to do himself what
Henry Clay had refused to do, he became convinced that the reaction
which had taken place in favor of slavery was largely due to Clay's
influence. This was a common impression among active abolitionists.
It is not strange, therefore, that they refused to support him as a
candidate for the Presidency, and it is not at all certain that his
election in 1844 would have prevented the war with Mexico.

Northern Whigs accused the Democrats of fomenting a war with Mexico with
the intention of gaining territory for the purpose of extending slavery.
Democrats denied that the annexation of Texas would lead to war, and
many of them proclaimed their opposition to the farther extension of
slavery. In harmony with this sentiment, when President Polk asked for a
grant of two million dollars to aid in making a treaty with Mexico, they
attached to the bill granting the amount a proviso to the effect that
slavery should forever be prohibited in any territory which might be
obtained from Mexico by the contemplated treaty. The proviso was written
by an Ohio Democrat and was introduced in the House by David A. Wilmot,
a Pennsylvania Democrat, after whom