had only
recently emancipated the slaves in her own colonies--and a sharp
reminder that by the Monroe Doctrine, to which she was herself a
consenting party, no European Power had a right to interfere in the
domestic affairs of an American State. Calhoun did not snub Lord
Aberdeen: he was too delighted with his lordship for giving him the
opportunity for which he longed. But he did a thing eminently
characteristic of him, which probably no other man on the American
continent would have done. He sat down and wrote an elaborate and very
able State Paper setting forth the advantages of Slavery as a foundation
for civilization and public liberty. It was this extraordinary dispatch
that led Macaulay to say in the House of Commons that the American
Republic had "put itself at the head of the nigger-driving interest
throughout the world as Elizabeth put herself at the head of the
Protestant interest." As regards Calhoun the charge was perfectly true;
and it is fair to him to add that he undoubtedly believed in Slavery
much more sincerely than ever Elizabeth did in Protestantism. But he did
not represent truly the predominant feeling of America. Northern
Democratic papers, warmly committed to the annexation of Texas,
protested vehemently against the Secretary's private fad concerning the
positive blessedness of Slavery being put forward as part of the body of
political doctrine held by the United States. Even Southerners, who
accepted Slavery as a more or less necessary evil, did not care to see
it thus blazoned on the flag. But Calhoun was impenitent. He was proud
of the international performance, and the only thing he regretted, as
his private correspondence shows, was that Lord Aberdeen did not
continue the debate which he had hoped would finally establish his
favourite thesis before the tribunal of European opinion.

Texas was duly annexed, and Tyler's Presidency drew towards its close.
He seems to have hoped that the Democrats whom he had helped to defeat
in 1840 would accept him as their candidate for a second term in 1844;
but they declined to do so, nor did they take kindly to the suggestion
of nominating Calhoun. Instead, they chose one Polk, who had been a
stirring though not very eminent politician in Jacksonian days. The
choice is interesting as being the first example of a phenomenon
recurrent in subsequent American politics, the deliberate selection of a
more or less obscure man on the ground of what Americans call