e
sixty-three delegates who were pledged to Van Buren's support. When
order was restored, a Virginian suddenly put forward the name of James
K. Polk as that of "a pure, whole-hogged Democrat." Then the
convention adjourned until the next day.

Harmony usually follows a bitter convention quarrel. Men become
furiously and sincerely indignant; but the defeated ones must accept
the results, or, Samson-like, destroy themselves in the destruction of
their party. The next morning, Daniel S. Dickinson, the most violently
indignant the day before, declared that "he loved this convention
because it had acted so like the masses." In a high state of nervous
excitement, Samuel Young had denounced "the abominable Texas question"
as the firebrand thrown among them, but his manner now showed that he,
also, had buried the hatchet. Even the serene, philosophic Butler,
who, in "an ecstacy of painful excitement," had "leaped from the floor
and stamped," to use the language of an eye-witness, now resumed his
wonted calmness, and on the ninth ballot, in the midst of tremendous
cheering, used the discretion vested in him to withdraw Van Buren's
name. In doing so, he took occasion to indicate his preference for
James K. Polk, his personal friend. Following this announcement,
Dickinson cast New York's thirty-five votes for the Tennesseean, who
immediately received the necessary two-thirds vote. The situation had
given Polk peculiar advantages. The partisans of Cass and Buchanan,
having willingly defeated Van Buren, made the friends of the New
Yorker thirsty to put their knives into these betrayers. This
situation, opening the door for a compromise, brought a "dark horse"
into the race for the first time in the history of national
conventions. Such conditions are common enough nowadays, but it may
well be doubted if modern political tactics ever brought to the
surface a more inferior candidate. "Polk! Great God, what a
nomination!" wrote Governor Letcher of Kentucky to Buchanan.

To make the compromise complete, the convention, by acclamation,
nominated Silas Wright for Vice President. But the man who had
recently declined a nomination to the Supreme Court of the United
States, and who, after the defeat of Van Buren, had refused the use of
his name for President, did not choose, he said, "to ride behind the
black pony." A third ballot resulted in the selection of George M.
Dallas of Pennsylvania. Among the resolutions adopted, it was declared