This proviso came like a bombshell into the ranks of the administrationists, and they were unable to defeat it. It was carried in Committee of the Whole by a vote of 83 to 64, with only 3 Democrats from the Free States opposing it. When the measure was reported to the House, Mr. Tibbatts, of Kentucky, moved that it do lie on the table, and the motion was defeated by 93 to 79. The bill was engrossed for third reading by 85 to 80, and passed finally without further division, with a motion to reconsider laid on the table by vote of 83 to 73. Thus what is now known as the Wilmot Proviso was embodied by the House in the Appropriation bill for negotiating peace with Mexico.

The Wilmot Proviso raised the slavery issue in the most direct form, and it played an important part in the Presidential contest of 1848. It was simply a repetition of the clause prohibiting slavery that was put in the ordinance of 1787 by Thomas Jefferson, when the Northwestern Territory was ceded by Virginia to the United States. It was a very embarrassing issue to many Northern Democrats, and to a few Southern Whigs who inclined to prevent slavery extension. General Cass, who was made the candidate for President in 1848, originally declared himself in favor of the Wilmot Proviso, but he learned a year later that no man could maintain his fellowship with the Democratic party under the Polk administration and support the prohibition of slavery in the Territories.

When the discussion of candidates for the Presidential contest of 1848 became active, General Cass was addressed on the subject of slavery by A. O. P. Nicholson, of Nashville, Tenn., in which he inquired of Cass whether he was in favor of the acquisition of Mexican territory, and what his views were as to the Wilmot Proviso. General Cass answered, December 24, 1847, in which he declared himself in favor of the acquisition of Mexican territory and against the Wilmot Proviso, on which point he said: “I am strongly impressed with the opinion that a great change has been going on in the public mind upon this subject, in my own as well as others, and that doubts are resolving themselves into convictions that the principle it involves should be kept out of the national Legislature and left to the people of the Confederacy in their respective local governments.” But for this declaration Cass would not have been the Democratic candidate for President in 1848, and that declaration also opened the door for the Van Buren bolt that defeated Cass in the great ambition of his life.

In addition to the serious political complications which confronted the Polk administration and threatened the defeat of the Democratic party at its close, the Oregon dispute with England, that had been made one of the chief features of the Polk campaign of 1844, was sensibly adjusted by Secretary of State Buchanan, but in utter disregard of the Democratic declarations and ostentatious professions of the campaign. In that contest the Democrats from every stump declared that the boundary line between Oregon and England must be “54° 40´, or fight”; but when the issue became a question of statesmanship and diplomacy, a treaty was made fixing 49° as the boundary, and thus confessing that the claim of the Democrats in the campaign was made either in ignorance or insincerity.

Another of the troubles that confronted the Democracy was the intense factional dispute in New York between what were known as the Hunkers and the Barnburners. The Hunkers were so called in derision by their enemies as men who always hunkered after office, and the Barnburners were so called by their opponents because it was charged that to correct evils in the party, they were ready to follow the foolish farmer who burnt his barn to rid it of rats.

Silas Wright, who had lost the Vice-Presidency in 1844 by his devotion to Van Buren, and was finally compelled to run for Governor to save the State, suffered a severe defeat in 1846 when a candidate for re-election. That defeat was charged by Van Buren and his friends to the perfidy of the Hunkers. So intense was the bitterness between these factions that they could not agree on delegations to the national convention, and two opposing delegations were chosen, the Barnburners being antislavery Democrats and the Hunkers the regular or pro-slavery Democrats. The national convention met at Baltimore on the 22d of May, 1848, with every State represented, and New York with a double delegation. Andrew Stevenson, of Virginia, was made President, and the two-thirds rule was adopted by a vote of 175 to 78. For two days the convention wrangled over the disputing delegations from New York, and after protracted and angry debate a motion was finally passed by 126 to 124 admitting both delegations, each to cast half the vote of the State.

While this was a comparative victory for the Barnburners, they withdrew from the convention, and the Hunker delegation refused to participate in the proceedings. The prominent candidates before the convention for President were Cass and Buchanan, with Cass immensely in the lead and reasonably certain to be nominated before the convention met. He had a large plurality on the 1st ballot, but did not reach the requisite two-thirds vote until the 4th, as is shown by the following table, giving the ballots in detail:

First.Second.Third.Fourth.
Necessary to a choice168168169169
Lewis Cass, Mich.125133156179
James Buchanan, Penn.55544033
Levi Woodbury, N. H.53565338
George M. Dallas, Penn.33——
W. J. Worth, Tenn.6651
John C. Calhoun, S. C.9———
W. O. Butler, Ky.———3

The convention adjourned after the nomination of Cass to meet in evening session to select a candidate for Vice-President, and without any preliminaries the ballot was had as follows:

Wm. O. Butler, Ky.114
J. A. Quitman, Miss.74
John Y. Mason, Va.24
Wm. R. King, Ala.29
Jas. J. McKay, N. C.13
Jefferson Davis, Miss.1