The election of Mr. Polk to the presidency was not very strongly anticipated by the democratic party; for besides the great popularity of his rival, Mr. Clay, he had received the nomination of the Baltimore Convention, held in May of the previous year, not as the first choice of that body, but because of its inability to harmonize on another candidate. Before the meeting of the convention, Mr. Van Buren was expected to be the prominent candidate; but his avowed opposition to the annexation of Texas, added to other sources of dissatisfaction, induced the convention to abandon him, and to select a candidate in the person of James K. Polk, whose political views were supposed to be more in accordance with those of the democratic party, especially at the South. During the first seven ballotings of the convention, Mr. Polk did not receive a single vote; on the eighth balloting, but forty-four; while on the ninth, he received every vote of the convention, amounting to two hundred and sixty-six in number. On the occurrence of the election, despite the efforts which were made in favor of the whig candidate, he was elected by a strong majority.
