360 HARRISON, TYLER 



already broken with the Northern Whigs. Now on the 

 Texas question they allied themselves with the Demo- 

 crats, thus following Calhoun, who had already, in 1838, 

 after Jackson was out of the way, thought it safest to 

 ally himself with that party. It was natural that all 

 those who wished to defer the solution of the slavery 

 question should sooner or later come to join the party 

 that construed the Constitution as it had been con- 

 strued by the elder Tyler and the elder Harrison in 

 the convention of 1788. It was this that took the 

 Tyler men over to the Democrats in 1844. In thus 

 going over, they altered for the worse the character 

 of the Democratic party. In 1844 Mr. Van Buren 

 would naturally have been the Democratic candidate 

 for the presidency, but because he bravely opposed the 

 annexation of Texas as a reenforcement to the slave 

 power, he was unable to secure the nomination. This 

 was because Mr. Tyler's State Rights Whigs had joined 

 the Democrats. As Lord Dundreary would say, the 

 tail had now become able to wag the dog. From 

 1844 the Democratic party, led by Mr. Polk, the first 

 " dark horse," came to be more and more a Southern 

 party. The Northern Whigs, having seen all their 

 economic principles defeated by Mr. Tyler, soon came 

 to have nothing in common save the disposition to 

 save the Union by concessions to the South ; and on 

 this plan of campaign they met with their final defeat 

 in 1852. At the same time the Democrats became 

 more and more dependent upon Southern support as 

 they lost their Northern leaders. In 1848 we see Mr. 

 Van Buren a candidate for the presidency upon a 

 free-soil platform. By 1856 we see Benton dubious 

 and Blair a Republican. Between 1850 and 1860 



