Studies in American History 
137 
Tammany and the Loco Focos had given the Whigs their 
chance. In Georgia, due to the readjustment of the State 
Rights issue, the old, aristocratic Whigs were able to induce 
the large slave-owner class to join them against the “Union’^ 
or Van Buren party.®^ These gains were not all permanent. 
Three of the Congressmen who were elected at this time by the 
Whigs refused to vote with them on administration measures. 
Troup deserted the party which he had headed almost be- 
fore it had taken form, just as the three Congressmen men- 
tioned above had done. The State Rights issue was causing 
a great commotion all over the South, and it was at this time 
that some of its supporters began to see greater hopes in the 
Democratic party than in the Whig party. These movements 
did not become very noticeable, however, till after the election 
of 1840. Calhoun had turned away from the Whig alliance 
in 1837. South Carolina had four Van Buren Congressmen 
in 1836, seven in 1838, and eight in 1840. Other southern 
states showed like tendencies in 1838 and thereafter except 
for the great political landslide of 1840. 
Considering the panic of 1837, the Democrats fared well in 
the congressional elections of 1838, and it is no surprise that 
they believed that in a short time they would have a clear 
majority in Congress again. In Vermont, the Whigs lost two 
Congressmen due, in part, to the Canadian controversy.®^ 
In the state elections of 1838-1839, the Democrats made 
great gains. The only brilliant victory of the Whigs was in 
the state of New York.®® But in Ohio, due to the fact that 
the Abolitionists voted for the Democratic candidates, they 
lost. The Whig governor had aroused their anger by turning 
over a fugitive from a slave state who had escaped into Ohio 
after having violated a slave statute.®® Tennessee was also 
lost to them with James K. Polk as a rival candidate for gov- 
ernor. Maryland elected a Democratic governor.®^ Pennsyl- 
vania followed where Porter was successful over Ritner. 
Maine, Georgia, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, and Massa- 
Ulrich Bonnell Phillips, Georgia and State Rights, American Historical Association 
Annual Report, 1901, II, 144. 
National Intelligencer, September 10, 1838. 
Seward (ed.), William H. Setvard, an Autobiography, I, 378, 379. 
The Globe, November 15, 1838, 
National Intelligencer, October 9, 1838. 
