sume the debts due by Mexico to American citizens to an extent not exceeding $3,500,000. At the beginning of the Mexican war negotiations in relation to the Oregon region were going on between Great Britain and the United States. “The whole of Oregon up to 54° 40′ ” had been one of the watchwords of the democratic party during the recent presidential canvass, and Mr. Polk in his inaugural address had declared that “our title to the country of the Oregon was clear and unquestionable.” But Great Britain, on various pretexts, asserted a claim to the whole country, and the president after much negotiation finally offered as an amicable compromise the boundary of the parallel of 49°, with a modification giving to her the whole of Vancouver island, which was agreed to by Great Britain. The other important measures of Mr. Folk's administration were the revision of the tariff in 1846, by which its protective features were lessened, and the admission (1848) of Wisconsin into the Union as the 30th state, Florida and Texas having been admitted in 1845, and Iowa in 1846.—In the democratic national convention which met at Baltimore May 22, 1848, Lewis Cass was nominated for president, and William O. Butler for vice president. By the whig convention, which met at Philadelphia on June 7, Zachary Taylor and Millard Fillmore were nominated. The question of slavery had a powerful influence on the political combinations of this period. After the subsidence of the Missouri agitation in 1821, slavery attracted little attention until the establishment of the “Liberator” newspaper by William Lloyd Garrison at Boston, Jan. 1, 1831, and the formation of anti-slavery societies in the free states in 1832-'3 by Arthur Tappan and others. These societies relied exclusively on moral and religious influences to promote emancipation, and avoided political action, affirming that congress had no right to interfere with slavery in the states, though they petitioned that body to abolish slavery in the territories, in the District of Columbia, and wherever else the federal government had constitutional jurisdiction. Violent attempts were made to suppress the agitation throughout the country, resulting in many places in serious riots. Several of the southern legislatures called upon those of the north to suppress the movement by penal enactments. President Jackson in his message to congress in 1835 recommended the adoption of a law prohibiting the circulation of anti-slavery publications through the mails; and a bill for that purpose reached a third reading in the senate, but was finally rejected. In the house of representatives a rule was adopted in 1836 that all anti-slavery petitions should be laid on the table without reference or consideration; this rule was finally rescinded in 1845. In 1840 a disagreement among the abolitionists led to their separation into two divisions, one of which, consisting only of a few hundred men, under the lead of Mr. Garrison, in 1844 took the position that the compromises of the constitution on the subject of slavery were immoral, and that consequently it was sinful to swear to support that instrument or to hold office or vote under it, and that the union of the states was “an agreement with hell and a covenant with death,” which ought to be at once dissolved. The other and far more numerous division of the abolitionists, with whom the followers of Mr. Garrison were often erroneously confounded, adhered to the Union and the constitution, and, having become satisfied that both the whig and democratic parties were completely under the control of the slave-holders, established in 1840 the “liberty party,” and at a national convention held at Albany nominated James G. Birney for president and Thomas Earle for vice president. Their entire vote at the election of 1840 was 7,059. In 1844 Mr. Birney was again nominated for president, with Thomas Morris for vice president, and received 62,300 votes. These figures, however, imperfectly represented the numbers of the opponents of slavery, most of whom still maintained their connection with the two great parties, on whose action they had a powerful influence. In 1846, during the Mexican war, a bill being before congress authorizing the president to use $2,000,000 in negotiating a peace, David Wilmot, a democratic representative from Pennsylvania, moved to add thereto the proviso that, “as an express and fundamental condition to the acquisition of any territory from the republic of Mexico by the United States, by virtue of any treaty to be negotiated between them, and to the use by the executive of the moneys herein appropriated, neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall ever exist in any part of said territory, except for crime, whereof the party shall be first duly convicted.” This proviso was adopted in the house, nearly all the members from the free states voting for it, but failed in the senate from want of time. At the next session, 1846-'7, a similar bill appropriating $3,000,000 was finally passed without the proviso. On the termination of the war, the practical question involved in the Wilmot proviso, whether the introduction of slavery should be allowed or prohibited in the territories newly acquired from Mexico, became of prominent interest. In the whig national convention by which Gen. Taylor was nominated were several delegates from the northern states representing what were called “free-soil” opinions, that is, opinions hostile to the extension of slavery; several of these withdrew on the rejection of a resolution committing the party against the introduction or existence of slavery in the territories, and subsequently separated themselves from the whig party. A similar schism had already taken place in the democratic national convention of the same year, the “barnburners,” as the free-soil democrats were termed, having seceded
