The acquisition of California and New Mexico was of vast importance to the United States, particularly in view of what has since occurred. The finding of gold shortly afterwards in fabulous amounts in the section of country bordering on the Pacific started a stream of emigration thither, which, considering the length and perils of the journey, appears almost incredible. But men went-went by thousands. Some found the gold which they sought, but more did not. A few returned to the states, while the many remained on the Pacific coast to assist in founding an important state. Some amassed wealth and fame.

All this grew out of the war with Mexico, which resulted from the annexation of Texas. Can there be a doubt as to the wisdom of the measure? Nations as well as individuals often "build wiser than they know."

As a measure for restoring the democratic party to power in the Union, the election of Polk was a failure. In truth, it went to pieces during his administration, and has at no time since been a consolidated organization, based upon principles as before. As already stated, the old-line democrats in this state took the offices, and left the younger portion of the party, who had labored zealously for the election of Polk, to whistle for their compensation. They were dissatisfied. They kicked. They became known as barnburners. Some farmer, it was said, was so annoyed by the rats in his barn, which he tried to be rid of, that he burned the barn. The democratic kickers were willing to destroy the party to overthrow machine rule, to be rid of the bosses. So they were barnburners. They styled their foes old hunkers. The latter had the credit of allowing Silas Wright, who had consented to vacate his seat in the United State senate to save Colonel Polk in this state, to be defeated when a candidate for re-election in 1846. This enraged the radical, or barnburner wing of the democracy, and they

prepared for a fight. The Albany Atlas, which was started about this time, became their organ. I think it was owned by a brother-in-law of John Van Buren, named French, and was edited by William Cassidy, one of the spiciest and most pointed writers the state has ever had. It had sustained the administration of Mr. Wright, who consequently had received the cold shoulder of the Argus and the old hunkers.

The following year the famous Buffalo convention of free-soilers was held, which had the countenance and support of the barnburners of this state, large numbers of whom attended as delegates. It was likewise attended by anti-slavery men and by the disaffected of all political organizations. After a full and free interchange of opinion, it nominated for president Martin Van Buren, and for vice president Charles Francis Adams.

Mr. Oliver Dyer, in his little volume, "Great Senators of the United States Forty Years Ago," tells his readers that this result was reached through the skillful engineering of Benjamin F. Butler, once a noted democratic politician in this state, (not the General Butler of Massachusetts,) William H. Seward and Thurlow Weed, the last two named desiring to make so great a diversion from the regular democratic ticket as to give this state to the whig nominee for president, while Butler, who, it is assumed, was acting for Van Buren, wished to defeat General Cass, then the democratic nominee for president. I know that there are many who entertain this opinion, but I do not subscribe to it. I can discover no good reason why Mr. Van Buren should want to beat Cass. It is true that his name was used in the convention of 1844 after that of Mr. Van Buren was dropped, but there is no evidence that it was done with his consent, and it is certain that he received nowhere near the number of votes given for Mr. Van Buren, and of course he stood no show for the nomination. I think Mr. Van Buren

accepted the nomination of the Buffalo convention against his own inclination. He had declined a nomination tendered him by the barnburner convention held in Utica at an earlier date, and wrote to those who were using his name at Buffalo :

"You know, from my letter to the second Utica convention,, and the confidence you repose in my sincerity, how greatly the proceedings of that body, in relation to myself, were opposed to my earnest wishes."

Yet this letter is strangely considered by Mr. Dyer to have been a bid for the nomination of the Buffalo freesoil gathering. I prefer to believe Mr. Van Buren wished the convention to understand, what his language plainly imports, the action of the Utica convention, being "opposed to his earnest wishes," he could not with any kind of sincerity consent to the use of his name at Buffalo. Still, I know he was nominated at Buffalo, and that he accepted the nomination, perhaps as the young lady accepted her lover, to get rid of his importunities. That he did it for the purpose of defeating Cass, I do not believe. As the nominee of the hunker wing of the party, Cass never stood the "ghost of a chance" of carrying this state. Preston King would have polled the entire barnburner vote, as would almost any of the gentlemen whose names were mentioned at the convention. They were in to beat the men who had trodden upon them, and it made little difference whose name they used to do it with.

It is a noteworthy fact that the men who pretended to be for Van Buren's nomination in 1844 were against him. in 1848, while those who thought he had better stand aside than to be a second time defeated were his supporters in the free-soil campaign.

CHAPTER LXVII.

Preceding the War Period-Outline of American Political History from 1849 to 1860-The Taylor-Fillmore Administration-The Democracy Unite-The Whigs Quarrel and Lose the Advantage Gained-The Contests in 1852, 1856 and 1860-Organization of the Republican Party. General Taylor took the office of president the 4th of March, 1849. Although not much of a party man, he was whig enough to oust the democratic office-holders and fill their places with persons belonging to the organization to which he owed his election. This left the democrats, who had held a good share of the federal offices for a period of nearly half a century, out in the cold. As they had by their quarrels brought this state of things upon themselves, the old party war-horses set on foot movements for reuniting the discordant elements, and, after considerable correspondence, a state convention was called, to be composed of hunkers and barnburners in equal numbers, to arrange a platform upon which both factions could stand and make a state ticket that both could support. This convention was held at Rome, I think in 1850, and the hatchet buried, so far as the leaders of the party could bury it. A single ticket was put in nomination in the fall of 1850, which was headed by Horatio Seymour (hunker) for governor, and Sanford E. Church (barnburner) for lieutenant. The latter was chosen, while the former was defeated by the meagre majority of between 200 and 300.

Two years later a mighty effort was made by the reunited democracy to recover the power they had lost by their divisions, and it was so far successful that they elected their candidate for president, Franklin Pierce,

and Horatio Seymour was chosen governor by a handsome plurality. But the hunkers, it was said, took most of the best-paying offices, both state and national, perhaps because they were the more reliable of the two factions, and had never been guilty of organizing a square bolt. So the barnburners took little stock in President Pierce.

I should remark here that General Taylor did not live to serve out his full term. He died on the 9th of July, 1850, and Millard Fillmore became president. For some reason he was not in full accord with Thurlow Weed, Governor Seward and other whigs who were understood to engineer the affairs of this party in this state, and a bitter fight grew up between the latter and the president's particular friends. I presume the differences related to the distribution of the official patronage. Mr. Fillmore, finding himself president, probably felt it to be his duty to discharge the functions of the office according to his own best judgment, without special regard to the advice of Mr. Weed, who was supposed to consider his wishes the law of the party in matters of party policy in the state of New York. Whatever the cause of the estrangement of the president and his whig friends in his own state, the inharmony was very serious, and did much to render the success of Mr. Seymour possible, and to give the electoral vote of the state to General Pierce. The whig party was almost as badly factionized as the democratic organization had been. The friends of Seward and Weed were styled "woolly heads," while the supporters of the president were called "silver grays." Many of the latter went over to the democracy, and became and have remained until this day the stiffest and most ultra members of the democratic organization it has had. So the issue of the contest of 1852 did not show the strength of the old political parties very accurately in this state. Great numbers of