Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1

sed to be ceded "were increased tenfold in value, and, in addition to that, covered a foot thick with pure gold, on the single condition that slavery should be forever excluded," he would not "entertain the offer for a moment, nor even think of sending it to his government. No American President would dare to submit such a treaty to the Senate."

With this suppression, if not indeed re-action, of the popular feeling in the North, on the subject of slavery, the two great parties approached the Presidential election of 1848. Each was under peculiar embarrassment in the selection of a candidate, and the presentation of the principles on which support was to be asked. The anomaly presented in the Congressional election of 1846, where an administration conducting a successful war was defeated before the people, promised to be repeated. The Democratic party had precipitated the war, h