dates. Here was a chance for Mr. Polk's friend. On the eighth ballot several of them voted for him. This brought his name. before the convention. On the ninth ballot he received nearly all the votes of the convention, and then was nominated by acclamation.

Henry Clay, of Kentucky, was the whig candidate. The election returns showed Mr. Polk elected by a strong majority. When his name was announced as a candidate, many of the other party cried out in wonder, "Who is James K. Polk?" as though he was an unheard-of man. Now his friends could

reply, "President elect of the United States."

MR. POLK AS PRESIDENT.

Taking leave of his venerable friend, Andrew Jackson, and receiving the congratulations of his Nashville friends at a public dinner, Mr. Polk, with his family and a suite of friends, repaired to Washington, and was inaugurated as eleventh president of the United States, March 4th, 1845.

President Polk's first public business related to the great issue on which he was elected-the annexation of Texas. President Tylers' last public acts were preparatory to the final act of annexation. President Polk instructed the United States minister in Texas to bear to the Texan government the action of the United States' government. The people of Texas accepted the offer of annexation, held a convention, formed a constitution and came to the door of Congress with documents in hand, ready to be admitted. In his first annual message to Congress, President Polk informed Congress and the country of the attitude of Texas, and suggested the importance of speedily passing a recognizing act, and of receiving Texas with her senators, representatives, governor and people into the United States.

Now Texas added another to the pro-slavery states, and increased the pro-slavery strength in Congress by its senators and representatives. It had cost a war to get it, many lives, and much money; but the worst of the war was not over. Simply because the United States were strong enough to do it, and the

South was greedy enough for slave territory, they robbed Mexico of it.

To hold the new state against its old owner, General Taylor had been ordered, with the United States army, to occupy the territory between the Neuces river and the Rio Grande. It was called "The Army of Occupation." Commodore Conner, of the United States navy, was ordered to be with the naval forces of the government, in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico, adjacent to the territory occupied by the army. Mexico had not only been despoiled of Texas, but she must now be whipped for objecting to it. The "Army of Occupation" moved forward to the east bank of the Rio Grande and planted its batteries before a Mexican town. A collision was brought on and war was declared which cost some twenty thousand lives and a vast amount of money. Mexico was terribly punished; her territory laid waste; her capital occupied; and then the demand made upon her to pay for the war, which she could only do by surrendering to the United States, New Mexico and Upper and Lower California, an empire of territory of vast dimensions. The people of the north were shocked at this immense increase of territory open to slavery, and at the way in which it was obtained. Sharp discussion followed; fierce altercation; plans for compromise, for provisos, all of which ended as they began. This great movement for southern territory which was so successful, really awakened the north to the real evil of slavery as it had never been awakened before. It was the beginning of the end of that institution. By the annexation of Texas and what followed it, the seeds of the republican party in the north were planted and the spirit of resistance to the aggressions of slavery was aroused.

By laws which politicians do not control, the results of this great acquisition of slave territory, were absolutely reversed from those intended by its promulgators. The southern party was over greedy. Pro-slavery society was slow-growing and unenterprising. It could hardly fill up the old states; it did not need new. Its greed of territory and power aroused the north to opposition. Its increase of territory augmented immigration to

the north and enterprise in the north.

Anti-slavery settlers

pushed westward; took Nebraska; took Kansas; got possession of Upper California; pushed down into Lower California; urged their way into St. Louis, and held northern Missouri; got a foothold in Western Virginia; and then backed the whole line of their invasion upon slave territory, with tiers of new and enterprising free states. Then they filled the territory they settled with productive farms, machinery, shops, schools, villages, cities, wealth, and all the power these have in them. They over-grew the slower society of the south by the more productive forces of free society. This was a development the annexationists had not provided for; it came by the laws of social growth; by business enterprize; by immigration, which free society welcomes and absorbs; by education and the free play of human energies. The very institution which the south nursed with such passionate fondness, burdened and crippled her, and prevented her from going forward and occupying the territories she so eagerly acquired. If men had been philosophers, they would have foreseen the results that have come, as the inevitable work of social laws. A great world of blame, passion, prejudice, abuse, and misjudgments, could have been saved, if men would have seen that in the development of the social forces, freedom will always outdo slavery. This Mr. Polk and his administration did not see. In all his state papers, he labored to show that Mexico was the leading offender, and made it necessary, in honor and justice for the United States, to punish her and take her territory. It was the greatest misuse of his excellent talents, that he had ever put them to. But it was a part of the partisan and sectional politics to which he had committed his fortunes.

President Polk's administration was popular with his party and section. He had carried out the programme with which he started, and could congratulate the country that by the annexation of Texas, and the Mexican war, he had greatly increased its domain. What untold wealth was in the mines of the mountains he had secured, he did not know or dream. What busy populations would in forty years dwell on the soil he had

brought to the nation, he did not conjecture.

He was one of those who "builded better than he knew." He planned for the extension of slavery; the forces in the growth of civilization extended the area of freedom. He, and those who sustained him in his work, anticipated a great growth of southern power on the broad plantations of Texas; the march of events has put the northern and southern man side by side on the prolific soil of the "Lone Star State," to promote, not the glory of a section, but of the nation. He sought to magnify the state, and develop state loyalty, but a wise Providence has turned his work to the glory of the common country, north and south.

He loved his country, no doubt, but that love was distempered by theories which set in his mind a section before the whole.

The lessons of time have taught us all, north and south, east and west, to be broader than we used to be; and to join hands in making a country whose great heart shall beat for the whole of humanity. By and by it shall turn out that we all, like President Polk, are building better than we know; for the country in which we shall glory will be the world free and happy, in the spirit of the American republic.

On the third of March, 1849, Mr. Polk retired from office. The next day was Sunday. On the fifth he assisted in inaugurating his successor, General Taylor, and the same evening, in company with his family, started on his journey homeward.

They took a round-about course to visit the leading southern cities, in all of which they were received with demonstrations of pleasure by the people. In due time they reached their home, supplied with the comforts of taste and wealth. Though in youth his health was not the firmest, Mr. Polk had been so temperate and judicious in the care of himself, that he had long enjoyed excellent health. He returned to his home at fifty-four years of age. It was a year of cholera at New Orleans. On his way up the river, he felt the symptoms of that disease. Not many days after he reached there, the cholera took fast hold of him, and after a short sickness, he died peacefully on the fifteenth of June, 1849.

THE GRAVE OF JAMES K. POLK.

Nashville, which was the adopted home of Mr. Polk, is now the resting place of the honored remains of President Polk. It is, so to speak, his cemetery, his permanent home. Not in "the city of the dead," but in the city of the living, his form reposes. The sights and sounds of life with which he was familiar are still about his lowly bed of rest. Beautiful for situation is this thriving city of the living, which rises gracefully above the bluffs of the river to be crowned in its height with its elegant capitol. It is enriched with many elegant homes and many institutions of learning, both for white and colored youth. It is the Athens of the south. The Cumberland river, with its bluffs and promontories and variegated banks, sweeps by it; while far and wide from its capitol stretches, every way, delightful scenery. Almost in sight, twelve miles from the city, is the Hermitage and grave of President Jackson. These two presidents, adopted sons of Tennessee, warm personal friends in life, sleep almost together in death. The generations rising up around them who look upon their tombs and read their histories may be quickened by them to add new honors to the country they served and which honored them with its highest confidence. Over the grave is a limestone monument, designed by William Strickland, the architect of the capitol. It is about twelve feet square and of a similar height. It is in Grecian-Doric style, a cover or roof supported with columns. On the architrave of the eastern front is the inscription:

James Knox Yolk,

ELEVENTH PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

Born November 2, 1795,

Died June 15, 1849.