Birney and Clay were at one time members of the same party.They were personal friends, and as slave holders they shared the view that slavery was a menace to the country and ought to be abolished.It was just fourteen years before this election that Birney made a visit to Clay to induce him to accept the leadership of an organized movement to abolish slavery in Kentucky.Three years later, when Birney returned to Kentucky to do himself what Henry Clay had refused to do, he became convinced that the reaction which had taken place in favor of slavery was largely due to Clay's influence.This was a common impression among active abolitionists.It is not strange, therefore, that they refused to support him as a candidate for the Presidency, and it is not at all certain that his election in 1844 would have prevented the war with Mexico.
Northern Whigs accused the Democrats of fomenting a war with Mexico with the intention of gaining territory for the purpose of extending slavery.Democrats denied that the annexation of Texas would lead to war, and many of them proclaimed their opposition to the farther extension of slavery.In harmony with this sentiment, when President Polk asked for a grant of two million dollars to aid in making a treaty with Mexico, they attached to the bill granting the amount a proviso to the effect that slavery should forever be prohibited in any territory which might be obtained from Mexico by the contemplated treaty.The proviso was written by an Ohio Democrat and was introduced in the House by David A.Wilmot, a Pennsylvania Democrat, after whom it is known.
It passed the House by a fair majority with the support of both Whigs and Democrats.At the time of the original introduction in August, 1846, the Senate did not vote upon the measure.Davis of Massachusetts moved its adoption but inadvertently prolonged his speech in its favor until the hour for adjournment.Hence there was no vote on the subject.Subsequently the proviso in a new form again passed the House but failed of adoption in the Senate.
During the war the Wilmot Proviso was the subject of frequent debate in Congress and of continuous debate throughout the country until the treaty with Mexico was signed in 1848.A vast territory had been acquired as a result of the war, and no decision had been reached as to whether it should remain free or be opened to settlement by slave-owners.Another presidential election was at hand.For fully ten years there had been ever-increasing excitement over the question of the limitation or the extension of slavery.This had clearly become the topic of supreme interest throughout the country, and yet the two leading parties avoided the issue.Their own membership was divided.
Northern Democrats, many of them, were decidedly opposed to slavery extension.Southern Whigs with equal intensity favored the extension of slavery into the new territory.The platforms of the two parties were silent on the subject.The Whigs nominated Taylor, a Southern general who had never voted their party ticket, but they made no formal declaration of principles.The Democrats repeated with colorless additions their platforms of 1840 anti 1844 and sought to win the election with a Northern man, Lewis Cass of Michigan, as candidate.
