Westward extension, 1841-1850, by George Pierce Garrison.

276

WESTWARD EXTENSION

of view. The abolitionists regarded him as a
truckler to the interests of slavery,' while to the
more partisan defenders of the institution he was
only an unprincipled seeker after the presidency.2
Neither the northern nor the southern radicals
could see him as he really was. Like the great majority of westerners, he was a thorough-going expansionist, and in common with Webster, Clay, and
Lincoln he regarded the preservation of the Union
as a more important object than the extinction or
even the repression of slavery.3 These facts constitute the fundamental explanation of his policy
and his career.
Finally came the shaping of the platform. The
draught adopted by the majority of the committee
on resolutions began with a substantial repetition of
the platform of I844-there being one or two slight
variations-down to the resolution in favor of the
"re-occupation of Oregon and the re-annexation of
Texas." The seventh resolution of the report denied the power of Congress to interfere with the
domestic institutions of the states, and condemned
all efforts to induce that body to deal with the
question of slavery at all. In the place of the resolution concerning Oregon and Texas and the four
that followed it in the platform of i844, now ap1 Cf. McLaughlin, Cass, 233.
2 See Cralld's expression to Calhoun, in Am. Hist. Assoc., Report, 1899, II., 1201.
3Cf. McLaughlin, Cass, x10, 271-273.