which England claimed to own, but Douglas thought without any right.  He was advocating the cutting of a canal across Nicaragua.  What would England do?  She would try to use the Mosquito Islands as a basis of agreement for joint control with the United States of the canal—­in spite of the Monroe Doctrine.  Why would not all statesmen rise with him in the assertion of a title to the whole of North America?  Was America in the business of pirating around the shores of Europe to pick up islands, or promontories like Gibraltar?  Not at all.  Then why should England be tolerated in this Western Hemisphere?  What divided the American imagination?  The old loyalists and royalists who had become the Federalists under Hamilton, who were now the Whigs with the same banking scheme, the same old tariff, the same old hatred of democratic government, the same hypocrisy, the same disingenuous and devious policies.  There was but one American party, one pure-blooded party, good for the East and the West, friendly to every just thing that the East desired, understanding the West; that was the Democratic party!  It stood for America.  It envisioned the needs of the greatness of America.  It had fought the war against England and Mexico.  It had created the American domain.  And now these old defeated and crooked monarchists who had stood in the way of America’s progress were seizing upon a moral issue, upon slavery, with which to befool a democratic electorate naturally responsive to the arguments of liberty.  They had opposed the Mexican War; they had brought up the slavery question at every important juncture to confound counsels and perplex otherwise easy solutions.  But what one of them would give back Texas, New Mexico, California, to Mexico?  Would Webster?  Would Hale?  No, not one of them would do this.

The campaign of 1848!  What would the Whigs do?  They would use this Democratic Mexican War to get into power.  They would appeal to the war spirit which they had dishonored; they would use a national gratitude for service in the despised war to get the offices and control the administration.  Would Clay win the Whig nomination?  Not at all.  It would be Zachary Taylor, the hero of the Mexican War, the slave owner of Louisiana.  This party was over virtuous on the slavery matter, lending an unofficial ear to Garrison and other agitators, but it had been careful not to take a party stand on the question.  It would continue to play with the subject.  It would put forward a southern slave owner to catch the southern Whigs, and at the same time use his war record to move the pure-blooded and American vote.