138 CLARK E. PERSINGER
The explanations of both Wilson and Garrison hint at what seems to me the true reason for the proposal of the Wilmot proviso; but they merely hint at it, and do not satisfy the legitimate curiosity of the secondary student of this remark- able movement in the history of the antislavery struggle. It is the purpose of this paper to elaborate somewhat these two explanations, by showing that the Wilmot proviso owes its origin to the breaking of the "bargain of 1844" between the Northwestern and the Southern wings of the Democratic Party.
When President Tyler revived the question of Texan annexa- tion in the spring of 1844 the Democratic Party was to all appearances homogeneous and united. In reality, however, it was composed of diverse elements, loosely bound together, needing only the Texan issue to reveal their existence and identity. These groups were three in number the Southern, the Northeastern, and the Northwestern. The Southern gave its chief adherence to Calhoun; the Northeastern to Van Buren ; the Northwestern as yet wavered between Cass, Douglas, and Allen ; and one of its most brilliant and frequent spokesmen was the "impulsive and hasty" Senator Hannegan, of Indiana. 1 The Southern or Calhoun group was already aggressively and recognizedly proslavery and proslave soil; the Northern or Van Buren group was already almost fanat- ically antislavery and free soil, and on the verge of that union with the Liberty Party which in 1848 produced the Free Soil Party. But the Northwestern group, although antislavery and free soil, was only moderately so. It was willing to see the increase of slave soil so long as free soil kept pace with it or gained a little upon it.
It was to these three groups of Democracy that the Tyler treaty for the annexation of Texas in the spring of 1844 brought immediate puzzlement and not-distant falling out. The Southern group, in its anxiety for Texas, was more than ready to ratify the Tyler treaty, especially as its own
i Characterization by Cass, in conversation with Polk. Quaife, "Diary of Polk," I, 268.
