It would have cruelly embittered the few remaining days of the venerable ex-president to witness Clay's triumph, and Van Buren owed so much to Jackson that he could not be indifferent to Polk's success without showing ingratitude to the great benefactor who had made him his successor in the Executive chair.

Motives of this kind evidently influenced Mr.Van Buren; for his course in after years showed how keenly he felt his defeat, and how unreconciled he was to the men chiefly engaged in compassing it.

The cooler temperament which he inherited from his Dutch ancestry enabled him to bide his time more patiently than men of Scotch-Irish blood, like Calhoun; but subsequent events plainly showed that he was capable of nursing his anger, and of inflicting a revenge as significant and as fatal as that of which he had been made the victim,--a revenge which would have been perfect in its gratification had it included Mr.Calhoun personally, as it did politically, with General Cass.
Mr.Clay's letter opposing the annexation of Texas, unlike the letter of Mr.Van Buren, brought its author strength and prestige in the section upon which he chiefly relied for support in the election.

He was nominated with unbounded manifestations of enthusiasm at Baltimore, on the first of May, with no platform except a brief extract from one of his own letters embraced in a single resolution, and containing no reference whatever to the Texas question.

His prospects were considered most brilliant, and his supporters throughout the Union were absolutely confident of his election.