No American President would dare to submit such a treaty to the Senate." With this suppression, if not indeed re-action, of the popular feeling in the North, on the subject of slavery, the two great parties approached the Presidential election of 1848.

Each was under peculiar embarrassment in the selection of a candidate, and the presentation of the principles on which support was to be asked.
The anomaly presented in the Congressional election of 1846, where an administration conducting a successful war was defeated before the people, promised to be repeated.

The Democratic party had precipitated the war, had organized the military force that prosecuted it, had controlled its immense patronage, and had brought it to a victorious conclusion, yet had gained no political strength in the country.

The two gallant soldiers who had so largely shared, if indeed they had not absorbed, its glory, were Whigs, and both were in ill-humor with the administration.

After the battle of Buena Vista, Taylor's victorious progress had been checked and his army crippled by orders from Washington, which reduced his force, and turned the Regulars over to Scott.