The House, elected in the ensuing autumn, amid the resounding acclamations of Taylor's memorable victory at Monterey, had a decided Whig majority.

This political reverse was due to three causes,--the enactment of the tariff of 1846, which offended the manufacturing interest of the country; the receding of the administration on the Oregon question, which embarrassed the position and wounded the pride of the Northern Democrats; and the wide-spread apprehension that the war was undertaken for the purpose of extending and perpetuating slavery.

The almost unanimous Southern vote for the hasty surrender of the line of 54 deg.

40', on which so much had been staked in the Presidential campaign, gave the Whigs an advantage in the popular canvass.

The contrast between the boldness with which the Polk administration had marched our army upon the territory claimed by Mexico, and the prudence with which it had retreated from a contest with Great Britain, after all our antecedent boasting, exposed the Democrats to merciless ridicule.