Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era

by James M. McPherson

Their grievances went back to 1844 when southerners had denied Martin Van Buren the presidential nomination because he refused to endorse the annexation of Texas. The Polk administration had given the patronage in New York to anti-Van Buren “Hunkers.” Rate reductions in the Walker Tariff of 1846 embittered Pennsylvania Democrats who thought they had secured a pledge for higher duties on certain items. Polk’s veto of a rivers and harbors bill angered Democrats from Great Lakes and western river districts. The administration’s compromise on the 49th parallel for the Oregon boundary incensed the many Democrats who had chanted the slogan “Fifty-four forty or fight!”