The issue dwarfing all others in the 1848 national elections was the disposition of territory acquired as the result of the Mexican War. Slave and Free states battled to add them to their ranks. Whig campaign pamphlets portrayed their candidate Taylor as anti-slavery in the North and as pro-slavery in the South. His opponent, Democrat Lewis Cass, was portrayed as pro-slavery in the North and anti-slavery in the South. The Democrats proceeded in a like manner. Here, for Northern consumption, Democrats demonstrate Taylor's "Southern face," i.e., his expressed comfort with Southern institutions and opposition to the Wilmot Proviso, barring slavery from the conquered territories.
Life of George Mifflin Dallas, vice president of the United States: Prepared and published in Sepember, 1844, by the Democratic Committee of Publication, John K. Kane, et al
Former Congressman, diplomat, and Secretary of the Treasury, Gallatin examines the annexation of Texas by the United States and the resulting war with Mexico. He believed that the United States's insistence that the Rio Grande River be considered as the Texas boundary was an act of war . He opposed the Mexican War.
