Note 40 — XXXIV THE WAR IN AMERICAN POLITICS 1846–1848

As early as Jan. 2, 1847, the N. Y. Herald, a non-partisan journal, said the course of the Whigs with reference to the war had almost ruined them in public estimation. Indeed that fact has been in a general way recognized (Pierce, Sumner, iii, 111; Schurz, Clay, ii, 289; Von Holst, U. S., iii, 252). Probably the reasons why the Democrats behaved better than the Whigs were that (1) circumstances did not involve them in such dilemmas, and (2) they had the responsibilities of conducting affairs.