The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 29, July 1925 - April, 1926 Page: 179
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Mississippi Whigs and Annexation of Texas
because he believed the interests of the South would be safe in
his hands.90 Even Sargeant S. Prentiss found it necessary to de-
clare publicly that the rumor was unfounded that he had deserted
Clay on account of the latter's stand on annexation. The Whig
cause was far more important in his eyes than the Texas question.
It was insulting and false to say that the supporters of Clay were
indifferent to southern interests. "Should I ever turn locofoco on
the question of the immediate annexation of Texas, I will support
John Tyler and not James K. Polk."91
But even the eloquence of a Prentiss could not hold all the
Whig voters in line on election day. Many of the so-called "new
Whigs"-that is, advocates of those measures which the original
states' right Whigs had opposed-were said to be for Polk and
Dallas.92 One of the leading Whig journals complained that just
as the humbug of repudiation had seized on the people, so honest
folks situated in remote parts of the country were liable to be
misled by every itinerant Texas speculator.93 Despite Whig gains
in certain counties in the gubernatorial vote of the year before,
the large majority polled for the Polk and Dallas electors in 1844,
renders it evident that even if the Texas question had been elim-
inated, the Whig candidates would have been defeated; for this
was the normal course of Mississippi politics in the decades pre-
ceding the Civil War.":
9"Port Gibson Herald, June 20, 1844.
"'New Orleans Bee, June 27, 1844. A prominent Mississippi politician,
who was opposed to Prentiss, wrote of him as follows: "As to Prentiss,
no man in our history was ever more overrated. He had one great, won-
derful gift,-that of oratory, and one other of equal importance to him,
a retentive memory; and a third that is close up to greatness, great en-
durance in mental labor. He was a gleaner, skilful as an Indian in
covering up his tracks, as to whence he got his ideas. . . . It was
hard times, not hard cider, log cabins and Prentiss that beat us in 1840."
Wm. M. Gwin to John F. H. Claiborne, December 31, 1878. Private
Manuscript.
"Mississippian, June 28, 1844.
"Weekly Whig, August 26, 1844. A voter from Middleton, who had
been a warm supporter of Harrison in 1840, in announcing his conversion
to Polk and Dallas, complained that the Whigs as a party endeavored to
elect their candidates by Storm. "I went for Tyler therefore, without a
why or wherefore." Mississippian, September 20, 1844.
"In the five counties of Claiborne, Copiah, Hinds, Jefferson, Warren and
Adams, a gain of 569 Whig votes was reported in 1844 as compared with
1843. Port Gibson Herald, November 9, 1844. Polk's majority over
Clay was almost 6000 in Mississippi; this was about three times as large
as the plurality received by A. G. Brown in 54 counties in the guber-179
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 29, July 1925 - April, 1926, periodical, 1926; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth117141/m1/199/: accessed April 27, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.