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CONTAINING THE POLITICAL AND LITERARY PORTIONS
OF THE NUMBERS PUBLISHED IN JANUARY, FEB-
RUARY, MARCH, APRIL, MAY, AND JUNE, 1839.

WASHINGTON, D. C.

PUBLISHED BY LANGTREE AND O'SULLIVAN.

1839.

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Whence the cause of the unexpected defeat which the Democratic party, in the midst of its sweeping march of victory in all other quarters, has recently had to sustain in the great State of New York? This is an interesting question; and we apprehend that in its solution will be found involved a lesson of the philosophy of politics and parties, well worth, if rightly read and wisely heeded, the price of an election lost. It is a question which it need cost us no effort to consider with the entire calmness and candor of disinterestedness. The general series of triumphs of this fall to which this reverse was the first exception-that single exception which proverbially but proves the rule-has placed our party and cause so high above the possible reach of danger to its renewed and confirmed ascendency, that we can well afford to approach this question in a spirit of perfect fairness and openness; and to look with the same severe eye of abstract justice upon the faults of friends as of foes.

In our last January Number, in some remarks on the previous election in this State, we anticipated the recovery of the State by the Democratic party, at the succeeding election. The event has partially, though not entirely, disappointed that anticipation. The majority by which the Whigs then swept the State has been reduced between five and six thousand. The aggregate Democratic vote has been increased by upwards of forty-two thousand, being actually between sixteen and seventeen thousand more than in 1836, when the Democratic majority was upwards of twenty-nine thousand. Our expectation of a reaction in favor of the Administration policy, and of the recovery of its lost ground by the Democratic party, has thus been verified, though not to the extent then anticipated from the reaction after a similar overthrow in 1824-25. Its consummation must cost two years—perhaps three—instead of one. The disappointment of our anticipation has consisted in the unex

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