was short-lived. It did not carry any state, but
received nearly three hundred thousand votes. In
New York Van Buren had more votes than Cass.
The Democratic faction opposed to him suffered
a disastrous overthrow. That accomplished, a
large number of the Van Buren Democrats, and
among them some of their leading men, renewed
their allegiance to their old party, looking upon the
revolt of 1848 as a mere political episode. Many
of the Whigs, who had voted for Van Buren to
avenge Clay, also returned to the fold. But, while
the coalition fell to pieces, the vital principle of
the Free Soil movement survived, to be obscured
by a temporary reaction, and then to rise up again
in final triumph.

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