Though elected in the summer of 1846, it was not until December 6, 1847,
that the Thirtieth Congress began its first session. Robert C. Winthrop
was chosen speaker of the House, by 110 votes out of 218. The change in
the political condition was marked; in the previous House the Democrats
had numbered 142 and the Whigs only 75; in this House the Whigs were
116, the Democrats 108. Among the members were John Quincy Adams, Andrew
Johnson, Alexander H. Stephens, Howell Cobb, David Wilmot, Jacob
Collamer, Robert Toombs, with many more scarcely less familiar names.
The Mexican war was drawing towards its close,[56] and most of the
talking in Congress had relation to it. The whole Whig party denounced
it at the time, and the nation has been more than half ashamed of it
ever since. By adroit manoeuvres Polk had forced the fight upon a weak
and reluctant nation, and had made to his own people false statements as
to both the facts and the merits of the quarrel. The rebuke which they
had now administered, by changing the large Democratic majority into a
minority, "deserves," says von Holst, "to be counted among the most
meritorious proofs of the sound and honorable feeling of the American
nation."[57] But while the administration had thus smirched the
inception and the whole character of the war with meanness and dishonor,
the generals and the army were winning abundant glory for the national
arms.
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