sult of these
breaks in the Baptist and Methodist churches was the rapid increase of
membership of both in the South. Within a period of ten years the
Southern Baptists were as powerful as the American Baptists had been in
1844. The same is true of the Methodists, and what happened in the South
was paralleled in the North. Pro-slavery churches in the South and
anti-slavery churches in the North seemed to be required by the people.
Revivals, educational improvements, and missionary zeal were the fruits
of the "reformation." Politicians like Calhoun, who watched and
counseled these peaceful schisms, urged that the Union must in due time
likewise break into pieces; but the great economic forces of the country
were as yet too strong; common markets, interlocking transportation
systems, and the extraordinary prosperity which followed the Polk regime
defeated the wishes of those who thought that two confederations within
the area of the United States would be better than one.

Thus, when Polk took up the forward program which had been outlined at
Baltimore, and which was to antiquate the "American System" over which
Clay and Jackson and their respective groups had fought so bitterly
since 1824, the South was rapidly crystallizing into a solid section
with definite ideas and purposes. The plantation owners were in full
command; the older and small-farmer element was falling into line behind
their pro-slavery leaders; the social and religious life had become
orthodox and stratified; and the clergy, who now preached acceptably to
great masses of people, were, like those of New England, in full
sympathy with the dominant economic interests of their time. The
immediate future of the South was fairly certain, and Southern leaders
assumed a militant tone indicative of the wishes of their people.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Justin H. Smith's _Annexation of Texas_ (1911) and G. P. Garrison's
_Westward Extension_ (1906), in _American Nation_ series, give full and
trustworthy accounts of the Texas movement; while Lyon G. Tyler's _Times
of the Tylers_ (1884); C. H. Ambler's _Life of Thomas Ritchie_ (1913);
J. W. DuBose's _Life of William L. Yancey_ (1892); and J. F. H.
Claiborne's _Life and Correspondence of John A. Quitman_ (1860), supply
abundant material showing the temper and purposes of the different parts
of the South in 1840. U. B. Phillips's _The Plantation and Frontier_
(1909) is an excellent source-book for the period, and the A