wrote one of Judge McLean's; and for thus weakening the Democrats in the Empire State, he was naturally blamed in all quarters.[34.6] A variety of minor yet serious complaints helped fill up the measure. Polk was equally anxious and unable to harmonize the party, and as he tried to satisfy clamorous malcontents, it came to be said that he was always ready to hang an old friend for the sake of gaining two new ones. Ranking low in ability to judge of character, enjoying but a limited acquaintance, and placing an unreasonable value upon experience in Congress, he too often appointed unfit men when he meant well, or put the right men into the wrong places. Naturally office-seekers dogged his footsteps, and numberless disappointed aspirants bore grudges deadlier than stilettos. His wriggling out of emphatic declarations in favor of our broad Oregon claims excited profound wrath in the west, and made a bad impression in other sections. Senator Hannegan proclaimed that if the President accepted the line of forty-nine degrees, he would be consigned to "a damnation so deep that the hand of resurrection" would never be able to "drag him forth"; and he did accept it.[34.7] The veto of a river and harbor bill that offered captivating opportunities for looting the treasury brought upon him the woes of Tyler. The government, said the aggrieved, "is fast degenerating into a mere quadrennial elective despotism"; Polk "wants the purse of the nation for his own schemes of presidential ambition." Finally, the apparent hampering of Taylor and Scott, and the playing off of the one against the other seemed to a multitude of citizens unworthy of a President, unpatriotic and mean; and then partisans accused him of letting Whig generals have all the glory, lest a Democratic warrior should gain the Presidential nomination in 1848. Truly, "deep and dismal was the ditch," as B. F. Butler said, into which Polk fell.[34.7] Moreover a whole sheaf of arrows, not directly aimed at him, struck his administration. The annexation of Texas rankled still in many bosoms, and the extremists were implacable. Lowell did not shrink from recommending secession: "Ef I'd _my_ way I would ruther We should go to work an' part,-- They take one way, we take t'other,-- Guess it wouldn't break my heart."