The first visible seam or cleft in the National Democratic party occurred during the administration of President Polk, in the years 1844-48.  Calhoun appeared as Polk’s Secretary of State.  Thomas Ritchie was transferred from Richmond, Va., to Washington, to edit the government organ, in place of Francis P. Blair, Sr.  The Jackson regime of unconditional and uncompromising devotion to the ‘Federal Union’ was displaced, and the dubious doctrine of ‘States’ Rights’ was formally inaugurated as the chart by which in future the national government was to be administered.  But the Jackson element was not reconciled to this radical change in the structure and purpose of the National Democratic organization; and, although party lines were so tensely drawn that to go against ‘the Administration’ was political treason, and secured irrevocable banishment from power, the close of Polk’s administration found many old Democrats of the Jackson era ready for the sacrifice.  The firm resolve of these men was manifested when, after the nomination of Gen. Cass, in 1848, in the usual form, at Baltimore, by the Democratic National Convention, they assembled at Buffalo and presented a counter ticket, headed by the name of Martin Van Buren, who had been thrust aside four years previously by the Southern oligarchs to make way for James K. Polk.  The entire artillery of the Democratic party opened on the Buffalo schismatics.  They were stigmatized by such opprobrious nicknames and epithets as ’Barnburners, ‘Free Soilers,’ ‘Abolitionists,’ and instantly and forever ex-communicated from the Democratic party.  In Missouri alone, of all the Slave States, was any stand made in behalf of the Buffalo ticket.  Benton’s sympathies had been with Van Buren, his old friend of the Jackson times; and Francis P. Blair, Sr., of the Globe, had two sons, Montgomery Blair and Francis P. Blair, Jr., resident in St. Louis.  These two, with about a hundred other young men of equal enthusiasm, organized themselves together, accepted the ‘Buffalo platform’ as their future rule of faith, issued an address to the people of Missouri, openly espousing and advocating free soil-principles; and, by subscription among themselves, published a campaign paper, styled the Barnburner, during the canvass.  The result at the polls was signal only for its insignificance; and the authors of the movement hardly had credit for a respectable escapade.  But the event has proved that neither ridicule nor raillery, nor, in later years, persecutions and the intolerable pressure of federal power, could turn back the revolution thus feebly begun.  In that campaign issue of the Barnburner were sown the seeds of what became, in later nomenclature, the Free Democracy, and, later still, the ‘Republican’ party of Missouri.  The German population of St. Louis sympathized from the start with the free principles enunciated.  Frank Blair, Jr., became from that year their political leader; right honestly did he earn the position; and right well, even his political foes have always admitted, did he maintain it.