What Began As an Insult Soon Became the Most Powerful Symbol of The

personal character of the president than with specific issues. The best leader would make the right decisions. What began as an insult soon Democrats saw the president as an agent of the people, became the most powerful symbol of obligated to know and carry out their wishes. The favorite of many Whigs as 1840 approached was the campaign. Whigs jumped to the Senator Henry Clay of Kentucky, former speaker of the defense of a candidate who lived House of Representatives, secretary of state in the ad in a primitive log cabin and sipped ministration of John Quincy Adams, and author of the American System, a comprehensive program of eco hard cider. nomic development that called for a national bank, protective tariff, and federally financed internal im If Clay was disappointed, the Democrats were provements. But some Whig leaders believed that Clay pleased with the choice of the Whig convention. They suffered from the disease of unelectability. Active in called the sixty-eight-year-old Harrison “Old Granny,” politics for several decades, Clay had taken stands on charging that he was a senile dupe of British aristo issues that repelled as many voters as they attracted. crats and American bankers. They assaulted his mili And he had already been soundly beaten in the elec tary reputation, renewing an old slur that during the tions of 1824 and 1832. War of 1812 the women of Chillicothe, Ohio, had been Whig bosses, particularly Thurlow Weed of New York so displeased with his martial qualities that they had and Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania, believed that sent him a petticoat. One Democratic newspaper, the Harrison was a stronger candidate than Clay. At a great Baltimore Republican, repeated the remark, attributed Whig convention held in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, in to a disgruntled Clay supporter, that Harrison did not December 1839—the first national political convention need the presidency to be fulfilled: “Give him a barrel ever called by a party-—Clay’s supporters seemed to of hard cider and a pension of two thousand a year and, hold the upper hand. On the first ballot of the delegates, my word for it, he will sit the remainder of his days in Clay received 103 votes to Harrison’s 91, with General a log cabin, by the side of a ‘sea-coal’ fire and study Winfield Scott polling 57. moral philosophy.” But the Clay forces were outmaneuvered. At the in What began as an insult soon became the most pow stigation of Harrison delegates Peleg Sprague of Maine erful symbol of the campaign. Whigs jumped to the and Charles B. Penrose of Pennsylvania, the convention defense of a candidate who lived in a primitive log cabin adopted a unit voting rule. According to the procedure and sipped hard cider. The latchstring was always out, each state formed a committee of three delegates, and it was said, especially for veterans. Thus Harrison, a the majority vote of the committee would be reported descendant of one of the most prominent landed fami as the vote of the whole state. The decision—described lies of the Virginia aristocracy and whose father had by Missouri Democrat Thomas Hart Benton as a com been a signer of the Declaration of Independence, was bination of “algebra and alchemy”—doomed Clay. Al transformed into a humble farmer of the frontier. though he had a plurality of the delegate votes, Clay Much of the credit for this transformation can be could not win a majority of the committees. Many of credited to the work of Whig journalists and printers Clay’s delegates represented states that he could not across the nation. In part this development can be ex carry in the general election, and Scott’s supporters, plained by a revolution in newspaper publishing that fearful that Clay would lead them to defeat once more, occurred in the United States during the nineteenth bolted to Harrison. On the final ballot, the vote was century. In 1790 there were fewer than a hundred Scott 16, Clay 90, and Harrison 148. As Robert G. Gun newspapers in the nation. By the time of the 1840 derson, the preeminent historian of the 1840 election, campaign—encouraged by the use of less-expensive has pointed out, Clay had “their profound respect and wood-pulp paper, the invention of steam presses, and even their tears—but not their nomination.” cylinder printing, along with America’s high literacy Even then the vice presidential nomination was not rate (91 percent according to the 1840 census)—there a plum. Clay had no interest in the job, and the Whigs were 1,577 newspapers in the United States. Politi turned to a relative nonentity, conservative Virginian cians, of course, had made use of newspapers since the John Tyler, as Harrison’s running mate. founding of the nation, but the Whigs elevated the par Clay, although he publicly endorsed the choice of the tisan press to an art form. convention, was furious. When he learned that he had The most important person in this development was not won the nomination, he exploded: “My friends are New York publisher Horace Greeley, who founded the not worth the powder and shot it would take to kill pro-Harrison Log Cabin in 1840. The paper was an out them !... I am the most unfortunate man in the history right campaign sheet, filled with laudatory stories of parties; always run by my friends when sure to be about Harrison, especially his military exploits, and all defeated, and now betrayed for a nomination when I, or manner, of jokes, cartoons, and words to campaign any one, would be sure of an election.” songs. Inspired by Greeley’s success (the Log Cabin 18 Traces.

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