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Cincinnatus Popularized: the Heroization of William Henry Harrison During the Election Campaign of 1840

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Cincinnatus Popularized: the Heroization of William Henry Harrison During the Election Campaign of 1840 DOI 10.6094/helden.heroes.heros./2014/01/03 16 Michael Butter Cincinnatus Popularized: The Heroization of William Henry Harrison during the Election Campaign of 1840 Introduction Democratic-Republican Party, a number of par- ties were founded during these years whose candidates ran against the Democratic-Republi- William Henry Harrison does not belong to the can ones in local, state, and national elections. pantheon of American presidents. He is no During the early 1830s the Whig Party emerged Washington, Lincoln, or Kennedy. If he is remem- over the outcry over Jackson’s war against the bered at all today, it is because he delivered the Bank of the United States, which many regarded longest inaugural address and then served the as an act of “executive usurpation” and thus a shortest term of all presidents so far. During his violation of republican values (Watson 158). Ini- almost two-hour-long speech, he caught pneu- tially, the Whig Party was only loosely organized monia and died 31 days later. But if his presi- and internally divided. In the presidential elec- dency was thus rather uneventful, the campaign tion of 1836, for example, it ran four candidates that preceded it was truly remarkable – not only against Jackson’s vice president, Martin Van Bu- because the expression “O.K.” emerged as a ren, who therefore won comfortably. Under the “political war cry” for Harrison’s opponent, Martin impression of this defeat, the Whigs regrouped, Van Buren, whose nickname was Old Kinder- ran only one candidate, Harrison, for the 1840 hook (Gunderson 234), or because “booze” was election, and defeated Van Buren after a cam- popularized as slang term for alcohol (Collins paign in which, as former president John Quincy 99). Much more importantly, the campaign was a Adams complained, “everything […] reach[ed] a turning point in American politics: “Replete with new level” (qtd. in Collins 94). party nominating conventions, campaign songs, torchlight parades, and overblown electioneer- Anticipating the way in which, 160 years later, ing rhetoric, the Presidential campaign in 1840 George W. Bush, the offspring of a wealthy New set the standard for all elections to follow” (Wat- England family, would be transformed into a Tex- son 12). In fact, breaking with the principles of as rancher, General William Henry Harrison, eighteenth-century republicanism that forbade the son of a Virginia planter who had signed the presidential candidates to promote their own Declaration of Independence, was turned into a cause directly, Harrison eventually became an poor Western farmer who lived in a simple log active part of the campaign and delivered vari- cabin and enjoyed nothing more than a glass of ous speeches in order to counter accusations of hard cider. To remind voters of these characteris- feebleness and lay out his understanding of the tics constantly and to exploit the opportunities offi ce. they offered, Whig campaign events invariably featured models of log cabins that were carried This transformation of campaign culture was the around by supporters or placed on fl oats, and logical result of developments of the 1820s and enormous quantities of hard cider were given 1830s. Under the presidency of Andrew Jack- out for free. The Whigs’ enormous efforts to win son, the right to vote spread “beyond the prop- and the Democrats’ equally organized attempt to ertied elite” to all white men (Collins 93), so that retain the presidency mobilized voters to such candidates no longer had a small number of an amazing degree that voter turnout increased gentlemen to convince of their qualities, but had dramatically from 58 percent in 1836 to 80.2 per- to appeal to masses of voters, most of whom be- cent (Collins 113). Van Buren, who won only 60 longed to the lower classes. Moreover, becau- electoral votes compared to Harrison’s 234, re- se of increasingly fi erce opposition to Jackson’s ceived almost 400,000 more votes than in the helden. heroes. héros. Michael Butter – The Heroization of William Henry Harrison 17 previous election, which he had won (Peterson Washington himself had frequently been likened 29). The new forms of campaigning had truly since the 1790s. This specifi c heroization was mobilized the masses. crucial for the success of the campaign because it turned Harrison into a representative of exact- Because of the blatant rebranding of Harrison ly the republican values of disinterested politics and the spectacle the Whigs orchestrated, most and commitment to the common good that the historians have not been kind in their evalu ations Democrats had allegedly violated and that the of the campaign. Robert Gray Gunderson, who Whigs claimed for themselves. His election thus has studied it in more detail than any other schol- held the promise of returning to these principles ar, concludes that the Whigs’ electioneering was and remedying the corruption associated with based on “a contemptuous evaluation of the in- Van Buren. Hence, Michael Holt’s claim that telligence of the people” (Gunderson 109), and “no matter who the Whigs ran for president in Dorothy Burne Goebel argues similarly that the 1840, he was going to win because the presi- campaign was successful because it offered en- dential victory was simply a facet of a genuinely tertainment to people suffering from a “dearth of sweeping party victory” (ibid., Election 54) is ex- amusement” (Goebel 352). This assessment has aggerated, to say the least. He is right that the proved so powerful that, in her recent biography Whigs did not only win the presidential election of Harrison, Gail Collins still calls the campaign but triumphed throughout 1840 in local and state “one of the most ridiculous [ones] in history” and elections as well, but that was because Harrison reiterates the claim that “the Whigs had no plat- provided a success formula for Whig candidates form” (Collins 4, 89). This, however, is not true, at all levels. Holt disregards that candidates at as Harry L. Watson and Michael Holt, among the state and local level fashioned themselves others, have shown. As Holt puts it, “[The Whigs] as Harrison did from 1839 onward. They could constantly reminded voters that there was a de- not claim heroism for themselves as they did for pression, that the Democrats had caused it, that Harrison, but they sought to present themselves Van Buren argued that the government should as embodying the same virtues that Harrison ex- do nothing about it, and that a Whig triumph was emplarily represented. As Gail Collins has put it, necessary to end it” (Holt, Rise 107). Moreover, “everybody was going log cabin” (Collins 96). “the salvation of liberty and republican self-gov- ernment constituted the Whigs’ second impor- While it would be a valuable endeavour to in- tant theme. Their portrayals of Van Buren as a vestigate the appropriation of this specifi c habi- dissipated, effete monarch reminded voters that tus by other Whig candidates, the focus of this Democrats represented executive despotism” essay is much narrower. I restrict myself to the (ibid. 109). To offer an alternative, the Whigs heroization of Harrison and concentrate on his “portrayed themselves as the party of probity, representation in popular songs because they respectability, morality, and reason” (ibid. 118). were arguably the most important element of the All in all, then, the Whigs suggested that they campaign. This popular form, I wish to argue, were on “a crusade to save not only the prospe- had a profound impact on the image of Harrison. rity but also the liberty and the morals of the peo- He was projected as a Cincinnatus fi gure but not ple” (ibid. 109). Thus, Holt concludes that “the in the still rather aristocratic fashion of George contention that there were no issues in the 1840 Washington, who had been predominantly hero- election is untenable” (Holt, Election 31): “Whigs ized in neoclassical poems. Instead, the Cincin- did demonstrate real genius in generating enthu- natus model was popularized in two different yet siasm for Harrison, but they deployed far more interrelated ways. First, the Roman roots of the than hoopla” (Holt, Rise 90).1 heroic model were downplayed because many of the voters the Whigs were addressing were In this essay I contend that “enthusiasm of Har- men without classical education. While there are rison” and the issues at stake were inextrica- songs and poems that explicitly mention the Ro- bly linked. I investigate how the representation man hero, others do without this reference and of William Henry Harrison during the campaign simply project Harrison as a farmer who leaves served to communicate these issues, how, in the plough to do his duty. Second, the Cincinna- other words, the values claimed and the promi- tus model was popularized in that Harrison was ses made by the Whigs were embodied by the not cast as a gentleman farmer, as Washington persona they constructed for their presidential invariably was around 1800, but as a common candidate. I argue that Harrison was cast as the farmer who was poor rather than rich. On the legitimate successor to George Washington and one hand, this ʻsimplifi cationʼ must be under- that he was heroized as a farmer-soldier in the stood as a conscious attempt to appeal to lower- tradition of the Roman Cincinnatus, to whom class voters; on the other, it refl ected a larger helden. heroes. héros. Michael Butter – The Heroization of William Henry Harrison 18 cultural trend. Even Washington, as we will see, of the clash between Federalists and Dem ocratic- was increasingly imagined as a simple farmer Republicans at the turn of the century, little com- during these years. petition between parties and little campaig ning because suffrage was still limited, poems were My argument unfolds in the following way.
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