Part 29 (1/2)

It is not our province to treat of the administration of Andrew Jackson, for that belongs to history, but the hold which that remarkable man maintained upon the affections of the people was emphasized when, in 1832, he was re-elected by an electoral vote of 219 to 49 for Clay, 11 for Floyd, and 7 for Wirt. Despite the popular prejudice against a third term, there is little doubt that Jackson would have been successful had he chosen again to be a candidate. He proved his strength by selecting his successor, Martin Van Buren.

THE ”LOG-CABIN AND HARD-CIDER” CAMPAIGN OF 1840.

The next notable presidential battle was the ”log-cabin and hard-cider”

campaign of 1840, the like of which was never before seen in this country. General William Henry Harrison had been defeated by Van Buren in 1836, but on the 4th of December, 1839, the National Whig Convention, which met at Harrisburg to decide the claims of rival candidates, placed Harrison in nomination, while the Democrats again nominated Van Buren.

General Harrison lived at North Bend, Ohio, in a house which consisted of a log-cabin, built many years before by a pioneer, and was afterward covered with clapboards. The visitors to the house praised the republican simplicity of the old soldier, the hero of Tippecanoe, and the princ.i.p.al campaign biography said that his table, instead of being supplied with costly wines, was furnished with an abundance of the best cider.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE MARIGNY HOUSE, NEW ORLEANS.

(Where Louis Philippe stopped in 1798.)]

The canva.s.s had hardly opened, when the _Baltimore Republican_ slurred General Harrison by remarking that, if some one would pension him with a few hundred dollars and give him a barrel of hard cider, he would sit down in his log-cabin and be content for the rest of his life. That sneer furnished the keynote of the campaign. Hard cider became almost the sole beverage of the Whigs throughout the country. In every city, town and village, and at the cross-roads, were erected log-cabins, while the amount of hard cider drank would have floated the American navy. The nights were rent with the shouts of ”Tippecanoe and Tyler too,” and scores of campaign songs were sung by tens of thousands of exultant, even if not always musical, voices. We recall that one of the most popular songs began:

”Oh, where, tell me where, was the log-cabin made?

'Twas made by the boys that wield the plough and the spade.”

There was no end to the songs, which were set to the most popular airs and sung over and over again. You would hear them in the middle of the night on some distant mountain-top, where the twinkling camp-fire showed that a party of Whigs were drinking hard cider and whooping it up for Harrison; some singer with a strong, pleasing voice would start one of the songs from the platform, at the close of the orator's appeal, and hardly had his lips parted, when the thousands of Whigs, old and young, and including wives and daughters, would join in the words, while the enthusiasm quickly grew to a white heat. The hors.e.m.e.n riding home late at night awoke the echoes among the woods and hills with their musical praises of ”Old Tippecanoe.” The story is told that in one of the backwoods districts of Ohio, after the preacher had announced the hymn, the leader of the singing, a staid old deacon, struck in with a Harrison campaign song, in which the whole congregation, after the first moment's shock, heartily joined, while the aghast preacher had all he could do to restrain himself from ”coming in on the chorus.” There was some truth in the declaration of a disgusted Democrat that, from the opening of the canva.s.s, the whole Whig population of the United States went upon a colossal spree on hard cider, which continued without intermission until Harrison was installed in the White House.

And what did November tell? The electoral vote cast for Martin Van Buren, 60; for General Harrison, 234. No wonder that the supply of hard cider was almost exhausted within the next three days.

PECULIAR FEATURE OF THE HARRISON CAMPAIGN.

As we have noted, the method of nominating presidential candidates by means of popular conventions was fully established in 1840, and has continued uninterruptedly ever since. One peculiar feature marked the Harrison campaign of 1840. The convention which nominated Martin Van Buren met in Baltimore in May of that year. On the same day, the young Whigs of the country held a ma.s.s-meeting in Baltimore, at which fully twenty thousand persons were present. They came from every part of the Union, Ma.s.sachusetts sending fully a thousand. When the adjournment took place, it was to meet again in Was.h.i.+ngton at the inauguration of Harrison. The railway was then coming into general use, and this greatly favored the a.s.sembling of ma.s.s-conventions.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FREMONT, THE GREAT PATHFINDER, ADDRESSING THE INDIANS AT FORT LARAMIE.]

CHAPTER XIII.

ADMINISTRATION OF POLK, 1845-1849.

James K. Polk--_The War with Mexico_--The First Conflict--Battle of Resaca de la Palma--Vigorous Action of the United States Government--General Scott's Plan of Campaign--Capture of Monterey--An Armistice--Capture of Saltillo--Of Victoria--Of Tampico--General Kearny's Capture of Santa Fe--Conquest of California--Wonderful March of Colonel Doniphan--Battle of Buena Vista--General Scott's March Toward the City of Mexico--Capture of Vera Cruz--American Victory at Cerro Gordo--Five American Victories in One Day--Santa Anna--Conquest of Mexico Completed--Terms of the Treaty of Peace--The New Territory Gained--The Slavery Dispute--The Wilmot Proviso--”Fifty-Four Forty or Fight”--Adjustment of the Oregon Boundary--Admission of Iowa and Wisconsin--The Smithsonian Inst.i.tute--Discovery of Gold in California--The Mormons--The Presidential Election of 1848.

JAMES K. POLK.

[Ill.u.s.tration: JAMES K. POLK.

(1795-1849.) One term, 1845-1849.]

James K. Polk, eleventh President, was born in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, November 2, 1795, and died June 15, 1849. His father removed to Tennessee when the son was quite young, and he therefore became identified with that State. He studied law, was a leading politician, and was elected to Congress in 1825, serving in that body for fourteen years. He was elected governor of Tennessee in 1839, his next advancement being to the presidency of the United States.

The President made George Bancroft, the distinguished historian, his secretary of the navy. It was he who laid the foundation of the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, which was opened October 10, 1845. It is under the immediate care and supervision of the navy department and corresponds to the Military Academy at West Point.