i84o] Presidential election: the log-cabin. 389 much to secure that liberal system of selling government land which laid the foundation of the Ohio Valley States. As Governor of Indiana Territory in 1811 he won the famous battle of Tippecanoe and broke the Indian power. As a general in the American army during the second war with Great Britain, he was conspicuous in the defence of the North- West, and, leading his army into Canada, won the battle of the Thames, and recovered all that had been lost by Hull's surrender at Detroit. As a friend of Clay and minister to Columbia, he was among the first to feel the vengeance of Jackson in 1829, and had since lived in honourable poverty on his Indiana farm. For Van Buren to defeat such a candidate would have been difficult at any time. It was made more difficult by the popular discontent caused by the financial policy of Jackson, the panic of 1837 and the hard times of 1839; and it was finally made impossible by an ill-timed sneer of a Democratic journal, which remarked that Harrison would be more at home in a log-cabin than in the White House. The Whigs had no platform ; but this sneer at Harrison's poverty gave them just the cry they needed. Nothing was dearer to the heart of the American people than the log-cabin. That humble abode, with its puncheon floor, its mud-smeared sides, its latch-string, its windows in which greased paper did duty for glass, was then, and had ever been, the symbol of American hardihood. It had been the home of the pioneers, the home of the commonwealth-builders ; and round its hearth had been reared millions of men and women then living. No insult could have been more galling than this sneer at the early home of the makers of the nation. The log-cabin at once became the Whig symbol. On vacant lots in every city and town of the North, on ten thousand village greens, the cabin, with a coon-skin on its wall, the latch-string hanging out in token of welcome, and a barrel of hard cider close beside the door, became the true Whig headquarters. Mounted on wheels and occupied by speakers, it was dragged from village to village. Log-cabin raisings, log-cabin meetings, medals, badges, almanacs, songs, pictures were everywhere to be seen. Mass-meetings were held, at which enormous numbers of people were present. Weeks were spent in getting ready for them. In the West, men came in covered waggons, camped on the ground, and for days listened to stirring harangues. At Dayton, Ohio, 100,000 people attended, and covered ten acres of ground. In the Whig prints Van Buren was stigmatised as an aristocrat ; and the White House was represented as a gilded palace with damask sofas, satin chairs, porcelain vases, magnificent chandeliers, and golden spoons. Harrison was the poor man's candidate, the plain American living in a log-cabin, the simple farmer of North Bend. These things told powerfully on the voters; and, when the election was over, the Whigs had swept the country and elected Harrison and Tyler. In the great popular excite- ment the new anti-slavery party and its candidate were forgotten. Yet ce. xii.
