party, without common principles and definite aims beyond the mere overthrow of those in power. Such a temporary combination will always be apt to look, not for candidates who represent well defined objects and measures, but rather for mere availabilities, who repel nobody because they represent nothing with distinctness. By his anti-abolition speech and his explanatory letters, Clay had tried to lower himself to the level of a mere availability, but he had a past career which spoke loudly for itself. It was, perhaps, the consciousness of having sacrificed much of his dignity in vain that fanned his fury when he heard of his defeat.
He was right in speaking of the election of 1840 as one in which he or any other Whig candidate would be sure of success. The Democrats renominated Van Buren. Even had Van Buren been a popular man, which he was not, the force of circumstances would have overwhelmed him. The crisis of 1837 had produced a strong political current against the ruling party. An apparent improvement in business in 1838 enabled the Democrats to recover some of the lost ground. But in 1839 the renewed suspension of the United States Bank, and of a host of banks in the South and West, cast new gloom upon the country, and, as usually, the bad times turned the minds of the people against those in power.
Moreover, the “spoils system,” introduced in national politics by Jackson, had developed some of
