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In September the Whigs received the first solid indication that their tactics were working, when Maine held early elections and chose a Whig governor and a Harrison and Tyler electoral slate.

And have you heard the news from Maine
and what old Maine can do?
She went hell bent for Governor Kent
and Tippecanoe and Tyler, too,
and Tippecanoe and Tyler, too.

The Democrats now realized they must respond in kind to the hard cider/log cabin campaign. Their songs attacked Harrison as "General Mum . . . whose fame is like his fav’rite drum; which when most empty makes most noise." Campaign sheets attacked Harrison as a "sham hero," an addict of profanity, and "Old Tip-ler." By spelling Harrison’s name backwards, the Democrats urged voters to say "No sirrah" to the Whigs. More temperate voters sang,

Hush-a-bye, baby;
Daddy’s a Whig.
Before he comes home,
Hard cider he’ll swig;
Then he’ll be Tipsy and over he’ll fall;
Down will come Daddy,
Tip, Tyler, and all.

Songs now heralded Van Buren for his "firmness and honesty" and "measures considered, approved and . . . sealed by the hard fisted yeoman that toils in the field." Van Buren’s nickname, "Old Kinderhook," led supporters to coin the phrase "O.K." to affirm their candidate. Vice President Richard M. Johnson raised his war hero record–it was his forces that had actually killed Tecumseh at the Battle of the Thames two years after Tippecanoe–by using the slogan, "Rumpsey, Dumpsey, Colonel Johnson killed Tecumseh." Observing the increased activity of the Democrats, Harrison wrote, "[T]he exertion of our opponents . . . chiefly rely upon the destruction of my character, military and private . . . ."

Harrison need not have concerned himself. In November he received 234 electoral votes to Van Buren’s 60 and had a popular vote majority of 52.8 percent to 46.8 percent. The old general had been "sung into the Presidency," wrote diarist Philip Hone of New York City. Whig stalwarts Henry Clay and Daniel Webster could rejoice in the victory but take no credit for it. Log cabins, hard cider, rolling balls, and songs had ended 12 years of Democratic Party rule and won the Whigs their first presidential election.

From Mississippi’s utmost shore,
To cold New Hampshire piney hills;
From broad Atlantic’s sullen roar
To where the Western ocean swells–
How loud the notes of joy arise
From every bosom warm and free!
How strains triumphant fill the skies,
For Harrison and Liberty.

The Whigs’ victory, however, would prove ephemeral. One month after he was inaugurated, President William Henry Harrison died of pneumonia. Vice President John Tyler became president and swiftly returned to his Democratic Party roots. "No one ever thought of his being placed in the executive chair," John Quincy Adams confided to his diary. Tyler’s administration differed very little from that of Jackson and Van Buren as he vetoed measures at the heart of the "American System" that Whig leaders had hoped to promote through Harrison. Four years later, Henry Clay regained leadership of the Whig party and went down in defeat at the hands of James K. Polk, an ally of Jackson and Van Buren.

While the 1840 Whig campaign did not have a long-range effect on public policy, the songs left an echo. The cynicism bred from a campaign based upon emotion and propaganda rears its head every four years as the major political parties unleash presidential campaigns in which style trumps substance and slogans override issues.

David E. Johnson serves as counsel to the attorney general of Virginia. He is currently working on a biography of historian Douglas Southall Freeman.

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