The Whig national convention met at Harrisburg, December 4, 1839, and nominated for the presidency General William Henry Harrison, with John Tyler for the vicepresidency. Both Clay and Webster felt that this decision showed no appreciation of their claims to that honor. Webster was strong in New England, but his following elsewhere in the country was small. Realizing that his hopes for nomination were slight, he went to London and announced himself as not being a candidate. Clay had held a position of leadership, which gave him rightful consideration for the office, but his active participation in the discussions of administrative measures in Congress had alienated from him some of his party. The fact of his being a Freemason also militated against him in the convention. He was besides a conspicuous advocate of a protective tariff, so unpopular in the South Atlantic States. But Clay was not a man to forswear his party for personal disappointment, and accepted its adverse decision. When the autumn elections of 1839 indicated a slight reaction in favor of the Democrats, necessitating a united opposition if the Whigs hoped to succeed, Clay wrote a letter in which he said: "If the deliberations of the convention shall lead them to the choice of another as the candidate of the opposition, far from feeling any discontent, the nomination will have my best wishes and receive my cordial support." In the same spirit he asked his friends to "discard all attachment or partiality to me, and be guided solely by the motive of rescuing our country from the dangers which now encompass it."

But in truth the party of Clay was more of a coalition than a party and had been made such by Clay. It had no definite set of principles or aims to advance. Its policy was criticism of the administration. General Harrison, the successful nominee, represented no personal views that would have unfitted him to stand as the Democratic nominee instead of the Whig. He was a States Rights' man and believed in a moderate tariff. His views upon the United States Bank were that there was no express

authority in the Constitution for the charter of the national bank, and that Congress was only justified in resorting to such an expedient under the condition that the powers granted to it could not be otherwise carried out. His attitude on the slavery question had been that of concurring in what the slaveholding interest asked. The elegant tastes of Van Buren were in strong contrast to the homespun simplicity of Harrison. These personal aspects were seized upon as the campaign material for a political contest unrivalled in the history of the country for its wild enthusiasm and personal vituperation. The slogan of the Whigs was "Tippecanoe and Tyler too." Log cabins and hard cider figured in every political meeting. The rugged virtues of Harrison were lauded. Monster mass meetings were the order of the day and brass bands and processions kept the country in a state of ferment; but there was no depth to the demonstration. The people attended the picnics and barbecues to be amused rather than to have their political opinions fixed. Clay was faithful to his promise and supported the candidates in a vigorous manner. The Whigs numbered among their supporters Webster, Corwin, Ewing, Choate, Wise, Reverdy Johnson, Everett, and Prentiss.

The platform of the campaign was given by Clay in an address at Taylorsville in which he declared for a limitation of executive power, the noneligibility of the president for a second term in office, the more precise definition of the veto power and its limitation by a simple majority of the Senate and House of Representatives, the restriction of the president's power of dismissal from office, the control of the treasury exclusively by Congress, and the prohibition of the appointment of members of Congress, with certain exceptions, to any office during their term of service and one year thereafter. As to the stability of the currency, Clay demanded that the methods to secure this should be left to enlightened public opinion. He advocated protection of manufactures, but was content with the tariff of 1833. He wanted the public lands to produce revenue,

and the building of roads and canals to be left to the States, these to receive from the general government for internal improvements no larger sum than the fourth installment of the treasury surplus, and their share of the returns from the sale of public lands. Upon the matter of slaveholding he confined himself to the general statement that slave property "should be left where the Constitution had placed it, undisturbed and unagitated by Congress."

The tremendous enthusiasm of the Whigs in the campaign of 1840 reached the point of hysteria, as is evidenced by the following quotation from the Baltimore Patriot, describing the great procession held in connection with the National Convention of Young Whigs. This presents a picture which was repeated throughout the country: "Monday was a proud day for Baltimore, for Maryland, for the Union. It was a day on which the Young Whigs of all the States were to meet in grand convention. Never before was seen such an assemblage of the people in whose persons are concentrated the sovereignty of the government. In the language of the president of the day, 'Every mountain sent its rill, Every Valley, Its Stream,-and Lo! The avalanche of the people is here!' It is impossible to convey the slightest idea of the sublime spectacle presented by the procession as it moved through the city. All that pen could write, all that the mouth of man could speak, all that the imagination can conceive of beauty, grandeur, and sublimity, would fall short-far short of the reality. The excitement, the joy, the enthusiasm which everywhere prevailed, lighting up the countenance of every man in the procession; the shouts, the applause, the cheers, of those who filled the sidewalks and crowded the windows; waving of handkerchiefs by the ladies; the responsive cries of the people; the flaunting banners; the martial music; the loud roar, at intervals, of the deep-mouthed cannon,-all these and more, much more, must be described, seen in the mind's eye, vibrate through the frame, fill the heart, before the reader can approach to any conception of the reality;

and when all these are done, if they were possible, he has still but a faint and meagre impression of the scene that was presented. . A thousand banners, burnished by the sun, floating in the breeze, ten thousand handkerchiefs waved by the fair daughters of the city, gave seeming life and motion to the very air. A hundred thousand faces were before you,-age, manhood, youth, and beauty filled every place where a foothold could be got, or any portion of the procession be seen; and you gazed on the pageant with renewed and increasing delight, and words. failed to express what your heart felt or your eyes beheld. Nothing was wanting, nothing left to be desired, the cup of human joy was full. The free men of the land were there, the fiery son of the South, the substantial citizen of the East, the hardy pioneer of the West, were all there. It was the epitome of a great nation, in itself realizing, filling up the imaginings, and may have been the very picture which the poet drew when he described our country, our institutions, and our people as a land beyond the oceans of the West,' where 'freedom and truth are worshipped,' by a 'people mighty in their youth.""

The National Democratic Convention met in Baltimore on May 5, 1840, with a platform which favored States Rights, the divorce of the government from the bank, and opposed the assumption of State debts. It was important that Van Buren should have as general enthusiasm manifested by the Democrats as the Whigs had accorded to Harrison, therefore concord and unity were the keynotes of the convention. The renomination of Van Buren was unanimous, but the vice-presidential nomination after wavering between Polk and Forsyth, was finally given to Richard M. Johnson, of Kentucky. The Democrats were swept aside, however, by the popular force of Harrison, who received two hundred and thirty electoral votes to Van Buren's sixty. The Whigs carried nineteen States and the Democrats but seven; Harrison's majority of the popular vote being one hundred and fifty thousand. Such was the answer given by the

people to Jackson's insistence upon executive control of the government.

On December 9th, Congress received Van Buren's final message. In it he discussed in a positive and serious tone the state of the country. He declared himself to be inimical to a national debt and also pronounced against a national bank. He reversed his position upon the slavery question and made amends for his concessions to the Southern position by an appeal for the absolute suppression of the African slave trade. The subject of State debts also came under consideration in this paper. "Already," said Van Buren, "have the resources of many of the States and the future industry of their citizens been indefinitely mortgaged to the subjects of European governments, to the amount of twelve million dollars annually, to pay the constantly accruing interest of borrowed money-a sum exceeding half of the ordinary revenues of the whole United States." He then recommended a policy of financial retrenchment and defended the course of his administration in seeking to reduce the national debt and avoiding occasion for the contracting of fresh obligations.

This short session of Congress was unfruitful. Interest was now centred in Harrison, after whose inauguration, Van Buren passed into a retirement from which he believed he would be recalled by the people to again become their standard bearer.