id="id00051">  Farewell, dear Van,
  You're not our man;
  To guide the ship,
  We'll try old Tip.

The following, sung to the tune of "Old Rosin the Bow," was quite as popular:

  Come ye who, whatever betide her,
  To Freedom have sworn to be true,
  Prime up with a cup of hard cider,
  And drink to old Tippecanoe.

  On top I've a cask of as good, sir,
  As man from the tap ever drew;
  No poison to cut up your blood, sir,
  But liquor as pure as the dew.

  Parched corn men can't stand it much longer,
  Enough is as much as we'll bear;
  With Tip at our head, in October,
  We'll tumble Van out of the chair.

  Then ho! for March fourth, forty-one, boys,
  We'll shout till the heavens' arched blue
  Shall echo hard cider and fun, boys,
  Drink, drink, to old Tippecanoe.

The following kindred verses will be familiar to everybody who remembers the year 1840:

  Ye jolly young lads of Ohio,
  And all ye sick Vanocrats, too,
  Come out from among the foul party,
  And vote for old Tippecanoe.

  Good men from the Van jacks are flying,
  Which makes them look kinder askew,
  For they see they are joining the standard
  With the hero of Tippecanoe.

  They say that he lived in a cabin,
  And lived on old cider, too;
  Well, what if he did? I'm certain
  He's the hero of Tippecanoe.

I give the following verses of one of the best, which used to be sung with tremendous effect:

  The times are bad, and want curing;
  They are getting past all enduring;
  Let us turn out Martin Van Buren,
  And put in old Tippecanoe.
  The best thing we can do,
  Is to put in old Tippecanoe.

  It's a business we all can take part in,
  So let us give notice to Martin
  That he must get ready for sartin',
  For we'll put in old Tippecanoe.
  The best thing we can do
  Is to put in old Tippecanoe.

  We've had of their humbugs a plenty;
  For now all our pockets are empty;
  We've a dollar now where we had twenty,
  So we'll put in old Tippecanoe.
  The best thing we can do,
  Is to put in old Tippecanoe.

The following verses are perfectly characteristic:

  See the farmer to his meal
  Joyfully repair;
  Crackers, cheese and cider, too,
  A hard but homely fare.

  Martin to his breakfast comes
  At the hour of noon;
  Sipping from a china cup,
  With a golden spoon.

  Martin's steeds impatient wait
  At the palace door;
  Outriders behind the coach
  And lackeys on before.

After the State election in Maine, a new song appeared, which at once became a favorite, and from which I quote the following:

  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.

Such was this most remarkable Whig campaign, with its monster meetings and music, its infinite drolleries, its rollicking fun, and its strong flavor of political lunacy. As to the canvass of the Democrats, the story is soon told. In all points it was the reverse of a success. The attempt to manufacture enthusiasm failed signally. They had neither fun nor music in their service, and the attempt to secure them would have been completely overwhelmed by the flood on the other side. It was a melancholy struggle, and constantly made more so by the provoking enthusiasm and unbounded good humor of the Whigs. It ended as a campaign of despair, while its humiliating catastrophe must have awakened inexpressible disappointment and disgust both among the leaders and masses of the party.

This picture of party politics, forty-three years ago, is not very flattering to our American pride, but it simply shows the working of Democratic institutions in dealing with the "raw material" of society and life at that time. The movement of 1840 was necessarily transient and provisional, while underneath its clatter and nonsense was a real issue. It was unrecognized by both parties, but it made its advent, and the men who pointed its way quietly served notice upon the country of their ulterior purposes.

As long ago as the year 1817, Charles Osborn had established an anti-slavery newspaper in Ohio, entitled "The Philanthropist," which was followed in 1821 by the publication of Benjamin Lundy's "Genius of Universal Emancipation." In 1831 the uprising of slaves in Southampton County, Virginia, under the lead of Nat. Turner, had startled the country and invited attention to the question of slavery. In the same year Garrison had established "The Liberator," and in 1835 was mobbed in Boston, and dragged through its streets with a rope about his neck. In 1837 Lovejoy had been murdered in Alton, Illinois, and his assassins compared by the Mayor of Boston to the patriots of the Revolution. In 1838 a pro-slavery mob had set fire to Pennsylvania Hall, in Philadelphia, and defied the city authorities in this service of slavery. President Jackson and Amos Kendall, his Postmaster General, had openly set the Constitution at defiance by justifying the rifling of the mails and the suppression of the circulation of anti-slavery newspapers in the South. The "gag" resolutions had been introduced in the House of Representatives in 1836, which provoked the splendid fights of Adams, Giddings and Slade for the right of petition and the freedom of speech. Dr. Channing had published his prophetic letter to Henry Clay, on the annexation of Texas, in 1837, and awakened a profound interest in the slavery question on both sides of the Atlantic. We had been disgraced by two Florida wars, caused by the unconstitutional espousal of slavery by the General Government. President Van Buren had dishonored his administration and defied the moral sense of the civilized world by his efforts to prostitute our foreign policy to the service of slavery and the slave trade. In February, 1839, Henry Clay had made his famous speech on "Abolitionism," and thus recognized the bearing of the slavery question upon the presidential election of the following year. The Abolitionists had laid siege to the conscience and humanity of the people, and their moral appeals were to be a well-spring of life to the nation in its final struggle for self-preservation; but as yet they had agreed upon no organized plan of action against the aggressions of an institution which threatened the overthrow of the Union and the end of Republican government. But now they were divided into two camps, the larger of which favored political action, organized as a party, and nominated, as its candidate for President, James G. Birney, who received nearly seven thousand votes.

This was a small beginning, but it was the beginning of the end. That slavery was to be put down without political action in a government carried on by the ballot was never a tenable proposition, and the inevitable work was at last inaugurated. It was done opportunely. Harrison and Van Buren were alike objectionable to anti-slavery men who understood their record. To choose between them was to betray the cause. Van Buren had attempted to shelter the slave trade under the national flag. He had allied himself to the enemies of the right of petition and the freedom of debate, as the means of conciliating the South. He