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Ethos
is Everything
The First
Modern Presidential Campaign
"Let him
(William Henry Harrison) say not one single word about his principles,
or his creed-let him say nothing-promise nothing. Let no Committee
or Convention-no town meeting ever extract from him a single
word, about what he thinks now, or what he will do hereafter,"
Philadelphia banker Nicholas Biddle had once advised. The Whig
Party put Biddle's advice into practice and created what many
historians consider to be the first modern Presidential campaign.
The 1840 Whig Presidential campaign had everything. It had a
catchy slogan, "Tippecanoe and Tyler, Too," named for an Indian
battle Harrison fought twenty-nine years earlier and Harrison's
running-mate, John Tyler.
When the
Baltimore American, a newspaper supporting Harrison's Democratic
opponent, Martin Van Buren, wrote mockingly, "Give him a barrel
of hard cider and settle a pension of $2,000 a year on him and,
my word for it, he will sit the remainder of his days in a log
cabin by the side of a 'sea coal' fire and study moral philosophy,"
the Whigs pounced on the intended slur and turned it into campaign
gold. Overnight, Harrison became the "log cabin, hard cider"
candidate.
"General
Harrison was sung into the Presidency," boasted one prominent
Whig after the election. He was, too, by "log cabin" glee clubs
singing lyrics straight out of "log cabin" songbooks. There
were "log cabin" buttons, sunbonnets, handkerchiefs, and teacups
as well as Tippecanoe Tobacco and Tippecanoe Shaving Soap. One
political stunt involved a group of Harrison supporters rolling
a huge paper ball touting their candidate's qualifications from
Kentucky to Baltimore, Maryland. The escapade put the phrase
"get the ball rolling" into the English language. Yes, the 1840
Presidential campaign had everything; everything, that is, except
a party platform. The Whigs scrupulously avoided making any
proposals or policy statements. They promised prosperity without
a plan, characterized Harrison as a rugged, down-to-earth westerner
and branded Martin Van Buren as the candidate of the moneyed
elite.
Lost in
all the hoopla were a few facts the Whig Party was happy to
ignore. Their "hard cider", "born in a log-cabin" candidate
had, in fact, entered the world at the large James River plantation
called Berkeley Estate. He was the son of a wealthy man who
not only signed the Declaration of Independence but also wrote
the Continental Congress' dispatches to George Washington, and
he was a direct descendant of King Henry III of England. The
"log cabin home" in Ohio where Harrison lived was a twenty-two
room mansion, and although the Battle of Tippecanoe ended the
Indian War, it also cost Harrison's command 25% casualties and
was considered militarily to be a draw.
However,
style overcame substance, and Harrison won the election. Fellow
Whig and eminent orator Daniel Webster volunteered to write
Harrison's Inaugural Address for him, but Harrison declined.
He had already completed the speech. After much badgering, Harrison
agreed to show Webster an advance copy of the speech. The following
day, the mortified Webster sat open-mouthed reading an Inaugural
Address dealing primarily with Roman history. Webster spent
the rest of the day shortening and revising Harrison's speech.
On March
4, 1841, finally given a chance to speak, William Henry Harrison
delivered the longest Presidential Inaugural Address in American
history. Keeping up the "tough-guy" image the Whigs created
during his campaign, the 68-year-old Harrison stood, for one
hour and forty minutes, bare-headed, gloveless and without his
overcoat before a throng of shivering spectators on a windy,
icy March day stoically plowing on through every word of his
8,445 word speech.
Ironically,
as part of his address Harrison promised not to seek a second
term. He didn't. As a result of the Inaugural day weather and
a subsequent rainstorm soaking, Harrison caught a cold that
turned into pneumonia, and he died exactly one month later.
The longest Inaugural Address ever delivered by an American
President was followed by the shortest American Presidency and
led to the unusual occurrence of three different Presidents
of the United States during a five-week period.
Attend-Listen-Learn-Study-Practice-Perform!
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Daniel Webster
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