OLD SPANISH HOUSE ON BOURBON STREET, NEW ORLEANS.
It is not our province to treat of the administration of Andrew Jackson, for that belongs to history, but the hold which that remarkable man maintained upon the affections of the people was emphasized when, in 1832, he was re-elected by an electoral vote of 219 to 49 for Clay, 11 for Floyd, and 7 for Wirt. Despite the popular prejudice against a third term, there is little doubt that Jackson would have been successful had he chosen again to be a candidate. He proved his strength by selecting his successor, Martin Van Buren.
THE "LOG-CABIN AND HARD-CIDER" CAMPAIGN OF 1840.
The next notable presidential battle was the "log-cabin and hard-cider" campaign of 1840, the like of which was never before seen in this country. General William Henry Harrison had been defeated by Van Buren in 1836, but on the 4th of December, 1839, the National Whig Convention, which met at Harrisburg to decide the claims of rival candidates, placed Harrison in nomination, while the Democrats again nominated Van Buren.
General Harrison lived at North Bend, Ohio, in a house which consisted of a log-cabin, built many years before by a pioneer, and was afterward covered with clapboards. The visitors to the house praised the republican simplicity of the old soldier, the hero of Tippecanoe, and the principal campaign biography said that his table, instead of being supplied with costly wines, was furnished with an abundance of the best cider.
THE MARIGNY HOUSE, NEW ORLEANS.
(Where Louis Philippe stopped in 1798.).
The canvass had hardly opened, when the Baltimore Republican slurred General Harrison by remarking that, if some one would pension him with a few hundred dollars and give him a barrel of hard cider, he would sit down in his log-cabin and be content for the rest of his life. That sneer furnished the keynote of the campaign. Hard cider became almost the sole beverage of the Whigs throughout the country. In every city, town and village, and at the cross-roads, were erected log-cabins, while the amount of hard cider drank would have floated the American navy. The nights were rent with the shouts of "Tippecanoe and Tyler too," and scores of campaign songs were sung by tens of thousands of exultant, even if not always musical, voices. We recall that one of the most popular songs began: