The Whig campaign was highly picturesque. Meetings were measured by "acres of men." They gathered on the field of Tippecanoe. Revolutionary soldiers marched in venerable processions. Wives and daughters came with their husbands and fathers. There were the barrel of cider, the coon-skins, and the log cabin with the live raccoon running over it and the latch-string hung out; for Harrison had told his soldiers when he left them, that never should his door be shut, "or the string of the latch pulled in." Van Buren meantime, with an aristocratic sneer upon his face, was seated in an English carriage, after feeding himself from the famous gold spoons bought for the White House. Harrison was a hunter who had caught a fox before and would again; one of the county processions from Pennsylvania boasted, "Old Mother Cumberland—she'll bag the fox." Illinois would "teach the palace slaves to respect the log cabin." "Down with the wages, say the administration." "Matty's policy, fifty cents a day and French soup; our policy, two dollars a day and roastbeef." Newspapers were full of advertisements like this: "The subscriber will pay $5 a hundred for pork if Harrison is elected, and $2.50 if Van Buren is."
But the songs were most interesting. The ball, which Benton had said in his last speech on the expunging resolution that he "solitary and alone" had put in motion, was a mine of similes. They sang:
"With heart and soul
This ball we roll."
"As rolls the ball,
Van's reign does fall,
And he may look
To Kinderhook."
"The gathering ball is rolling still,
And still gathering as it rolls."
Harrison's battle with the Indians gave the effective cry of "Tippecanoe and Tyler too." And so they sang:
"Farewell, dear Van,
You're not our man;
To guard the ship,
We'll try old Tip."
"With Tip and Tyler
We'll burst Van's biler."
"Old Tip he wears a homespun suit,
He has no ruffled shirt—wirt—wirt;
But Mat he has the golden plate,
And he's a little squirt—wirt—wirt."
When the election returns began to come from the August and September States, the joyful excitement passed all bounds. Then the new Whigs found a new Lilliburlero. To the tune of the "Little Pig's Tail" they sang:
"What has caused this great commotion, motion, motion,
Our country through?
It is the ball a-rolling on,
For Tippecanoe and Tyler too, Tippecanoe and Tyler too!
"And with them we'll beat little Van, Van;
Van is a used-up man.
Oh, have you heard the news from Maine, Maine, Maine,
All honest and true?
One thousand for Kent and seven thousand gain
For Tippecanoe," etc.
And then Joe Hoxie would close the meetings by singing "Up Salt River."
The result was pretty plain before November. New Hampshire, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Virginia voted for state officers in the spring. All had voted for Van Buren in 1836; all now gave Whig majorities, except New Hampshire, where the Democratic majority was greatly reduced. In August North Carolina was added to the Whig column, though in Missouri and Illinois there was little change. But when in September Maine, which had given Van Buren nearly eight thousand majority, and had since remained steadfast, "went hell-bent for Governor Kent" and gave a slight Whig majority, the administration's doom was sealed.
Harrison received 234 electoral votes, and Van Buren 60. New York gave Harrison 13,300 votes more than Van Buren; but a large part of this plurality, perhaps all, came from the counties on the northern and western borders. Only one Northern State, Illinois, voted for Van Buren. Of the slave States, five, Virginia, South Carolina, Alabama, Missouri, and Arkansas, were for Van Buren; the other eight for Harrison. There was a popular majority in the slave States of about 55,000 against Van Buren in a total vote of about 695,000, and in the free States, of about 90,000 in a total vote of about 1,700,000, still showing, therefore, his greater popular strength in the free States. The increase in the popular vote was the most extraordinary the country has ever known, proving the depth and universality of the feeling. This vote had been about 1,500,000 in 1836; it reached about 2,400,000 in 1840, an increase of 900,000, while from 1840 to the Clay canvass of 1844 it increased only 300,000. Van Buren, as a defeated candidate in 1840, received about 350,000 votes more than elected him in 1836; and the growth of population in the four years was probably less, not greater, than usual. There were cries of "fraud and corruption" because of this enormously increased vote, cries which Benton long afterwards seriously heeded; but there seems to be no good reason to treat them otherwise than as one of the many expressions of Democratic anguish.