Tag Archives: William Henry Harrison

An Election Prediction

Henry Clay

Henry Clay

With its use of catchy slogans (“Tippecanoe and Tyler Too”), rallies, songs, banners and ribbons, the 1840 presidential contest between incumbent Martin Van Buren and the Whig Party’s William Henry Harrison marked the beginning of the modern era of campaigning.  Then as now, predictions about the outcome also enlivened the process.

That fall, Henry Clay sat down at his Lexington, Kentucky home, Ashland, to forecast the election results in response to a request from the Tippecanoe Club of Rushville, New York.  At the time, there was no single Election Day:  states voted for their presidential electors between October 30 and December 2, and the electors then met to vote for the next chief executive.  The Whigs had done well in most down-ballot races held in the preceding months, and Clay–who had lost the Whig nomination to Harrison, one of five tries he would make for the presidency–was in a good position to assess the race.

He got things nearly, but not exactly right.  Of the 26 states in the Union, Clay believed that Van Buren “would not obtain the votes of more than six.”  (He got seven).  Although down-ballot elections in Illinois had been disappointing for the Whigs, Clay was confident that “her vote will be cast in Nov. for W. H. Harrison” (He was mistaken).  He also conceded Maine to Van Buren (Harrison, in fact, won the state).  Otherwise, despite his lack of computer models and sophisticated polling, Clay would not have been embarrassed to compare his predictions with the actual result:  Van Buren’s 7 states brought 60 electoral votes, but Harrison’s 19 states and 234 electoral votes gave him the victory.

Clay nevertheless knew that voter turnout (or lack thereof) could make a fool out of any prognosticator.  “Cheering and bright as the prospects of success are,” he wrote, “it might be fatal to the salvation of the Constitution and the Country, to relax in honorable exertions. . . .  The Whig, therefore, who. . . neglects to perform his duty, is guilty of a double treachery–a treachery to his Country and a treachery to his Whig brethren in other parts of the Union, who are exerting all their energies to ensure success to our glorious Cause.”

Henry Clay’s letter to the Tippecanoe Club is part of the Manuscripts & Folklife Archives collections of WKU’s Department of Library Special Collections.  Click here to access a finding aid.  For more collections about Henry Clay and about other presidential elections, search TopSCHOLAR and KenCat.

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A “Modern” Campaign

Harrison campaign ribbon, 1840

Harrison campaign ribbon, 1840

It was called the “log cabin and hard cider campaign,” pitting two political warhorses against each other in the 1840 presidential election.  In a now-familiar tactic, Whig candidate William Henry Harrison presented himself as a man of the people, more at home in a log cabin than in the wealthy Virginia household where he grew up.  On the other side was Democratic incumbent Martin Van Buren, who tried to frame the 68-year-old Harrison as an aging hack more suited to sitting in his cabin quaffing cider than leading the country.  But the Harrison campaign doubled down, issuing campaign ribbons declaring “hurrah boys for Harrison and [running mate John] Tyler, / A rough Log Cabin and a barrel of hard cider.”

Every presidential history buff knows how the story ended.  After edging Van Buren in the popular vote to become the nation’s ninth president, Harrison was inaugurated on a cold, damp March day.  He addressed the crowd for two hours sans overcoat or hat, then rode in the inaugural parade.  A month later, he was dead of pneumonia, his term in office the shortest in U.S. history.

A Harrison campaign ribbon touting the “log cabin and hard cider” candidate is part of the Manuscripts & Folklife Archives collections of WKU’s Special Collections Library.  Click here to download a finding aid.  For more collections on presidents and politics, search TopSCHOLAR and KenCat.

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