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Some selected excerpts from “The Presidents: The Story of the Oval Office and The Men Who Occupied It, 2nd edition.”
Authored by Robert Jackson, 1999. © Liberty Tree Publishing, San Francisco, CA.
As the 1840 election season dawned, Martin Van Buren found himself in a somewhat unfortunate position; during his first term, the Crash of 1837 had taken many a business and utterly destroyed their financial viability; particularly hard hit, was the South and the Northeast, many big planters and bankers, respectively, felt the worst of the effects. Although the President himself had not been responsible for the crash(it can be argued with some validity that his predecessor Jackson was, though.), he was still blamed for not taking enough action to rescue the economy, so much so, in fact, that some derisively nicknamed him “Martin Van Ruin”. The Democrats were already on shaky ground, and as the recession ploughed on, the Whigs started to look more and more appealing with every passing day.....
Nevertheless, however, they renominated Van Buren anyway; no-one else in his party wanted to run for for the White House. In fact, nobody could even agree on the Vice-Presidential position for the 1840 election: James K. Polk had been considered for the position at one point, but could not receive enough endorsements to get the nomination. So, as a result, President Van Buren became the first candidate to campaign without a running mate.
On the other hand, the Whig Party was riding the high tide of political discontent and a desire for change. Henry Clay, the highly popular and rather folksy Kentucky statesman, saw the writing on the wall and hoped that his time had finally arrived to get the ehance to sit in the Oval Office. However, though, he had, unfortunately, made a number of enemies over the years, and the Whigs weren't about to gamble with their chances of winning the White House. As a result, they decided to stick with a less controversial candidate: William Henry Harrison, the war hero, and former Ohio state senator. To get a regional balance, they sought out Virginian Senator John Tyler for the Vice-Presidential nomination, which Tyler accepted.
The 1840 election was heavily focused on image-making, and in fact, even more than substance, which was quite unique(though inevitable, as some may argue.). A pro-Democratic pundit once opined that Harrison would be just as content to sip on some hard cider in front of his log cabin as to serve as President. The Whigs, seeing an opprotunity, took this piece of satirical mocking and turned it to their advantage, starting the now famous “Log Cabin and Hard Cider!” Campaign, selling Harrison as a man of the people, and handing out many bottles of free cider at their rallies. In the same token, Van Buren was derided as an elitist with no sense of empathy for the common man and was said to indulge in fine wines and exotic foods. One politically-inclined poet had this to say:
“Let Van from his coolers of silver drink wine
And lounge on his cushioned settee,
Our man on a buckeye bench can recline,
Content with hard cider is he.”
What may seem truly ironic to some, however, is that Van Buren had grown up in a working-class New York family and had climbed his way to the top of the Golden Hill, so to speak; Harrison, on the other hand, was a wealthy Virginian who himself had quite a few of the trappings and mannerisms of your average aristocrat.
In any case, this was already shaping up to be a rather tense election indeed; however, though, there was a wild card candidate who came on the scene that would make things all the more complicated: James G. Birney. Birney, a native of Kentucky and former planter, had come to reject slavery about a decade earlier and had built up a reputation as a devoted abolitionist, so much so that his life was threatened on several occasions, by pro-slavery agitators. But this didn't stop him from pursuing his interests, and in 1837, the American Anti-Slavery Society recruited him to their ranks and he moved to New York with his family. By the time the 1840 elections rolled around, he was considering a run for the Presidency....
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Albany, New York.
April 1, 1840.
James G. Birney was a man on a mission; ever since that fateful day in 1833, he had resolved to help bring about the end of slavery once and for all, and had become an abolitionist in the following year. Since then, he had had to endure intimidation, hatred, and even threats against his life. But Birney had struggled on, determined to never give in to his adversaries. And now, he had found the ultimate political calling: ascending to the White House, as President of the United States. It was here in this little town in Wyoming County that a new party was born.....the Liberty Party. “Truly a fitting name for our organization.”, he thought. And he hoped that it'd be here to stay. Now, though, it was time to get to work on his campaign, and he knew exactly what he wanted to do.....