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were startled by an occurrence which seemed more like part in what is known in that country as "a dime
novel" than a piece of history.
A journalist named Morgan, who had been a Freemason, announced his intention of publishing the inviolable
secrets of the Society. The announcement does not seem to have created any great sensation; probably the
majority of Americans were as sceptical as is the present writer as to the portentous nature of the awful
Unspeakabilities which so many prosperous stock-brokers and suburban builders keep locked in their bosoms.
But what followed naturally created a sensation of the most startling kind. For on the morrow of his
announcement Morgan disappeared and never returned. What happened to him is not certainly known. A body
was found which may or may not have been his. The general belief was that he had been kidnapped and
murdered by his fellow-Craftsmen, and, indeed, it really seems the natural inference from the acknowledged
facts that at least some one connected with the Brotherhood was responsible for his fate. A violent outcry
against Masonry was the natural result, and, as some of the more prominent politicians of the day, including
President Jackson himself, were Masons, the cry took a political form. An Anti-Masonic Party was formed,
and at the next Presidential election was strong enough to carry one State and affect considerably the vote of
others. The movement gradually died down and the party disappeared; but the popular instinct that secret
societies, whether murderous or not, have no place in a Free State was none the less a sound one.
I have said that Van Buren's election was a sign of Jackson's personal influence. But the election of 1840 was
a more startling sign of the completeness of his moral triumph, of the extent to which his genius had
transformed the State. In 1832 the Whigs pitted their principles against his and lost. In 1840 they swallowed
their principles, mimicked his, and won.
The Whig theory--so far as any theory connected the group of politicians who professed that name--was that
Congress and the political class which Congress represented should rule, or at least administer, the State.
From that theory it seemed to follow that some illustrious Senator or Congressman, some prominent member
of that political class, should be chosen as President. The Whigs had acted in strict accord with their theory
when they had selected as their candidate their ablest and most representative politician, Clay. But the result
had not been encouraging. They now frankly abandoned their theory and sought to imitate the successful
practice of their adversaries. They looked round for a Whig Jackson, and they found him in an old soldier
from Ohio named Harrison, who had achieved a certain military reputation in the Indian wars. Following their
model even more closely, they invented for him the nickname of "Old Tippercanoe," derived from the name
of one of his victories, and obviously suggested by the parallel of "Old Hickory." Jackson, however, really
had been called "Old Hickory" by his soldiers long before he took a leading part in politics, while it does not
appear that Harrison was ever called "Tippercanoe" by anybody except for electioneering purposes. However,
the name served its immediate purpose, and--
"Tippercanoe, And Tyler too!"
became the electoral war-cry of the Whigs. Tyler, a Southern Whig from Virginia, brought into the ticket to
conciliate the Southern element in the party, was their candidate for the Vice-Presidency.
Unfortunately for themselves, the Democrats played the Whig game by assailing Harrison with very much the
same taunts which had previously been used by the Whigs against Jackson. The ignorance of the old soldier,
his political inexperience, even his poverty and obscurity of origin, were exploited in a hundred Democratic
pamphlets by writers who forgot that every such reflection made closer the parallel between Harrison and
Jackson, and so brought to the former just the sort of support for which the Whigs were angling.
"Tippercanoe" proved an excellent speculation for the Whig leaders. It was "Tyler too," introduced to meet
the exigencies of electioneering (and rhyme) that altogether disconcerted all their plans.
CHAPTER VII 62
Tyler was a Southerner and an extreme Particularist. He had been a Nullifier, and his quarrel with Jackson's
Democracy had simply been a quarrel with his Unionism. His opinions on all subjects, political,
administrative, and fiscal, were as remote from those of a man like Clay as any opinions could be. This was
perfectly well known to those who chose him for Vice-President. But while the President lives and exercises
his functions the Vice-President is in America a merely ornamental figure. He has nothing to say in regard to
policy. He is not even a member of the Administration. He presides over the Senate, and that is all.
Consequently there has always been a strong temptation for American wire-pullers to put forward as
candidate for the Vice-Presidency a man acceptable to some more or less dubious and detached group of their
possible supporters, whose votes it is desired to obtain, but who are not intended to have any control over the
effective policy of the Government. Yet more than one example has shown how perilous this particular
electioneering device may turn out to be. For if the President should die before the expiration of his term, the
whole of his almost despotic power passes unimpaired to a man who represents not the party, but a more or
less mutinous minority in the party.
It was so in this case. Harrison was elected, but barely lived to take the oath. Tyler became President. For a
short time things went comparatively smoothly. Harrison had chosen Webster as Secretary of State, and Tyler
confirmed his appointment. But almost at once it became apparent that the President and his Secretary
differed on almost every important question of the day, and that the Whig Party as a whole was with the
Secretary. The President's views were much nearer to those of the Democratic opposition, but that opposition,
smarting under its defeat, was not disposed to help either combatant out of the difficulties and humiliations
which had so unexpectedly fallen on both in the hour of triumph. Yet, if Webster were dismissed or driven to
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