GEORGE SEWALL BOUTWELL. 27 



conspicuous to justify his friends in eulogies in the party 

 papers and speeches; and neither as good poHcy nor just 

 treatment should his opponents have been betrayed into criti- 

 cisms of his military and civil life. The Democrats were un- 

 wise enough to raise an issue upon his military career, and 

 the result was greatly to their loss. His frontier life in a log 

 cabin was also the subject of ridicule at the opening of the 

 campaign. The Whigs accepted the issue, built log cabins 

 on wheels and drew them over the country from one mass 

 meeting to another. The unfortunate remark was made by a 

 writer or speaker that if Harrison had a log cabin and plenty 

 of hard cider he would be content. A barrel became the 

 emblem of the Whig Party. The log cabin was furnished 

 with a cider barrel at the door, and the emblematic barrel 

 was seen on cane heads and breast pins. 



Mr. Webster struck a fatal blow at the error of the Demo- 

 cratic Party: — " Let him be the log cabin candidate. W^hat 

 you say in scorn we will shout with all our lungs. ... It did 

 not happen to me to be born in a log cabin ; but my elder 

 brothers and sisters were born in a log cabin raised amid the 

 snow drifts of New Hampshire, at a period so early that when 

 the smoke first rose from its rude chimney and curled over 

 the frozen hills there was no similar evidence of a white man's 

 habitation between it and the settlements on the rivers of 

 Canada. ... If ever I am ashamed of it, or if I ever fail in 

 affectionate remembrance of him who reared it, and defended 

 it against savage violence and destruction, cherished all the 

 domestic virtues beneath its roof, and through the fire and 

 blood of a seven years' Revolutionary war, shrunk from no 

 danger, no toil, no sacrifice to save his country and to raise 

 his children to a condition better than his own, may my name 

 and the name of my posterity be blotted forever from the 

 memory of mankind." 



John Tyler of Virginia, was placed on the Whig ticket as 

 the candidate for Vice-President. Tyler had been a Demo- 

 crat and the opinions of the States Rights wing of the Demo- 

 cratic Party were his opinions, notwithstanding his associations 

 with the Whig Party. His nomination was due to the dispo- 



