28 FACTS RELATING TO GROTON, MASSACHUSETTS. 



sition to balance the ticket by selecting one of the candidates 

 from each v/ing of the party — and there are always two wings 

 to a party. 



Of poetry the Whig writers furnished much more than was 

 enjoyed by Democrats. An effort was made to stay the tide 

 in favor of Harrison by poetry as well as by argument. The 

 effort was fruitless. The contest of 1840 had its origin in the 

 most distressing financial difficulties that ever rested upon 

 the country, and it was conducted on the part of the Whigs 

 by large expenditures of money, for those days, and with a 

 degree of hilarity and good nature that it is difficult now to 

 realize. This mav have been due to general confidence, and 

 to a consequent belief that a change of administration would 

 be followed by general prosperity. 



The Whigs were not under the necessity of submitting ar- 

 guments to their followers, and the arguments of Democrats 

 were of no avail. The Whig papers in all parts of the coun- 

 try contained lists of names of Democrats who were support- 

 ing General Harrison. Occasionally the Democratic papers 

 could furnish a short list of Whigs who declared for Van 

 Buren in preference to Harrison. The most absurd stories 

 were told of the administration, and apparently they were ac- 

 cepted as truth. Charles J. Ogle, of Pennsylvania, delivered 

 a speech in the House of Representatives in which he mar- 

 shaled all the absurd stories that were afloat. He charged 

 among other things that Van Buren had sets of gold spoons. 

 The foundation for the statement was the fact that there were 

 spoons in the Executive Mansion that were plated or washed 

 with gold on the inside of the bowls. Those spoons were 

 there in General Grant's time, but so much like brass or 

 copper in appearance that one would hesitate about using 

 them. Another idle story believed by the masses was that 

 the Navy bought wood in New Orleans at a cost of twenty- 

 •' four dollars a cord and carried it to Florida for the use of 

 the troops during the Seminole war of 1837-8. Isaac C. 

 Morse, of Louisiana, was one of the Congressional bearers or 

 mourners at the funeral of John Ouincy Adams, in 1848. He 

 was a Whig member and his district in 1840 was on the Texas 



