AND THE WHIG COALITION 349 



So far from advocating a recharter of the bank, he led 

 in the establishment of the present subtreasury system, 

 by which the government is completely divorced from 

 banking. This was the great achievement of his 

 administration. But the Whigs had naturally taken 

 advantage of the troubles to raise a cry for paternal 

 government, and for the moment they found willing 

 listeners everywhere. There was a general revolt 

 against the hard-hearted administration which had 

 done nothing to relieve the distress of the people. 

 For the single purpose of defeating Mr. Van Buren, all 

 differences of policy were subordinated. In the Whig 

 convention at Harrisburg, which met on the 4th of 

 December, 1839, almost a year before the election, no 

 platform of principles was adopted. The unformu- 

 lated platform was, " Anything to beat Van Buren." l 

 It was now the turn of the Whigs to appeal to the 

 frontier prejudices of the West against the aristocratic 

 East by renominating General Harrison, who in the 

 days of Tecumseh and Tippecanoe had lived in a log 

 cabin and had on his table none of your French cham- 

 pagne, but good hard cider. Naturally Mr. Tyler, as 

 a leader of the Southern or State Rights Whigs, was 

 nominated for the vice-presidency. In the uproarious 

 campaign that followed there was less appeal to sober 

 reason and a more prodigal use of claptrap than in any 

 other presidential contest in our history. The chief 



1 A newspaper clipping, preserved by Dr. Fiske, commenting on the 

 heavy shower that fell upon "Bunker Hill Day," tells of a more notable 

 shower that drenched the procession of September ryth, 1840, "the big- 

 'gest procession up to that date seen in Boston,' 1 wetting the Whigs, the 

 correspondent says, " from one end of the line to the other " ; but Stephen 

 C. Phillips went into Faneuil Hall the same night and gave the sentiment, 

 " Any rain but the reign of Van Buren." 



