50 POLITICAL LIFE-I 



a disadvantage ; they fought with desperation, but in vain, 

 and one of their most unlucky ventures to recover their 

 position was an effort to undermine General Harrison's 

 military reputation. For this purpose they looked about, 

 and finally found one of their younger congressional rep- 

 resentatives, considered to be a rising man, who, having 

 gained some little experience in the Western militia, had 

 received the honorary title of ' ' General, ' ' Isaac M. Crary, 

 of Michigan; him they selected to make a speech in Con- 

 gress exhibiting and exploding General Harrison's mili- 

 tary record. He was very reluctant to undertake it, but 

 at last yielded, and, after elaborate preparation, made an 

 argument loud and long, to show that General Harrison 

 was a military ignoramus. The result was both comic 

 and pathetic. There was then in Congress the most fa- 

 mous stump-speaker of his time, and perhaps of all times, 

 a man of great physical, intellectual, and moral vigor; 

 powerful in argument, sympathetic in manner, of infinite 

 wit and humor, and, unfortunately for General Crary, 

 a Whig, Thomas Corwin, of Ohio. Mr. Crary 's heavy, 

 tedious, perfunctory arraignment of General Harrison 

 being ended, Corwin rose and began an offhand speech 

 on "The Military Services of General Isaac M. Crary. " 

 In a few minutes he had as his audience, not only the House 

 of Representatives, but as many members of the Senate, 

 of the Supreme Court, and visitors to the city, as could 

 be crowded into the congressional chamber, and, of all 

 humorous speeches ever delivered in Congress, this of 

 Corwin has come down to us as the most successful. Long 

 afterward, parts of it lingered in our "speakers' man- 

 uals" and were declaimed in the public schools as ex- 

 amples of witty oratory. Many years later, when the 

 House of Representatives left the old chamber and went 

 into that which it now occupies, Thurlow Weed wrote 

 an interesting article on scenes he had witnessed in the old 

 hall, and most vivid of all was his picture of this speech 

 by Corwin. His delineations of Crary 's brilliant exploits, 

 his portrayal of the valiant charges made by Crary 's 



