176 
Indiana University 
But the ‘‘song of songs” was one which, having little music 
in it, everybody could sing. And nearly everybody did sing 
it. This was the song For Tippecanoe and Tyler too. This 
chant was hummed in parlors and kitchens, sung by the boys 
in the streets, marched to in the political processions, and 
was the grand finale of all Whig meetings, the whole audience 
shouting it from their thousand throats with as much fervor 
as French Republicans chant the Marseillaise, or Englishmen 
sing God Save the King. The song was capable of indefinite 
expansion, for new verses could be extemporized for each 
locality, or each incident of the campaign.®^ 
Most presidential candidates have a nickname ; and General 
Harrison, long before the summer was over, was universally 
known as “Old Tip”. There were Tippecanoe banners, Tippe- 
canoe clubs, Tippecanoe meetings. Steamboats were named 
after Harrison ; children christened for him ; dogs were called 
“Tip” ; and spans of horses named “Tip” and “Ty”.®^ 
Political meetings took on a new character. They were no 
longer forced assemblages in clubrooms, but spontaneous 
outdoor crowds overflowing with enthusiasm. The journals 
which used to descant with pride, in large type, upon “Six 
Hundred Freemen in Council”, now found themselves chroni- 
cling the gatherings of thousands with no need of exclamation 
points. Whole counties were called to assemble in mass meet- 
ing; whole states were invited to assemble in mass conven- 
tions ; great meetings were held in cities ; and obscure country 
towns became the gathering points for thousands.®® 
Great Whig conventions were held at all the historic places 
in the United States, especially at those which had been the 
scenes of Harrison’s military exploits. A grand Whig con- 
vention of 75,000 at Bunker Hill, with a procession five miles 
long, seemed to crown the series, but even this was outdone 
by a mass convention at Dayton, in Harrison’s own state 
of Ohio, which the Whigs claimed was “100,000 strong”!®^ 
One of the mass meetings which excited most public in- 
terest was the Whig Young Men’s convention, held in May, 
at Baltimore, which has already been mentioned, at which 
from 15,000 to 20,000 delegates were present from the various 
states of the Union. Intense popular indignation was ex- 
Seward, o<p. cit., 497. 
Ihid., 497. 
Ihid., 497, 498. 
^Ubid., 498. 
