180 
Indiana University 
renunciation stimulated fresh ones, and, as November drew 
near, they came thick and fast/^ 
As the dates for election drew near, that Harrison would 
be elected seemed scarcely possible to doubt, but that the 
Whig’S would actually sweep the country was not really ex- 
pected even by the most ardent among them. Presidential 
electors were to be chosen at various dates between the close 
of October and the last of November. But when it was 
known, on November 9, that of eleven states heard from. 
New Hampshire alone had been carried for Van Buren, that 
Pennsylvania and New York had chosen Whig electors, and 
that Harrison was sure of 153 electoral votes, even the Demo- 
cratic journals conceded that Harrison was elected and the 
Whig press burst forth in expressions of wild delight."^® At 
last, it was said, the reign of folly, corruption, and misrule 
is over. What a debt of gratitude do we owe to the Great 
Dispenser of Human Destinies, for the blessing he has vouch- 
safed to bestow on us. “Blessed be the Lord God who only 
doeth wondrous things. And blessed be His glorious name 
forever and let the whole earth be filled with His glory.” 
As the election news came in from the West and South 
it was little more than announcements of successive Whig 
triumphs. By November 11, it was known in the East that 
Michigan and Kentucky were in the Whig column, and by 
November 13, that Massachusetts, Delaware, and Tennessee 
should be added to the list. Next came news from Louisiana 
and Mississippi, Vermont and North Carolina. Nineteen states, 
it was said, had pronounced sentence of condemnation on 
Van Buren. To the Van Buren column, meantime, were 
added Virginia and Missouri; and the returns stoods 234 
electoral votes for Harrison and 34 for Van Buren. Alabama, 
Arkansas, and Illinois were then in doubt, and, in South 
Carolina, electors had not yet been chosen; but in the end it 
turned out that each had chosen Van Buren electors, raising 
his electoral vote to 60, and the number of states carried 
by him to seven.”^^ 
On the second Wednesday in January the electors met in 
Seward, op. cit., 500. 
'^sjohn Bach McMaster, History of the People of the United States (New York, 
1883-1910), VI, 587, 588. 
National Intelligencer, November 10, 1840, quoted in McMaster, History of the 
People of the United States, VI, 588. 
” McMaster, op. cit., VI, 589. 
