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Indiana University 
of Federalism are correct? Can success sanctify error or transform 
wrong into right? injustice into equity, falsehood into truth, special 
privileges into equality, or aristocracy into Democracy? Far, very far 
from it. Had we been beaten, in a fair field, by such men as Webster 
or Clay, by manly argument, we should feel but half the mortification 
that we do at being beaten by such a man as Harrison. And in such a 
fashion! We have been sung down, lied down, drunk down.®” 
Naturally the Whig journals looked on the triumph of Har- 
rison and Tyler from an entirely different angle, as the fol- 
lowing quotations clearly reveal : 
The contest of 1840 is over. The victory is won. The people are 
free again. Our Republican institutions are redeemed from the grasp 
of tyrants. Let the people, the whole people, rejoice.®® 
The morn of a real political reformation is at hand. We hail the 
election of General Harrison as a most auspicious assurance of the future 
prosperity and happiness of our country. The sagacity and virtue of the 
American people are not mere empty names.®'* 
At length we can confidently congratulate the friends of reform, 
lovers of law and order, supporters of constitutional government, on the 
success of the great cause of civil liberty in this country.®® 
The nation is redeemed. The sun has set on Martin Van Buren and 
risen in all its moral splendor on William Henry Harrison. The con- 
summation so devoutly to be wished has been gratified.®® 
The arrogant party which, but a short time since, set itself above 
all sympathy with the people, declared that the government was bound 
only to take care of itself and that the people must take care of them- 
selves. is now in a miserable minority.®^ 
We confidently believe that General Harrison will realize the wishes 
and expectations of the real Whigs and his true friends; that he will 
serve but one term, will not remove honest and competent men from office 
for party reasons, will not appoint members of Congress to office, nor 
permit the patronage of the government to interfere with the freedom 
of elections.®® 
The election is a great triumph of principle over power, of liberty 
over despotism, of tight and justice over wrong and oppression, of 
prosperity and happiness over fearful and wide-spread ruin and desola- 
tion. A great people have placed their seal of condemnation upon a band 
of the most desperate, aspiring, and unprincipled demagogues that ever 
graced the annals of despotism, a band of bold and reckless innovators 
calling themselves the democracy of the land, at whose head was Martin 
Van Buren, a monarchist in principle, a tyrant and a despot in practice.®® 
Wheeling Times, quoted in McMaster, op. cit., VI, 590. 
Lexington (Va.) Gdzette, quoted in McMaster, op. cit., VI, 590. 
.Savannah Republican, quoted in McMaster, op. cit., VI, 591. 
Bangor Whig, quoted in McMaster, op. cit., VI, 591. 
■^Providence Journal,\(iuoted in McMaster, op. cit., VI, 591. 
Neiv Haven Regist^i', quoted in McMaster, oj). cit., VI, 591. 
^.ette, quoted in McMaster, op. cit., VI, 591. 
McMaster, op. cit., VI, 591. 
