General Harrison had lived many years after his removal to Ohio in a log house, and had been a poor man most of his life, as he still was. A Democratic journalist, scoffing at the idea of electing such a man to the Presidency, smartly observed, in substance, "Give him a log-cabin and a barrel of hard cider, and he will stay content in Ohio, not aspiring to the Presidency." The taunt was immediately caught up by the Whigs: "log-cabins" and "hard cider" became watchwords of the canvass; and every hour the excitement and enthusiasm swelled higher and higher.

But the Democratic party claimed an unbroken series of triumphs in every Presidential election which it did not throw away by its own dissensions ; and, being now united, regarded its success as inevitable. "You Whigs," said Dr. Duncan, of Ohio, one of its most effective canvassers, "achieve great victories every day in the year but one that is the day of election." It was certain that a party which had enjoyed the ever-increasing patronage of the Federal Government for the preceding twelve years, which wielded that of most of the States also, and which was still backed by the popularity and active sympathy of General Jackson, was not to be expelled from power without the most resolute, persistent, systematic exertions. Hence, it was determined in the councils of our friends at Albany that a new campaign paper should be issued, to be entitled "The Log-Cabin"; and I was chosen to conduct it. No contributions were made or sought in its behalf. I was to publish as well as edit it; it was to be a folio of good size; and it was decided that fifteen copies should be sent for the full term of six months (from May 1 to November 1) for $5.

I had just secured a new partner (my fifth or sixth) of considerable business capacity, when this campaign sheet was undertaken; and the immediate influx of subscriptions frightened and repelled him. He insisted that the price was ruinous that the paper could not be afforded for so little that we should inevitably be bankrupted by its enormous circulation and all my expostulations and entreaties were unavailing against his fixed resolve to get out of the concern at once. I therefore dissolved and settled with him, and was left alone to edit and publish both "The New-Yorker" and "The Log-Cabin," as I had in 1838 edited, but not published, "The New-Yorker" and "The Jeffersonian." Having neither steam presses nor facilities for mailing, I was obliged to hire everything done but the head-work, which involved heavier outlays than I ought to have had to meet. I tried to make "The Log-Cabin" as effective as I could, with wood engravings of General Harrison's battle-scenes, music, etc., and to render it a model of its kind; but the times were so changed that it was more lively and less sedately argumentative than "The Jeffersonian."

Its circulation was entirely beyond precedent. I fixed the edition of No. 1 at 30,000; but before the close of the week I was obliged to print 10,000 more; and even this was too few. The weekly issues ran rapidly up to 80,000, and might have been increased, had I possessed ample facilities for printing and mailing, to 100,000. With the machinery of distribution by news companies, expresses, etc., now existing, I guess that it might have been swelled to a quarter of a million. And, though I made very little money by it, I gave every subscriber an extra number containing the results of the election. After that, I continued the paper for a full year longer; having a circulation for it of 10,000 copies, which about paid the cost, counting my work as editor nothing.

"The Log-Cabin" was but an incident, a feature of the canvass. Briefly, we Whigs took the lead, and kept it throughout. Our opponents struggled manfully, desperately; but wind and tide were against them. They had campaign and other papers, good speakers, and large meetings; but we were far ahead of them in singing, and in electioneering emblems and mottoes which appealed to popular sympathies. The elections held next after the Harrisburg nominations were local, but they all went our way; and the State contests, which soon followed, amply confirmed their indications. In September, Maine held her State election, and chose the Whig candidate for Governor (Edward Kent) by a small majority, but on a very full vote. The Democrats did not concede his election till after the vote for President, in November. Pennsylvania, in October, gave a small Democratic majority; but we insisted that it could be overcome when we came to vote for Harrison, and it was. In October, Ohio, Indiana, and Georgia all gave decisive Harrison majorities, rendering the great result morally certain. Yet, when the Presidential electors chosen were fully ascertained, even the most sanguine among us were astounded by the completeness of our triumph. We had given General Harrison the electoral votes of all but the seven States of New Hampshire, Virginia, South Carolina, Alabama, Illinois, Missouri, and Arkansas sixty in all while our candidate had 234; making his the heaviest majority by which any President had ever been chosen. New York, where each party had done its best, had been carried for him by 13,290 majority; but Governor Seward had been reelected by only 5,315. With any other candidate for President, he could scarcely have escaped defeat.

I judge that there were not many who had done more effective work in the canvass than I had; but I doubt that General Harrison ever heard my name. I never visited nor wrote him; I was not of the throng that surrounded him on reaching Washington in fact, I did not visit that city, in 1841, until after his most untimely death. I received the news of that calamity on landing one morning from an Albany steamboat; and I mournfully realized, on the instant, that it was no common disaster, but far-reaching in its malign influence. General Harrison was never a great man, but he had good sense, was moderate in his views, and tolerant of adverse convictions ; he truly loved and aspired to serve his country, and was at the summit of a broadly based and substantial popularity which, had he lived out his term, would have averted many impending evils. Our country, in my view, had lost many abler men, but none that she could so ill spare since Washington. He was President for one short month; and then the hopes born of his election were suddenly buried in his grave.