n's great measure
for separating the currency from the banks became a law pending
the Presidential struggle. In fact, it was because no proof of
General Harrison's party orthodoxy could be found, that he was
nominated; and the Whig managers of the Harrisburg Convention felt
obliged to sacrifice Henry Clay, which they did through the basest
double-dealing and treachery, for the reason that his right angled
character as a party leader would make him unavailable as a candidate.
As to John Tyler, he was not a Whig in any sense. It is true that
he had opposed the removal of the deposits, and voted against
Benton's expunging resolutions, but on all the regular and recognized
party issues he was fully committed as a Democrat, and was, moreover,
a nullifier. The sole proof of his Whiggery was the apocryphal
statement that he wept when Clay failed to receive the nomination,
while his political position was perfectly understood by the men
who nominated him. There was one policy only on which they were
perfectly agreed, and that was the policy of avowing no principles
whatever; and they tendered but one issue, and that was a change
of the national administration. On this issue they were perfectly
united and thoroughly in earnest, and it was idle to deny that on
their own showing the spoils alone divided them from the Democrats
and inspired their zeal.

The demand of the Whigs for a change was well-founded. Samuel
Swartwout, the New York Collector of Customs, had disgraced the
Government by his defalcations; and, although he was a legacy of
Mr. Van Buren's "illustrious predecessor," and had been "vindicated"
by a Senate committee composed chiefly of his political opponents,
he was unquestionably a public swindler, and had found shelter
under Mr. Van Buren's administration. He was the most conspicuous
public rascal of his time, but was far from being alone in his
odious notoriety. The system of public plunder inaugurated by
Jackson was in full blast, and an organized effort to reform it
was the real need of the hour; but here was the weak point of the
Whigs. They proceeded upon the perfectly gratuitous assumption
that the shameless abuses against which they clamored would be
thoroughly reformed should they come into power. They took it for
granted that a change would be equivalent to a cure, and that the
people would follow them in thus begging the very question on which
some satisfactory assurance was reasonably require