ent outcry against Masonry was the
natural result, and, as some of the more prominent politicians of the
day, including President Jackson himself, were Masons, the cry took a
political form. An Anti-Masonic Party was formed, and at the next
Presidential election was strong enough to carry one State and affect
considerably the vote of others. The movement gradually died down and
the party disappeared; but the popular instinct that secret societies,
whether murderous or not, have no place in a Free State was none the
less a sound one.

I have said that Van Buren's election was a sign of Jackson's personal
influence. But the election of 1840 was a more startling sign of the
completeness of his moral triumph, of the extent to which his genius had
transformed the State. In 1832 the Whigs pitted their principles against
his and lost. In 1840 they swallowed their principles, mimicked his, and
won.

The Whig theory--so far as any theory connected the group of politicians
who professed that name--was that Congress and the political class which
Congress represented should rule, or at least administer, the State.
From that theory it seemed to follow that some illustrious Senator or
Congressman, some prominent member of that political class, should be
chosen as President. The Whigs had acted in strict accord with their
theory when they had selected as their candidate their ablest and most
representative politician, Clay. But the result had not been
encouraging. They now frankly abandoned their theory and sought to
imitate the successful practice of their adversaries. They looked round
for a Whig Jackson, and they found him in an old soldier from Ohio named
Harrison, who had achieved a certain military reputation in the Indian
wars. Following their model even more closely, they invented for him the
nickname of "Old Tippercanoe," derived from the name of one of his
victories, and obviously suggested by the parallel of "Old Hickory."
Jackson, however, really had been called "Old Hickory" by his soldiers
long before he took a leading part in politics, while it does not appear
that Harrison was ever called "Tippercanoe" by anybody except for
electioneering purposes. However, the name served its immediate purpose,
and--

"Tippercanoe,
And Tyler too!"

became the electoral war-cry of the Whigs. Tyler, a Southern Whig from
Virginia, brought into the ticket to conciliate the Southern element in
the party, was their candidate f