nds have
ever been ready not merely to defeat but to annihilate the Whig party
if they might thereby demolish Seward."[417] In answer to the charge
of influencing Scott's administration, the Senator promptly declared
that he would neither ask nor accept "any public station or preferment
whatever at the hands of the President."[418] But this in nowise
silenced their batteries. To the end of the canvass Scott continued to
be advertised as the "Seward candidate."

[Footnote 416: F.W. Seward, _Life of W.H. Seward_, Vol. 2, p. 188.

"Many thought: the voice is Jacob's voice, but the hands are the hands
of Esau. Seward was the political juggler, or Mephistopheles, as some
called him, and the result was regarded as his triumph."--James F.
Rhodes, _History of the United States_, Vol. 1, p. 262. "Some of the
prominent Whig newspapers of Georgia declined to sustain Scott,
because his election would mean Free-soilism and Sewardism. An address
was issued on July 3 by Alexander H. Stephens, Robert Toombs, and five
other Whig representatives, in which they flatly refused to support
Scott because he was 'the favourite candidate of the Free Soil wing of
the Whig party.'"--_Ibid._, p. 262.]

[Footnote 417: New York _Tribune_, October, 1852.]

[Footnote 418: _Seward's Works_, Vol. 3, p. 416. Date of letter, June
26, 1852.]

After the September elections, it became manifest that something must
be done to strengthen Whig sentiment, and Scott made a trip through
the doubtful States of Ohio and New York. Although Harrison had made
several speeches in 1840, there was no precedent for a presidential
stumping tour; and, to veil the purpose of the journey, recourse was
had to a statute authorising the general of the army to visit Kentucky
with the object of locating an asylum for sick and disabled soldiers
at Blue Lick Springs. He went from Washington by way of Pittsburg and
returned through New York, stopping at Buffalo, Niagara Falls,
Lockport, Rochester, Auburn, Syracuse, Rome, Utica, and Albany.
Everywhere great crowds met him, but cheers for the hero mingled with
cheers for a Democratic victory in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana,
indicating the certain election of Pierce in November. At Auburn,
Seward referred to him as "the greatest of American heroes since the
Revolutionary age." At Albany, John C. Spencer's presence recalled the
distinguished services of Governor Tompkins and Chief Justice Ambrose
Spencer in the War of 1812. "It wa