Getting Money into Politics

EVEN THOUGH IT occurred in the midst of a major economic downturn, the election of 1840 is remembered more for its display of popular democracy than its serious policy debates. The campaign featured parades, floats, barbecues, and songs about log cabins and hard cider along with “Tippecanoe and Tyler Too.” Meanwhile, Whig candidate William Henry Harrison gave more than twenty major speeches that covered banking, currency, and slavery on his way to a short stay in the White House. At an appearance in Dayton before a crowd estimated at over fifty thousand people, Harrison explained that because the nation’s hard