democracy.  The whole party appeared to enjoy it, or, at least, they countenanced it by silent acquiescence; for I do not know that, to this day, any eminent individual or any leading newspaper attached to the administration has rebuked this scornful jeering at the supposed humble condition or circumstances in life, past or present, of a worthy man and a war-worn soldier.  But it touched a tender point in the public feeling.  It naturally roused indignation.  What was intended as reproach was immediately seized on as merit.  “Be it so!  Be it so!” was the instant burst of the public voice.  “Let him be the log cabin candidate.  What you say in scorn, we will shout with all our lungs.  From this day forward, we have our cry of rally; and we shall see whether he who has dwelt in one of the rude abodes of the West may not become the best house in the country!”

All this is natural, and springs from sources of just feeling.  Other things, Gentlemen, have had a similar origin.  We all know that the term “Whig” was bestowed in derision, two hundred years ago, on those who were thought too fond of liberty; and our national air of “Yankee Doodle” was composed by British officers, in ridicule of the American troops.  Yet, erelong, the last of the British armies laid down its arms at Yorktown, while this same air was playing in the ears of officers and men.  Gentlemen, it is only shallow-minded pretenders who either make distinguished origin matter of personal merit, or obscure origin matter of personal reproach.  Taunt and scoffing at the humble condition of early life affect nobody, in this country, but those who are foolish enough to indulge in them, and they are generally sufficiently punished by public rebuke.  A man who is not ashamed of himself need not be ashamed of his early condition.

Gentlemen, it did not happen to me to be born in a log cabin; but my elder brothers and sisters were born in a log cabin, raised amid the snow-drifts of New Hampshire, at a period so early that, when the smoke first rose from its rude chimney, and curled over the frozen hills, there was no similar evidence of a white man’s habitation between it and the settlements on the rivers of Canada.  Its remains still exist.  I make to it an annual visit.  I carry my children to it, to teach them the hardships endured by the generations which have gone before them.  I love to dwell on the tender recollections, the kindred ties, the early affections, and the touching narratives and incidents, which mingle with all I know of this primitive family abode.  I weep to think that none of those who inhabited it are now among the living; and if ever I am ashamed of it, or if I ever fail in affectionate veneration for him who reared it, and defended it against savage violence and destruction, cherished all the domestic virtues beneath its roof, and, through the fire and blood of a seven years’ revolutionary war, shrunk from no danger, no toil, no sacrifice, to serve his country, and to raise his children to a condition better than his own, may my name and the name of my posterity be blotted for ever from the memory of mankind!