In 1840 the Whig Party, having lost the two previous presidential elections because it resisted the new political techniques of the age of mass democracy, took them up with a vengeance. The Whigs nominated William Henry Harrison, a military hero who had few political opinions and no public record. They offered no platform, in the hopes they might avoid an intraparty feud over issues. To broaden the appeal of the ticket, they selected for Harrison's running mate John Tyler, a states' rights former Democrat who would eventually betray eyer ything for which the Whig Party stood. The Whigs' campaign slogan, "Tippecanoe and Tyler, Too," promoted Harrison on the virtue of his victory at the Battle of Tippecanoe in 1811, twenty-nine years earlier. When a Democratic editor scoffed at Harrison's political inexperience and suggested that he would be better off retiring to a log...