The first Whig President was William Henry Harrison (1773-1841).
Military
William Henry Harrison became a war hero after fighting Indian forces at the Battle of Tippecanoe in 1811.
Harrison left the Army and then re-entered as a brigadier general during the War of 1812.
In 1813, Harrison won a decisive victory over the British at the Battle of the Thames, near Ontario.
In 1814, Major General Harrison resigned from the Army.
Political
Over the years, beginning in 1819, Harrison was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, a state senator, a U.S. Senator, and the U.S. Minister to Colombia.
The Presidency
In 1836, Harrison was selected by the Whig Party to run for President against Democrat Martin Van Buren. The winner was Van Buren.
In 1840, Harrison, using the Presidential campaign slogan of “Tippecanoe and Tyler, too”, ran against President Martin Van Buren.
Harrison was mocked for being too old to run for president. A pro-Democrat paper editorial printed: “… he will sit the remainder of his days in his log cabin.”
The Whigs turned the tables and began a “log cabin campaign”, and promoted Harrison as a symbol of the common man.
One campaign item was log-cabin-shaped bottles of whiskey from the E.C. Booz distillery. Today, what is whiskey frequently called? Booze.
As an aside, Harrison was far from being born “a common man”. His father, Benjamin Harrison, signed the Declaration of Independence and had been a governor of Virginia. Harrison had a solid education.
He won the 1840 election and became America’s ninth President.
President Harrison was 68 years old when sworn into office on March 4, 1841. He remained the oldest President until Ronald Reagan, age 69, was sworn into office in 1981.
His inaugural address was the longest of any other President, and the weather was extremely foul. Harrison chose to wear neither a coat nor hat.
He fell ill and died of pneumonia on April 4, 1841
Harrison was not only the first U.S. President to die in office, his time in office was the shortest, only one month.
John Tyler
After being Vice President for only 31 days, John Tyler became the tenth President of the United States.
Whig Party
The Whig Party formed in 1834 as an opposition party to Jacksonian Democrats.
Whigs supported the Second Bank of the United States, which President Jackson deplored. They also greatly disliked the manner in which Jackson ignored Supreme Court decisions and challenged the Constitution.
Whigs generally supported higher tariffs.
Whig Party leaders were very prominent men of the time, including Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and Horace Greeley.
Republican Party
In 1854, anti-slavery Whigs left the party and founded the Republican Party. This move began the downfall of the Whig Party.
John C. Frémont ran as the first Republican nominee for President in 1856 and used the slogan “Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Speech, Free Men, and Frémont!” He lost.
