In 1840, the United States was facing its 14th presidential election, ready to give President Martin Van Buren a second term, or to elect its ninth president.  The feeling was that the Democratic-Republicans (or the Democrats, as they came to be known) would win again.  Of course they would!  Only three times had the United States elected a man who wasn’t a Democratic-Republican.  There was John Adams, a Federalist, elected in 1796, and George Washington, elected in 1789 and reëlected in 1792, who claimed no party affiliation.  For forty years, the Democrats had had a solid grip on the Executive Mansion (or, as it would later be called, the White House).  Every election following the creation of the Electoral College in 1804 had gone for the Democrats.  Could nothing be done to break their grip on power? The Whig Party hoped there might be something it could do.  The Whigs were founded in 1833, so this was to be their second presidential el...