| Sumario: | Through examining commemorations at Tippecanoe, this article contends that the politics of the 1850s overshadowed the political instability in earlier decades. Hoping to use the chaos to their advantage and win over Whig voters for the 1856 presidential election, Democrats pitched a new account of the past that downplayed the influence of antislavery northerners on both older parties along with their many disagreements. Because Whigs had politicized the Tippecanoe battlefield in the 1830s, Democrats commemorated the site in 1856, turning the location into a symbol for a new pro-Union political coalition based on a glossed-over version of history.
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