pass the polls in those wards in which the roughs had the control. But the
"Hickory poles" had inaugurated a new mode of carrying on political
campaigns. Appeals were made to the senses, and votes obtained by outward
symbols, rather than by the discussion of important political questions.
This mode of electioneering culminated with the log-cabin excitement.

In the Eleventh Ward, the Jackson party had two private doors through
which to admit their voters to the polls, while bullies kept back from the
main entrance the Independent Republicans. In most of the strong Jackson
wards, where it was all on one side, the voting went on peaceably enough,
but in the Sixth, it was soon evident that a storm was inevitable. Oaths
and threats and yells of defiance made the polls here seem more like an
object on which a mob was seeking to wreak its vengeance, than a place
where freemen were depositing their votes under sanction of law. The babel
of sound continued to grow worse in spite of the rain, and swelled louder
and louder, till at last the Jackson roughs, headed by an ex-alderman,
made a rush for the committee room where their opponents were assembled.
Some of them were armed with clubs, and others with knives, which they
brandished fiercely as they burst into the room. Before the members could
offer any resistance, they were assailed with such fury, that in a short
time nearly twenty were stretched bleeding and maimed on the floor; one so
badly wounded that he was carried out lifeless, and apparently dead. It
was a savage onslaught, and those who escaped injury reached the street
hatless, and with coats half-torn from their backs. The mob, now being
complete masters of the room, tore down all the banners, destroyed the
ballots, and made a complete wreck of everything. The Whig leaders,
enraged at such dastardly, insulting treatment, despatched a messenger in
all haste to the Mayor for help, but he replied that he could not furnish
it, as all the available force was away in other sections of the city on
duty. The excitement among the Whigs now became fearful, and they