A servant at the White House testifies that he was approached by
emissaries who offered him a sum almost preposterously large to put a
powder in the milk for the Lincoln family's table. The agents knew that
they were temperance followers, milk being as common as wine at
previous tenants' table. This was laughed at before the shadow of
Booth's patricide was cast ahead. But the Reverend Henry Ward Beecher
publicly declares--and he was in the state secrets as deeply as any
layman--that President-General Harrison, "Tippecanoe," was poisoned
that Tyler might fulfil the plan to annex Texas as a slave State. "With
even stronger convictions is it affirmed that President-General Taylor
was poisoned, that a less stern successor might give a suppler
instrument to manage. Who doubts now that it was attempted Breckenridge
in his room?"
* * * * *