Ogle Versus Van Buren

I check in on a blog, The History Chef, from time to time, because I share an interest in food and history with the author.  I recently read there that Congressman Charles Ogle of Pennsylvania once attacked President Martin Van Buren, pictured above, in a speech for living the high life on the taxpayer's dime.  The speech was part of the election of 1840, when Van Buren faced William Henry Harrison, who defeated him.  I have an ancestor, Thomas Ogle, who died in Pennsylvania in 1741.  I suspect there is a family connection. 

The History Chef reports,


Shortly before the election of 1840, Charles Ogle, a Whig Congressman from Pennsylvania, rose to speak in the House of Representatives and launched into a three-hour attack on Van Buren’s luxurious lifestyle. After describing the “Regal Splendor of the Presidential Palace,” Ogle turned his attention to Van Buren’s “kingly” dinner table.


Setting the scene for a packed gallery, Ogle dramatically proclaimed:


Mr. Chairman…Let us enter [the] palace, and survey its spacious courts, its gorgeous banqueting halls, its sumptuous drawing rooms, its glittering and dazzling saloons, with all their magnificent and sumptuous array of gold and silver…I cannot forbear…to read you a description of the great banqueting hall, commonly called the “East Room”…who can deny that this room, intended for the comfort of our democratic Chief Magistrate, is adorned with regal splendor far above any of the grand saloons at Buckingham Palace . . .  .