The Whig Party was a political party of the United States during the era of Jacksonian democracy. Considered integral to the Second Party System and operating from 1832 to 1856, the party was formed to oppose the policies of President Andrew Jackson and the Democratic Party. In particular, the Whigs supported the supremacy of Congress over the Executive Branch and favored a program of modernization and economic development. Their name was chosen to echo the American Whigs of the 1770s who fought for independence. The Whig Party counted among its members such national political luminaries as Daniel Webster, William Henry Harrison, and their pre-eminent leader, Henry Clay of Kentucky. In addition to Harrison, the Whig Party also counted several war heroes among its ranks, including Generals Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott. Its Illinois leader was Abraham Lincoln.
In its 26-year existence, the Whig Party saw two of its candidates elected President of the United States—Harrison and Taylor—and saw both of them die in office. Four months after succeeding Harrison, Whig President John Tyler was expelled from the Party, and Millard Fillmore, Taylor's Vice President, was the last Whig to hold the nation's highest office.
The party was ultimately destroyed by the question of whether to allow the expansion of slavery to the territories. Deep fissures in the party on this question led the party to run Winfield Scott over its own incumbent President Fillmore in the U.S. presidential election of 1852. The Whig Party never elected another President. Its leaders quit politics (as Lincoln did temporarily) or changed parties. The voter base defected to the nativist Know-Nothing Party, Republican Party, various coalition parties in some states, and even to the Democrats.
Origins and policies
The Whig Party was formed in the winter of 1833-1834 by former National Republicans such as Henry Clay and John Quincy Adams, and by Southern States' Rights supporters such as W. P. Mangum. Opponents of the party ridiculed it as a reconstitution of the old Federalist party. While the party did have strong support in areas historically known as Federalist strongholds, it was mainly formed as a result of an alliance between disillusioned Jeffersonian Republicans (Clay, a 10 year Republican leader in Congress, joined the party), southerners who disliked Jackson's power grabs and stance during nullification crisis and anti-masonites. In its early form, the Whig Party was united only by opposition to the policies of President Andrew Jackson, especially his removal of the deposits from the Bank of the United States without the consent of Congress. The Whigs pledged themselves to Congressional supremacy, as opposed to "King Andrew's" executive actions, and took their name from the British Whig Party, which had opposed the power of the monarchy and supported Parliamentary control. The Whigs saw President Andrew Jackson as a dangerous man on horseback with a reactionary opposition to the forces of social, economic and moral modernization. As Jackson purged his opponents, vetoed internal improvements and killed the Bank of the United States, alarmed local elites fought back. They argued that Congress, not the President, reflected the will of the people. Controlling the Senate for a while, Jackson's enemies passed a censure motion denouncing Jackson's arrogant assumption of executive power in the face of the true will of the people as represented by Congress. (The censure was later expunged.) The central issue of the early 1830s was the Second Bank of the United States. Backing various regional candidates in 1836 the opposition finally coalesced in 1840 behind a popular general, William Henry Harrison, who proved the national Whig Party could win.
The Whigs came to unite around economic policy, celebrating Clay's vision of the "American System" which favored government support for a more modern, market-oriented economy in which education and commerce would count for more than physical labor or land ownership. Whigs sought to promote faster industrialization through protective tariffs, a business-oriented monetary policy with a new Bank of the United States, and a vigorous program of "internal improvements"—-especially to roads and canal systems-—funded by the proceeds of public land sales. The Whigs also promoted public schools, private colleges, charities, and cultural institutions.
By contrast, the Democrats hearkened to the Jeffersonian political philosophy ideal of an egalitarian agricultural society, advising that traditional farm life bred republican simplicity, while modernization threatened to create a politically powerful caste of rich aristocrats who threatened to subvert democracy. The Democrats wanted America to expand horizontally, by adding more land through Manifest Destiny. Whigs had a very different vision: they wanted to deepen the socio-economic system by adding more and more layers of complexity, such as banks, factories, and railroads. In general, the Democrats were more successful at enacting their policies on the national level, while the Whigs were more successful in passing modernization projects, such as canals and railroads, at the state level, but not federal.
Party structure
Rejecting the automatic party loyalty that was the hallmark of tight Democratic party organization, the Whigs suffered from factionalism throughout their existence. On the other hand, the Whigs had a superb network of newspapers that provided an internal information system; their leading editor was Horace Greeley of the powerful New York Tribune. In their heyday, the 1840s, Whigs won 49 percent of gubernatorial elections with strong bases of support in the manufacturing Northeast and the border states. The trend over time, however, was for the Democratic Party to grow more quickly, and for the Whigs to lose more and more marginal states and districts. After the closely contested 1844 elections, the Democratic advantage widened and the Whigs were only able to win nationally by splitting the opposition. This was partly because of the increased political importance of the western states, which generally voted for Democrats, and Irish Catholic and German immigrants, who also tended to vote for Democrats.
The Whigs won votes in every socio-economic category, but appealed more to the professional and business classes: doctors, lawyers, merchants, ministers, bankers, storekeepers, factory owners, commercially-oriented farmers and large-scale planters largely supported the Whigs. (In North Carolina, however, the large-scale planters were more often Democrats.) In general, commercial and manufacturing towns and areas voted Whig, save for strongly Democratic precincts in Irish Catholic and German immigrant communities; the Democrats often sharpened their appeals to the poor by ridiculing the Whigs' aristocratic pretensions. Protestant religious revivals also injected a moralistic element into the Whig ranks, which sent many targets of moralism (such as those affected by calls for prohibition) to seek refuge within the Democratic party.
The early years
In the 1836 elections, the party was not yet sufficiently organized to run one nationwide candidate; instead William Henry Harrison ran in the northern and border states, Hugh Lawson White ran in the South, and Daniel Webster ran in his home state of Massachusetts. It was hoped that the Whig candidates would amass enough U.S. Electoral College votes among them to deny a majority to Martin Van Buren, which under the United States Constitution would place the election under control of the House of Representatives, allowing the ascendant Whigs to select the most popular Whig candidate as President. The tactic failed to achieve its objective, although it did play a role in throwing that year's Vice-Presidential election into the Senate.
In 1839, the Whigs held their first national convention and nominated William Henry Harrison as their presidential candidate. Harrison went on to victory in 1840, defeating Van Buren's re-election bid largely as a result of the Panic of 1837 and subsequent depression. Harrison served only 31 days and became the first President to die in office. He was succeeded by John Tyler, a Virginian and states' rights absolutist. Tyler vetoed the Whig economic legislation and was expelled from the Whig party in 1841. The Whigs' internal disunity and the nation's increasing prosperity made the party's activist economic program seem less necessary, and led to a disastrous showing in the 1842 Congressional elections. tommy is sweet
A brief golden age
By 1844, the Whigs began their recovery by nominating Henry Clay, who lost to Democrat James K. Polk in a closely contested race, with Polk's policy of western expansion (particularly the annexation of Texas) and free trade triumphing over Clay's protectionism and caution over the Texas question. The Whigs, both northern and southern, strongly opposed the Mexican-American War, which they (including Whig Congressman Abraham Lincoln) saw as an unprincipled land grab, but they were split (as were the Democrats) by the anti-slavery Wilmot Proviso of 1846. In 1848, the Whigs, seeing no hope of succeeding by nominating Clay, nominated General Zachary Taylor, a Mexican-American War hero. They stopped criticizing the war and adopted no platform at all. Taylor defeated Democratic candidate Lewis Cass and the anti-slavery Free Soil Party, who had nominated former President Martin Van Buren. Van Buren's candidacy split the Democratic vote in New York, throwing that state to the Whigs; at the same time, however, the Free Soilers probably cost the Whigs several Midwestern states.
Compromise of 1850
Taylor was firmly opposed to the Compromise of 1850, committed to the admission of California as a free state, and had proclaimed that he would take military action to prevent secession. But, in July 1850, Taylor died; Vice President Millard Fillmore, a long-time Whig, became President and helped push the Compromise through Congress, in the hopes of ending the controversies over slavery.
Death throes, 1852–56
1852 was the beginning of the end for the Whigs. The deaths of Henry Clay and Daniel Webster that year severely weakened the party. The Compromise of 1850 fractured the Whigs along pro- and anti-slavery lines, with the anti-slavery faction having enough power to deny Fillmore the party's nomination in 1852. Attempting to repeat their earlier successes, the Whigs nominated popular General Winfield Scott, who lost decisively to the Democrats' Franklin Pierce. The Democrats won the election by a large margin: Pierce won 27 of the 31 states including Scott's home state of Virginia. Whig Representative Lewis Davis Campbell of Ohio was particularly distraught by the defeat, exclaiming, "We are slayed. The party is dead--dead--dead!" Increasingly politicians realized that the party was a loser. For example, Abraham Lincoln, its Illinois leader, simply walked away and attended to his law business.
In 1854, the Kansas-Nebraska Act exploded on the scene. Southern Whigs generally supported the Act while Northern Whigs strongly opposed it. Most remaining Northern Whigs, like Lincoln, joined the new Republican Party and strongly attacked the Act, appealing to widespread northern outrage over the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. Other Whigs in 1854 joined the Know-Nothing Party, attracted by its nativist crusades against "corrupt" Irish and German immigrants. In the South, many Whigs were partyless, until a variation of the Know-Nothings called the American Party won over their votes between 1855 and 1859. Some Whigs supported Fillmore in 1856; after a three month delay, he renounced nativism, accepted the American Party nomination and campaigned against the danger of civil war should Republican John C. Fremont be elected. Historians estimate that, in the South, Fillmore retained 86 percent of the 1852 Whig voters. He won only 13% of the northern vote, though that was just enough to tip Pennsylvania out of the Republican column. The future in the North, most observers thought at the time, was Republican. No one saw any prospects for the shrunken old party, and after 1856 there was virtually no Whig organization left anywhere. Holt p 979-80
In 1860, many former Whigs who had not joined the Republicans regrouped as the Constitutional Union Party, which nominated only a national ticket; it had considerable strength in the border states, which feared the onset of civil war. John Bell finished third to ex-Whig Abraham Lincoln of the Republican Party and Southern Democrat John C. Breckinridge in a four-way race (with Northern Democrat Stephen A. Douglas fourth), triggering the American Civil War. During the latter part of the war and Reconstruction, some former Whigs tried to regroup in the South, calling themselves "Conservatives", and hoping to reconnect with ex-Whigs in the North. They were soon swallowed up by the Democratic party in its struggle and achievement of single party white rule of the South.
Presidents from the Whig Party
Presidents of the United States, dates in office
- William Henry Harrison (1841)
- John Tyler (1841-1845) (see note below)
- Zachary Taylor (1849-1850)
- Millard Fillmore (1850-1853)
Note: Although Tyler was elected vice president as a Whig, his policies soon proved to be opposed to most of the Whig agenda, and he was officially expelled from the party in 1841, a few months after taking office.
Additionally, John Quincy Adams, elected President as a Democratic Republican, later became a Whig when he was elected to the House of Representatives in 1831.
Candidates
[1]Died in office.
[2]Fillmore and Donelson were also candidates on the American Party ticket.
See also
- History of United States Republican Party
- American election campaigns in the 19th century
- List of political parties in the United States
- British Whig Party
- Mathew Carey (c. 1760-c. 1839): His efforts and publications are thought to have significantly influenced the establishment of the party.
- List of Whig National Conventions
References
- Altschuler, Glenn C. (1997). "Limits of Political Engagement in Antebellum America: A New Look at the Golden Age of Participatory Democracy". Journal of American History. 84: 878–79.
{{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter|coauthors=ignored (|author=suggested) (help); Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) Online through JSTOR - Bartlett, Irving H. (1978). Daniel Webster.
- Baker, Jean (1983). Affairs of Party: The Political Culture of Northern Democrats in the Mid-Nineteenth Century.
- Benson, Lee (1961). The Concept of Jacksonian Democracy: New York as a Test Case.
- Beveridge, Albert J. (1928). Abraham Lincoln, 1809–1858. pp. vol. 1, ch. 4–8.
- Brown, Thomas (1985). Politics and Statesmanship: Essays on the American Whig Party.
- Cleaves, Freeman (1939). Old Tippecanoe: William Henry Harrison and His Time.
- Cole, Arthur Charles (1913). The Whig Party in the South.
- Foner, Eric (1970). Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party before the Civil War.
- Formisano, Ronald P. (1969). "Political Character, Antipartyism, and the Second Party System". American Quarterly. 21: 683–709.
{{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) Online through JSTOR - Formisano, Ronald P. (1974). "Deferential-Participant Politics: The Early Republic's Political Culture, 1789–1840". American Political Science Review. 68: 473–87.
{{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) Online through JSTOR - Formisano, Ronald P. (1983). The Transformation of Political Culture: Massachusetts Parties, 1790s–1840s.
- Hammond, Bray. Banks and Politics in America from the Revolution to the Civil War (1960), Pulitzer prize; the standard history. Pro-Bank
- Hofstadter, Richard (1969). The Idea of a Party System: The Rise of Legitimate Opposition in the United States, 1780–1840. Berkeley.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - Holt, Michael F. (1992). Political Parties and American Political Development: From the Age of Jackson to the Age of Lincoln.
- Holt, Michael F. (1999). The Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party: Jacksonian Politics and the Onset of the Civil War. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-505544-6.
- Howe, Daniel Walker (1973). The American Whigs: An Anthology.
- Howe, Daniel Walker (1991). "The Evangelical Movement and Political Culture during the Second Party System". Journal of American History. 77: 1216–39.
{{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) Online through JSTOR - Kruman, Marc W. (1992). "The Second Party System and the Transformation of Revolutionary Republicanism". Journal of the Early Republic. 12: 509–37.
{{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) Online through JSTOR - Marshall, Lynn. (1967). "The Strange Stillbirth of the Whig Party". American Historical Review. 72: 445–68.
{{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) Online through JSTOR - McCormick, Richard L. (1986). The Party Period and Public Policy: American Politics from the Age of Jackson to the Progressive Era.
- McCormick, Richard P. (1966). The Second American Party System: Party Formation in the Jacksonian Era.
- Pessen, Edward (1977). The Many-Faceted Jacksonian Era: New Interpretations.
- Pessen, Edward (1978). Jacksonian America: Society, Personality, and Politics.
- Remini, Robert V. (1959). Martin Van Buren and the Making of the Democratic Party.
- Remini, Robert V. (1991). Henry Clay: Statesman for the Union. W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 0-393-31088-4.
- Remini, Robert V. (1997). Daniel Webster.
- Riddle, Donald W. (1948). Lincoln Runs for Congress.
- Schlesinger, Arthur Meier, Jr. ed. History of American Presidential Elections, 1789–2000 (various multivolume editions, latest is 2001). For each election includes good scholarly history and selection of primary documents. Essays on the most important elections are reprinted in Schlesinger, The Coming to Power: Critical presidential elections in American history (1972)
- Schurz, Carl (1899). Life of Henry Clay: American Statesmen. pp. vol. 2.
- Shade, William G. (1983). "The Second Party System". In Paul Kleppner, et al. (contributors) (ed.). Evolution of American Electoral Systems.
{{cite book}}:|editor=has generic name (help) - Sharp, James Roger. The Jacksonians Versus the Banks: Politics in the States after the Panic of 1837 (1970)
- Silbey, Joel H. (1991). The American Political Nation, 1838–1893.
- Taylor; George Rogers, ed. Jackson Versus Biddle: The Struggle over the Second Bank of the United States (1949)
- Van Deusen, Glyndon G. (1953). Horace Greeley, Nineteenth-Century Crusader.
- Van Deusen, Glyndon (1973). "The Whig Party". In Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. (ed.) (ed.). History of U.S. Political Parties. Chelsea House Publications. pp. 1:331–63. ISBN 0-7910-5731-3.
{{cite book}}:|editor=has generic name (help) - Van Deusen, Glyndon G. Thurlow Weed, Wizard of the Lobby (1947)
- Wilentz, Sean (2005). The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln.
- Wilson, Major L. Space, Time, and Freedom: The Quest for Nationality and the Irrepressible Conflict, 1815-1861 (1974) intellectual history of Whigs and Democrats