Whig Party

Examples of Whig Party in the following topics:

• The Election of 1852

  • The presidential election of 1852 was the last time the Whig Party nominated a candidate; the party collapsed shortly thereafter.
  • The election of 1852 was the last election in which the Whig Party nominated a candidate before the party collapsed following Winfield Scott’s loss to Franklin Pierce.
  • The 1852 Whig National Convention held in Baltimore was bitterly divided.
  • The outcome was a testament to the sectional and organizational weaknesses within the Whig Party.
  • With the demise of the Whig Party, many Northerners, bitterly resenting the heavy enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act under Pierce, began to loosely coalesce with the emerging antislavery Republican Party.

• Whigs and Democrats

  • The deaths of Henry Clay and Daniel Webster that year severely weakened the party, and the Compromise of 1850 fractured the Whigs along proslavery and antislavery lines.
  • Other Whigs with xenophobic views joined the American Party.
  • Many Northern, antislavery Democrats flocked to the Free-Soil coalition and joined Northern Whigs to form the Republican Party, whereas Southern, proslavery Democrats coalesced to form the Southern Democratic Party.
  • This political cartoon about the 1848 presidential election refers to Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott, the two leading contenders for the Whig Party nomination in the aftermath of the Mexican-American War.
  • Examine the points of contention within the Whig and Democratic Parties

• The Rise of the Republican Party

  • The Republican Party was formed out of a loose coalition of Northern ex-Whigs who resented Southern political power.
  • Following the collapse of the Whigs during the election of 1852, a major realignment of the American political party system occurred with former Whigs splintering into various political factions.
  • Anti-immigration and temperance movements formed the platform of the emerging American ("Know-Nothing") Party, while those interested in the economic development of finance and business in the West and North were attracted to the Republican Party.
  • The driving ideological forces of the Republican Party were commercial expansion, modernization, and agricultural development in the West.
  • Explain why the Republican Party emerged after the collapse of the Whig Party

• Jackson and the Democratic Party

  • The modern Democratic Party arose in the 1830s out of factions from the largely disbanded Democratic-Republican Party.
  • The spirit of Jacksonian democracy animated the party from the early 1830s to the 1850s, shaping the Second Party System, with the Whig Party serving as the main opposition.
  • Both Democrats and Whigs were divided on the issue of slavery.
  • Most Whigs, including Illinois Congressman Abraham Lincoln, strongly opposed the war.
  • In state after state, however, the Democrats gained small but permanent advantages over the Whig Party, which finally collapsed in 1852, fatally weakened by its division over slavery and nativism.

• The Second Party System

  • The Second Party System, consisting largely of the Democrats and Whigs, contributed to rising levels of voter investment and partisanship.
  • The major parties during this time included the Democratic Party, led by Andrew Jackson, and the Whig Party, assembled by Henry Clay from the National Republicans and other opponents of Jackson.
  • Prominent Whig politicians included Daniel Webster, William H.
  • The Whig Party operated from the early 1830s to the mid-1850s and was formed in opposition to the policies of President Andrew Jackson and his Democratic Party.
  • In particular, the Whigs supported the supremacy of Congress over the presidency and favored a program of modernization and economic protectionism.

• The Election of 1840

  • The opposing Whig Party was unified for the first time behind war hero William Henry Harrison, who utilized his "log cabin campaign" to recruit voters alienated by the national economic climate.
  • The party refused to renominate his sitting Vice President, Richard Mentor Johnson.
  • The convention came on the heels of a string of Whig electoral losses.
  • Another important consideration was that the vice presidential nominee should be a Clay supporter, so as to appease that faction of the Whigs and unite the party.
  • Meanwhile, his Whig Party focused on attracting a broad political coalition rather than making ideological alliances.

• The Transfer of Power between the Federalists and the Republicans

  • The First Party System defined the development of the first U.S. political parties: the Federalists and the Democrat-Republicans.
  • It featured two national parties competing for control of the presidency, Congress, and the state governments: the Federalist Party, created largely by Alexander Hamilton, and the rival Democratic-Republican Party formed by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison .
  • By 1796, politics in every state was nearly monopolized by the two parties, with party newspapers and caucuses becoming especially effective tools to mobilize voters.
  • Social scientists label the end of the First Party System during the Era of Good Feelings (1816–1824), as the Federalists shrank to a few isolated strongholds and the Republicans lost party unity.
  • In 1824-1828, as the Second Party System emerged, the Republican Party split into the Jacksonian faction, which became the modern Democratic Party in the 1830s, and the Henry Clay faction, which was absorbed by Clay's Whig Party.

• The Democratization of the Political Arena

  • The Democratic-Republican Party of the Jeffersonians had become factionalized in the 1820s.
  • Jackson's supporters began to form the modern Democratic Party; they fought the rival Adams and anti-Jacksonian factions, which soon emerged as the Whigs.
  • The Whigs were the inheritors of Jeffersonian Democracy, in terms of promoting schools and colleges.
  • There was usually a consensus among both Jacksonians and Whigs that battles over slavery should be avoided.
  • The Whigs generally opposed manifest destiny and expansion, saying the nation should build up its cities.

• The Spread of Democracy

  • Voter turnout soared during the Second Party System, reaching about 80 percent of adult white men by 1840.
  • The Democratic-Republican Party of the Jeffersonians became factionalized in the 1820s.
  • Jackson's supporters began to form the modern Democratic Party and fought the rival Adams and Anti-Jacksonian factions, which soon emerged as the Whigs.
  • The Whigs became the inheritors of Jeffersonian Democracy in terms of promoting schools and colleges.
  • Nonetheless, there was usually a consensus among both Jacksonians and Whigs that battles over slavery should be avoided.

• Political Participation and Party Loyalty

  • The Whigs and Republicans were especially effective in winning support among pietistic and evangelical denominations.
  • The Whigs and Republicans aggressively favored modernizing the economy, supporting banks, railroads, factories, and tariffs, and promised a rich home market in the cities for farm products.
  • The Whigs always opposed expansion, as did the Republicans until 1898.
  • Both parties set up campaign clubs, such as the Wide Awakes, in which young men paraded in torchlight processions wearing special uniforms and holding colorful banners.
  • Some counties passed the 100-percent mark not because of fraud but because the parties tracked people down whom the census missed.