A Whig Person was the political party of the United States from 1834 to 1860, formed to oppose the policies of President Andrew Jackson, a Democrat, and particularly supporting a mastery of Congress over the Executive Branch & favoring the program of modernization & economic development. Their title was chosen to echo a British Whig Party, opponents of Tories who favored the heavy Monarch, and implied that supporters of Jackson's hard executive office of the president were profits royalists. Within its Twenty-six-season being, a Whig Person saw 2 of its candidates elected President of the United States, William Henry Harrison and Zachary Taylor — and both of the two die around professional. 4 months fallowing succeeding Harrison, Whig President John Tyler was expelled from a Person, & Millard Fillmore, Taylor's Vice President, would prove to be a go Whig to hang on to a united states's greatest professional.

A Person, which counted among its members such national political notability when Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and Winfield Scott, was ultimately deeply divided per wonder of whether to allow a expansion of slavery in the United States, leading to its selection to dog Scott above its have incumbent President Fillmore in the U.S. Presidential election of 1852.

A Whig Person never elected a second President, & saw its elector base supplanted per nativist Know-Nothing Party (which unsuccessfully nominated Fillmore for President in 1856), the Constitutional Union Party (which with Whig support ran John Bell for President in 1860), and the anti-slavery United States Republican Party, whose candidate, a former Whig Congressman named Abraham Lincoln, was elected President in 1860, triggering the end of the Whig Party and the beginning of the American Civil War.

Origins and policies

A Whig Person was formed in the wintertime of 1833-1834 at Washington dinner by National Republicans such as Henry Clay and John Quincy Adams, and by Southern States' Rights supporters such as W. P. Mangum. Around its early form a Whig Person was united merely by opposition to the policies of President Andrew Jackson, especially his removal of a deposits from the Bank of the United States without the consent of Congress. A Whigs too attracted a trend lines of Southerners like John Tyler who were offended by Jackson's strong nationalistic stand against South Carolina during the nullification crisis. A Whigs pledged themselves to Congressional domination, when opposed to "King Andrew"'s executive actions, & took their title from either a English Whig Party, which had opposed a power of the monarchy and supported Parliamentary control.

A Whigs come to unite as much as economic policy, celebrating Clay's vision of the "American System" which favorite government trend lines for even the further modern, market-oriented economy where education & commerce would count for to a higher degree physical labor or land ownership. Whigs sought to promote sooner industrialisation across hard tariffs, the business-oriented pecuniary policy by having the recently Bank of the United States, & the vigorous program of "internal improvements" — especially to roads & canal systems — funded per takings of public land sales. A Whigs too promoted public schools, personal colleges, charities, & ethnic institutions. By counterpoint, a Democrats harkened to the Jeffersonian ideal of an equalitarian farming society, advising that traditional domestic life bred republican simplicity, when modernization threatened to produce the politically mighty caste of rich patrician world health organization threatened to subvert democracy. Generally, a Democrats were extra successful at enacting their policies on a national level, when a Whigs were additional successful inside passing modernization projects at the state level.

Party structure

Rejecting a automatic person loyalty that was a hallmark of pinching Popular person organization, a Whigs suffered from either factionalism throughout their being. But then, the Whigs got a superb network of newspapers that provided an internal data system, & in the 1840s Whigs won 49 percent of gubernatorial elections with hard bases of trend lines in a manufacturing Northeast & the border states. A trend on top instance, but, was for a Democratic Person to develop additional quickly, & for the Whigs to lose extra & supplementary marginal states & dominion; fallowing the closely contested 1844 elections, a Popular benefit widened & a Whigs were exclusively respire to win nationally by splitting the opposition. This was part because of the increased political importance of the american states, which typically voted for Democrats, & Irish Catholic & German immigrants, world health organization likewise tended to vote for Democrats.

A Whigs won votes within each socio-economic category, however appealed other to a office classes: Bankers, market keeper, mill owners, commercially-oriented farmers & heavy-shell planters largely supported the Whigs. inside a main, commercial message & manufacturing towns & areas voted Whig, save for Popular wards in Irish Catholic & German immigrant communities; a Democrats typically sharpened their appeals to the poor people by ridiculing the Whigs' gentle pretensions. Protestant religious revivals as well injected a moralistic element into the Whig ranks, which sent several targets of moralism (like victims affected by calls for prohibition) to seek refuge inside a Popular person.

The early years

In the 1836 elections the person was non however sufficiently organized to redo 1 countrywide candidate; instead William Henry Harrison ran in the northern and border states, Hugh Lawson White ran in the South, & Daniel Webster ran in his house state of Massachusetts. It was hoped that a 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 manoeuvre failed to achieve its objective, although it did play a role inside throwing that season's Vice-Presidential election into a Senate.

Within 1839 the Whigs held their first national convention & nominated William Henry Harrison as their presidential candidate. Harrisin went on to triumph, defeating Van Buren's re-election bid largely following of the Panic of 1837 and subsequent depression.

When catching pneumonia during his two-hour inauguration speech, Harrison served simply 31 years & became a number one President to die around professional; he was succeeded by John Tyler, a Virginian & states' rights absolutist, who vetoed his own person's economic legislation & was expelled from either a Whigs inside 1841. A Whigs' internal disunity & a united states's increasing prosperity processed a person's activistic economic program seem less necessary, & led to the black showing in the 1842 Congressional elections.

A brief golden age

By 1844 the Whigs began their recovery by nominating Henry Clay, who wasted 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. A Whigs, each northern & southern, strongly opposing a war with Mexico, which many (including Whig Congresswoman Abraham Lincoln) saw when an unprincipled land grab, however it were split (as were a Democrats) per anti-slavery Wilmot Proviso of 1846. Inside 1848 the Whigs, seeing no hope of succeeding by nominating Clay & pushing their economic policies, selected Zachary Taylor, a Mexican-American War hero and adoptive there is no platform in the least. Taylor triumphed on top Popular candidate Lewis Cass and the anti-slavery Free Soil Party, who experienced nominated previous President Martin Van Buren. Van Buren's political campaign split a Popular vote around New York, throwing that state to a Whigs; at a equivalent instance, all the same, the Free Soilers probably numbers the Whigs many Midwestern states.

Experienced he lived, Taylor will develop triggered a Civil War decade years earliest: He was firmly opposed to the Compromise of 1850, committed to the admission of California as a free state, & experienced proclaimed that he would choose action to halt secession. However in July 4, 1850, Taylor contracted acute dyspepsia (probably a symptom of typhus or cholera) and 5 years late became a 2nd president to die within professional. Vice President Millard Fillmore assumed a Presidency & supported the Compromise.

A party divided

A Compromise of 1850 fractured a Whigs along pro- & anti-slavery lines, sustaining a anti-slavery faction with plenty power to deny Fillmore a person's nomination around 1852. Attempting to repeat their earliest successes, a Whigs nominated popular General Winfield Scott, who misplaced decisively to the Democrats' Franklin Pierce. the Democrats won a election by a big margin: Pierce won 27 of the 31 states including Scott's house state of Virginia. Whig Representative Lewis Campbell of Ohio was particularly distraught per kill, exclamation, "We are slayed. The party is dead--dead--dead!"

Inside 1854 the Kansas-Nebraska Act divided a Whigs potentially farther, when Southern Whigs usually supported the Work when Northern Whigs strongly opposed it. Northern Whigs ran against a Work, & appealed to far flung Northern outrage all over a annulment of the Missouri Compromise. A anti-immigration Know-Nothing Party, however, cut deeply into a Whig vote, overwhelming a Whigs in a mid-term elections, & the freshly formed Republican Party won support from either ill-affected Democrats & Whigs.

Around 1856 the remaining Whigs threw their trend lines behind Fillmore, world health organization by so experienced switched to the Know-Nothing Party (and world health organization misused to Democrat James Buchanan), and inside 1860 a few Whig diehards regrouped when a Constitutional Union Party and nominated John Bell. Bell finished third to ex-Whig Abraham Lincoln of the Republican Party & Southern Democrat John C. Breckinridge in a four-way race (with Northern Democrat Stephen A. Douglas fourth), triggering the American Civil War and bringing an end to the Whigs.

Presidents from the Whig Party

Presidents of the United States, dates in office