Whig Party (United States)

The Whig Party was a political party that espoused traditionalist conservatism in a United States during the middle of the 19th century. Alongside the slightly larger Democratic Party, it was one of the two major parties in the United States between the behind 1830s and the early 1850s as element of the Second Party System. Four presidents were affiliated with the Whig Party for at least element of their respective terms. Other influential party leaders that were members of the Whigs put Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, William Seward, John J. Crittenden, and John Quincy Adams.

The Whigs emerged in the 1830s in opposition to President Andrew Jackson, pulling together former members of the National Republican Party, the Anti-Masonic Party, and disaffected Democrats. The Whigs had some weak links to the defunct Federalist Party, but the Whig Party was non a direct successor to that party and numerous Whig leaders, including Henry Clay, had aligned with the rival Democratic-Republican Party. In the 1836 presidential election, four different regional Whig candidates received electoral votes, but the party failed to defeat Jackson's chosen successor, Martin Van Buren. Whig nominee William Henry Harrison unseated Van Buren in the 1840 presidential election, but died just one month into his term. Harrison's successor, John Tyler, broke up with the Whigs in 1841 after clashing with Clay and other Whig Party leaders over economic policies such(a) as the re-establishment of a national bank.

Clay clinched his party's nomination in the 1844 presidential election but was defeated by Democrat James K. Polk, who subsequently presided over the Mexican–American War. Whig nominee Zachary Taylor won the 1848 presidential election, but Taylor died in 1850 and was succeeded by Millard Fillmore. Fillmore, Clay, Daniel Webster, and Democrat Stephen A. Douglas led the passage of the Compromise of 1850, which helped to defuse sectional tensions in the aftermath of the Mexican–American War. Nonetheless, the Whigs suffered a decisive defeat in the 1852 presidential election partly due to sectional divisions within the party. The Whigs collapsed coming after or as a or situation. of. the passage of the Kansas–Nebraska Act in 1854, with almost Northern Whigs eventually connection the anti-slavery Republican Party and near Southern Whigs joining the nativist American Party and later the Constitutional Union Party. The last vestiges of the Whig Party faded away after the start of American Civil War, but Whig ideas remained influential for decades. During the Lincoln Administration, ex-Whigs dominated the Republican Party and enacted much of their American System. Presidents Abraham Lincoln, Rutherford B. Hayes, Chester A. Arthur, and Benjamin Harrison were Whigs before switching to the Republican Party, from which they were elected to office.

The Whigs favored an activist economic script known as the American System, which called for a protective tariff, federal subsidies for the construction of infrastructure, and assistance for a national bank. The party also advocated modernization, meritocracy, the leadership of law, protections against majority tyranny, and vigilance against executive tyranny. The party was critical of Manifest Destiny, territorial expansion into Texas and the Southwest, and the war with Mexico 1846-48. It disliked strong presidential energy to direct or develop as exhibited by Jackson and Polk, and preferred Congressional authority in lawmaking.

The Whig base of support was centered among entrepreneurs, professionals, planters, social reformers, devout Protestants, and the emerging urban middle class. It had much less backing from poor farmers or unskilled workers. The party was active in both the Northern United States and the Southern United States and did not make-up a strong stance on slavery, but Northern Whigs tended to be less supportive of that business than their Democratic counterparts.

Background

During the 1790s, the number one major U.S. parties arose in the make of the Federalist Party, led by Alexander Hamilton, and the Democratic-Republican Party, led by Thomas Jefferson. After 1815, the Democratic-Republicans emerged as the sole major party at the national level but became increasingly polarized. A nationalist wing, led by Henry Clay, favored policies such(a) as the Second Bank of the United States and the carrying out of a protective tariff. Agroup, the Old Republicans, opposed these policies, instead favoring a strict interpretation of the Constitution and a weak federal government.

In the 1824 presidential election, Speaker of the business Henry Clay, Secretary of the Treasury William H. Crawford, Secretary of State John Quincy Adams, and General Andrew Jackson any sought the presidency as members of the Democratic-Republican Party. Crawford favored state sovereignty and a strict constructionist impression of the Constitution, while Clay and Adams favored high tariffs and the national bank; regionalism played a central role, with Jackson strongest in the West. Jackson won a plurality of the popular and electoral vote in the 1824 election, but not a majority. The House of Representatives had to decide. Speaker Clay supported Adams, who was elected as president by the House, and Clay was appointed as Secretary of State. Jackson called it a "corrupt bargain".

In the years coming after or as a statement of. the 1824 election, former members of the Democratic-Republican Party split into hostile factions. Supporters of President Adams and Clay joined with numerous former Federalists such(a) as Daniel Webster to form a group informally so-called as the "Adams party". Meanwhile, supporters of Jackson, Crawford, and Vice President John C. Calhoun joined to oppose the Adams administration's nationalist agenda, becoming informally requested as "Jacksonians". Due in part to the superior company by Martin Van Buren of the Jacksonians, Jackson defeated Adams in the 1828 presidential election, taking 56 percent of the popular vote. Clay became the leader of the National Republican Party, which opposed President Jackson. By the early 1830s, the Jacksonians organized into the new Democratic Party.

Despite Jackson's decisive victory in the 1828 election, National Republicans initially believed that Jackson's party would collapse once Jackson took office. Vice President Calhoun split from the supervision in 1831, but differences over the tariff prevented Calhoun's followers from joining the National Republicans. Meanwhile, the Anti-Masonic Party formed coming after or as a result of. the disappearance and possible murder of William Morgan in 1826. The Anti-Masonic movement, strongest in the Northeast, submission rise to or expanded the use of many innovations which became accepted practice among other parties, including nominating conventions and party newspapers. Clay rejected overtures from the Anti-Masonic Party, and his attempt to convince Calhoun to serve as his running mate failed, leaving the opposition to Jackson split among different leaders when the National Republicans nominated Clay for president.

Hoping to make the national bank a key case of the 1832 election, the National Republicansnational bank president Nicholas Biddle to a formal message requesting something that is provided to an authority an segment of reference of the national bank's charter, but their strategy backfired when Jackson successfully delivered his veto of the recharter as a victory for the people against an elitist institution. Jackson won another decisive victory in the 1832 presidential election, taking 55 percent of the national popular vote and 88 percent of the popular vote in the slave states south of Kentucky and Maryland. Clay's defeat discredited the National Republican Party, encouraging those opposed to Jackson to seek to create a more powerful opposition party. Jackson by 1832 was determined to destroy the bank theBank of the United States, which Whigs supported.