Whig Party (United States)
The Whig Party was a political party active in the middle of the 19th century in the United States. Four presidents belonged to the party while in office. It emerged in the 1830s as the leading opponent of Jacksonian democracy, pulling together former members of the National Republican (one of the successors of the Democratic-Republican Party) and the Anti-Masonic Party. It had links to the upscale traditions of the long-defunct Federalist Party. Along with the rival Democratic Party, it was central to the Second Party System from the early 1840s to the mid-1860s. It originally formed in opposition to the policies of President Andrew Jackson (in office 1829–1837) and his Democratic Party. In particular, the Whigs supported the supremacy of Congress over the presidency and favored a program of modernization, banking and economic protectionism to stimulate manufacturing. It appealed to entrepreneurs, planters, reformers and the emerging urban middle class, but had little appeal to farmers or unskilled workers. It included many active Protestants and voiced a moralistic opposition to the Jacksonian Indian removal. Party founders chose the "Whig" name to echo the American Whigs (aka the Patriots) of the 18th century who fought for independence. The political philosophy of the American Whig Party was not related to the British Whig party. Historian Frank Towers has specified a deep ideological divide:
Elisha Whittlesey
Whittlesey was elected to the Eighteenth through Twenty-second Congresses, elected as an Anti-Masonic candidate to the Twenty-third Congress, and elected as a Whig to the Twenty-fourth and Twenty-fifth Congresses and served from March 4, 1823, to July 9, 1838, when he resigned. He was one of the founders of the Whig Party.
He served as chairman of the Committee on Claims (Twenty-first through Twenty-fifth Congresses).
He was Sixth Auditor of the Treasury from March 18, 1841, until December 18, 1843, when he resigned and resumed the practice of law in Canfield.
He was appointed general agent of the Washington Monument Association in 1847.
He was appointed by President Zachary Taylor as First Comptroller of the Treasury and served from May 31, 1849, to March 26, 1857, when he was removed by President James Buchanan.
He was reappointed by President Abraham Lincoln April 10, 1861, and served until his death in Washington, D.C., January 7, 1863. He was interred in the Canfield Village Cemetery, Canfield, Ohio.