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:
List of United States National Republican/Whig Party presidential tickets
The collapse of the Whigs after 1852 left political chaos. Even though the party disintegrated, it continued to win some elections under its own banner, as the "Opposition Party", or as the American Party. The American, or "Know-Nothing" Party, formed from various prohibitionist and nativist movements, based originally on the secret Know-Nothing lodges. It was a moralistic party that appealed to the middle class fear of corruption, which it identified with Catholics, especially the recent Irish immigrants who seemed to bring crime, corruption, poverty and bossism as soon as they arrived. Remnants of the Whig party met once more in convention in 1856, and nominated the Know Nothing's nominees in order to provide a "centerist" pro-slavery alternative to James Buchanan.
The Republican Party was more driven, in terms of ideology and talent; it surpassed the hapless Whig/American Party coalition in 1856. By 1858 the Republicans controlled majorities in every Northern state, and hence controlled the electoral votes for president in 1860. The tattered remnants of the Coalition's southern wing, under the name, "Constitutional Union Party", ran a ticket in order to prevent secession. They were joined by a few anti-secessionist Southern Democrats. Nearly all of the Northern wing had already joined the Republicans; the only free states where the Constitutional Union Party garnered more than 3% were Massachusetts and California.