Definition of turnbuckle. : a device that usually consists of a link with screw threads at both ends, that is turned to bring the ends closer together, and that is used for tightening a rod or stay.
Such splintering had not yet led to formal party organization, but later the faction led by Andrew Jackson would evolve into the Democratic Party, while the factions led by John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay would become the National Republican Party and later the Whig Party.
Clay never became president, and his Whig party disappeared shortly after his death. But its successor, the Republican party, put many features of the American System into operation. In the long run, his economic and political vision of America was largely fulfilled.