The relationship between the collapse of the Whig Party, the divide in the Democrat Party, and the Republican Presidential victory in 1860 was a reflection of how deeply the country was divided over the issue of slavery. Although anti-slavery sentiment was growing in the north, it was the expansion of the west and whether or not to allow those territories to become slave states that caused tremendous eruption on both sides of the issue. In as much as both parties tried to find a compromising solution, it was problematic and created divisions in the parties that could not be easily mended. The Whig Party was an odd mixture of Southern slaveholders, free market businessmen, anti-slave supporters, Protestants, and abolitionist who mainly came
The coexistence of a slave owning south with an increasingly anti-slavery north made conflict likely. It was formidable to decide whether such states like the ones gained from the Mexican War should be slavery or anti-slavery, which either way would disrupt the balance between the slave and antislavery states. This divided the Union and Confederacy even further. Later on, President Lincoln sought not to propose federal laws against slavery where it already existed, but he had in his 1858 House Divided speech, expressed a desire to “arrest the further spread of it “(Doc. G). Much of the political battle in the 1850s focused on the expansion of slavery into the newly created territories. All of the organized territories were likely to become free soil states which increased the southern movement toward secession. Both north and south assumed that if slavery could not expand it would become nonexistent. Southern fears of losing control of the federal government to anti-slavery forces, and northern feared that the slave power already controlled the government; these thoughts brought the sectional disagreements. The morality of slavery, the scope of democracy, and the economic merits of free labor versus slave plantations caused the Whig and know nothing parties to collapse and the free soil party to arrive, ruining the resolve of compromise.
The rivalry between the Democrats and the Whigs was important because it started the Second Party System that we have in America today.
uring the first half of the 19th century the Second Great Awakening was taking place, calling for a social and religious reevaluation of many of the Americans' actions and their beliefs. In addition to arising conflicts in beliefs developed during this period, the election of 1828 was one of the major events that highlighted the divisions that were present in the American people, as it went far enough to cause the creation of two opposing political parties, something that had never happened before. The major political cause for thee sectionalism was the split in interpretation of the Constitution. The major social cause for sectionalism was splits between viewpoints on issues such as slavery and women's rights. Lastly, the major economic cause for the sectionalism in
In the 1800s, politics started to change drastically. It was no longer Whigs versus Democrats but North versus South. In every government decision sectionalism became more evident. The Wilmot Proviso is an example that shows sectionalism in the Democratic Party. The South wanted slavery in the lands acquired from Mexico. The North was against slavery in the Mexican Territories. In the North and South, slavery was not the only difference between them. They had very different social lives and economies. The North was very industrialized. Many immigrants came to the North to work in factories. The influx of immigrants caused the birth rate to increase and the population to
The political turmoils of nineteenth century America gave way to a massive Civil War which claimed hundreds of thousands of lives. The United States were divided geographically and ideologically. The North was an industrial powerhouse based on (relatively) free labor that focused on factories and manufactures. In its economy it had no need for slaves and was dead set against the very institution of slavery. On the other hand, the south was the agricultural center of the U.S.A. and relied heavily on a large slave population to do most of the manual labor. The election of 1860 pitted these two different world views against each other. The pro slavery Southern Democrat John C. Breckinridge and the abolitionist Republican Abraham Lincoln were
The 1850s were believed to be a period of compromise to prevent Southern secession from the Union. Instead, it brought more divisions along sectional lines, Northern Democrats and Northern Whigs (free-states) against the Southern Democrats and Southern Whigs (slave states). David M. Potter’s book Impending Crisis provides evidence of sectionalism between free and slave states. Potter contends that during the expansionist period of the 1840s the country was experiencing a growth of American nationalism, but “the emergence of the sectionalism which almost destroyed the nation was symbolized by an amendment to an appropriation bill which was never enacted.” For the next fifteen years the Wilmot Proviso (1846) and the issue of slavery would become “a catalyst of all sectional antagonisms, political, economic, and cultural…opened the floodgates of sectionalism, for now all the pent-up moral indignation which had been walled in by the constitutional inhibition could be vented into the territorial question.”
The Whigs employed similar strategies to the ones employed during Jackson’s two successful campaigns, but there were a few key differences that separated the Democrats and Whigs in their form of campaigning. William Henry Harrison was the
In 1854, The Whigs, which were a political faction and then a political party in the parliaments of England, Scotland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, started meeting in the upper midwestern states to discuss the formation of a new party. One of the meetings, which was held in Wisconsin on March 20th, 1854, is considered the founding meeting of the Republican Party. The Republican Party, which was officially founded by Abraham Lincoln, is also known as the GOP, Grand Old Party. The Republican Party was founded by anti-slavery activists, modernists, ex-whigs and ex-free soilers. The first official party convention was held on July 6th, 1854, in Jackson, Michigan.
The core issue of the Republican Party, and Lincoln was over the extension of slavery. Abolitionists and supporters of free soil in the North worked to keep the Republicans from compromising on their territorial stand. In the South, proslavery advocates and secessionists gathered public opinion and demanded that state conventions assemble to consider secession.
It is yet another day I live and walk this earth. About 2 years ago an election occurred where two parties --the Democratic and Whig Party--had split because of the slavery issue occurring in our nation. As you know, I am against slavery and believe that keeping men, women, and children as slaves is morally wrong. I, for one, would not like to be treated like crud and taken away from my dear family. Why is it that the South believe they are happy in unsanitary and cruel conditions? Blacks are people too, just like us, there is no need to treat them like they are anything less.
The Jacksonian Democratic Party and the Whig Party each, exemplified different beliefs on the role of the federal government in the economy and towards westward expansion in the 1830s and 1840s. However, the Jacksonian, laissez faire supporting Democrats and the economic nationalistic Whig party shared almost no beliefs except for the removal of American Indians in the areas their supporters wished to settle. The lack of similarities is because the Whigs formed their own party to oppose President Jackson’s strong-armed leadership style and policies which earned him the nickname “King Andrew.” The Jacksonian Democratic Party evolved out of the Democratic-Republican Party in the early 1800s, the core of its membership was composed of farmers, immigrants, and white Southerners. The Whigs formed in 1834 and lasted for 20 years, they were the major political party that opposed Andrew Jackson. The Whigs were created based upon the Federalist beliefs in a strong federal government and adopted many Federalist and National Republican policy ideas, including federal funding for internal improvements, a central bank, and high tariffs to protect the growth of manufacturing enterprises. Overall, the Jacksonian Democratic agrarian Party and the industrialization supporting Whig Party had different beliefs toward the role of the federal government in the economy and towards westward expansion.
The conflict between the Democrat party and the Whig party was based around California's admission to the union as a free state. This would upset the balance of power between free and slave states in congress, resulting in a legislative battle between the North and the South. The south had argued that Congress and the states did not have the authority to legislate against the territorial expansion of slavery. The Democrats and the Whigs realized that this was a very delicate topic which could split the country. Eventually the Whigs and the Democrats came to a compromise, which they hoped would prevent a secession. This was known as the Compromise of 1850. The Compromise of 1850 allowed California to be admitted as a free state, but it also
Enter the presidential election of 1860, which brought these problems to a collision with dramatic consequences. The Democratic Party split into three groups along their regional lines, with each one vying for control of the party and each holding different ideas about how to deal with slavery in the West. They camps consisted of John C. Breckinride, John Bell, and Stephen A. Douglas; their efforts would be worthless however, as Abraham Lincoln would win for the Republican Party. Lincoln stood on the grounds that the West should be absolutely free of slavery entirely; which apparently was enough as he won the election with less than forty percent of the popular vote. On a side note about the election, fifty-nine percent of the Electoral College did vote for Lincoln;
During the times leading up to the Civil War the Whig Party had an internal power vacuum that led to their downfall. Out of the rubble and smoke came a new political party known as the Republican Party with a new leader running for office, Abraham Lincoln (Thinker, America).
To begin with, under Andrew Jackson the Democratic-Republicans took name of Democrats. The two parties, the Whigs and the Democratic Republicans, had generally opposite opinions on many issues. To begin with, their economic beliefs were opposite, especially on the existence of a national bank and the existence of tariffs because of their usual geographical location. The Whigs wanted a strong national bank and high tariffs in order to support their industries and manufacturing in the north. On the other hand, the Democrats wanted low tariffs and state banks because they wanted to ensure they would be able to profit as much as possible from the trading of cotton to foreign countries, as their south had an agriculturally based economy. Furthermore, they had different opinions on the extent of the federal government’s power. The Whigs, who were originally the Federalists, wanted