Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The Whig Party was a mid-19th century political party in the United States. [14] ... Northern Whigs tended to be more anti-slavery than Northern Democrats, ...
A smaller group of Northern Whig leaders, including Edward Everett, rejected both new parties and continued to adhere to the Whig Party. [158] In the South, most Whigs abandoned their party for the Know Nothings, though some joined the Democratic Party instead. [159]
As a result of the devastating defeat and the growing tensions within the party between pro-slavery Southerners and anti-slavery Northerners, the Whig Party quickly fell apart after the 1852 election and ceased to exist. Some Southern Whigs would join the Democratic Party, and many Northern Whigs would help to form the new Republican Party in 1854.
The party gained control over the state governments of California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island in the 1854 and 1855 elections. The party also controlled the Tennessee legislature and received at least 45% of the vote in multiple southern states, far better than the Whig Party following 1848. [4]
On December 4, 1839, the Whig Party held its first national convention, an important milestone in its rise to political power.
The Whig party leadership was acutely aware that any proslavery legislation advanced by its southern wing would alienate its anti-slavery northern wing and cripple the party in the general election. [95] In order to preserve their party, Whigs would need to stand squarely against acquiring a new slave state.
The Opposition Party was a party identification under which Northern anti-slavery politicians, formerly members of the Democratic and the Whig Parties, briefly ran in the 1850s in response to the expansion of slavery into the new territories.
The Whig Party ran regional candidates in 1836. William H. Harrison and Francis Granger ran in Northern states, while Hugh Lawson White and John Tyler ran in Southern states. Daniel Webster was on the ballot in Massachusetts and Willie Person Mangum received votes from the Electoral College without being on the ballot.