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During the campaign, Northern Whig leaders touted traditional Whig policies like support for infrastructure spending and increased tariff rates, [96] but Southern Whigs largely eschewed economic policy, instead emphasizing that Taylor's status as an enslaver meant that he could be trusted on the issue of slavery more so than Democratic ...
The Whig Party became badly split between pro-Compromise Whigs like Fillmore and Webster and anti-Compromise Whigs like William Seward, who demanded the repeal of the Fugitive Slave Act. [136] In the Deep South, most Whigs joined with pro-Compromise Democrats to form a unionist party during the 1850 elections, decisively defeating their ...
The only slave he personally owned, Tom, escaped in 1814. When Tom was found in Massachusetts, Van Buren tentatively agreed to sell him to the finder, but terms were not agreed and Tom remained free. Later in life, Van Buren belonged to the Free Soil Party , which opposed the expansion of slavery into the Western territories without advocating ...
He had been suggested as a vice presidential candidate since early 1835, and the same day the Virginia Democrats issued the expunging instruction, the Virginia Whigs nominated him as their candidate. The new Whig Party was not organized enough to hold a national convention and name a single ticket against Van Buren, Jackson's chosen successor.
Neither party took a strong national stand on slavery. [156] The Whig base of support lay in wealthy businessmen, professionals, the professional class, and large planters, while the Democratic base of support lay in immigrant Catholics and yeomen farmers, but each party appealed across class lines. [157]
Northern Whigs favored Scott while Southern Whigs tended to prefer Fillmore. The party was also torn on the issue of slavery. Most in the party wanted to prevent slavery from becoming the dominating issue in the election. However, the Whigs were split on the issue of the Compromise of 1850, proposed and designed by Whig senator Henry Clay of ...
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.
Many Northerners attacked Van Buren for his support of the gag rule, while in the South, many Whigs claimed that the Virginia-born Harrison would even better safeguard the institution of slavery than did the New Yorker Van Buren. [116]