Political Parties Beliefs:

Antebellum America

Whigs

• Born by National Republicans in 1836• JQA and Clay were leaders• Political Base

• middle class• “market farmers”• skilled native-born workers • N.E. & New York

• Generally bald (hence the name)• Loose construction of Const.• Nationalists• Pro-internal improvements, tariffs

Democrats

• Strict construction• Opposed fed. gov’t. regulation of

slavery• Opposed national bank• Opposed internal improvements• Lower tariff (southerners, esp.)• Immigrants join

“Log Cabin and Hard Cider” 1st Whig

• William Henry Harrison elected• “simple man” (really aristocrat from

VA)• Pro-national bank• Congress should regulate spread of

slavery

Winners in the 1840s• 1840 Harrison Tyler (Whig)

• 1844 Polk (Democrat)• Pro-Texas annexation• Pro-Oregon from Britain (54o 40’ or fight)

• 1848 Taylor (“hero of BV”) (Whig)• No platform

Free Soil Party (1848)

• “Conscience Whigs” morality• Abolitionists• temperance• Pro-Wilmot Proviso (against extension of

slavery into the territories)

• 54 40’-types• Resented Dems. (Polk) settling at 49th

• Industrialists• Hated Polk reducing protective tariff

Election of 1852(“it’s the end of the world as we know it”)

• Whigs descent begins best leaders d.

• End of national parties

• Begin. of SECTIONAL parties

American (Know-Nothing) Party(Know-Knothing Party)

• Anti-Catholic• Anti-immigrant (nativist)• Some N. Whigs, S. Dems./Whigs

• “Americans Must Rule America”

Republican Party

• Formed as reaction to K-N Act (1854)

• Anti-slavery origins

• Home to Whigs, N. Dems., Free Soil, Know-Nothings

Election of 1856

Election of 1840

Election of 1844

Election of 1848

Election of 1852

Liberty Party (1840)

• Anti-slavery party• End slavery gradually via pol.

Process

• Radicals in party differed • William Lloyd Garrison• Immediate end to slavery• Allowed women in abolition movement