Whigs – U.S. to 1877

November 13, 2013

The Road to the Civil War

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Thursday’s reading from Sean Wilentz’s The Rise of American Democracy covered a wide variety of topics from the years leading up to the American Civil War. I particularly enjoyed Wilentz’s description of the radical divisions within the Democratic Party that formed over conflicting issues. Wilentz writes, “across the Northeast and West, equivalents of the Radical-Conservative fights split the state Democratic parties, chiefly on banking issues” (Wilentz, 278) into a number of subgroups including Loco-Focos, Barnburners and Hunkers. What amazed me is how these different subgroups could exist within the realms of the same political party while espousing completely different political views. While the Barnburners were committed to abolition (and willing to undermine the democrat party to achieve abolition), the Hunkers largely downplayed the cruelty that many others saw in slavery. I believe that these fundamental disagreements within political parties was one of many key factors in setting the stage for the Civil War, the ultimate manifestation of years of deep-seeded American political differences.

Wilentz also discussed the disarray of the Whig Party under John Tyler. Whether it was due to Tyler and political rival Henry Clay “tear[ing] each other apart” (Wilentz, 274) or due to the emergence of John C. Calhoun (who planed to capture the Presidency through manipulation of the Democrat Party), the Whigs were clearly falling apart. I found SAFUNDERBURG’s post concerning the reemergence of the Modern Whig Party in Pennsylvania particularly insightful in describing the surprising revival of this notorious political party. I still find it amazing, as a foreigner, whose country pays little acknowledgement to its past political histories, that the Whig Party could be revived. This would not happen in Canada, as people in my home country are not as passionate about the politics of the past or history of our country nearly as much as I’ve found people are in America. I’d be surprised if most people I knew could name the political parties active during Canada’s birth, while in America it is almost considered common knowledge to know your country’s ancestry.

I also enjoyed Wilentz’s description of the actions put forward by the Liberty Party and other antislavery movements. Wilentz’s description of the Liberty Party’s goal to “divorce slavery and government akin to the Jacksonians’ divorce of banking and government” (Wilentz, 288) was an analogy that I found interesting. Jackson’s desire to eliminate the federal bank was an attempt to stop rich northerners from claiming total control over America’s finances, while slavery was an issue concerning rich southern plantation owners. Both concern two different geographical areas of the United States, yet the two are both extremely important issues of American politics.

November 13, 2013

The Modern Whigs: Destined for a comeback?

On November 5, a registered member of the Modern Whig party was elected to a relatively unimportant, albeit official and public office in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Sources say that this is the first Whig to be elected to office in 160 to 150 years. When asked “Why the Whigs?” the electee, Robert “Heshy” Bucholz, responded that he found the party to be a sensible middle ground given America’s current bipartisan atmosphere. The party was founded, or re-founded, in 2007 and now has upwards of 30,000 members. Though it is interesting to consider that such an obscure party has secured public office, it is most likely just an unusual fluke in local politics and not at all indicative of a major change in thought. It seems far more likely that a more established socially liberal, financial conservative third-party political organization (ex: libertarians) will be the party to absorb potential voters for Modern Whigs and become successful on the national level.

Sources:

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/philadelphia-voters-elect-whig-public-office
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/11/07/whigs-win-for-first-time-in-150-years.html

November 11, 2013

A Divided Democracy

Beginning with the Nullification Crises, the Tariff of 1828, and the Bank War, Wilentz illustrates the growing internal rifts within the Democratic Party, especially between Andrew Jackson and his Vice President, John C. Calhoun. United opposition against Jackson resulted in the emergence of the Whig Party, which would eventually overtake the Democratic Party in the election of 1840.

Chris argues in his post, “This idea of inherited guilt attempts to relieve Van Buren of blame, even though the panic of 1837 happened directly under Van Buren’s leadership.” I do not necessarily agree with this statement, for Wilentz is right in that Jackson’s Specie Circular led to the financial crash of 1837, just as Martin Van Buren happened to take office. The requirement of gold or silver payments to purchase federal land resulted in the loss of millions of dollars worth of paper money; land sales called for a shift to hard money that speculators just did not have. “The largest New York City banks lost more than ten million dollars in federal deposits and saw their specie reserves drop from 5.9 million dollars in August 1835 to 1.5 million dollars by May 1837” (Wilentz 231). Similar to the way George Bush left President Obama to deal with immense financial issues exacerbated by Bush’s presidency, I believe Wilentz is correct in characterizing the Panic of 1837 as Van Buren’s inherited dilemma from Jackson’s presidency.

Martin Van Buren’s attempt to compromise and gain supporters ultimately backfired as it further fueled the antislavery movement. Calhoun returning to the Democratic Party had pressured Van Buren into appeasing him and the proslavery southern Democrats. To the antislavery northern Whigs and abolitionists, Martin Van Buren appeared to be an advocate of slavery, something he was trying to avoid the entire time. His willingness to support slave-owners presents a contradictory image of Democracy as the party of the common farmer, yet that still defends the interests of the wealthy slave-owners. “Van Buren’s and the Democrats’ political difficulties exposed, once again, the deepening contradictions and dilemmas of Jacksonian egalitarianism” (252). This brings us back to the political debate over not only racial divisions, but also over socioeconomic divisions fueling the abolitionist movement.

November 11, 2013

Everybody is Whiggin’ Out

Wilentz, in Chapter 16, discusses the Whig movement and the popularity of the Whigs in the mid 1830s to early 40s. These New School Whigs were a diverse combination of Anti-Masons, politicians from the Old Northwest and western states, former Jacksonians in the South, and northern Whigs. Although the regional differences of the Whig party were diverse the Whig party was able to establish a national system of anti-Jackson newspapers and campaigning. The Whigs attacked Jacksonian corruption. Whigs based their platform on self-improvement and reform. The self-reform/improvement aspect and emphasis of moral choice grew out of the Second Great Awakening. Whigs were most popular in the areas where the Second Great Awakening was most popular and intense. The Whigs abandoned the division between classes and turned the national debate into the struggle between basic morals and those who rejected them. Although Clay drew large crowds in New England and appealed to the southern Whigs, William Henry Harrison became the party’s go to candidate for the election of 1840. The Whigs attacked Van Buren and the Democrats during the 1840 presidential election campaign. Harrison traveled the country formally delivering campaign speeches, breaking the precedence. On page 263, Wilentz said, “the Whig campaign reformulated their broader economic, cultural, and moral precepts and packaged them for the voters.” To me, the Whig party and their campaign in the election of 1840 was more like a modern day campaign than any other in the Era of the New Republic. The Whigs worked to include all different demographics, including women, even though they didn’t have the right to vote. The Whigs understood women’s influence on the male voters. The extremely high voter turn out in the election of 1840 set a record (still unbroken). As WIROBERTSON said in his post (http://sites.davidson.edu/his141/dishevelled-democracy/), the triumph in the 1840 presidential election only delayed the sure downfall of the Whig party. The Whig party was a fragile unit, but held it together long enough to achieve greatness.

November 11, 2013

Democratization of the Whig Party

The topic from Tuesday’s reading that was particularly compelling was the democratization of the Whig Party prior to the 1840 election. Our classmate Will Robertson rightfully characterized the Whig party as being “grounded solely in their opposition to Jackson,” which threatened their unity as a party. However, I found that the reading for Tuesday, namely chapter 16, highlighted how the Whig party used their vehement distaste for Jacksonian politics to strategically unite themselves by changing their party’s ideals in an attempt to gain power.

Will highlighted the issue of hypocrisy in the Democratic Party to which the Whig party opportunistically responded. He stated that, “in its effort to appease voters from all areas and walks of life, the Democratic party under Jackson and Van Buren featured striking hypocrisies.” (http://sites.davidson.edu/his141/dishevelled-democracy/).Horace Greeley—a key addition to the Whig party after they began to consolidate their party to include more than just “high-toned Whigs”—felt that Whiggery would be able to “confound Democratic hypocrisy and uplift the masses” (Wilentz, 253-254).

The party’s attempts at democratization demonstrated that the party was more or less obligated to reshape itself if they desired to maintain political relevance. Van Buren, the Whig party realized, was popular among the people “Not so much for him as for the principle they suppose he represents. That principle is Democracy” (Seward, quoted by Wilentz, 253). As a direct response to this American desire for democracy, the Whig party revolutionized American conservatism (Wilentz, 253).

The way Wilentz characterized the Whigs attitudes of humanitarianism was rather humorous, highlighting the condescending tone they adopted when appealing to more radical-minded voters who sympathized with oppressed groups. The Whig party chose to focus “on relieving the misery of battered wives, abused blacks, and others who suffered deliberately inflicted hardship and pain” and on creating a benevolent society of people who would adopt “an affectionate regard for the lowliest of God’s creatures” (Wilentz, 257). Despite the haughtiness of the rhetoric surrounding their humanitarianism, there is no denying the progress that this shift in mindset was, especially since many Whigs were moved by the “benevolent impulse” to contribute to antislavery work (Wilentz, 258).

In addition to highlighting corruption and hypocrisy within the opposing party, the Whigs also exemplified impressive strategy in their ability to spin criticism in their favor. The harsh ‘hard cider and log cabin’ comment supposedly delivered by Clay was used by Whig leaders to “claim to be paragons of plain rustic virtue while condemning the Democrats as scornful, out-of-touch politicos” (Wilentz, 260).

I felt this reading was a bit more readable than some previous chapters in which the jargon creates a bit of an obstacle for readers who are less familiar with the concepts of the discussion. However, I feel Wilentz did a fantastic job in outlining the changes in the Whig party and the reasons behind them, guiding the reader clearly through the course of events.

November 11, 2013

Jacksonian Democrats and Whig-Calhounites Play the Blame Game

Chris Masone
His 141 Blog

In chapters 14-16 of The Rise of American Democracy, Wilentz discusses the fight between the Whig-Calhounites and Jacksonian Democrats during the end of Jackson’s second term and into Martin Van Buren’s presidency. In his blog post, Will summarized this period well. Will said, “The Democrats efforts to attract nationwide appeal led to catastrophic contradictions, and the Whig’s hatred for Jackson provided only an ephemeral glue to hold together members with sharply different ideologies.” However, I believe Wilentz puts too much blame on the Whig Party and intentionally avoids criticizing Jacksonian Democrats.

While Jackson and his admirers fought “for the common man” against a corrupt closed-door aristocratic system running America, John C. Calhoun and the Whig party insisted Jackson had developed “a new class of selfish elected and appointed officials.” These politicians, the Whigs said, were the “true oppressors of the people.” (Wilentz 255) It feels as though Wilentz portrays the Whig party as the villain in this political mess, especially when discussing Martin Van Buren’s presidency and I don’t know if Wilentz is warranted in doing so.

Wilentz describes a sense of inherited guilt with Martin Van Buren. He leads us to believe that “Van Ruin’s” presidency was overshadowed by the problems inherent with the divide in Jacksonian Democracy in the southern stronghold. Rather than attributing guilt to Andrew Jackson or Martin Van Buren, Wilentz describes the panic of 1837 as an inevitable “long-feared financial crash” as a result of the “Whig-Calhounites’ Deposit Act” which stripped banks reserves. (239) This idea of inherited guilt attempts to relieve Van Buren of blame, even though the panic of 1837 happened directly under Van Buren’s leadership.

While there is merit in Wilentz’s argument that the financial meltdown of 1837 could have been directly caused by the Whig-Calhounites, I think the second collapse in October of 1839 can be attributed to Van Buren. Wilentz makes the point that the collapse helped Van Buren in the short term as it “reminded the public of his link with the hero of the Bank War, Andrew Jackson.” (243) Even with the country belly-up in a second bank collapse, Wilentz describes the effect as bolstering the “Jacksonians’ contentions” regarding a nationalized bank. Even though the country was suffering financially due to political fighting in Washington, Wilentz does not blame this on Van Buren. Rather, he attributes Van Buren’s eventual political fall to a split in southern politics instead of any fault in leadership.

However, as Will pointed out, the Jacksonian Democrats’ attempt to appease everyone actually hurt their overall position. Blame for this period of corrupt policies and confusion, illustrated by the financial crisis’ of 1837 and 1839, should be shared equally between the Whig-Calhounites and the Jacksonian Democrats rather than, as I think Wilentz portrays, the blame resting solely on the shoulders of the Whig Party.

November 11, 2013

Political Power and the People

Jackson ran on a platform of populism. Being from the west and making his own success, as opposed to the eastern elites who traditionally won the presidency, he appeared to be the common man’s man. However, as Jackson himself learned, it was impossible to satisfy every common man in a country so large as the United States. Eventually the president has to take sides and, in the process alienate some of the common people he claimed to support. During his second presidency, Jackson seemed to have given up on attempting to appease the majority and instead stood firmly in support of his own ideas whether many people were in support of them or not. This was clearly demonstrated by his determination to experiment in hard money economics, a policy which created a lot of conflict throughout the country.

I agree with Sylvia’s point that one of the legacies of Jacksonian Democracy was its role in the development of the Whig party and populism at large (http://sites.davidson.edu/his141/a-party-for-the-people/). The contrasting way in which Wilentz presented the Democratic Party and the Whig party during this time period was very interesting. Under Jackson and Van Buren, the Democratic party’s policies were mainly shaped by economic concerns such as the battle over the national bank and the experimentation in hard money policy. There was also some concern over slavery, however Wilentz emphasized the influence of economics during this time more. The Whig party that rose in opposition to Jacksonians, on the other hand, was driven mainly by a very Christian humanitarian way of thinking. The Whigs’ focus on improving the individual through institutions such as schools and insane asylums seems to sharply contrast the way in which the Jacksonians approached politics. Perhaps, Wilentz presented these two parties as being so different in order to emphasize the degree of change American politics went through during this time period as more and more people turned toward the political process as a way to elicit change.

November 10, 2013

Dishevelled Democracy

Chapters 14 through 16 in Wilentz explored the chaotic politics prevalent during Andrew Jackson’s second term and Martin Van Buren’s term as president. This era featured numerous pressing political issues and resulted in remarkable shifts in the political landscape. The tension also created significant divides both between and within political parties. The Democrats efforts to attract nationwide appeal led to catastrophic contradictions, and the Whig’s hatred for Jackson provided only an ephemeral glue to hold together members with sharply different ideologies.

In its effort to appease voters from all areas and walks of life, the Democratic party under Jackson and Van Buren featured striking hypocrisies. The most obvious example, the gag rule, challenged its most fundamental principle: preserving equal rights and the true meaning of the Constitution. Like MASPEED (http://sites.davidson.edu/his141/november-5th-post/), I was shocked at the gag rule’s blatant disregard for substantial Constitutional ideals, as it solely served to appease Jackson’s slaveholding constituency in the South. Not surprisingly, contradictions in policies such as this one resulted in factions within the Democratic party, as divides within the Democratic party manifested themselves more than ever.

Grounded solely in their opposition to Jackson, members of the Whig party had various disagreements threatening their unity. Most notably, the Whigs consisted of the most adamant abolitionists alongside many wealthy Southern slaveholders. Clearly, this recipe for disaster could not last for long. The lack of organization and unity rendered the party unsuccessful initially in national elections, most importantly the 1836 presidential race. The Whigs, however, impressively consolidated forces prior to their victory in the 1840 election with William Henry Harrison. The triumph delayed inevitable doom for the divided party.

I found Wilentz’s treatment of the various political struggles to be discombobulating. I had difficulty in identifying which party, faction, or politician supported each side. I felt the narration of the Whigs’ consolidation and democratization in Chapter 16 was particularly fascinating and well-framed. Overall, despite the headache I got sorting through the issues, Wilentz did a fairly nice job of investigating the crazy politics of the 1830’s.