As the nation drifted toward a civil war, ironically the issues – the tariff and an establishment of a national bank – that made the Whig Party salient became relatively less pressing. But the factors making this so were not limited to those that directly caused the split between the North and the South.
Yes, the Whig issues still affected the
varying interests that more and more divided the North from the South, but they
were more as afterthoughts when one tries to explain why the war broke out in
1861. As the administration of Zachary
Taylor began, that administration turned its attention to the issue that were uppermost
in people’s minds in 1849.
1849-1853
Generally,
as the last posting pointed out, Taylor was disposed to follow a weak executive
model in carrying out his responsibilities as president. This was a well thought out approach – William
Henry Harrison had issued a rationale for its adoption[1] – known as the Whig
theory, the Taftian theory, or the Stewardship theory.
In simple terms, what appealed to Whigs
was a view of the presidency in which the holder of the office constitutionally
existed to carry out the policy wishes of Congress. Stated as a process, the theory sees Congress
as deciding what to do, the President doing it, and the Judiciary making sure all
that was done according to the rules. As
presented by President Taft, years later, the view reflects what its advocates
saw as being the Constitution’s basic logic.
Here is what Michael Korzi explains in
his article concerning the Whig theory:
First, through analysis of Taft's presidential actions and
academic writings, the author shows that his theory is far more nuanced and
substantial than traditional accounts allow. Taft's theory is best
characterized as a "party agency" Whig theory of the presidency because
of its simultaneous concern with popular democracy (via political parties) and
presidential moderation. Second, the author argues that Taft's theory of the
presidency is rooted in nineteenth-century Whig and Republican ideas of
presidential leadership, which, appropriately understood, embody most of the
same principles and values. Thus was Taft in many ways a conservator of a
nineteenth-century notion presidential leadership. Finally, the author
concludes that Taft's Whiggish theory of the presidency (as well as the
nineteenth-century Whig/Republican theory of the presidency) has much to
contribute to contemporary debates on presidential leadership.[2]
In that tradition, Taylor set out to find some
middle ground between the Whigs and Democrats in Congress. That would be between the Democrats’ low
tariff bias and the Whig’s higher tariff advocacy. He had his Secretary of the Treasury, William
M. Meredith, issue a report.
In it, the Secretary argued for raising the
tariff but not as high as it was under the Tariff of 1842. But his proposed tax was seen as unneeded
with the improving economic conditions in the years immediately preceding and
following 1850. These improved
conditions in no small way can be attributed to the California gold rush. The Whig call for a higher tariff, a policy
position to encourage domestic production (by making imports more expensive)
lost its persuasiveness.
But as an issue, the real motivator
dividing the country, the expansion of slavery, took on a good deal of vibrancy. That issue got a boost with the Mexican
Cession. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo,
ending hostilities with Mexico, called for Mexico to cede to the US 525,000
square miles – what became a slew of states previously listed in this blog –
for a payment of $15 million and for the US government assuming all Mexican
debts to Americans. The acquisition of
so much land placed slavery as the central issue capturing the concern of
Americans including Congress.[3] That main concern was whether the new resulting
states would enter the union as slave or free states.
As reported previously in this blog,
another non effectuated proposal, the Wilmot Proviso, would have prohibited
slavery in the newly acquired territory. As a competing idea and one that
became more popular, Taylor took up the call for popular sovereignty in which the
residents of any resulting state, through their eventual state governments, would
decide whether they would have slavery.
This would be expedited by skipping the territorial step and having the various
areas be admitted as states. While not adopted,
it would influence what was eventually accepted.
That would be what was finally ironed
out through the Compromise of 1850 which was struck after Taylor’s death in
July of that year. Its provisions have been
reviewed in this blog, but to highlight, Congress admitted California as a free
state.[4] Of note was the leadership Henry Clay
provided in the design of the compromise.
With Taylor’s death, Millard Fillmore became
president. Of note in this transition,
the system was more open to the elevation of Fillmore, than it was to Vice President
Tyler assuming the presidency in 1841. To
begin with, Taylor’s entire cabinet resigned, and this allowed Fillmore to name
his chief underlings including Senator Daniel Webster. The senator had lost a lot of support in his
home state, Massachusetts, for supporting the Compromise of 1850.
Congress fairly quickly established the
boundaries of Texas shortly after Fillmore took office with a bipartisan vote. This was no small accomplishment since the Compromise
of 1850 left sore feelings between those who were pro and anti-slavery
expansion. Particularly at issue, and threatening another war, was the fact
that Texas and New Mexico contested what their mutual boundary line would
be. This issue introduced another leader,
Stephen A. Douglas. He led the effort to
settle the interstate dispute and by doing so, avoided bloodshed.[5]
The slave provision of the Compromise of
1850 would prove to be the central issue of Fillmore’s years in the White
House. The enforcement of the Fugitive
Slave provision found the leaders of the Whig Party divided. Fillmore sided with the more established view
that the law should be enforced. That
made him unpopular among Northern Whigs, led by Senator William Seward, but
popular in the South. This division,
more or less, defined the politics of Fillmore’s years as president and the
upcoming presidential election. And it
also provides this blog a good opportunity to end this posting.
[1]
This blogger read this rationale – oh, so many years ago – in college. His attempt to find it online has proven to
be futile. But references to Taftian
theory or Whig theory can be found. See
Michael J. Korze, “Our Chief Magistrate and His Powers: A Reconsideration of William Howard Taft’s ‘Whig’
Theory of Presidential Leadership,” Presidential Studies, 33 (2003),
accessed August 5, 2021, https://www.jstor.org/stable/27552486
.
[2] Korze, “Our Chief Magistrate and His Powers: A Reconsideration of William Howard Taft’s ‘Whig’
Theory of Presidential Leadership.” This
quote is from this article’s abstract.
[3]
Michael F. Holt, The Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party: Jacksonian
Politics and the Onset of the Civil War (Oxford University Press, 1999).
[4] To remind the reader, the provisions of the Compromise of 1850 were: California being admitted to the Union as a non-slave state, New Mexico and Utah would be admitted without mandating its prohibition of slavery, the elimination of a Texas’ claim of what will be part of New Mexico from Texas for a payment of ten million dollars, the agreement to an enactment of a new law – what would become the Fugitive Slave Act – authorizing the apprehension of runaway slaves and their return to their owners, and the prohibition of buying and selling of slaves in Washington, D.C.
[5] Fergus M. Bordewich, America’s
Great Debate: Henry Clay, Stephen A.
Douglas, and the Compromise That Preserved the Union (New York, NY: Simon and Schuster, 2012). For summary, see America's
Great Debate: Henry Clay, Stephen A. Douglas, and the Compromise That Preserved
the Union -- About the book by Fergus Bordewich. Fergus Bordewich on the
Compromise of 1850 .
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