For those who might be relatively new to this
blog and might question its recent interest in the Whig Party of the antebellum
years, the following editorial comments might be useful. The overall effort is to provide historical
evidence testing the claim that the nation, through its political culture, held
as dominant a version of federalism as its main view of governance and
politics.
That version has been entitled, by this
blogger, parochial/traditional federalism.
Its main beliefs are that people should view their fellow citizens as
partners in their mutual polity, but that that sense be limited to fellow
citizens of Western European descendance.
This, of course, excludes African Americans, indigenous people, and Asian
Americans.
That dominance held from the colonial
days of the nation, through the origins of its national governance, the
antebellum years, the Civil War era, the industrialization of the nation’s
economy, and then through both world wars.
It came to an end in the years following World War II. Why it ended then can be part of this
historical review.
To
date, despite this blog’s attempt to utilize a more episodic approach, it seems
stuck on a continual, a year-to-year developmental approach. In that, the current progression has the blog
describing the political, national landscape from the 1820s to the 1850s. Within those years, the nation experienced
the rise and fall of a major political party. That being the Whig Party.
In addition, given its time limited
lifespan, the telling of the Whig story has the advantage of providing a
telling case study of what political players, especially at the national level,
were dealing with as the Civil War approached.
Among the issues with which they wrestled was how exactly federalism
should be defined in terms of the day-to-day issues.
Included in a list of concerns were
tariffs, a national bank, and the expansion of slavery. In this, of more recent times, the U.S.
Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations (ACIR) has provided a bit of
language that summarizes a more or less division on how federalism has been
defined within the American citizenry.
Its analysis of that history identifies those entities and actors who
defined it in terms of a dual view and those who saw it more as a cooperative
view.[1]
They suggest a view that supports a
vibrant role of the central government be called a cooperative version, yet one
in which the two levels maintain separate functions as a dual version. So, in terms of the politics of the first
half of the nineteenth century, by supporting a national bank, one was holding a
cooperative view and being against a national bank as a dual view.
A dual version, it turns out, tended to
support the parochial/traditional view of federalism and the cooperative version
tended to support or come closer to what this blogger calls a liberated
federalism although in most of the debates of the pre-Civil War years, they were
far removed from what liberated federalism would mean in the late twentieth
century. That is, with a cooperative
view, the social-political thinking of the nation could escape the parochial
chains of exclusion the earlier view sustained.
Why?
Because parochial sentiments are more readily supported by localism –
local biases – and more national or cosmopolitan sentiments of inclusion are
supported by a more vibrant national governance that has meaningful say as to
how local political developments occur.
In that, the Whig Party provided
language and advocacy. That language
reflected a psychological foundation leading to a more national view – a more
liberated view – for defining federalism.
And that would eventually allow for more inclusiveness. Given its short history, though, this does
not mean federalism was less than dominant, but that its more parochial version
was too strongly entrenched.
As mentioned earlier in this blog, even
those who argued for the emancipation of slaves, for example, were not arguing
in those years for a liberal position regarding inter racial relationships, but
for the exportation of African Americans back to Africa. And with that context, this posting can pick
up on the story of the Whig Party. That
would be with the presidential campaign of 1848.
1848
Given
the above editorial comments, let this time frame begin with a restatement of
how the last posting ended: “The process
by which the party decided for Taylor began in 1847 in that Clay [in Congress] led
the Whigs against Polk’s war and the president’s policy to acquire
territories. These sentiments were
particularly strong among Northern Whigs.”
The Whig Party, despite this Clay
contingency, nominated Zachary Taylor for president – with a pro Clay New
Yorker, Millard Fillmore, for vice president.
And that led to Northern anti-slavery Whigs, with the nomination of a
slaveholder for president, to leave that party and joined supporters of Van Buren
– that being disgruntled Northern Democrats – to form the Free-Soil Party.
That new party nominated Van Buren for
president, and the Whig, Charles Francis Adams, Sr. for vice president. This party strove to block the spread of
slavery. While a lot of the related
debate concerning slavery still centered on what level of state’s rights should
be either respected or tolerated – depending on how one looked at slavery – one
can detect how divisively the institution was beginning to be judged among
segments of the American population.
As for the Whigs, during the general
campaign, they needed to further unite behind the Taylor candidacy. He, to assist his chances, wrote and
published a letter claiming he held or supported Whig principles as his own and
that he, as president, would follow a weak presidential model in office, i.e.,
he would take his lead from Congress by doing its bidding.
In the North, Whigs emphasized infrastructure
spending and higher tariffs – traditional Whig positions. In the South, they avoided talking about Whig
economic policies – higher tariffs and a national bank – but instead
prominently emphasized that Taylor was a slave owner as opposed to the
Democratic candidate, Lewis Cass, who was from Michigan and opposed slavery. With the weakened Democratic Party, due to
those who left for the new Free-Soil Party and followers of Van Buren, the
Whigs won the election although no candidate won the popular vote.[2]
This is a good place to end this
posting. The next time span will range
from 1849 to 1853 with a review of the Taylor-Fillmore term of office. That’s right, there is another presidential death. But presidents are not all that are dying
during these years, one can sense the end of the Whig Party around the corner.
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