MORTEM AND POSTMORTEM

 

As the last posting indicates, the final days of the Whig Party were being counted down after the 1852 election.  That posting describes that in addition to a trouncing in that election, the political landscape was not conducive for the party to pursue its established policy positions.  That included a pro tariff stance that did not match the conditions of a prosperous economy. 

The reason for a tariff, beyond securing funding for the central government, was to protect domestic manufacturers.  All that could be seen among the electorate was that the tariff added to the prices of imported goods – making domesticated produced goods relatively cheaper – but increasing overall prices that Americans paid.  Apparently, during the mid-nineteenth century period, domestic producers were not so dependent on such help.  So, with overall high employment rates and rosy economic expectations, the Whig message lost much of its appeal.

1853-1856

          With the new Franklin Pierce Administration in place (minus its deceased vice president, William R. King), the first national issue was the debate over what will become the Kansas-Nebraska Act.  At stake were the last remnants of the Missouri Compromise.  That compromise prohibited the expansion of slavery in the newly created western states (initially attained through the Louisiana Purchase) that fell north of Missouri’s southern border line (36ﹾ30’ N), with the exception of Missouri, as it extended to the Pacific shore. 

With the enactment of the newer law, slavery could be instituted if a northern state legislature decided to allow the practice within that state’s borders.  This law created a new political environment.[1]  How?  In the North, a new allegiance arose among “anti-Nebraska Act” Democrats, Free-Soil advocates, and Whigs.  In Wisconsin and Michigan, these advocates adopted the name, Republican Party.  Its initial aim was not to abolish slavery but prevent its expansion.

Adding to the complexity, the Know-Nothing movement took hold among people who were antagonistic to Catholics or non-Anglican immigrants.  Eventually this group organized itself as the American Party.  They saw themselves as picking up the Whig identity, but the Know-Nothings were preoccupied with mass immigration the nation was experiencing and bought into the belief that there was a Catholic conspiracy.  The parochial nature among many Americans excluded these other Western European immigrants as being welcome.

On the other hand, Republicans were concerned with Slave Power – the perceived political hold Southern slaveholders had over the federal government in the years leading up to the Civil War.  Already enjoying their control over their respective state governments, the slaveholders wanted to secure  at least their veto power over federal policy – assuming an equal number of senators between slave and free states in the US Senate – if not an inordinate influence over what the US Congress decided to enact.  In other words, this small minority was exercising or seeking power way beyond its numbers.

While unusual, this divided anti-Democratic Party coalition proved effective in the 1854 mid-term election.  The Democrats suffered significant loses.  And regardless of a few exceptions, the winners of those individual congressional contests did not identify as Whigs.  Instead they ran independently or took up association with one of the other identified groupings – such as the Know-Nothings.  Northern and southern Whigs were beyond reconciliation to form a national presence and so leaders from the two regions of the country simply abandoned the party. 

For example, former Whig president, Millard Fillmore joined the Know-Nothing partisans even though he openly disagreed with that group’s xenophobic notions and he encouraged others to follow his lead into that movement.  That happened in 1855.  A big move occurred when in that same year New York senator, William H. Seward, encouraged a good number of Whigs to follow him into the Republican Party. 

And with that one can consider these developments as being the death knell of the Whig Party.  That set up, in effect, a three-way race in the 1856 presidential election:  the Democrats, the Know-Nothings, and the Republicans.  The Know-Nothings, at its convention, nominated the ill-fitting Fillmore (who would also be nominated by a scarcely attended Whig party convention) and promoted a less than cohesive platform but that generally decided to downplay slavery as an issue.  The Republicans nominated John C. Fremont.  This party, at this point, was mostly a northern phenomenon and was helped by defecting northern Know-Nothings. 

In the confusing campaign that followed – for example, while the Know-Nothing candidate, Fillmore mostly ignored that party’s nativism and really ran to reenergize whatever remained of Whig support – the result was that the Democratic candidate, James Buchanan, won.  He received 45 percent of the popular vote (174 electoral votes).  Fremont took 33 percent (114 electoral votes), and Fillmore garnered 22 percent (8 electoral votes).  All and all, one can judge the Whig party was dead although former Whigs attempted a run for president in 1860.

Addendum, 1860

          A postmortem note can be added by describing the remnants of the party and how they went about their dealings in 1860.  Led by Senator John J. Crittenden, a group of Whig unionists, conservatives, formed the Constitutional Union Party and it nominated John Bell, a long-time Whig, who was anointed as the “ghost of the old Whig Party” by a Southern newspaper.[2]  While not taking a stand on slavery, this unionist “party” ran on a preserving the union platform.  The party won pluralities in three states.

          And with that election, this timeline ends.  What follows in this blog will be a rundown of what the Whig Party stood for and how it affected America’s development.  Of primary concern in this blog is the way the party operated within the espoused values of federalism.  Generally, federalism is a governmental/political construct which holds that a polity should be organized and maintained by a federated populous – one that defines its shared citizenship as a partnership.

While the US Constitution sets up structurally and legally such an arrangement, it does not guarantee that the nation’s people will hold to it emotionally or cognitively.  Again, this blog’s claim is that the Whig Party along with its competing entities – other parties and organized interest groups – held as dominate a cultural bias for a version of federalism. 

That version is called, by this blogger, the parochial/traditional version and in its most simplistic terms holds that only Western European descents should be allowed to enter that partnership.  But, as this posting indicates, the level of parochialism could be more exclusive.  For some Americans, these newer immigrants – for example Irish immigrants – were illegitimate and unwelcomed.[3]

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[1] 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).

[2] Jack P. Maddex, Jr., The Virginia Conservatives, 1867-1879:  A Study in Reconstruction Politics (Chapel Hill, NC:  2018).  Quoted phrase found on p. 13.

[3] This level of exclusivity is depicted dramatically in the feature film, Gangs of New York.  See Martin Scorsese (director), Gangs of New York (Buena Vista Pictures, 2002).

THE HOUR BEFORE THE END

 

To continue the story of the Whig Party, this posting will describe the political landscape in those months leading up to the 1852 election.  This blog is focusing on the Whigs as a case study that functioned in a political culture that one can describe as dominated by a version of federal theory.  This blogger calls that version parochial/traditional federalism in which its adherents ascribe(ed) in federal beliefs and values but extend(ed) its sense of partnership only to the Western European descendants living in America.[1] 

          This blog assumes that given the general democratic attributes American politics reflected, what the nation’s leaders debated at a given time reflected what the nation’s population was considering important.  The drawback to the approach this blog uses is that the names of vying politicians seem to take center stage while political beliefs and values making up the political culture is best seen among typical citizens.  Of more importance were those concerns about which Americans were worried.  Hopefully, the reader keeps this in mind.

1848-1853 (continued)

          With Millard Fillmore taking up the presidency after Zachary Taylor’s death, Fillmore, as pointed out in the last posting, chose to enforce the newly enacted Fugitive Slave Act, part of the Compromise of 1850.  As expected, this policy made him popular in the South but lost him support among Northern Whigs.  Therefore, he was vulnerable in the upcoming election. 

In addition, two nationally known Whigs had presidential ambitions, Secretary of State Daniel Webster – a former senator from Massachusetts – and General Winfield Scott who led American forces in the Mexican-American War.  The general was garnering a good deal of support in the North but found little of it in the South in that he was perceived as being too close to New York senator, William Seward, who espoused an anti-slavery position.[2]

At the Whig convention in 1852, Fillmore received at the Baltimore meeting, 133 delegate votes on the first ballot, missing the necessary number of votes by 14.  It then took another 52 ballots – and a failed brokered deal between Fillmore and Scott supporters – for Scott to win the nomination. 

The Democrats in their convention – also in Baltimore – nominated little known, pro South (pro slavery) New Hampshire senator, Franklin Pierce, beating contenders such as Lewis Cass, Stephen A. Douglas, William L. Marcy, and James Buchanan in 49 ballots.  The result of these battles, both for the Whigs and Democrats, was that in both party platforms turned out to be highly similar and the ensuing campaign was mostly a personality contest between Scott and Pierce.

That is not to say that the voters were not concerned about contentious issues.  With the Compromise of 1850 having been struck just two years earlier, many were concerned with the fate of slavery especially as the nation began adding states in the West.  Dissolution of the union was already being considered among some in the national electorate. 

But both parties supported and agreed to enforce the Compromise of 1850 while the Democrats were more strident in their advocacy and promised, in line with the party’s traditional position, less government intrusion in people’s affairs.  Each side during the campaign engaged in direct attacks on the other side – some accurate, some, at best, stretching the truth.  All the campaign strategies that had become common after the 1840 Harrison campaign found expression in 1852.  That included handbills, parades, and rallies.

Of note, the ensuing election solicited a low number of voters casting their votes, but from those who did vote a clear choice was made.  Pierce won 254 electoral votes to Scott’s 42 electoral votes.  Of note was Pierce’s vice president, William R. King.  He was from Alabama and was considered to balance the ticket with the New Hampshire candidate, Pierce. 

He was also known as a moderate voice who strove to maintain the debate over slavery in a civil tone.  He fell ill with tuberculosis and felt it necessary to go to Cuba for a cure.  Consequently, he was sworn into office there, the only vice president having been so in a foreign land but made his way back to his plantation, only to die the next day after his arrival, six weeks into his term. 

As Pierce’s term began in 1853, two national concerns seem to have been taking up people’s attention.  For this youngest president to date (47 years old), one concern, of course, was the expansion of slavery, but the other was the economy.  The memory of the national depression, although over, was still fresh. 

So, while the Whigs lost convincingly in 1852, their ranks were mostly confident that they could rebound as they did in 1845 after the Democrat Polk’s presidency.  But the overall national condition had changed since that earlier election result.  In 1853, the economy continued to strengthen and there was a lull in the concern over the status of slavery and its expansion.  This latter state did not last for long and simple arithmetic helps explain why.

In 1846 the number of slave states outnumbered the number of free states, 15 to 14.  But one can see a growing concern among pro-slavery forces, and in retrospect, one can see why.  In 1858, the split was 15 slave states, 17 free states and in 1861, it was 15 slave states and 19 free states. 

As a reminder, expansion was especially important to the pro-slavery side in that Southerners saw as essential that the number of slave states, at least, be equal to the number of free states.  This was seen as essential since if the number remained or could be reestablished as equal or higher, slaveholders could count on the Senate to be at least divided in half, and that would guarantee that any anti-slavery, national bill could be stopped. 

But in the immediate months after Pierce took office, these concerns seem to be stagnated as the elements of the 1850 compromise went into effect.  Therefore, especially given the improved economy, the Whig expectation that their established policy positions over the economy would again be seen positively, now seemed to be something of the past.  Their call for a higher tariff only promised higher prices – which was not a winning message. 

So, as 1854 approached, optimism would begin to wane, and forward-looking Whigs started or would soon begin to look elsewhere for a place to render their support.  The next posting will focus on this, the end of a major political party that lasted as a viable entity some twenty to thirty years.

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[1] This blogger believes that there are still many in the American public who abide by this form of federalism.

[2] Elbert B. Smith, The Presidency of Zachary Taylor and Millard Fillmore (Lawrence, KS:  University Press of Kansas, 1988).