Whig Party (United States)

The Whig Party was a political party of the United States from 1834 to 1860, formed to oppose the policies of President Andrew Jackson, a Democrat, and in particular supporting the supremacy of Congress over the Executive Branch and favoring a program of modernization and economic development. Their name was chosen to echo the British Whig Party, opponents of Tories who favored a strong Monarch, and implied that supporters of Jackson's strong executive branch were effectively royalists.

Related Topics:
Political party - United States - 1834 - 1860 - President - Andrew Jackson - Democrat - Congress - Whig - Tories - Monarch

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In its 26-year existence, the Whig Party saw two of its candidates elected President of the United States, William Henry Harrison and Zachary Taylor — and both of them die in office. Four months after succeeding Harrison, Whig President John Tyler was expelled from the Party, and Millard Fillmore, Taylor's Vice President, would prove to be the last Whig to hold the nation's highest office.

Related Topics:
President of the United States - William Henry Harrison - Zachary Taylor - John Tyler - Millard Fillmore

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The Party, which counted among its members such national political luminaries as Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and Winfield Scott, was ultimately deeply divided by the question of whether to allow the expansion of slavery in the United States, leading to its choice to run Scott over its own incumbent President Fillmore in the U.S. Presidential election of 1852.

Related Topics:
Henry Clay - Daniel Webster - Winfield Scott - Incumbent - U.S. Presidential election of 1852

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The Whig Party never elected another President, and saw its voter base supplanted by the nativist Know-Nothing Party (which unsuccessfully nominated Fillmore for President in 1856), the Constitutional Union Party (which with Whig support ran John Bell for President in 1860), and the anti-slavery United States Republican Party, whose candidate, a former Whig Congressman named Abraham Lincoln, was elected President in 1860, triggering the end of the Whig Party and the beginning of the American Civil War.

Related Topics:
Know-Nothing - 1856 - Constitutional Union Party - John Bell - 1860 - United States Republican Party - Abraham Lincoln - American Civil War

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