Whigs vs. Democrats Slavery, Freedom, Crisis Union

WHIGS vs. DEMOCRATS

Slavery, Freedom, crisis Union 1840-1877 Democracy America: The Whigs Democrats Many Americans half nineteenth century a powerful federal government a threat individual liberty supported sovereignty state local government.

Slavery, freedom, and the crisis of the Union 1840-1877: Considering economic policies and the balance of power between national and local government, how did Whigs and Democrats differ in their definitions of American freedom and its relationship to government authority? Use two examples from both the Democrats and Whigs to support your claims.

Ever since the birth of America, two competing strains of thought ran through the American consciousness. The first was the Jeffersonian idea that the government which governed best, governed least and that a relatively weak central government was a facilitator of liberty. The contrasting Hamiltonian notion stressed that a strong federal government was required to protect individual liberties and the state as a whole. These tensions were later embodied in the clashing political positions of the Democrats and Whigs. The Democratic Party was created in the spirit of Jefferson and supported a weak federal government and states' rights, and became associated with the interests of the South (What's in a name, 2009). In contrast, "the Whigs started off as a coalition of those opposed to Andrew Jackson -- and in particularly his supposedly arbitrary and personal rule. Many southerners in the Whigs professed admiration for Jackson but were clearly uncomfortable with his latter policies on banking" (What's in a name, 2009). Jackson's destruction of the second federal bank of the United States (one of the founding concepts of Hamiltonian democracy) was keeping with his Jeffersonian principles and his advocacy of states' rights.

The Democrat's supporters were predominantly agrarian in nature, and perceived the federal government as representing the interests of the industrialized north. In contrast, the Whig Party supported what it saw as progress for the new nation in the form of industrialization. Although it would ultimately prove to be a fractious, difficult-to-unify coalition of interests, "Whig Party's platform of federal support for internal improvements such as roads and canals, protective tariffs, and a national bank....[demanded] a stronger national role in regional economic development" (Baker 2007). The Democrats viewed these policies as supporting a minority of 'big business,' industrial interests vs. The interests of the people. The Whigs criticized the populist Democrats for their corruption, and alleged that the use of a 'spoils system' often put into place by Democrats, in which only the party in power's political supporters were allowed to fill appointed positions. The Whigs saw this now-accepted policy as contrary to notions of republic democracy, which was supposed to be founded in favor of tolerance of diverse points-of-view (Democrats v. Whigs, 2012, Tennessee 4 Me).

Anti-expansionist elements who opposed Jackson's vigorous movement westward gravitated to the Whig Party, as did slavery's opponents, given that every state the union acquired was sure to ignite further debate about the status of slavery. No less a person than Davey Crockett opposed Jackson's displacement of Native American tribes to the West. However, both pro and anti-slavery Whigs existed. "The beginning of the end for the Whig Party as a national force came in the controversy over the issue of slavery in the territories newly acquired from Mexico following the Mexican War. The debate culminated in the Compromise of 1850, which accepted California into the Union as a free state, organized the New Mexico Territory without any specific prohibition against slavery, prohibited the slave trade in Washington DC, and implemented the Fugitive Slave Act to force state and local authorities in the North to return escaped slaves to the South" (Baker 2007). Some Whigs supported this compromise, as a way of bolstering the union and keeping it together, while abolitionist Whigs strongly opposed the measure.