1) Fair enough, but on the whole the Federalists and Whigs were more antislavery than their opponents, I think you'd agree, owing to their bases of power in the Northeast, even if there existed many individual pro-slavery Federalists/Whigs and antislavery Republicans/Democrats.
How do we have 11 pages and you're still sticking to this absurd point.
The Whig Party was not a northeastern party with a several pro slavery characters within it. It was an overtly pro slavery party that blamed anti slavery agitators for the disturbances in the country, and went out of it's way to portray itself as a national party, not a north eastern one.
The Whigs were not significantly more anti slavery than the Democrats in any real way. They nominated a pro-expansion hack twice (William Henry Harrison) against a future Free Soiler (although MvB is hardly an icon of the anti slavery cause), it was a Whig President that signed the Fugitive Slave Act! Where did the Whigs actually meaningfully oppose slavery more than their opponents.
Sure the Whig Party had Lincoln and Seward (although, case in point, Seward was inferior in his influence in the NY Whigs to the likes of Fillmore), but it also had Alexander Stephens and Robert Hunter. I really fail to see how it was meaningfully more anti slavery than the Democrats.
I sometimes get the feeling that Henry is trying validate his affinity for the GOP in a particular era on a "The party left me" basis as opposed to acknowledging that such across the board progressivism within the GOP even at earlier periods was much weaker and very much a minority position within the party. There is also a lot of us versus them on a religious basis.
This also gets extended back to the Whigs and Federalists.
Agree completely with both David and NCYankee. I think it may be because Henry Wallace’s father had been a Republican so the “party left me” idea is even more strong.
I think the problem with quantifying the Whigs as a party opposed or supporting any particular issue is that it was formed off the basis of a single issue originally and expanded further. It was formed originally from the apparatus of Henry Clay and his opposition to Andrew Jackson. The similar idea led to the foundation of the Democrats though it was Jackson and his own personality cult that formed the Democrats. The Whigs not only had a large and virulent pro slavery wing the so-called cotton Whigs, but they had a huge nativist presence as well. In fact their 1844 Vice Presidential nominee held significant sway among these nativist mobs. The Whigs serving as a precursor to the modern Republican Party is dishonest, due to the foundation of the modern GOP coming from a coalition of Whigs, Know Nothing’s, and Disaffected Northern Democrats. While the secessionist movement was a combined force of Democrats, Cotton Whigs, and even those who had supported the Constiutional Unionist party I.e. John Bell.
