1840 in Deep South

[Mr. Smith]

The more interesting question here is why Louisiana was such a bellwether.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

The more interesting question here is why Louisiana was such a bellwether.

Part of it is French culture and settlement.

[darklordoftech]

Weren’t the Nullifier/State’s Rights Whigs WINOs (for example, John Tyler vetoed re-establishing the National Bank)? In fact, weren’t they more Democratic than Jackson considering their objection to Jackson was Jackson enforcing a tariff?

I don't think that's a useful way to think about it. Remember that in the immediate aftermath of the collapse of the First Party System, the Republicans split into two main camps: Democratic Republicans* who supported Andrew Jackson, and National Republicans who supported John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay. After Adams' defeat, the splintering of these big-tent coalitions produced a variety of smaller parties, broadly identified as either Jacksonian or Anti-Jacksonian; the latter camp included most National Republicans, as well as Anti-Masons, Nullifiers, and what was left of the Tertium Quids (conservative ex-Republicans concentrated in Virginia). These eventually coalesced to form the Whig party after 1834, it's name a reference to the English Whigs who had toppled the tyrant James II and their successors, the American Whigs of 1776. This branding was especially attractive to those who objected to Jackson's disregard for states' rights and legislative supremacy, and they were an important part of the Whig coalition in the elections of 1836, '38, and '40. The fact that they did not share Henry Clay's commitment to the B.U.S. does not make them Whigs in name only because the Whig party was not founded on support for a national bank; it was founded on opposition to executive tyranny and radical demagoguery. While Tyler vetoed the recharter of the bank, he signed off on other Whig economic objectives, and continued to appoint Whigs (albeit of a notably states' rights bent) to his cabinet even after the split with Clay and the Congressional party. We should not privilege the voice of Henry Clay as the be-all, end-all definition of Whiggery, because while Clay was an important leader of the party (and after 1842 its de facto chief until his death), the original party was not welded from his base alone.


* The use of Democratic-Republican to refer to the Jeffersonian Republican party that existed from c. 1792–1824 is incorrect and unhelpful. Jefferson and his acolytes called themselves Republicans, and in some cases were called democrats by their opposition. "Democratic Republican" enters the lexicon around 1828 and continues to be a label associated with the Jacksonian party well into the 1840s. Wikipedia says that Tyler's "National Democratic Republican" outfit was an homage to Jefferson, but in fact it was in reference to a common alternative name for the Democratic party.

It seems like the present-day equivalent of the Whig Party would be a coalition of anti-Trump Republicsns and anti-Sanders Democrats.

[Sumner 1868]

The pattern of Black Belt Whigs still had remnants even in 1860. Bell won several of the counties over Breckinridge.

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

The pattern of Black Belt Whigs still had remnants even in 1860. Bell won several of the counties over Breckinridge.

It would be very interesting to see a map showing when each of these counties last voted for the Whig or Whig successor ticket.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Thid has to be one of the forum's highest quality threads in years.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

The Whigs leaned more anti-slavery in terms of their support, due to who voted for them in the North.  But this difference was dwarfed by sectional differences.  If the parties had divided more neatly over the issue, that would have been more of a threat to slavery.  As it was, Presidents of both parties had some interest in not attacking it.