Antebellum Political Parties

Overview of Civil War Era Political Parties:


1)  North and South 

 Democratic Party (1798 - today) - founded by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison during George Washington's administration and reinforced under Andrew Jackson's presidency (1829 - 1837),  Democrats were the states-rights, laissez-faire (federal government, keep your hands off the economy) party.  


Whig Party (1832 - 1856) founded to combat Andrew Jackson's economic policies by Henry Clay, John Quincy Adams (and others), Whigs advocated government involvement of "improvements" to advance the U.S. economy.  Abraham Lincoln was a Whig before becoming a Republican.


2)  North only:

Liberty Party (1837 - 1852)  The U.S.'s only abolitionist (end all slavery now) party.  They were very small and not very powerful.  Most would join the Free Soil Party.  

 Free Soil Party (1848 - 1853)  People ("conscious" Whigs, Democratic "Barnburners," and Liberty Party members who, for one reason or another, opposed the extension of slavery into the west.  Some were abolitionists, but most were not concerned with ending slavery in the South in the near future, if at all.  Free Soilers wanted the federal government to provide free land (homesteads) to eastern farmers wanting to go west (the Homestead Act of 1863 did this).  Mainly, they would be an avenue that led many northern democrats to join the Republican Party in 1854. 

"Know Nothing" movement (1845 - 1856)  A secret organization that became a public political party (The American Party, 1854 - 1856) were an anti-immigrant, especially anti-Catholic, group.  They had large numbers of antislavery members.  

Republican Party  (1854 - today)  A party of  abolitionists, anti-slavery Whigs, anti-slavery Democrats (ex-Free Soilers) and Know Nothings.  Their primary agenda was stopping the spread of slavery into the west.  Their "big government" agenda (i.e. centralized banking, internal improvements, tariffs) was derived from the ex-Whigs like Lincoln.  Their motto was "Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Land."     

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 A Brief History of U.S. Political Parties to 1860

1790s:  The First Party System:   

During George Washington's administration, two political parties form:  the Federalists and the Democratic-Republicans.  The Federalists want "big government" policies (e.g. a national bank, protective tariffs, government investments in "internal improvements" like roads and canals) to invigorate and grow business in the fledgling  Unites States.  Their economic guru was Alexander Hamilton, George Washington's Secretary of the Treasury. Federalists were primarily northeastern businessmen.  John Adams was the only Federalist president (1797 - 1801). 

The Democratic-Republicans wanted a "small" government "hands off" economy (Laissez-faire).  The Democratic-Republicans party will become just the Democratic Party a couple decades later.  Their leaders are Thomas Jefferson , George Washington's Secretary of State, and James Madison. 

The Democratic party was a proponent for farmers across the country, urban workers, and new immigrants.  After 1830, it was especially attractive to Irish immigrants who increasingly controlled the party machinery in the cities.  The party was much less attractive to businessmen, Evangelical Protestants, and social reformers.  The party advocated westward expansion (Manifest Destiny) greater equality among all white men, and opposition to the national banks and tariffs.

Northern democrats often supported southern Democrat's slave interests in exchange for southern democrats supporting their interests. This relationship would disintegrate in the 1850s.


1817 - 1824  The Era of Good Feelings: 

The Federalist Party collapsed after the War of 1812, which Federalists had protested against.  At that point, almost everyone becomes a Democrat (the Democrats adopted some Federalist ideas; protective tariffs and the Second Bank of the United States).

The Democrats became factious in 1824 when Henry Clay, author of the Federalist style "American System" swung the 1824 residential election to another ex-Federalist, John Quincy Adams.  The party split into two factions, National Republicans (big government) of Clay and Adams and the Jacksonian Democrats (small government), led by Andrew Jackson.


The Second Party System:

Jackson was elected president in 1828 and in 1832 the National Republicans become the Whig Party to try to defeat Jackson's bid for a second term.  They fail, and fail again in the 1836 election won by N.Y. Democrat Martin van Buren.

Liberty Party (1837 -1848)  -  This minor party  was an early advocate of the abolitionist cause.  It broke away from the American Anti-Slavery Society (AASS) to advocate the view that the Constitution was an anti-slavery document; William Lloyd Garrison, leader of the AASS, held the contrary view that the Constitution should be condemned as an evil pro-slavery document.  The party included abolitionists who were willing to work within electoral politics to try to influence people to support their goals; the radical Garrison, by contrast, opposed voting and working within the system.  Many party members later joined the antislavery Free Soil Party.

1840 -  Whig Candidate William Henry Harrison wins the presidential election but dies a month into office and vice president John Tyler assumed the presidency and turned against many Whig policies.  The Whig party is becoming increasingly divided between "Cotton Whigs" (moderates about slavery in the North having ties to textile mills, and pro-slavery in the South) and "Conscious Whigs" (anti-slavery northerners). 
 
Democrat James K. Polk wins the 1844 election and presides over the largest expansion of territory in U.S. history via the Oregon Treaty with Great Britain and winning the Mexican-American War.   

The Free Soil Party was formed in 1848 by  former antislavery members of the Democratic Party ("Barn Burners") and "Conscious Whigs".  Most Liberty Party members also joined.   While its main purpose was to oppose the expansion of slavery into the western territories, the party distanced itself from abolitionism and avoided the moral problems implicit in slavery.  Instead, members emphasized the threat slavery would pose to free white labor and northern businessmen in the new western territories and argued that free men on free soil comprised a morally and economically superior system to slavery (agreeing with the Wilmot Proviso).  The party sometimes worked to remove existing laws that discriminated against freed African Americans in states such as Ohio.  It nominated Martin Van Buren for the presidency in 1848 and John P. Hale for the presidency in 1852.  Charles Francis Adams, Sr., son of John Quincy Adams, Radical Republican Charles Sumner and Salmon P. Chase, Lincoln's Secretary of the Treasury, were Free Soilers before becoming Republicans.  The party's most important legacy was as a route for anti-slavery Democrats to join the new Republican coalition.


In 1848, the Whig's won their second, and final, presidential election with Zachary Taylor beating Democrat Lewis Cass, a supporter of popular sovereignty, and ex-Democrat, now Free Soiler Martin van Buren.  This time Whig president  Taylor died 16 months into office and VP Millard Fillmore finishes his term.  Fillmore angered antislavery Whigs by supporting the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.    

In the 1852 presidential election, Democrat Franklin Pierce defeated Whig Winfield Scott and Free Soiler John Hale.

The "Opposition Party" is confusing because there were two.  The first Opposition Party was a temporary coalition of northern ex-Whigs, Free Soilers, and Know Nothings, who overwhelmed the Democrats in the 1854 House of Representatives election following the Kansas-Nebraska Act.  At the end of the 33rd Congress (end of 1854) there were 156 Democrats holding 66.7% of the House seats.  At the beginning of the 34th Congress the following March, Democrats had lost 75 seats and had only a 35% share.  Most of the northern Oppositionists who did not retire joined the new Republican party between 1855 and 1858.


The second Opposition Party (1855 - 1859) was some southern politicians who separated from the failing Whig Party to oppose southern Democrats growing pushes for disunion.  Remaining Whigs convinced most Oppositionists to reunite as the  Constitutional Union party for the 1860 election.  They refused to engage the slavery dispute (apparently believing it would be ignored in the election).    


The "Know Nothing" movement and the American Party (1854 - 1856)  began in the 1840s and operated nationally in the mid-1850s.  Empowered by popular fears that the country was being overwhelmed by German and Irish Catholic immigrants, whom they saw as hostile to Republican values and as being controlled by the Pope,  the movement strove to curb immigration and naturalization but had little success.  There were few prominent leaders, and the largely middle-class membership was divided over the issue of slavery.   Its most prominent leaders were U.S. Representative Nathaniel P. Banks and former U.S. Representative Lewis C. Levin. The American Party nominated former President Millard Fillmore in the 1856 presidential election.


The Republican Party began to form in 1854 in response to the Kansas-Nebraska Act.  Members included former Conscious Whigs, antislavery Democrats / Free Soilers, and Know Nothings.  Some Whigs, like William Seward and Abraham Lincoln did not join until 1856 believing the dying Whig Party would be resuscitated. 

In the 1856 election, Democrat James Buchanan defeated Republican John C. Frémont and American Party candidate Millard Fillmore.
 
Republican Abraham Lincoln won the 1860 presidential election with 39.8% of the vote, beating northern Democrat Stephen Douglas (29.5%), southern Democrat John C. Breckenridge (18.1%) and Constitutional Unionist (Southern Whig) John Bell (12.6%).


During the war, the Republican Party would have "moderate" Republicans, like Lincoln, who were cautious about emancipation, and "Radical Republicans" like Thaddeus Stevens who wanted immediate emancipation and equal rights for blacks.  The northern Democratic Party was divided into "War Democrats" who opposed secession and "Peace Democrats" (aka "Copperheads") who wanted the war stopped.  Most Democrats, even War Democrats, opposed emancipation and Lincoln's "big government" initiatives to finance the war.