Modern Day Whigs

Disarray, Lack of Direction, Ineffectualness Led to the Demise of the 19th Century Party. Are We Witnessing it Again?

Today, we’re going to talk about a group of people in American politics that rarely get the occassion to be discussed: The Whig Party. Why?— you may ask? We’ll get to that. What I can say is what prompted me to write about them at this time was this tweet posted by Elon Musk on Monday:

Now, we’ve had third parties in American life before, and we’ve even had a billionaire bankroll one of them (and many multimillionaires support them from time to time). We’ve seen some of those same parties collapse under the combination pressures of lack of success and their foundations eroded by the major parties. But we’ve only seen one party, who had won the Presidency several times and had a large number of elected officials, collossally meltdown and collapse under the pressures of the times. And that would be the Whigs of the 19th Century. And yet, if you asked your average American voter “Who were the Whigs?” they’d give you blank stares and puzzled looks. As it turns out, they’re kind of relevant today, so let’s talk about them.

Who were the Whigs?

Back in the early 1800’s the United States was growing like gangbusters. The War of 1812 had finally officially clarified that yes, the United States was it’s own country and “manifest destiny” had proclaimed that everything in the western hemisphere was for westerners. The United States had a plan to spread from sea to shining sea.

At that time there were two major parties; the Federalists and the Democratic Republicans. The major issue in the early 1800s were the interplay between states’ and federal rights¹, which hadn’t really been ironed out yet. Washington and Adams had been elected as Federalists favoring a strong federal government. That was followed by Jefferson, Madison and Monroe from 1800-1825, who favored power for the states. The trend in the early 1800s was that having won American freedom, people preferred local governments over a large federal one. Indeed, after 1815, the only major national party left standing was the Democratic-Republican party that became more and more polarized within itself. So with the election of 1824, John Quincy Adams tried something new— instead of arguing for a large federal government, he advocated anti-expansion and even isolationist tendencies. He won the election and with it the Federalists were largely dead as a party.² On top of that, the Democratic-Republicans were splintering, with some joining J.Q. Adams to form a new faction. Quincy Adams was anti-Manifest Destiny, protectionist, and what would be considered today a “classical Conservative.” From his election would come the foundations for the Whig Party.

John Qunicy Adams’ Presidency was short lived. He lost the 1828 election to a charismatic, immoral, and corrupt (sound familiar) figure in Andrew Jackson. Jackson single-handedly redefined the Presidency and the direction of the country. Prior to this, cabinet officials and administration appointments were given to competent people regardless of party. Jackson essentially said “Screw that, I’m going to appoint my friends and cronies.” (again, sound familiar?) The Indian Removal Act, The Trail of Tears, the “Bank War",” the utter disregard for judicial authority. Jackson completely changed the dynamic of executive power, and despite many criticizing him for what he did, there’s a reason we call it “Jacksonian Democracy.” His legacy is a major factor in defining the powers the White House can wield.

Needless to say, Jackson pissed a lot of people off, and they all coalesced around a mutual hatred of the man. In fact, the name “Whig” came from smaller local Whig Parties who openly compared “King Andrew” to “King George” from who we earned our Independence. It would be a loose affilation of northern national Republicans (like Adams, anti-Masonites, state’s rights southernersThat is how the Whig Party built it’s coalition and became a national power. They would lose to Jackson’s hand picked successor in Martin Van Buren however, following the crash of 1837 and a deep recession, they would eventually win the White House four years later.

The Rise of the Whigs

For the Whigs, it seemed inevitable that they would fall apart at the seams for a number of reasons. Yes, they had won the Presidency in 1840; the man who would win it was William Henry Harrison. Harrison is known for two things: 1) Giving the longest inauguration speech in U.S. History, on one of the coldest Inauguration Days in history, without wearing a coat; and 2) Dying 30 days later. His Vice President, John Tyler, ascended. But at the time there were open questions as to whether he was to be “President” or whether he was just an “acting President.”³ His authority was questioned. On top of that, Tyler still had strong ties to the Democrats, would appoint many to key positions, and his loyalties to this new, growing party were still soft. Worse still, the slavery issue was starting to take a center stage in the growing conflicts within Congress, and Tyler’s support for Annexation of Texas was seen as a move to expand slavery to western states (Tyler was from Virginia and pro-slavery), angering the northern Republican portions of his coalition. Tyler would lose soundly in the next election.

But the Whigs were still growing, gaining traction and consisting of great legislators such as Daniel Webster, Henry Clay and William Seward. Four year’s later they would win the White House again, this time with the pious military hero of the Mexican-American War, General Zachary Taylor. Taylor had received his nomination from the southern portion of the Whig Party, beating the northerner supported Henry Clay. And once again, the Whig President took office and soon after the Whig President died. In his place, Millard Fillmore ascended to the White House. Unlike Tyler, there were no questions of his authority. And as Taylor was somewhat of a soft Whig Party man, Fillmore was much more loyal. Fillmore accepted the resignations of Taylor’s entire cabinet and then appointed strong Whigs to those positions.

Fillmore’s presidency was marked by a very fast expansion, including California and Texas into the Union, the important compromise of 1850 adding Missouri, and the unfortunate passage of the Fugitive Slave Act. Enforcement of the Act began to split the party divisively; Northern Whigs wanted Fillmore not to enforce it at all, while Southern Whigs were adamant that it be strongly enforced. Fillmore waffled and lost the Whig nomination for re-election to General Winfield Scott, who was decisively defeated in the General Election. The pieces are moving in place for a catastrophic fall from grace for the Whigs.

The Fall of the Whigs

During the 1850s, under Democratic President Franklin Pierce, the slavery issue was escalated front and center. The Kansas-Nebraska act effectually eliminated the Compromise of 1850. Dred Scott, probably the single worst decision the United States Supreme Court ever delivered, was announced, basically setting the stage for the Civil War. Northern Whigs, who were by now becoming more actively abolitionist started toying with splitting off and creating a new party, calling themselves Republicans. A nativist, anti-Catholic “Know Nothing” Party movement began as well, eventually calling themselves the “American Party.” You also still had some die-hard Whig holdouts who truly believed they still had a chance as a national party. Nonetheless, that loose amalgamation of aligned groups, once allied together in opposition to Andrew Jackson who was by now long gone, had nothing remaining holding them together and the party fell apart.

In 1856, with the splintered vote between the Know-Nothing/Whig candidate Pierce, the Republican John C. Fremont, and the Democrat James Buchanan, Buchanan won. Buchanan would do nothing to address the growing slavery issue problem, and the slide towards Civil War was now inevitable. The Whigs were done, and the opposition party that would rise in it’s place was the abolitionist Republican Party in the North.

Relevance Today

You may think that something like that could not happen today, in the modern hyper-polarized atmosphere of our modern American campaigning. One of the more interesting cultural phenomenon I’ve been witnessing the past few years is how many on both sides shout out how much closer we are to “Fascism!” and “Socialism!” and “Civil War!”— I personally don’t think any of those apply, but on that last one both sides seem in agreement that the tribal lines are much more starkly drawn than they were 30 or 50 years ago. Take a look closer and the seeds for each party collapsing (in different ways) are already layed out before us.

The Democrats’ potential collapse and corralary to the Whigs is almost self-evident. Right now, they are a very loose coalition of coastal liberals, former Republicans, middle of the road suburbanites and elitist intellectuals joined in opposition to one man; Donald Trump. Take Trump out of the equation and do these groups stay together or splinter off? It’s hard to say, but they aren’t nearly as strong together than they are as when they’re arguing over the stupid things Trump does. Like Trump’s Presidential hero, Andrew Jackson, what Trump does pisses people off and his corruption is absolutely disgusting. Despite adamant opposition, Democrats still seem utterly lost and rudderless to do anything to stop him. The splintering of the more practical and pragamatic Democrats from the more activist, progressive ones is already underway. Frankly, the only thing holding this party together at this point is a lack of other options.

As for Republicans, the only thing largely keeping this party together IS Donald Trump. There’s no philospohical underpinning to this movement other than it’s love of guns and its endemic nativism (hmm…that seems also kind of Whig-ish too). Without Trump, who leads this party? What direction does it go? What issues become important? It becomes an empty vessel capable of flying off in a libertarian direction, in a militaristic or authoritarian direction, in an isolationist direction, and all sorts of weird, odd possibilities. True, they are solid in the southern states and in the middle of the country, but the hold there was created with different issues and directions in mind, and can completely fall apart without the cult of personality now keeping it together. And yes, the Democrats are weak as hell, but when the Whigs collapsed, and the Republicans took control, with the exception of the Grover Cleveland years, they held onto control of the White House until the 1912 election of Woodrow Wilson, and needed Teddy Roosevelt to split the Republican vote to do it. Some of the positions and actions of today’s Republican Party are so reprehensible and appalling (see the “Big Beautiful Bill” as an example), I can see them damaging the party for years to come.

So when Elon Musk throws out the idea for a third party distinct from the Republicans and Democrats and their current stanglehold on power, I sit up and listen. True, he’s not the right messenger for this (he’s hated by everyone, including me, and utterly untrustworthy to be anywhere near government) but has a huge bankroll to create something, and there is a wide gap of disillusioned voters from both sides who would be willing to listen. Musk’s Third Party doesn’t even really have to win, they just have to peel off enough voters from one side or the other to throw elections in doubt. I’m no Elon Musk fan by any means, but what he likes to do is disrupt and what he’s doing when he throws an idea like that out is just that.

So what would happen if what was left of the Democratic Party were just the coastal progressives, the only ones left in the GOP were MAGA extremists and everyone else took a look at what Elon was selling? Would it succeed? Would one of the major parties collapse like the Whigs? Would the parties just adjust their positioning as what usually happens when third party challenges emerge? I don’t know, but frankly, I’m curious to see what may happen.

PurpleAmerica’s Obscure Fact of the Day

The last major Third Pary run for President was Ross Perot’s Reform Party run in 1992 and 1996. In both cases, he peeled off enough GOP votes to swing the election to Bill Clinton. In 1992 in fact, he receieved 19% of the total popular vote.

PurpleAmerica’s Final Word on the Subject

I’m personally curious how a Donald Trump Republican/Elon Musk Independent Celebrity Deathmatch would work out.

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Footnotes and Fun Stuff

1. To be sure, slavery was an issue but in these early days and would eventually become central to the states/federal power issues. But other items took precedence, such as should there be a National Bank? Nonetheless, as those issues played out, you can see pieces on the chessboard being moved that would eventually bring the slavery issue to a head and lead to the Civil War.

2. When John Quincy Adams won, we then had two major parties, neither of which wanted a strong federal government as Federalists had.

3. Tyler was always ridiculed and referred to as “his accidency.” He was never given the full authority of the Presidency, and it would remain an open question as to whether a V.P. ascending to the Presidency is indeed a “president” until the 25th Amendment basically laid it out plainly.