The last straw was the signing of the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, which overturned the Missouri Compromise and allowed each territory to decide for itself whether it would be a slave state or free.Īlarmed, anti-slavery Whigs spun off to found the Republican Party in 1854, eroding the party’s base of power. Whig Party Downfallīy the mid-1850s, tensions were mounting within the party over the divisive issue of slavery as the country expanded into new territory. He also became the second president to die in office, and was succeeded by Millard Fillmore. The second Whig President to be voted into office, Zachary Taylor, won the 1848 election. Harrison was succeeded by his vice president John Tyler. After their first national convention in 1839, William Henry Harrison became the first Whig president when he won the 1840 election-but he also became the first president to die in office in 1841, just 31 days into his term. Though they lost the election of 1836, when Jackson’s Democratic successor Martin Van Buren took the White House, the Whigs won the popular vote.

While often stereotyped as the party of the rich by their Jacksonian Democrat opponents, Whigs were supported by an economically diverse group of voters, winning presidential elections and state legislative majorities because of this mass support. Their ranks included members of the Anti-Masonic Party and Democrats who were disenchanted with the leadership of seventh President Andrew Jackson. The Whigs were an opposition party formed to challenge Jacksonian Democrats, thereby launching the ‘second party system’ in America, but they were far from a single-issue party. WATCH: The Presidents on HISTORY Vault What Was the Whig Party? While Jacksonian Democrats painted Whigs as the party of the aristocracy, they managed to win support from diverse economic groups and included four presidents: William Henry Harrison, Zachary Taylor, John Tyler and Millard Fillmore. Led by Henry Clay, the name “Whigs” was derived from the English antimonarchist party and and was an attempt to portray Jackson as 'King Andrew.' The Whigs were one of the two major political parties in the United States from the late 1830s through the early 1850s.

The Whig Party was a political party formed in 1834 by opponents of President Andrew Jackson and his Jacksonian Democrats.

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