The Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party: Jacksonian Politics and the Onset of the Civil WarHere, Michael F. Holt gives us the only comprehensive history of the Whigs ever written. He offers a panoramic account of the tumultuous antebellum period, a time when a flurry of parties and larger-than-life politicians--Andrew Jackson, John C. Calhoun, Martin Van Buren, and Henry Clay--struggled for control as the U.S. inched towards secession. It was an era when Americans were passionately involved in politics, when local concerns drove national policy, and when momentous political events--like the Annexation of Texas and the Kansas-Nebraska Act--rocked the country. Amid this contentious political activity, the Whig Party continuously strove to unite North and South, emerging as the nation's last great hope to prevent secession. |
Contents
1 Not Fitted to Make Converts | 1 |
2 To Rescue the Government and Public Liberty | 19 |
3 No Opposition Man Can Be Elected President | 33 |
4 We Have Many Recruits in Our Ranks from the Pressure of the Times | 60 |
5 Harrison and Prosperity or Van Buren and Ruin | 89 |
6 The Whig Party Seems Now Totally Broken Up and Dismembered | 122 |
7 The Whigs Are in High Spirits | 162 |
8 The Present Administration Are Your Best Recruiting Officers | 208 |
16 God Save Us from Whig Vice Presidents | 553 |
17 Fillmore Is Precisely the Man for the Occasion | 598 |
18 Webster Is Now Engaged in Strenuous Efforts to Secure the Succession | 635 |
19 Scott Scott Alone Is the Man for the Emergency | 673 |
20 Like Pissing Against the Wind | 726 |
21 Now Is the Time to Start New the Old Issues Are Gone | 765 |
22 This Nebraska Business Will Entirely Denationalize the Whig Party | 804 |
23 The Whig Party as a Party Are Entirely Disbanded | 836 |
9 The Contest for President Should Be Regarded as a Contest of Principles | 259 |
10 We Must Have the Aid of Gunpowder | 284 |
11 Stimulate Every Whig to Turn Out | 331 |
12 Many Discordant Political Interests to Reconcile | 383 |
13 Patronage Is a Dangerous Element of Power | 414 |
14 The Slavery Excitement Seems Likely to Obliterate Party Lines | 459 |
15 The Long Agony Is Over | 521 |
Illustrations appear after page | 553 |
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