The Daily Union

The Composition of the Whig Party

We think that a few words on this subject will explain many things in our recent political history, which might otherwise be inexplicable, and throw light on many features of whig policy which are shrouded in darkness.

To do this, it is not necessary to go farther back than the contest between Gen. Jackson and John Quincy Adams. The northern States, having nothing to fear from the overshadowing strength of the federal government, because they could, in an emergency, wield that strength for their own aggrandizement or protection, contended for that construction of the constitution which gave the largest powers to the general government. That construction was so latitudinous, that it made the States but little more than departments of a consolidated empire. Whatever Congress in its wisdom might think proper to enact, the President to approve, and the Supreme Court to sanction as necessary and proper, the federal party contended, established a precedent as binding as a clause of the constitution. When the legislative and executive departments had made a law, or exercised a power, or acknowledged a principle, and the Supreme Court appointed by the federal government had decided the law thus made, or the power thus exercised, or the principle thus acknowledged, was not a violation of the constitution, the question was forever settled—as much so, as if the decision was interpolated in the constitution. The Supreme Court might, perhaps, overrule its decision; and that was the only method in which the interpolation could be stricken from the original constitution. Neither the people nor their representatives could do anything but suffer patiently and in silence. They might repeal the law; but the principle was established, and beyond their control. This party, known as the federal party, regarded John Quincy Adams as its exponent, and rallied around him as its leader. It found its chief, if not its entire effective strength, in the northern States; and we believe that the correct reason of this fact is given above. The northern States cared but little for the overshadowing power which might be given by implication to the federal government, because they could, when necessity required, use that power for their own advantage.

The southern States—the weaker portion of the confederacy—held a different doctrine. They contended that the States of the Union were free and sovereign States; and that the general government was nothing but an agency established by them for their benefit, bound and fettered by a strict construction of the constitution which alone gave it authority. They held the reserved rights of the States to be sacred, and required that Congress could rightfully exercise no power which was not granted by the constitution, or necessary and proper to carry into effect some one of the granted powers. And they further held that these incidental powers were not intended to embrace substantive powers of great and overshadowing importance, towering above the expressly-granted power to which it was considered a mere incident and appendage. These were the principles of the State-rights party of the south—the party of the people—the party which gave practical force and effect to the theory of popular sovereignty—the party which denied the sovereignty of the general government, and its power to give authoritative interpretations to the constitution of the United States, and alter that instrument by forced implications and latitudinous constructions. These two parties—the federal and the republican—whose leading features we have hastily sketched, convulsed the country for many years. In 1824, Henry Clay, who had been a prominent member of the latter, deserted his standard, and took service in the ranks of the former, under John Quincy Adams. This defection gave the victory to the federalists: but it was short-lived. In 1828, the republican party rallied under General Jackson, and hurled the coalition from power, with every mark of popular indignation. The federal party was, of course, thrown into the opposition. The administration of Gen. Jackson, and of his successor, Mr. Van Buren, gave offence to many. The proclamation, the force bill, the specie circular, the removal of the deposites, the sub-treasury, the derangement of the currency, and the plan for increasing our military establishment, each drove many from the republican ranks. These men left at different times and for different reasons, and of course had but little in common. But all of them, like the federalists of the north, hated the administration. To give effect to that hatred, and make their opposition of any avail, they were forced to band together and act in concert. The first step was to assume the name of whig, which then meant nothing but opposition. This was all that it meant until after the election of Gen. Harrison in 1840. Up to that time we do not remember any attempt even to lay down a whig creed. The Harrisburg convention made no such attempt, for it knew that the attempt would be frivolous in the extreme. The sagacity of the whig leaders was intrusted with the task of ascertaining the temper of the people in their respective States, and making such issues as would be most available. The campaign of 1840 was conducted on this principle. Gen. Harrison was made to be a bank man or an anti-bank man, a tariff man or an anti-tariff man, as the people of Massachusetts or Virginia were appealed to. This course had the desired effect, and the whig party was placed in power by a large majority. Then came the necessity for a political creed. The ship of State was under whig control, and must take some course. The officers and crew were by no means unanimous. A violent contest ensued. The helm could not be wrested from Mr. Tyler, but the Clay and Adams party succeeded in carrying a majority of the whig party with them, and committing them to the principles advocated by the northern whigs, who were formerly styled federalists. This made the whig party essentially a northern party, and so it remains to the present day. Almost all of its effective strength is at the north. Had it been elsewhere, a different scene would have been presented at the extra session, and a different scene would be presented at the present time.

This fact explains some curious events, to which we wish to call public attention, more especially the attention of the southern people.

The bulk of the whig party being at the north, it follows, as a matter of course, that the northern whigs dictate the policy to be pursued and the principles to be sustained. When they state their policy and their principles, they state unequivocally the reasons which actuate them. Then, but one of two alternatives is presented to the southern whigs. They must either yield to northern dictation or be annihilated. They have heretofore taken the former, and have yielded their support to measures advanced by the north, for reasons which nearly every southern man disavows. They make the best excuse they can—excuses which, in some instances, their northern leaders laugh at. The northern whigs wanted a bank, and justified such an institution by a latitudinous and federal interpretation of the constitution. This forced the southern whigs to advocate a bank too; and immediately the cunning of their right hands was employed in making it appear that a bank was consistent with a strict construction of the constitution, and was a republican measure. The northern whigs advocated a tariff for protection, and avowed that they supported it because it would give better prices and higher profits to their manufacturers. As soon as decency would permit, we hear the southern whigs crying as loudly for a protective tariff as they had ever done for free trade; but they could not stand the northern reasons; for they were unpopular in the south, and they had to justify themselves by the absurd plea that high duties made low prices, and, of course, low profits, and would redound to the benefit of the agriculturist. The northern whigs opposed the annexation of Texas, and avowed that their course in that behalf was founded in their hostility to slavery. The southern whigs had to take anti-annexation ground, that they might co-operate with their allies beyond Mason and Dixon's line. This they did, after much dodging and shifting, amidst hostility to the treaty when it was presented, and friendship for it when the joint resolution was brought forward, ever and anon denying that Texas was independent—a fact which no one had before questioned but Mexico. These are the past offences of the southern whigs—offences which they have committed, because they have suffered themselves to be led and driven by their northern allies, who rule their camp most despotically. But this is not all. The whig party, to a man, in the northern States, have determined that they will not consent to any further extension of slavery, and that if any indemnity in territory is taken from Mexico, that territory must forever be withheld from the people of the slaveholding States. Immediately the whig party of the south comes forward and says that it is willing that the blood and treasure which this war has cost the country may go as nothing—that our wrongs must be forgotten, and our hard-won victories be barren of result. We must recall (they say) our troops to the Nueces; give up all—honor, territory, everything—and act as if we had been beaten in every field. This is singular; and look where we will for the cause of the phenomenon, we can see naught but the fact that the majority of the whig party is at the north, and is opposed to the further extension of slavery. They are willing to take territory—any amount of territory—with the Wilmot Proviso extending over it, forever prohibiting the south from a fair participation in it. The whigs of the south cannot go as far as that, but they do the best they can. They are willing to prevent the spread of slavery by taking no territory, and would keep their party united by sacrificing the rights and honor of the nation.