Strange Stillbirth of the Whig Party

self | 12/29/2015 | LS

[LS]

Actually, my substitution is welfare for slavery.

[LS]

Thank you. It’s really my job, writing history. This is contained in my “Patriot’s History of the United States.”

[woofie]

This is where I differ with almost all on FR these days..

I think there will come a day when you will want people to vote for you (and that day is coming soon)...

If you have decided the Republican party et al is the bad guy and you cannot work with them, where do you get your votes?

Even if its the Republicans that have committed Hari Kari I think you will want them breathing long enough to vote.

I personally liked Trump better when he was a Democrat. But he says he found God and turned into a Republican and Im assuming that is the party most of you want to run with. Ross Perot’s Party is hard to find these Days.

Maybe to get elected Trump will stand like the Colossus of Rhodes with one foot in The Democrat Party and one in the (now dead) Republican party.

So FR seems wedded to the idea that all Republicans (but some) are evil incarnate.

Good luck with all that

[MileHi]

Um, that was a great vanity. Thank you.

Oh, what became of Lynn Marshall, is he still alive?

[Forward the Light Brigade]

Great article! Sound history.

[LS]

Thank you sir, madam. Have you read Woodham-Smith’s book “The Reason Why?” about the Charge of the LB?

[ml/nj]

More to the point for us today: the Whigs never stood for ANYTHING except "like the Democrats, only not quite as much."

Maybe this is why your "scholar" disappeared.

The Whigs were a Big (Federal) Government Party. They favored Federal Government involvement building railroads and supporting what passed for big business in those days. The real problem for the Whigs was that they had no positions on things that were (for better or worse) the issues of the day like expansion of slavery into the territories. So prominent members of the party took opposite sides and tore the Party apart.

For a real scholar's view try Holt's The Rise and Fall of the Whig Party.

ML/NJ

[LS]

I know Holt. And of course the Whigs supported building railroads and canals. Guess what? Jefferson did too. He tasked Gallatin, his Treas Sec, to prepare a MASSIVE fed spending bill for "internal improvements" that came to $20m . . . at a time the entire federal budget was only $10m. Monroe as well, supported the National Road and argued for a national university. Madison signed off on the Second BUS, and wrote a US Constitutional amendment in 1789 (that wasn't adopted) to allow the government to charter such banks and other companies.

The Whigs "big government" positions were not the problem, as you say: their lack of opposition to slavery killed them. BTW, Holt borrowed heavily in his research from Marshall. And as a scholar, I prefer my own "A Patriot's History of the United States" to either of them.

[LS]

By the way, the reason Marshall “disappeared” is that by the time his tenure review came, he only had two articles, not a book, and even though one was in the incredibly prestigious American Historical Review, the UCSB History Dept. did not grant him tenure. Bad move, I thought.

[mbrfl]

Great post. Very illuminating. Thanks for posting.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Larry.

[foreverfree]

To bad you have to pay to read the actual article.

ff

[LS]

Oh, well, sorry. Can’t do anything about that.

But take it from me, it’s a goodie :)

[wintertime]

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