1854 began the destruction of the Second American Party System. When Democrats fought to accept Kansas as a slave state, they were able to claim the mantle of the slavery party. Southern Whigs who supported slavery just as strongly began abandoning their party rather than looking soft on the institution. With the Whig Party crumbling, Northern Whigs began shopping around for a new party and many of them joined with the newly created Republican Party.
When the 1820 Compromise was repealed to allow the 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act, many Whigs were furious and joined with anti-slavery Democrats and members of the small Liberty Party to form the new Republican Party – the same Republican Party we have today.
This party differed from all its predecessors in two major ways. It was a sectional party that only had membership from the North — mostly old Whigs. Although the new Republican Party had similar planks in their platforms as their Whig colleagues, their primary issue was stopping the expansion of slavery into new territories. Another element that set this party apart from previous ones was that a percentage of its members were part of the new abolitionist movement which for the first time called slavery a moral sin that needed eradication.
With what will be known as the Third American Party System of Democrats and Republicans, ideologies began to change.
New beliefs become visible
While Democrats remained the classic liberals of small government and liberty, they were now the ones pushing to protect the institution of slavery — much like modern conservatives wanting a small government and to protect tradition.
Republicans on the other hand closely mirrored modern liberals as they wanted big government to enact change. Being old Whigs, they desired a positive (large) government to protect the nation’s economic future with high tariffs and banks, but also use the government to eliminate what the party called “the twin relics of barbarism: Polygamy and Slavery.” The new party started small, running its first candidate in 1856, and only received 33% of the popular vote. But it was still more than the combined ticket of the Know Nothings and the dead carcass of the Whig Party. Yet four years later the Republicans’ fortunes changed.
In 1860, the nation was a tinderbox ready to explode. Slavery was no longer off the table in Congress as a new breed of abolitionist politicians refused to compromise on the subject. Where national parties once held the nation together, now they were part of the cause for separation. The Republican Party had grown, but still only in Northern states. Southerners warned that if a sectional president won the election, it would cause their downfall and so threatened secession. Tensions ran high as voters went to the polls to choose a new president.
The election of 1860 Going into the election, there was only one national party remaining. Republicans who nominated Abraham Lincoln only represented the North and ran on stopping the expansion of slavery.
Non-Democratic Southerners formed a makeshift party calling themselves Constitutional Unionists. They chose John Bell of Tennessee and ran on the platform of a constitutional compromise on slavery.
Democrats met in South Carolina to nominate their candidate. Going into the convention, Stephen Douglass was the leading candidate. At the meeting Southerners refused to support Douglass because he supported “popular sovereignty” (states should decide for themselves to be free or slave and Congress had to accept that decision) over the Dred Scott Supreme Court decision which found that states did not have the right to outlaw slavery.
When Douglass won the nomination, seven Deep South states walked out of the convention. Not wanting to break up the last national party, Democrats decided to meet three months later in Baltimore. However, Douglass once again won; so, this time 11 Southern states walked out and formed the Southern Democratic Party and ran a strong states rights candidate, John C. Breckenridge of Kentucky. Southern Democrats ran on the platform of a constitutional guarantee of slavery. With the breakup of the political glue that held the nation together and with Lincoln’s election, unity was replaced with secession and civil war.
Civil War defines parties
During the war, the South became a oneparty nation with the Democratic Party in complete control. The North remained a strongly two-party system, with both Democrats and Republicans.
Republicans were able to hold onto both Congress and the presidency during the war, including a second win for Lincoln. After the war, Democrats remained strong nationally but continued to play second fiddle to Republicans.
Between 1860 with and 1932 Republicans held the White House for all but the 16 years of Grover Cleveland and Woodrow Wilson. That’s 56 years for Republicans and 16 for Democrats. Finally, in the 1896 election, Democrats were forced to change their ideology in an attempt to regain power.
James Finck is a professor of history at the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma. He may be reached at HistoricallySpeakingl 776@gmail.com.
