How Successful Was The Whig Party In The 1850s

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The Whig Party was an American political party formed in 1833 in opposition of President Andrew Jackson and all the Democrats. The Whig party was mainly formed by political opponents of President Jackson(Democrats). Whig Party believed in national banking, tariffs, and the use of federal aid to preform improvements. The main leader of the party was Henry Clay and call themselves Whigs (name of the English antimonarchist party). After all they still managed to get people to believe in the party, and to hold their own presidential elections. Some of the major reasons why the Whig Party collapsed in the 1850s: the major reason was the strain of the Kansas-Nebraska Act. The Act pushed northern and southern people joining different parties. Another, …show more content…

The Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed on May 30, 1854 by the Congress of the United States. The Act repealed the compromise that was made in 1820 the Missouri Compromise. The Missouri Comprise was a compromise that prohibited slavery in the territory of Louisiana. Stating that Maine would be free and Missouri a state of slavery. Later on the Supreme Court decided the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional in the Dred Scott decision. The Kansas-Nebraska Act allowed for the new western territories in the United States to decide if they would be a state of freedom or state with slavery and it was decided by popular sovereignty. The members of the Whig party in the south strongly supported the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and the Whig members of the north strongly opposed the expansion of slavery into the new territories on the west. Abraham Lincoln and other members of the Whig Party in the north started to form factions to confront the Act. Meanwhile other Whigs with intolerant views joined the American Party. The American Party (Known-Nothing Party) was a political party that existed in the 1850s to retain the power from the immigrants and the Roman Catholic also known as Nativist. The Act was the most significant event leading to the Civil