The Pros And Cons Of The Second Party System

Before 1824, presidential election voting was mainly based off of electoral votes. Although there was the popular vote, many citizens weren’t involved at the time. Shortly after when Adams won over Jackson as president, this all changed drastically. Opposing sides of the election became angered with their enemies and formed political parties, supporting one leader or the other. The two parties formed were the Whigs, and the Democrats that each supported a set of views regarding how the United States should have been ran and a certain person to fulfill these views. These two parties formed the Second Party System, the first political party system of many to come, each showing separate views on how things should be done with their own ideas. There were

Jackson did not trust banks for many reasons, one being because he wanted actual money and not paper, another was the Panic of 1819 when the economy collapsed and many families lost their jobs and homes. With these reasons adding up, Jackson did not want a National Bank in America, so he vetoed to better America in his vision. Henry Clay tried to trap Jackson when he did this, trying to make him look wrong for this veto, which angered Jackson greatly. Clay then gathered his supporters and created the Whig party to stand again Jacksonian principles. The Whigs favored Congress over Executive branch which is why they had so many supporters upset from Jackson’s veto. They also wanted modernization and Democracy wanted equality for all, thus creating a great divide between the two parties. Henry Clay was an important leader for this group having started the disputes with Jacksons in the beginning of the party’s creation. With this competition both parties grew more and more but the Whig party unfortunately came to a stop in 1856 when they couldn’t decide on slavery expansion and the leaders quit or moved