prints has given me the local coloring which is indispensable for such a study. The treatment of the subject is intended to be entirely objective and scientific. The work does not attempt to pronounce judgment upon Jackson and Van Buren and their administrations either to praise or condemn. I have contented myself with a purely objective treatment, with depicting the attitude of the opposition, which, it should be remembered, was strongly partisan. The same is true of the succeeding Democratic administrations. As to the split under Tyler, the work does not concern itself with the question of his consistency or of the merits of his administration, but deals solely with the position of the southern Whigs.

My materials have been drawn principally from the library of the University of Pennsylvania, from the Library of Congress, and from the libraries of the Philadelphia Library Company, of the University of Michigan, and of the historical societies of Pennsylvania and Buffalo. In addition to the thanks that are due to these institutions, special acknowledgments are due to Dr. Stephen B. Weeks of Washington and to Professor U. B. Phillips of the University of Michigan for the valuable and extensive collections of contemporary correspondence which they generously placed at my disposal. Professor Phillips further showed his interest in my researches by reading the greater portion of my manuscript and making helpful suggestions. The value of his assistance is evident from his intimate knowledge of the field. His essay on "The Southern Whigs" in the Turner Essays appeared after my material had in large part been collected and my work planned and partly written; it gave me the satisfaction

of finding that we were working in the same direction and was always an incentive to a high standard of scholarship.

I wish here to acknowledge my obligations to those who have directed my historical training, by formal instruction or by friendly counsel and advice. In this connection I mention especially Professor C. H. Van Tyne and Professor E. W. Dow of the University of Michigan, Professor Frederic L. Paxson of the University of Wisconsin, and Professors J. B. McMaster, H. V. Ames, E. P. Cheyney, and W. E. Lingelbach of the University of Pennsylvania. Professor Ames early saw the possibilities of the subject of this work and, jointly with Professor McMaster, directed the course of my researches, the results of which were accepted by the Graduate School of the University of Pennsylvania in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Since the award of the Justin Winsor prize Professor William S. Robertson and Dr. Solon J. Buck of the University of Illinois have aided me with helpful criticisms and suggestions in preparing the work for press.

URBANA, ILLINOIS,

February, 1914.

ARTHUR CHARLES COLE.

CHAPTER I.

THE PERIOD OF ORIGINS, 1830-1835.

The national Whig party can truly be regarded as the logical successor of the old Federalist and National Republican parties. Behind the measures eventually brought forward by Whig leaders, there was a fundamental interpretation of governmental powers and relations similar, in all essentials, to the principles which governed Hamilton and his associates in formulating the Federalist policies. So also Clay's controlling personality assures us of the existence of this same relationship between the two parties with which his name is so closely connected.

The strength of these earlier parties, especially the National Republican, was essentially sectional and largely confined to the northern and central states.", Economic conditions and interests made them the natural strongholds for parties holding nationalist and federalist doctrines. In the South, however, prevailing interests made strict construction and state rights principles popular, a fact which tended to identify the political affiliations of the southern people with parties that occupied that ground. But the Whig party in the South constituted at all times a most powerful minority of the voting strength of that section, capable of being converted by unusual exertions and under favoring cir

1 Compare, however, Phillips, "The South Carolina Federalists", in American Historical Review, XIV, 529-543, 731-743, 776-790.

cumstances into at least a temporary majority. Various considerations linked in political alliance with the few southerners whose interests and inclinations led to the support of latitudinarian principles, a still larger faction made up of those who supported constitutional doctrines on the opposite extreme and whose logical interests generally seemed to point against such an affiliation. The early history of the party in the South is unified by the interesting set of problems which grew out of the need for the adjustment of these two wings to harmonious action. When once those problems seemed to be mastered, a similar division began in consequence of the slavery agitation which threatened to bring the party to a state of disorganization similar to that which \characterized the first years of its existence. The history of the Whig party in the South is thus divided into two periods of nearly equal length, the campaign of 1844 serving as the period of transition which witnessed the solution of its first set of problems and brought into the arena a new set that was eventually to work the destruction of the national party.

In analyzing the elements included in the ranks of the southern Whig organization, it is natural to turn first to the advocates of the American system, but in the beginning their numbers were quite insignificant. In 1832 Clay carried Kentucky and Maryland and secured a fair vote in Louisiana and Virginia. On the other hand, Jackson was offered almost no opposition in Tennessee, Missouri, Mississippi, and Georgia. In his own state Clay had, of course, a large personal following. In addition the hemp interests there made. friends for the tariff, while the need of communication and the river system of the state made popular the

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policy of internal improvements by the national government. These issues, together with the support of the United States bank, guaranteed to the American system the endorsement of a majority of the voting population of Kentucky. On the other hand the influence of such leaders as Crittenden is not to be underestimated. His friendship for Clay and support of his measures naturally had their influence with those who had as yet to decide on a party affiliation. It was of course less marked than the influence of Jackson and the political leaders in Tennessee, which, with interests very similar to those of her neighbor, had little direct support as yet to offer to the system. It was quite evident that the voters there were not allowed to think for themselves.'

Louisiana stood with those states which were strongly for the tariff, The sugar-planter of St. Landry he was at the same time a manufacturer-reasoned that without the protection of the existing duty he could not sustain competition with the sugars of foreign colonies. He was also a judge of good banks; needing their assistance in his financial operations, he was careful to see that the state fostered only sound banking institutions, and valued the services which the branch of the national bank at New Orleans was able to offer him.

The interests of Maryland were so largely com

2 Note the excitement following the Maysville road veto. Clay, Private Correspondence, 277-281. Cf. A. T. Burnley to Crittenden, June 13, 1830: "What think you of Jackson's veto? Did you ever see such a state paper-wrong in principle, and clumsy in expression, it is a canting hypocritical electioneering document-intended to fix the allegiance of the South and Virginia-with as little offence as possible to the North and West." Crittenden MSS.

3 Knoxville Republican, quoted in Niles' Register, XLIII, 319. Clay, Private Correspondence, 293-299; see also ibid., 256.