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Why Did the Whigs Die (and Why Didn't the Democrats)?: Evidence from National Nominating Conventions*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 December 2008

Howard L Reiter
Howard L Reiter
Affiliation:
University of Connecticut
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Extract

Institutional survival can be a concern for any organization, but for long-standing and well-established institutions such as major political parties survival is usually taken for granted. When a party suffers crushing defeat in a national election, alarmist journalists may attract attention with head-lines suggesting its imminent demise, but not since the Civil War has the viability of the Democrats and Republicans been seriously in question. Therefore, the conditions under which a major party maintains itself has not been a focus of scholarship regarding American political parties.

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Articles
Information
Studies in American Political Development , Volume 10 , Issue 2 , Fall 1996 , pp. 185 - 222
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1996

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References

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7. See, e.g., Potter, David M., The Impending Crisis 1848–1861, Fehrenbacher, Don E., ed. (New York: Harper and Row, 1976), 246–47Google Scholar; Cooper, William J. Jr, The South and the Politics of Slavery 1828–1856 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1978), xiii, 359–62Google Scholar; Anbinder, Tyler, Nativism and Slavery: The Northern Know Nothings and the Politics of the 1850s (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 97–99Google Scholar.

8. Brock, William R., Parties and Political Conscience: American Dilemmas 1840–1850 (Mill-wood, NY: KTO Press, 1979), 317Google Scholar. See also Sundquist, James L., Dynamics of the Party System: Alignment and Realignment of Political Parties in the United States, rev. ed. (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1983), 73Google Scholar; Freehling, William W., The Road to Disunion, vol. I:Secessionists at Bay 1776–1854 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 562Google Scholar; Reichley, A.James, The Life of the Parties: A History of American Political Parties (New York: The Free Press, 1992), 107Google Scholar.

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10. See Potter, The Impending Crisis, 240–46; Holt, The Political Crisis of the 1850s, 155–56; Gienapp, The Origins of the Republican Parly, 13–14, 44–67, 163–64; Sewell, A House Divided, 40.

11. Holt, The Political Crisis of the 1850s, 13.

12. See Holt, The Political Crisis of the 1850s, 106–26; Gienapp, The Origins of the Republican Party, 65; Anbinder, Nativism and Slavery, 97–99; Holt, “The Mysterious Disappearance,” 243–47. Meyers, Marvin reported that the New York state constitutional convention of 1846 produced few divisions between the parties; see his The Jacksonian Persuasion: Politics and Belief (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1957), 236–37Google Scholar.

13. That slavery and ethnocultural issues seriously injured the Democrats is acknowl-edged by most scholars of the period. Besides those already cited, see Silbey, Joel H., A Respectable Minority: The Democratic Party in the Civil War Era, 1860–1868 (New York: W.W. Norton, 1977), 14–18Google Scholar.

14. See, e.g., Ashworth, John, “Agrarians” and “Aristocrats”: Party Political Ideology in the United States, 1837–1846 (Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1983)Google Scholar.

15. Perhaps the greatest attention has been devoted to Massachusetts. See Darling, Arthur B., Political Changes in Massachusetts, 1824–1848: A Study of Liberal Movements in Politics (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1925)Google Scholar; Brauer, Kinley J., Cotton versus Conscience: Massachusetts Whig Politics and Southwestern Expansion, 1843–1848 (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1967)Google Scholar; O'Connor, Thomas H., Lords of the Loom: The Cotton Whigs and the Coming of the Civil War (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1968)Google Scholar; Formisano, Ronald P., The Transformation of Political Culture: Massachusetts Parties, 1790s–1840s (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983)Google Scholar.

16. Klein, Philip Shriver, President James Buchanan: A Biography (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1962), 218–19Google Scholar.

17. Goldman, Ralph M., The National Party Chairmen and Committees: Factionalism at the Top (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1990), xiiGoogle Scholar; Key, V.O. Jr, Politics, Parties, and Pressure Groups, 5th ed. (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1964), 330Google Scholar; McCormick, Richard P., The Presidential Game: The Origins of American Presidential Politics (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982), 190Google Scholar.

18. Hine, David, “Factionalism in West European Parties: A Framework for Analysis,” West European Politics V (01 1982), 36–41CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

19. As Costain, Anne N. wrote (“An Analysis of Voting in American National Nominating Conventions, 1940–1976,” American Politics Quarterly VI (01 1978), 98–99)Google Scholar, this is appropriate:

Use of the state delegation can be defended both in theory and on the basis of past research. Within the convention itself, state delegations are the loci of much convention decision-making. The structure of national conventions emphasizes the importance of the state: voting strength is apportioned by state, state delegations choose their own leaders, and roll calls are taken by state. In the convention itself, communication flows seem to concentrate within the state delegation. State voting patterns also indicate a high level of agreement on candidates within state delegations. In divided conventions, the division is more likely to occur between delegations than within them.

State delegations also seem to have a certain continuity of issue orientation over time.

20. Cf. Bain, Richard C., Convention Decisions and Voting Records (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1960), fn. p. 10Google Scholar; Pomper, Gerald M., “Factionalism in the 1968 National Conventions,” Journal of Politics XXXIII (08 1971), 826–30Google Scholar. We should add, however, that we analyzed the data in this essay with states weighted by their share of the convention total, and the results did not differ substantially from those reported here.

21. For examples of factor analysis used in ways similar to this study, see Reiter, Howard L., “Party Factionalism: National Conventions in the New Era,” American Politics Quarterly VIII (07 1980), 303–18Google Scholar; Reiter, Howard L., Selecting the President: The Nominating Process in Transition (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1985), 84–106Google Scholar; Jillson, Calvin C., Constitution Making: Conflict and Consensus in the Federal Convention of 1787 (New York; Agathon Press, 1988)Google Scholar.

22. Cf. Bain's concepts of “key votes” and “critical ballots,” in Convention Decisions, 9–10.

23. In this period, there were no conventions at which there were divided votes on procedural matters, while the presidential and vice-presidential nominations were uncon-tested. Had there been such conventions, additional criteria would have been necessary.

24. On Whig nominating politics in 1839, see Gunderson, Robert Gray, Log-Cabin Campaign (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1957), 41–66Google Scholar; Bain, Convention Decisions, 24–27; Chambers, William Nisbet, “Election of 1840,” in Schlesinger, Arthur M. Jr ed., History of American Presidential Elections vol. I (New York: Chelsea House, 1971), 656–65Google Scholar. The balloting at the 1839 Whig national convention is found in Gunderson, Log-Cabin Campaign, 60–62. Some have suggested that Clay's style, more reserved and less democratic than some of his competitors, may have had more appeal in the more deferential politics of the old south; see Chambers, “Election of 1840,” 657; Carroll, E. Malcolm, Origins of the Whig Party (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1925), 154Google Scholar.

25. On Whig nominating politics in 1844, see Bain, Convention Decisions, 29–31; Charles, “Election of 1844”, in Schlesinger, History ofAmerican Presidential Elections, vol. I, 751, 757–59. On Clay's politics leading up to the 1844 Whig convention, see Cooper, The South and the Politics of Slavery, 152–57; Brock, Parties and Political Conscience, 121–22; Freehling, The Road to Disunion 427. On Frelinghuysen, see Sargent, Epes, The Life and Public Services of Henry Clay, Down to 1848 Greeley, Horace, ed. (Philadelphia: Porter and Coates, 1852), 232–33Google Scholar; Schlesinger, Arthur M. JrThe Age of Jackson (Boston: Little, Brown, 1945), 351–52Google Scholar; Ashworth, “Agrarians” and “Aristocrats,” 194–95; Peterson, Merrill D., The Great Triumvirate: Webster, Clay, and Calhoun (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), 361, 365Google Scholar; Remini, Robert V., Henry Clay: Statesman for the Union (New York: W.W. Norton, 1991), 645Google Scholar. Michael F. Holt suggests tentatively that Frelinghuysen was favored by southern Whigs through a process of elimination (of border-state Whigs whose nomination would not geographically balance that of Clay and anti-slavery northern governors), and because of New Jersey's proximity to Delaware, home of the southern Whigs' favorite, John M. Clayton; letter to the author, January 19, 1995.

26. On Whig nominating politics in 1848, see Wilson, Henry, Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America vol. II (Boston: James R. Osgood, 1876), 138Google Scholar; Bain, Convention Decisions, 40–43; Holman Hamilton, “Election of 1848,” in Schlesinger, History of American Presidential Elections, vol. I, 866–70; Cooper, The South and the Politics of Slavery, 244–53; Holt, The Political Crisis of the 1850s, 64; Brock, Parties and Political Conscience, 188–89. Holt has stated that Taylor received his greatest support from delegates from states where the Democrats were strongest; it was there that an apolitical military hero would help the Whig ticket the most. However, the correlation coefficient between Taylor's peak vote and the mean Democratic presidential vote from 1828 through 1844 was only 344, and when north-south sectionalism was controlled the coefficient dropped to 149. See Michael F. Holt, “Winding Roads to Recovery: The Whig Party from 1844 to 1848,” in Holt, Political Parties and American Political Development 203–05.

27. On Whig nominating politics in 1852, see Bain, Convention Decisions, 47–51; Roy and Jeanette Nichols, “Election of 1852,” in Schlesinger, History of American Presidential Elections vol. II, 931–35; Cooper, The South and the Politics of Slavery, 275–316, 322–27; Brock, Parties and Political Conscience, 258–61; Gienapp, The Origins of the Republican Party, 16–18.

28. In this table as well as others, statistical significance tests are not presented to indicate the likelihood of a sample representing a universe; after all, these data represent the universe of convention votes. Rather, significance tests are presented in order to show the likelihood of such high correlations occurring by chance. See Winch, Robert F. and Campbell, Donald T., “Proof? No. Evidence? Yes. The Significance of Tests of Significance,” American Sociologist IV (05 1969), 140–43Google Scholar.

29. The Eigenvalue was 2.533, and the factor accounted for 63.3 percent of the variance.

30. Multiple regression analysis confirms that the north-south cleavage accounts for Whig factionalism better than the east-west dimension. Using dummy variables for each geographic cleavage, that for north-south had a standardized regression coefficient about seventeen times the size of that for east-west.

31. The greater unity of the south is confirmed statistically: The standard deviation of the factor scores was 146 in the slave states and 804 in the free states.

32. Statistical View of the United States… Compendium of the Seventh Census (Washington, DC: A.O.P. Nicholson, 1854), 40, 180.

33. In all but three free states, Lincoln won an absolute majority of the votes cast. In California and Oregon, he came in first with a plurality in four-way races. Only in New Jersey did he fail to win in a one-on-one race (with Stephen Douglas). On New Jersey's laws on slavery and free blacks, see McManus, Edgar J., Black Bondage in the North (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1973), 160–79, 184Google Scholar.

34. Silbey, Joel H., The Shrine of Party: Congressional Voting Behavior 1841–1852 (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1967), 35–48, 137–41Google Scholar.

35. An alternative cleavage within the Whig party has been suggested by Michael Holt, one in which proponents of nominating apolitical war heroes confronted advocates of nominating political insiders; see his “Winding Roads to Recovery.” Defining the former type of candidate as Harrison and Scott in 1839, Scott and Taylor in 1848, and Scott in 1852 (none contested the vice-presidential nomination in 1844), factor analysis failed to produce a single factor from those three sets of candidates; indeed, the combined Scott and Taylor vote from 1848 was negatively correlated with the other two votes. Section is a far better explanation than military status of Whig national convention voting.

36. Those who saw sectionalism as early as the 1830s inculde Carroll, Origins of the Whig Partly, fn. pp. 175–76; Alexander, Thomas B., Sectional Stress and Party Strength: A Study of Roll-Call Voting Patterns in the United States House of Representatives, 1836–1860 (Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press, 1967), 11, 112Google Scholar; Russo, David J., “The Major Political Issues of the Jacksonian Period and the Development of party Loyalty in Congress, 1830–1840,” Transactions of the American Philosophical Society LXII (05 1972), 14–24Google Scholar; Stewart, James Brewer “Abolitionists, Insurgents, ans Third Parties: Sectionalism ans partisan Politics in Northern Whiggery, 1836–1844,” in Kraut, Alan M., ed., Crusaders and Compromisers: Essays on the Relationship of the Antislavery Struggle to the Antebllum Party System (Westport, CT: Greenwod Press, 1983), 25–26Google Scholar, Those who saw it beginning later inculde Silbey, The Shrine of Party, 63–64, 81–82, 95, 118–19, 135, 143–44; Deusen, Glyndon G. Van, “The Whig Party in Schlesinger, Arthur M. Jr ed., History of U. S. political parties, vol. 1 (New York: Chelsea House, 1973), 353–58Google Scholar; Holt, The Political Crisis of the 1850s, 40–50.

37. Michael F. Holt, “The Democratic Party 1828–1860,” in Schlesinger, History of U. S. Political Parties vol. I, 507.

38. On Democratic nominating politics in 1832, see Gammon, Samuel Rhea JrThe Presidential Campaign of 1832 (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1922), 72–104Google Scholar; Bain, Convention Decisions, 17–19; Robert V. Remini, “Election of 1832,” in Schlesinger, History of American Presidential Elections vol. I, 497–98, 508; Goldman, The National Party Chairmen, 7–9.

39. On Democratic nominating politics in 1836, see Schlesinger, The Age of Jackson, 212–13; Gunderson, Log-Cabin Campaign, 80; Joel H. Silbey, “Election of 1836,” in Schlesinger, History of American Presidential Elections vol. I, 584, 596; Cooper, The South and the Politics of Slavery, 86–88; Niven, John, Martin Van Buren: The Romantic Age of American Politics (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983), 377–80, 395–96Google Scholar; Chambers, “Election of 1840,” 666; Goldman, The National Party Chairmen, 9–11.

40. On Democratic nominating politics in 1840, see Schlesinger, Age of Jackson, 296–97; Gunderson, Log-Cabin Campaign, 78–83; Bain, Convention Decisions, 27–28; Chambers, “Election of 1840,” 666–67; Cooper, The South and the Politics of Slavery, 130–32; Niven, Martin Van Buren, 462–63; Goldman, the National Party Chairmen, 13.

41. On Democratic nominating politics in 1844, see Schlesinger, Age of Jackson, 400, 406—07, 431, 434–37; Woodford, Frank B., Lewis Cass: The Last Jeffersonian (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1950), 215–26Google Scholar; Bain, Convention Decisions, 31–35; Sellers, “Election of 1844,” 749–73; Cooper, The South and the Politics of Slavery, 166–71, 205; Brock, Parties and Political Conscience, 121–30, 137; Niven, Martin Van Buren, 508–10, 523–40; Freehling, The Road to Disunion, 411–12; Goldman, The National Party Chairmen, 17–18.

42. The other was Champ Clark in 1912.

43. Bain, Convention Decisions, 35.

44. Not surprisingly in a convention with a dark-horse winner, there was more than one factor produced; by the time Polk crafted a victorious coalition out of the broken dreams of his rivals, the structure of convention voting had undergone a major shift. The first factor, with an eigenvalue of 2.072 and with about 41 percent of the variance explained, had high loadings for the vote on the two-thirds rule and the front-runners, Van Buren and Cass. The second factor had an eigenvalue of only.730, with about 15 percent of the variance explained; moderately high loadings occurred for the Cass, Johnson, and Polk votes.

45. See Niven, Martin Van Buren, 532.

46. On Democratic nominating politics in 1848, see Schlesinger, Age of Jackson, 463; Woodford, Lewis Cass, 248–58; Bain, Convention Decisions, 36–40; Klein, President James Buchanan, 194–205; Hamilton, “Election of 1848,” 868–69; Cooper, The South and the Politics of Slavery, 232–35, 253–57; Holt, The Political Crisis of the 1850s, 64; Brock, Parties and Political Conscience, 209–14; Niven, Martin Van Buren, 571; Sundquist, Dynamics of the Party System, rev. ed. 61–65; Sewell, A House Divided, 26; Goldman, The National Party Chairmen, 21–24.

47. On Democratic nominating politics in 1852, see Schlesinger, Age of Jackson, 473–74; Woodford, Lewis Cass, 292–94; Bain, Convention Decisions 44–47; Klein, President James Buchanan, 216–22; Johannsen, Robert W., Stephen A. Douglas (New York: Oxford University Press, 1973), 343–70Google Scholar; Nichols and Nichols, “Election of 1852,” 936–43; Cooper, The South and the Politics of Slavery, 287–88, 300–302, 317–21, 332–34; Holt, The Political Crisis of the 1850s, 97–98; Brock, Parties and Political Conscience, 258–61, 285; Goldman, The National Party Chairmen, 57–59; Gara, Larry, The Presidency of Franklin Pierce (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1991), 21–35Google Scholar. The quotation is from Brock, Parlies and Political Conscience, 285.

48. A photograph of Lewis Cass taken around 1851 conveys this impression as effectively as any. It is reproduced in Jensen, Oliver, Kerr, Joan Paterson, and Belsky, Murray, American Album (n.p.: American Heritage and Simon and Schuster, 1968), 29Google Scholar.

49. In 1856 as in 1848 and 1852, there was little correlation between the presidential candidates' votes and those on procedural matters or the vice-presidential nomination, and the winner, Buchanan, built an intersectional coalition that combined the northeast and the upper south. On Democratic nominating politics in 1856, see Bain, Convention Decisions, 56–60; Klein, President James Buchanan, 248–56; Roy F. Nichols and Philip S. Klein, “Election of 1856,” in Schlesinger, History of American Presidential Elections, vol. II, 1012–1013, 1021–22; Goldman, The National Party Chairmen, 62–64.

50. The eigenvalue of the first factor was 1.306, and the factor accounted for 26.1 percent of the shared variance; the eigenvalue of the second factor was 0.840, and the factor accounted for 16.8 percent of the variance. The Whig factor required seven iterations, whereas the Democratic factors required more than twenty-five.

51. The first factor was correlated with the Whigs' factor, with r equaling.662, significant at the.002 level. With north–south and east–west dummy variables as the independent variables and scores on the first factor as the dependent variable, multiple regression analysis found a statistically significant standardized coefficient for the north–south dimension that was more than five times as great as that for the east–west dimension, which was not statistically significant. The adjusted R2 was about 37 percent.

52. Multiple regression analysis confirms this. With east–west and north–south dummy variables as the independent variables and scores on the second factor as the dependent variable, about 30 percent of the variance of the factor scores is accounted for. The standardized regression coefficient for the east–west cleavage is statistically significant and more than twice the value of that for the north-south divide.

53. See Silbey, The Shrine of Party, 35–48, 137–41; Silbey, Joel H., The Transformation of American Politics, 1840–1860 (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1967), 22–28Google Scholar; Holt, “The Democratic Party 1828–1860,” 527, 530–31; Ashworth, ”Agrarians” and ”Aristocrats,” 235–37, 245–46, 250–52, 255–56.

54. Alexander, Sectional Stress and Party Strength, 11, 111 –13; Silbey, Shrine of Party, passim; Russo, “Major Political Issues of the Jacksonian Period,” 14–24; Holt, Political Crisis of the 1850s, 43–49, 58; Joel H. Silbey, “There Are Other Questions Besides That of Slavery Merely': The Democratic Party and Antislavery Politics,” in Kraut, ed., Crusaders and Compromisers, 148; Stewart, “Abolitionists, Insurgents, and Third Parties,” 25–26.

55. Formisano, Ronald P., “Political Character, Antipartyism and the Second Party System,” American Quarterly XXI (Winter 1969), 704Google Scholar.

56. Marshall, Lynn L., “The Strange Stillbirth of the Whig Party,” American Historical Review LXXII (01 1967), 448Google Scholar; Formisano, “Political Character,” 700. The generalizations in this paragraph can also be found in Meyers, The Jacksonian Persuasion, 7–8; Chambers, William Nisbet, The Democrats 1789–1964: A Short History of a Popular Party (Princeton, NJ: D. Van Nostrand, 1964), 28Google Scholar; Welter, Rush, The Mind of America 1820–1860 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1975), 177–78Google Scholar; Potter, The Impending Crisis, 235; Howe, Daniel Walker, The Political Culture of the American Whigs (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979), 19, 32, 129, 143Google Scholar; McCormick, Richard P., The Presidential Game: The Origins of American Presidential Politics (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982), 203Google Scholar; Silbey, “‘There Are Other Questions,’;” 150–51; Sundquist, Dynamics of the Party System, 53–55; Ashworth, ”Agrarians” and “Aristocrats,” 213–18; Jaenicke, Douglas W., “The Jacksonian Integration of Parties into the Constitutional System,” Political Science Quarterly CI (Spring 1986), 92–98Google Scholar; Wilson, Major, “Republicanism and the Idea of Party in the Jacksonian Period,” Journal of the Early Republic VIII (Winter 1988), 429–41Google Scholar; Watson, Harry L., Liberty and Power: The Politics of Jacksonian America (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1990), 153, 174, 201–02, 234Google Scholar.

57. Meyers, The Jacksonian Persuasion, 143–44, 151; Formisano, “Political Character,” 698–99.

58. Greeley, Horace, “Why I Am a Whig: Reply to an Inquiring Friend,” New York Tribune Office, 1851, 3Google Scholar; Edward Stafford, quoted in Holt, “The Mysterious Disappearance,” 239; Formisano, “Political Character,” 704; McCormick, The Presidential Game, 203; quotations from Greeley, Barnard and the Albany Evening Journal from Kohl, Lawrence Frederick. The Politics of Individualism: Parties and the American Character in the Jacksonian Era (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), 95, 131Google Scholar; Marshall, “The Strange Stillbirth of the Whig Party,” 448–49. For similar statements, see Meyers, The Jacksonian Persuasion, 7–8; Formisano, “Political Character,” 699–704; Welter, The Mind of America, 190–91; Howe, The Political Culture of the American Whigs, 53–54, 138, 158, 222–23, 244; Shade, “Political Pluralism and Party Development,” 79; Ashworth, ”Agrarians” and “Aristocrats,” 206–11; Brown, Thomas, Politics and Statesmanship: Essays on the American Whig Party (New York: Columbia University Press, 1985), 8, 216–17Google Scholar; Wilson, “Republicanism and the' Idea of Party,” 424–29; Watson, Liberty and Power, 201.

59. Kohl, The Politics of Individualism; Nathans, Sydney, Daniel Webster and Jacksonian Democracy (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973), 6Google Scholar. See also Ashworth, ”Agrarians” and “Aristocrats,” 52, 207, 209–11. On the Whig emphasis on nationalism and national unity, see, e.g., Glyndon Van Deusen, G., “Some Aspects of Whig Thught and Theory in the Jacksonian Period,” American Historical Review LXIII (01 1958), 308, 317–18Google Scholar; Ashworth, ”Agrarians” and “Aristocrats,” 68–71; Brown, Politics and Statesmanship, 216–17; Kohl, The Politics of Individualism, 133–44; Watson, Liberty and Power, 185–87, 219, 222–24.

60. Greeley, “Why I Am a Whig,” 13; Sumner quoted in Brauer, Cotton versus Conscience, 191 (emphasis Sumner's); and Lincoln quoted in Howe, The Political Culture of the American Whigs, 264 (emphasis Lincoln's). For similar comments about the Whigs, see Howe, ibid., 19, 143. On Democrats' concern with issues, see Remini, Robert V., Martin Van Buren and the Making of the Democratic Party (New York: Columbia University Press, 1959)Google Scholar; Silbey, “‘There Are Other Questions,’” 154–60.

61. Freehling, The Road to Disunion, 475–77, 562; see also Sewell, A House Divided, 26–27. On the superior unity of the Democrats, see Potter, The Impending Crisis, 235.

62. See Welter, The Mind of America, 191–92; Ashworth, “Agrarians” and “Aristocrats,” 211–13; Wilson, “Republicanism and the Idea of Party,” 441.

63. Formisano, “Political Character,” 684–85, 690–97; Potter, The Impending Crisis, 236–37; Brock, Parties and Political Conscience, 54–56; Howe, The Political Culture of the American Whigs, 18, 32, 54–56; Ashworth, “Agrarians” and “Aristocrats,” 54–55, 196–99; Stewart, “Abolitionists, Insurgents, and Third Parties,” 27; Watson, Liberty and Power, 185–87, 222–24; Reichley, The Life of the Parties, 107. The quotations are from Howe, The Political Culture of the American Whigs, 32, and Formisano, “Political Character,” 684.

64. Greeley, “Why I Am a Whig,” 13.

65. Quoted in Kohl, The Politics of Individualism, 29.

66. See Van Deusen, “Some Aspects of Whig Thought,” 315; Ershkowitz, Herbert and Shade, William G., “Consensus or Conflict? Political Behavior in the State Legislatures during the Jacksonian Era,” Journal of American History LVIII (12 1971) 613, 616–17Google Scholar; Welter, The Mind of America, 265–66, 339–44, 440; Howe, The Political Culture of the American Whigs, 20–21; Ashworth, “Agrarians” and “Aristocrats,” 199–203; Brown, Politics and Statesmanship, 220; Jaenicke, “The Jacksonian Integration,” 88–90; Watson, Liberty and Power, 186, 245; Reichley, The Life of the Parties, 99–102. For a contrary opinion, see Levine, Peter D., The Behavior of State Legislative Parties in the Jacksonian Era: New Jersey, 1829–1844 (Rutherford, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1977), 185–206Google Scholar.

67. Kohl, The Politics of Individualism, 174; Holt, Political Crisis of the 1850s, 149; Formisano, Ronald P., The Birth of Mass Political Parties: Michigan, 1827–1861 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1971), 120–21Google Scholar; Hammond, John L., The Politics of Benevolence: Revival Religion and American Voting Behavior (Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing, 1979), 87Google Scholar; Formisano, Ronald P., The Transformation of Political Culture: Massachusetts Parties, 1790s–1840s (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983), 299–300Google Scholar; Formisano, “Political Character,” 704; Silbey, “‘There Are Other Questions,’” 149; Sundquist, Dynamics of the Party System, 53–55; Ershkowitz and Shade, “Consensus or Conflict?,” 611–12. On the connection between anti-slavery and the northern Whig party, see also Benson, Lee, The Concept ofjacksonian Democracy: New York as a Test Case (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1961), 179–80, 238, 317–20Google Scholar; Potter, The Impending Crisis, 234, 236; Howe, The Political Culture of the American Whigs, 37; Brown, Politics and Statesmanship, 219–28; Watson, Liberty and Power, 246. On the Democrats and race, see Welter, The Mind of America, 100, 339–48, 372–74, 439, 440; Ashworth, “Agrarians” and “Aristocrats,” 221–23; Jaenicke, “The Jacksonian Integration,” 90–91; Watson, Liberty and Power, 202–04, 240, 242–43; Gerring, John, “A Chapter in the History of American Party Ideology: The Nineteenth-Century Democratic Party (1828–1892),” Polity XXVI (Summer 1994), 733–36Google Scholar; most extensively, Baker, Jean H., Affairs of Party: The Political Culture of Northern Democrats in the Mid-Nineteenth Century (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1983), 177–96, 212–58Google Scholar.

68. However, Jaenicke argues that Van Buren's defection was due not to slavery, but to procedural matters; see “The Jacksonian Integration,” 105–07.

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70. For a classic description of this process, see Polsby, Nelson W., “Decision-Making at the National Conventions,” Western Political Quarterly XIII (09 1960), 609–19Google Scholar.

71. Anne N. Costain, “An Analysis of Voting,” 95–120; Costain, , “Changes in the Role of Ideology in American National Nominating Conventions and Among Party Identifiers,” Western Political Quarterly XXXIII (03 1980), 73–86Google Scholar.

72. See Ceaser, James W., Presidential Selection: Theory and Development (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1979), 138–40Google Scholar; Jaenicke, “The Jacksonian Integration,” 101–02.

73. McCormick, “The Party Period,” 287–88.