1. The Whig Party
Or: Fear and Loathing within the
Two-Party System.

2. Who were the Whigs?
• Founded in 1833 by John Quincy Adams
and Henry Clay, Opponents of Andrew
Jackson
• Pro-Business, Industry, and
Manufacturing.
• Former Federalists.
• States-Rights Southerners angered
during the Nullification Crisis.

3. The First Election
• 3 Whigs ran for President in 1836 (Daniel
Webster, William Henry Harrison, and
Hugh Lawson White).
• They all lost.

4. 1840
• William Henry Harrison was the
Whig’s nominee. John Tyler was
the VP nominee.
• They presented him as a humble
farmer, a fierce war hero and a
“Man’s Man.”
• Adopted the slogan “Tippecanoe
and Tyler Too!”
• Referred to President Van Buren
as “Martin Van Ruin” and “Little
Van.”
• Harrison won: 234 electoral votes
to 60.

5. President Harrison
• Served the shortest
term of any president
in United States
History.
• Inaugurated on March
4, 1841.
• Died of pneumonia,
on April 4, 1841.
• First president to die
in office

6. President Tyler
• Took over for
President Harrison
after his death.
• First Vice-President to
take over for his
predecessor.
• Kicked out of the Whig
Party in 1841 after
vetoing pretty much
their entire agenda.

7. Other Whig Presidents
• Zachary Taylor. Elected in 1848. Died in office in 1850
after eating a bowl of cherries and milk that may have
been tainted with cholera or some other common,
infectious disease.

8. Other Whig Presidents
• Taylor's Vice-President, Millard Fillmore
took over and finished out his term in 1852.

9. Other Whig Presidents
There, um…were none.
• After Whig candidate Winfield Scott was
soundly defeated in 1852, the Whig Party
died.

10. Lasting Effects
• The Whig Party spawned the Modern
Republican Party, as many former Northern
Whigs (including Abraham Lincoln) became
Republicans during the 1850s.