The Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party

Jacksonian Politics and the Onset of the Civil War

Michael F. Holt

The Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party

Jacksonian Politics and the Onset of the Civil War

Michael F. Holt

Description

Here, Michael F. Holt gives us the only comprehensive history of the Whigs ever written. He offers a panoramic account of the tumultuous antebellum period, a time when a flurry of parties and larger-than-life politicians--Andrew Jackson, John C. Calhoun, Martin Van Buren, and Henry Clay--struggled for control as the U.S. inched towards secession. It was an era when Americans were passionately involved in politics, when local concerns drove national policy, and when momentous political events--like the Annexation of Texas and the Kansas-Nebraska Act--rocked the country. Amid this contentious political activity, the Whig Party continuously strove to unite North and South, emerging as the nation's last great hope to prevent secession.

The Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party

Jacksonian Politics and the Onset of the Civil War

Michael F. Holt

Preface
Acknowledgments
1. "Not Fitted to Make Converts"
2. "To Rescue the Government and Public Library"
3. "No Opposition Man Can Be Elected President"
4. "We Have Many Recruits in Our Ranks from the Pressure of the Times"
5. "Harrison and Prosperity or Van Buren and Ruin"
6. "The Whig Party Seems Now Totally Broken Up and Dismembered"
7. "The Whigs Are in High Spirits"
8. "The Present Administration Are Your Best Recruiting Officers"
9. "The Contest for President Should Be Regarded as a Contest of Principles"
10. "We Must Have the Aid of Gunpowder"
11. "Stimulate Every Whig to Turn Out"
12. "Many Discordant Political Interests to Reconcile"
13. "Patronage Is a Dangerous Element of Power"
14. "The Slavery Excitement Seems Likely to Obliterate Party Lines"
15. "The Long Agony Is Over"
16. "God Save Us from Whig Vice Presidents"
17. "Fillmore...Is Precisely the Man for the Occasion"
18. "Webster Is Now Engaged in Strenuous Efforts to Secure the Succession"
19. "Scott & Scott Alone Is the Man for the Emergency"
20. "Like Pissing Against the Wind"
21. "Now Is the Time to Start New; the Old Issues Are Gone"
22. "This Nebraska Business Will Entirely Denationalize the Whig Party"
23. "The Whig Party, as a Party, Are Entirely Disbanded"
24. "Confusion Worse Confounded"
25. "Let, Then, the Whig Party Pass"
26. "The Whig Party Is Dead and Buried"
Notes
Abbreviations Used in Notes
Bibliography
Index

The Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party

Jacksonian Politics and the Onset of the Civil War

Michael F. Holt

Author Information

Michael F. Holt, a leading authority on nineteenth-century American politics, is Langbourne M. Williams Professor of American History at the University of Virginia. He lives in Charlottesville, Virginia.

The Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party

Jacksonian Politics and the Onset of the Civil War

Michael F. Holt

Reviews and Awards

"Holt's history of the Whigs, the fruit of many long hard years of research and writing, is an important work."--American Historical Review

"The Rise and Fall of the Whig Party is a magesterial work, one that cannot be neglected by nineteenth-century historians even if their particular emphasis is not political history. While it is intended to be the history of a political party, it has something worthwhile to say about almost every major issue in United States history from the nullification controversy of 1832 to the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854."--Civil War History

"Michael Holt's long-awaited magnum opus combines massive archival research and sophisticated analysis of election returns with judicious interpretations. Defying current academic fashions, this book displays not only the author's perseverance but his intellectual courage."--Daniel Walker Howe, Rhodes Professor of American History, Oxford University

"In its short life the Whig party helped shape the political and economic institutions of the antebellum United States. And the party's death in the mid-1850's was both effect and cause of the political breakdown that led to secession and Civil War. Michael Holt tells this story in more detail and with deeper insight than any other historian. The Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party will instantly become an indispensable reference work on antebellum political history."--James McPherson, Princeton University

"Mike Holt's history of the Whig Party is magisterial....This massive book will have a thunderous impact on scholarship and on the understanding of the American past."--William J. Cooper, Jr., Louisiana State University

"A remarkable tour de force....Holt's extraordinary thoroughness is awe-inspiring."--Virginia Quarterly Review

"The behavior of the Whig political elite in the most crucial period of the nation's history is analyzed with breathtaking sophistication and command of the evidence."--Journal of the Early Republic

"A true masterpiece."--Civil War News

"Massively researched, closely argued, remarkably insightful....Holt's grasp of the antebellum political universe and the political stars that circulated in it is unparalleled."--Journal of American History

"I think it is the best and most impressive book on the period to appear in years, and one of the most important books on nineteenth century politics ever written."--William E. Gienapp, Harvard University

"This book caps the career of a prominent political historian and will long be a staple for academic library collections in history and political science."--Library Journal

"Now, in The Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party, Michael F. Holt has disinterred the party's entire 22-year history, examining it to see what mad it tick and what brought about its demise."--Stuart Ferguson, The Wall Street Journal

"Steeped in extensive archival research, this detailed recounting of the policies and practices of Whig politicos and the party's achievements, shortcomings, and eventual demise will long stand as definitive."--CHOICE

"An invaluable work of scholarship and a significant book on understanding one of the most exciting and controversial periods in American history."--Times Literary Supplement

"[B]y far the most comprehensive account of the Whig party ever written and is perhaps the single most essential reference today for research into American antebellum politics."--Wesley Allen Riddle, Civil War Book Review"