The period of the second party system was a period of great political instability. Born and died several parties and movements short-lived and often troubled, who acted as counterpoint to the almost undisputed domination of the Democratic Party. Despite this, the turnout was among the highest in U.S. history: typically, he went to the polls a percentage of potential voters between 70% and 80% [6]. Election campaigns were characterized by very bright tones, poor adherence to policy proposals, instrumental arguments, insults and falsehoods against the opponents.
The Whig Party was born in 1834, picking up the opposition to Jackson. Jackson was seen by many as a monarch and a danger to the stability of the fledgling democracy. Whig propaganda was nicknamed the "King Andrew I". The Whig Party members gathered national-republican and anti-Masonic party, then it especially strong in New York and Pennsylvania, and some southern Democrats disappointed by Jackson. The name Whig was taken from the British Whig Party, founded in the seventeenth century, born in opposition to the tyranny of the Stuart kings. The term Whig had become popular in America during the revolution, when settlers opposed to the tyranny of George III.
The Whig resumed Henry Clay and the program of the National-Republicans, who had roots in the federalist ideas of Hamilton. They were a strong modernization of the country, the development of trade, market economy, the central bank of the United States, development of infrastructure to be financed by the sale of new lands. Unlike the National-Republicans, managed to gather consensus, even in the south of the country, as a reaction to some of Jackson's policies were perceived as a threat to their autonomy. They were also supported by businessmen, traders and conservatives, shocked by the Jacksonian war against the central bank. Favored programs of federal intervention on the economy, public works and protectionism.
The Whig Party had a short life and troubled, affected by the continuing internal divisions. The first presidential election in which he participated were those of 1836. The Whig not held a national convention and nominated a single candidate for president. Instead, they presented three candidates in three different parts of the country. With this trick hoped to pick up more votes and keep the Democratic candidate, Martin Van Buren, to obtain an absolute majority of electors. In the electoral college would then made to converge the votes of all voters won by the three candidates for the Whig only one of them. They hoped that this would be enough to elect a Whig president. In the less fortunate, they thought, the election of the President would take over the House of Representatives, as had happened in 1824, where the games would be more open. Not the case any such eventuality, because the election results delivered the absolute majority of the electors directly to Van Buren.
The first was to Whig National Convention of 1840, which did not adopt any policy document and a candidate for the presidency the military hero William H. Harrison. The convention of the Whig followed the lines of those Democrats. The fundamental difference was that the Whigs did not adopt the two-thirds rule, but they preferred the rule of an absolute majority. The number of votes which belonged to each state was equal to the number of electors that would have been entitled in the presidential election later. After the decline of the Whig absolute majority rule was inherited from the modern Republican Party, in which many Whig leaders came together.
The Whig Party went through a period of success in the 1840s until the early 1850s, when he managed to elect two presidents, in 1840 Harrison and Zachary Taylor in 1848. Taylor was also a military hero. Both presidents had little luck Whigs, because they died shortly after the start of their mandates, Harrison and Taylor after only one month after a year and four months. The vice president who took over in Harrison, John Tyler, was a former Democrat, the Whig candidate with little foresight, mainly in order to win the sympathies of the south. Once president, in fact, Tyler pursued policies far from those Whig, and used the veto to stop the reintroduction of protectionist measures and the central bank. Because of this, the leaders of the Whig Party met in caucus to expel Tyler from the party. The only two years when the Whig control both the House
In 1848 the party split and new risks to the nomination of another military hero, Zachary Taylor, was used to avoid crushing. After the death of Taylor, the incoming vice president, Millard Fillmore, Whig lived up to the programs, but was not re-apply next time. In 1852 he was preferred to another military hero, General Winfield Scott, hoping to unite the party and repeat the victories of Harrison and Taylor. However, internal divisions were too deep. They dealt largely with the question of extending slavery to new territories. This time, the search for a candidate to join prestige that the party does not have the effect hoped for. The lack of consensus gathered in the elections of 1852 brought the Whigs quickly dissolved. The Whigs of the South came together in the Democratic Party. The Whig other parts of the country came together in various formations, including the party of free soil and the party modern Republican, who was born in 1854. Even Abraham Lincoln, former leader of the Whig Party, helped found the Republican Party, after returning for a short time to private life. The last was to Whig National Convention of 1856, when supported Fillmore, which that year was nominated by the movement "know-nothing."
The Free Soil Party ( Free Soil Party) was founded in 1848 by former Freedom Party ( Liberty Party), the precursor of the abolitionist cause, by a faction of Democrats strongly opposed to slavery and antislavery groups of the Whig Party. The cause of the new convergence policy was the extension of slavery into the territories of the southwest, a recent acquisition. The party of free soil fought for the abolition of slavery and the sale of western lands at low prices. He adopted the slogan "Free soil, free speech, free labor and free men." In 1848 it held its first national convention, which ran the former Democratic president Martin Van Buren. Elections picked up 10.1% of the popular vote, but did not win in any state. The adoption in 1850 of a compromise on the issue of slavery gave a blow to the party of free soil, which was opposed to any form of compromise on the issue. In 1852 the party held its second and last national convention. In those elections, picked up only 4.9% of the vote. In 1856 came together largely in the Republican Party, whose rapid rise coincided with riacuirsi the issue of slavery.
Movement know nothing ("know nothing") was so named for its semi-secret organization: its activists would always reply "do not I know nothing "when faced with requests for information about their membership and activities and rituals of the movement. It was a movement "nativist American who defended the rights of American citizens by birth, against the threat posed by immigrants. He was born as a result of a number of concerns that spread among the Protestant population, concerned about the increasing immigration of Catholic Irish descent, who was accused of introducing elements of corruption in politics. The know-nothing fighting for the reduction of immigration and restriction of public positions to the Americans by birth. In addition, demanding that immigrants be granted naturalization only after 21 years of residence in the United States. Supported candidates in elections only Protestants. Especially opposed to the Democrats, because in many local governments were allies of the democratic politicians of Irish origin. The know-nothing even believe that Pope Pius IX had hatched a plot to undermine the foundations of American democracy, mobilizing bishops and parishes in planning and scientifically immigration to the U.S. several Catholic groups in Ireland.
In 1854, while the Whig Party languished and the second party system was in decline, the know-nothing movement achieved many successes in local elections and organized officially in American party (American Party ). A level National, by contrast, was never able to take off. In 1856 he held his first and only national convention, which nominated Fillmore presidential candidate. In those elections, picked up just over 21.5% of the popular vote and won in a single state. At that moment riacuì the problem of slavery. The American party found itself unprepared for it and split. Members opposed to slavery, especially in the north, came together in the Republican Party, while in the south, the party political activity continued until the end of the decade, when it finally disappeared.
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