Realignment of the Party System

Since the early 1830s, Whigs and Democrats had organized and channeled political conflict in the nation. This party system dampened sectionalism and strengthened the Union. To achieve national political power, the Whigs and Democrats had to retain their strength in both the North and South. Strong northern and southern wings required that each party compromise and find positions acceptable to both sections.

The Kansas-Nebraska controversy shattered this stabilizing political system. In place of two national parties with bisectional strength, the mid-1850s witnessed the development of one party heavily dominated by one section and another party entirely limited to the other section. Rather than “national” parties, the country had what one critic disdainfully called “geographic” parties, a development that thwarted political compromise between the sections.

Whig Party
1848 Whig Party divides into two factions over slavery; Whigs adopt no platform and nominate war hero Zachary Taylor, who is elected president.
1852 Whigs nominate war hero General Winfield Scott for president; deep divisions in party result in humiliating loss.
1856 Shattered by sectionalism, Whig Party fields no presidential candidate.
Democratic Party
1848 President Polk declines to run again; Democratic Party nominates Lewis Cass, the man most closely associated with popular sovereignty, but avoids firm platform position on expansion of slavery.
1852 To bridge rift in party, Democrats nominate northern war veteran with southern views, Franklin Pierce, for president; he wins with 50.9 percent of popular vote.
1856 Democrat James Buchanan elected president on ambiguous platform; his prosouthern actions in office alienate northern branch of party.
1860 Democrats split into northern Democrats and southern Democrats; each group fields its own presidential candidate.
Free-Soil Party
1848 Breakaway antislavery Democrats and antislavery Whigs found Free-Soil Party; presidential candidate Martin Van Buren takes 10.1 percent of popular vote, mainly from Whigs.
1852 Support for Free-Soil Party ebbs in wake of Compromise of 1850; Free-Soil presidential candidate John P. Hale wins only 5 percent of popular vote.
American (Know-Nothing) Party
1851 Anti-immigrant American (Know-Nothing) Party formed.
1854–1855 American Party succeeds in state elections and attracts votes from northern and southern Whigs in congressional elections.
1856 Know-Nothing presidential candidate Millard Fillmore wins only Maryland; party subsequently disbands.
Republican Party
1854 Republican Party formed to oppose expansion of slavery in territories; attracts northern Whigs, northern Democrats, and Free-Soilers.
1856 Republican presidential candidate John C. Frémont wins all but five northern states, establishing Republicans as main challenger to Democrats.
1860 Republican Abraham Lincoln wins all northern states except New Jersey and is elected president in four-way race against divided Democrats and southern Constitutional Union Party.
Table : The Realignment of Political Parties