A Democratic Revolution: Politics 1820-1844

The period from 1820 to 1844 marked significant transformations in American politics, characterized by the rise of popular democracy and the expansion of suffrage. This era witnessed the emergence of new political parties, such as the Democratic Party under Andrew Jackson, which emphasized the importance of the common man and actively sought to engage a broader electorate.Additionally, the Second Party System took shape during this time, with the Whig Party forming in opposition to Jacksonian Democrats, leading to fierce political rivalries that shaped national policy and public opinion.

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canals. Congress approved only a few of Adam's proposals for internal improvements, among
them the short extension of the National Road from Wheeling, Virginia, into Ohio.
2. The Tariff Battle
The most far-reaching battle of the Adams administration came over tariffs. The Tariff of 1816
placed relatively high duties on imports of cheap English cotton cloth, allowing New England
textile producers to dominate that market. In 1824, Adams and Clay secured a new tariff that
protected manufacturers in New England and Pennsylvania against imports of iron goods and
more-expensive woolen and cotton textiles. When Van Buren and his Jacksonian allies won
control of Congress in the election of 1826, they proposed higher tariffs on wool, hemp, and
other imported raw materials. Their goals was to win the support of wool- and hemp-producing
farmers in New York, Ohio, and Kentucky for Jackson's presidential candidacy in 1828.
Northern supporters of Jackson joined with Adams and Clay to enact the Tariff of 1828 that
significantly raised duties on raw materials, textiles, and iron goods. This enraged the South that
did not need tariffs for their cotton that had to compete on competitive world markets. The tariff
cost southern planters about $100 million a year. They had to choose between higher costing
American goods or pay high tariffs on British goods. Even though Jackson supported it, most
southerners blamed Adams for the tariff. They also criticized his Native American policy, which
had supported the land rights of Native Americans against expansionist whites in the South
(Adams was a deeply moral man). Despite Adams' efforts, Georgia Congressmen and the
Georgia Governor persuaded the national legislature to enact a measure that extinguished the
Creeks' land titles and forced most Creeks to leave the state. Adams made a costly mistake by
not getting rid of people in his government who did not like him. He did not like patronage and
at times his arrogance hurt him.
D. "The Democracy" and the Election of 1828
The Election of 1828 became an interesting one. Van Buren united much of the South and the
"plain Republicans of the North" to support a Jackson/Calhoun ticket. At Van Buren's direction,
his Jacksonian allies orchestrated a massive publicity campaign. In New York, 50 newspapers
declared support in one day. Elsewhere, Jacksonians organized mass meetings, torchlight
parades, and barbecues to celebrate "Old Hickory's" frontier origin and rise to fame. Initially, the
Jacksonians called themselves Democratic Republicans; but as the campaign wore on, they
became Democrats. Jackson and his supporters wanted to usher in an era of the Common Man.
Jackson's message of equal rights and popular rule appealed to many social groups. His hostility
to business corporations and to Clay's American System won support among northeastern
artisans and workers who felt threatened by industrialization. Jackson also won the votes of
Pennsylvania ironworkers and New York farmers who had been enriched by the controversial
Tariff of Abominations (what critics called the Tariff of 1828). This also was one of the nastiest
elections in terms of "mudslinging."(hurling personal insults at candidates even if they were not
true). In 1824, only slightly more than 25% of the population voted. In 1828, more than 50%
Brody, David, Dumenil, Lynn, and Henretta, James, America’s History, 6th Edition Combined Volume.
New York: Bedford St. Martins, 2007.

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voted and 56% of that number voted for Jackson giving him the election. People traveled from
miles around to camp out on the White House lawn to celebrate Jackson and the era of the
Common Man.
III. The Jacksonian Presidency, 1829-1837
Jackson used his popular mandate to transform the presidency and the policies of the national
government. During his two terms in office, he enhanced the authority of the president over that
of Congress, destroyed the nationalistic American System, and ordained a new ideology for the
Democracy.
A. Jackson's Agenda
Jackson appointed Francis Preston Blair (editor of the Washington Globe, the Democratic Party's
newspaper), Amos Kendall (speech writer), Roger B. Taney (Attorney General), and Martin Van
Buren (Secretary of State) as some of his most influential cabinet members. They were called
his Kitchen Cabinet because his original cabinet resigned due to a social affair. John Eaton (a
cabinet member) and his wife Peggy Eaton were rumored to have married before Peggy's
divorce. The other cabinet members and their wives snubbed Peggy. Jackson had a similar story
with his deceased wife and reprimanded all the cabinet for their rudeness. They snobbishly
resigned leading to Jackson appointing his "good ole boys" that he supposively let in through the
kitchen door (Kitchen Cabinet). Jackson became the first president to use patronage to create
loyalty within their party. This became known as the spoils system. Jackson's priority was to
destroy the centralized plan of economic development known as the American System. Jackson
rejected national support for transportation projects, which he also opposed on constitutional
grounds. In 1830, he vetoed four internal improvement bills, including an extension of the
National Road, since he believed that should be left up to the states.
B. The Tariff and Nullification Crisis
Jackson's Vice President, John C. Calhoun, had resigned over the Peggy Eaton affair. He had
gone back to South Carolina and been elected as a Senator. His state feared too much federal
government power with tariffs and even the government abolishing slavery. South Carolina
adopted an Ordinance of Nullification that declared the tariffs of 1828 and 1832 to be null and
void (unconstitutional), prohibited the collection of those duties in South Carolina after February
1, 1833, and threatened secession if federal officials tried to collect them. John Calhoun
advocated states' rights in his The South Carolina Exposition and Protest and claimed the tariffs
were unconstitutional and therefore a state could nullify them. He claimed a state legislature
could decide if a congressional law was unconstitutional and declare it null and void within the
state's borders. Daniel Webster and Henry Clay advocated popular sovereignty and sought find a
way to end this and make their new Whig Party look good. Jackson hoped to find a middle path.
Although he wanted to limit the reach and power of the national government, he denounced
Brody, David, Dumenil, Lynn, and Henretta, James, America’s History, 6th Edition Combined Volume.
New York: Bedford St. Martins, 2007.

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Calhoun's radical doctrine of localist federalism. The Constitution clearly gave the federal
government the authority to establish tariffs, and whatever the costs, Jackson would enforce that
power. At Jackson's request, Congress passed the Force Bill early in 1833, which authorized the
president to use military force to compel South Carolina to obey national laws. He threatened to
hang anyone for treason for not abiding by the tariffs. He simultaneously won the passage of an
act that gradually reduced tariff rates 25% over 10 years. Clay and Webster came up with the
compromise but Jackson received credit. Webster really became well known for his Webster-
Hayne debate in the Senate over the Nullification Crisis when he advocated "Liberty and Union,
now and forever, one and inseparable!"
C. The Bank War
The Second Bank of the United States (founded in 1816) was a privately managed institution that
held a twenty-year charter from the federal government, which owned 20% of its stock. The
bank's most important role was to stabilize the nation's money supply. Most American money
consisted of notes and bills of credit--paper money--issued by state-chartered banks. The banks
promised to redeem the notes on demand with "hard" money--gold or silver coins (also known as
specie). By collecting those notes and regularly demanding specie, the Second Bank kept the
state banks from issuing too much paper money. During the prosperous 1820s, the Second Bank
maintained monetary stability by closing reckless state banks and restraining expansion-minded
bankers in the western states. This tight-money policy pleased bankers and entrepreneurs in
Boston, New York, and Philadelphia (where it was founded), whose capital investments were
underwriting economic development. However, most ordinary Americans did not understand the
regulatory role in the Second Bank played; they were simply worried about the national bank's
ability to force bank closures, which left them holding worthless paper notes. Some politicians
distrusted the bank's president, Nicholas Biddle, whom was arrogant. Fearing Biddle's influence,
bankers in New York and other states wanted the specie owned by the federal government to be
deposited in their institutions rather than in the Second Bank. Other bankers, including friends
of Jackson's in Nashville, wanted to escape supervision by any central bank.
1. Jackson Vetoes the Rechartering Bill
In 1832, Clay and Webster encouraged Nicholas Biddle to seek an early rechartering of the
Second Bank. They knew Jackson would veto it, but they hoped it would split the Democrats
and give Clay the election in 1832. Jackson not only vetoed it, he vetoed it with political rhetoric
that inspired patriotism for his veto. Jackson's attack on the bank carried him to victory in the
election of 1832. Jackson had chose Van Buren as his running mate this time. Clay was
defeated 219 to 49 in the Electoral College. Jackson's most fervent supporters were eastern
workers and western farmers, whose lives had been disrupted by falling wages or price
fluctuations, and who blamed their fate on the Second Bank. Jackson distrusted banks since the
Panic of 1819 when "wildcat banks" had given bad loans that were not paid back. This caused
many westerners to lose their hard earned money in this "wildcat banks."
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New York: Bedford St. Martins, 2007.

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2. The Bank Destroyed
Early in 1833, Jackson called on Roger B. Taney to launch an assault on the Second Bank, which
still had four years left on the original charter. A strong opponent of corporate privilege, Taney
assumed control of the Treasury Department and promptly withdrew the goverment's gold and
silver from the Second Bank. He deposited the specie in various state banks, which critics called
Jackson's "pet banks." Jackson's said his recent election showed the will of the people against
the bank, even though what he and Taney did was probably illegal. This occasion was the first in
which a president claimed that victory at the polls allowed him to pursue a controversial policy
or to act independently of Congress. The "bank war" escalated into an all-out political battle. In
March of 1834, Clay and others passed a resolution that censured the president and accused him
of being tyrannical. Jackson told Van Buren: "The Bank is trying to kill me but I will kill it."
When the Second Bank's national charter expired in 1836, Jackson prevented its renewal.
Jackson's destruction of the bank and the blockage of the American System led to a profound
reduction in the economic activities and the creative energy of the national government.
Although, many private roads, canals, and later railroads were all constructed by private
companies or states.
D. Indian Removal
By the late 1820s, American voices throughout the states and territories (excluding Native
Americans) of the South and Midwest were calling for the Indian peoples to be moved and
resettled west of the Mississippi River. Many easterners who were sympathetic to Native
Americans also favored resettlement. Removal to the West seemed the only way to protect
Indian societies from alcohol, financial exploitation, and the loss of their culture. Most Indians,
however, did not want to leave their ancestral lands. The Old Southwest (now southeast) was
home to the so-called Five Civilized Tribes: the Cherokees and Creeks in Georgia, Tennessee,
and Alabama; the Chickasaws and Choctaws in Mississippi and Alabama; and the Seminoles in
Florida. During the War of 1812, Andrew Jackson had forced the Creeks to relinquish millions
of acres of land, but Indian peoples still controlled vast tracts. Moreover, the mixed-blood
offspring of white traders and Indian women had now assumed the leadership of many tribes.
Growing up in a bicultural world, mixed-bloods knew the political ways of whites; most of them
strongly resisted removal, and some favored assimilation into white society. Many Indians like
the Cherokees actually owned slaves. To protect their property and the lands of their people, the
mixed-bloods promoted a strong Indian identity. For example, Sequoyah, a mixed-blood, spent
years developing a system of writing for the Cherokee language that he perfected in 1821; and in
1827, mixed-blood Cherokees introduced a new charter of government modeled directly on the
U.S. Constitution. Full-blood Cherokees, who made up 90% of the population, resisted many of
the mixed-bloods' cultural and political innovations but were equally determined to retain their
ancestral lands. In 1802, Georgia gave up its land claims in the West in exchange for the federal
government extinguishing Indian land holdings. Andrew Jackson gave his full support of
Georgia. On assuming the presidency, he withdrew the federal troops that had protected Indian
Brody, David, Dumenil, Lynn, and Henretta, James, America’s History, 6th Edition Combined Volume.
New York: Bedford St. Martins, 2007.

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enclaves there and in Alabama and Mississippi. The states, he declared, were sovereign within
their borders. Jackson then pushed the Indian Removal Act of 1830 through Congress. The act
granted money and land in present-day Oklahoma and Kansas to Native American peoples who
would give up their ancestral holdings. They were promised they could live there forever. When
Chief Black Hawk and his Sauk and Fox followers refused to move from rich farmland in
western Illinois in 1832, Jackson sent troops to expel them. Rejecting Black Hawk's offer to
surrender, the American army pursued him into the Wisconsin Territory and, in the brutal eight-
hour Bad Axe Massacre, killed 850 of Black Hawk's 1,000 warriors. Over the next five years,
American diplomatic pressure and military power forced seventy Indian peoples to sign treaties
and move west of the Mississippi. The Cherokees tried the Supreme Court to uphold their rights.
In Cherokee Nation v. Georgia (1831), Chief Justice John Marshall and the majority of the court
denied Cherokee's claim of independence, declaring that Indian peoples were "domestic
dependent nations." However, in Worcester v. Georgia (1832), Marshall and the court sided
with the Cherokees against Georgia. Voiding Georgia's extension of state law over the
Cherokees, they held that Indian nations were "distinct political communities, having territorial
boundaries, within which their authority is exclusive and this is guaranteed by the U.S." In 1835,
the U.S. government signed the Treaty of New Echota with only a fraction of the Cherokees but
forced all to abide by it. Jackson was quoted as saying: "John Marshall has made his
ruling...now let him enforce it." 14,000 were rounded up and forcibly marched 1,200 miles to
the Indian Territory, an arduous journey the described as the Trail of Tears. 3,000 died in route
from starvation and exposure. The Creeks, Chickasaws, and Choctaws were already moved but
the Seminoles fought a successful guerrilla war against the U.S. Army during the 1840s and
retained their lands in Florida.
E. The Jacksonian Impact
Jackson permanently expanded the potential authority of the nation's chief executive by
identifying it with the voice of the people. At the same time, Jackson purposefully curbed the
reach of the national government.
1. Roger B. Taney and the Court
Jackson appointed Roger B. Taney to replace John Marshall as chief justice who served from
1835 to 1864 and partially reversed the nationalist and property-rights decisions of the Marshall
Court and gave constitutional legitimacy to Jackson's policies endorsing states' rights and free
enterprise. In the landmark case Charles River Bridge Co. v. Warren Bridge Co. (1837), Taney
declared that a legislative charter--in this case, to build and operate a toll bridge--did not
necessarily bestow a monopoly, and that a legislature could charter a competing bridge to
promote the general welfare. This decision directly challenged Marshall's interpretation of the
contract clause of the Constitution in Dartmouth College v. Woodward (1819), which had
stressed the binding nature of public charters. By limiting the property claims of existing canal
and turnpike companies, the decision opened the way for legislatures to charter railroads that
Brody, David, Dumenil, Lynn, and Henretta, James, America’s History, 6th Edition Combined Volume.
New York: Bedford St. Martins, 2007.

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would provide cheaper and more-efficient transportation. Taney and the court also restored to
the states some of the economic powers they had exercised before 1787 in the case of Mayor of
New York v. Miln (1837).
2. States Embrace Classical Liberal Doctrines (Laissez Faire)
Between 1830 and 1860, twenty states called conventions to write new constitutions that would
extend democracy. The revised constitutions were more democratic because they usually gave
the vote to all white men and reapportioned state legislatures on the basis of population. They
also mandated the election rather than the appointment of most public officials including sheriffs,
justices of the peace, and judges. They also supported classical liberalism or laissez faire
(French for hands off)--that the government's role in the economy should be limited. Most
Jackson-era constitutions prohibited states from granting exclusive charters to corporations or
extending loans and credit guarantees to private businesses. The revised state constitutions also
protected taxpayers by setting strict limits on state debt and encouraging judges to enforce them.
IV. Class, Culture, and the Second Party System
The rise of Jackson also led to the rise of the Whig Party in the 1830s. For the next two decades,
Whigs and Democrats competed fiercely for votes. Each party appealed to different cultural
groups: Many evangelical Protestants became Whigs, while most Catholic immigrants and
traditional Protestants joined the Democrats. By debating issues of economic policy, class
power, and moral reform, party politicians offered Americans a clear choice between competing
programs and political leaders.
A. The Whigs
The Whig Party began in 1834, when a group of congressmen banded together to oppose
Andrew Jackson's policies. They took the name Whigs to identify themselves with the pre-
Revolutionary American and British parties--also called Whigs-- that had opposed the arbitrary
actions of British monarchs (they called Jackson, King Andrew I). The Whigs accused Jackson
of violating the Constitution by creating a "spoils system" and increasing presidential authority.
1. Whig Ideology
The Whigs started out as a diverse group led by Senators Webster of MA, Clay of Kentucky, and
Calhoun of SC. Their goal, like that of the Federalists of the 1790s, was a political would
dominated by men of ability and wealth; unlike the Federalists, though, Whig elite would be
chosen by talent, not birth. They supported Clay's American System and entrepreneurs and the
enterprise system. In the North this meant the industrialists and at times wage earners. Support
for the Whigs in the South rested on the appeal of specific policies and politicians rather than
agreement with the Whigs' social vision. Some southern Whigs were wealthy planters who
invested in railroads and banks or sold their cotton to New York merchants. Most were yeomen
whites who wanted to break the grip over state politics held by low-country planters, most of
Brody, David, Dumenil, Lynn, and Henretta, James, America’s History, 6th Edition Combined Volume.
New York: Bedford St. Martins, 2007.

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whom were Democrats. In addition, some states' rights Democrats in Virginia and South
Carolina became Whigs because they condemned Jackson's crusade against nullification.
Calhoun and other southerners did not like the Whig's support of high tariffs though. Ignoring
the ever-increasing mass of propertyless immigrants, Webster focused on the growing size and
affluence of the northern middle class, whose members became strong supporters of Whig
candidates. In fact, in the election of 1834, the Whigs won a majority in the House of
Representatives by appealing to evangelical Protestants and the upwardly mobile--prosperous
farmers, small town merchants, and skilled industrial workers in New England, New York, and
the new communities along the Great Lakes.
2. Anti-Masonic Influence
Many Whigs had originally been part of the Anti-Masonic party that opposed the Order of
Freemasonry and their influence. The order was a secret society of men, its rituals closely
guarded. New members had to be vouched for by a Mason and profess a belief in a supreme
being. Washington, Clay and Jackson were all Free-Masons. After William Morgan was killed
for threatening to reveal their secrets, Thurlow Weed, a Rochester newspaper editor led the Anti-
Masonic Party who attacked the order for being a secret aristocratic fraternity and ousted its
members from local and state offices. Whigs recruited them by endorsing temperance,
equality/opportunity, and evangelical moralism. Whigs pushed for preservation of Sunday as a
day of worship as well as government subsidies for roads, canals, and bridges that appealed
throughout the Midwest.
3. The Election of 1836
In 1836 the Democrats ran Jackson's hand-picked successor Martin Van Buren who denounced
the American System and advocated individual rights by opposing the Whigs attempts to curtail
alcohol sales and abolish slavery. The Whigs foolishly ran 4 candidates, hoping to get enough
electoral votes to go the House where they held majority. William Henry Harrison had the most
with 26 but Van Buren earned 170.
B. Labor Politics and the Depression of 1837-1843
1. Working Men's Parties and Unions
In 1827, artisans and workers in Philadelphia organized the Mechanic's Union of Trade
Associations, a group of fifty unions with 10,000 members. The following year they founded
Working Men's Party that campaigned for the abolition of banks, fair taxation, and universal
education. By 1833, it was in fifteen states. The economic transformation had brought
prosperity to bankers and entrepreneurs, but rising prices and stagnant wages had lowered the
standard of living of many urban artisans and wage earners. In Pennsylvania, the party
persuaded the legislature to authorize tax-supported schools to educate workers' children.
Working Men's candidates initially won office in many cities, but divisions over policy and the
parties' weakness in statewide contests soon took a toll. Most had joined the Democrats by the
Brody, David, Dumenil, Lynn, and Henretta, James, America’s History, 6th Edition Combined Volume.
New York: Bedford St. Martins, 2007.

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mid-1830s. There they pushed for the end of tariffs and encouraged taxes on stocks of bonds of
wealthy capitalists. Unions began to form, but businesses owners attacked the union movement
by blacklisting them-fire workers or not hire those apart of a union. The employers also brought
lawsuits to overturn closed-shop agreements that required them to hire only union members.
They argued that these contracts violated both the common and legislative statutes that
prohibited "conspiracies" in restraint of trade. Judges usually sided with the employers.
2. The Panic of 1837 and the Depression
The panic began when the Bank of England, hoping to boost the faltering British economy,
sharply curtailed the flow of money and credit to the U.S. Over the previous decade and a half,
British manufacturers and investors had extended credit to southern planters to expand cotton
production and had purchased millions of dollars of the canal bonds issued by northern states.
Suddenly deprived of British funds, American planters, merchants, and canal corporations had to
withdraw specie from domestic banks to pay their commercial debts and interest on their foreign
loans. The price of raw cotton plummeted and severely hurt southern planters. The drain of gold
and silver to Britain and falling cotton prices set off a financial panic. When worried depositors
quickly withdrew more than $2 million in gold and silver coins from New York banks after the
Dry Dock Bank of NYC collapsed, all banks across the U.S. stopped trading specie and curtailed
credit. These measures turned a financial panic into an economic crisis because many businesses
had to curtail production. A second, longer-lasting downturn began in 1839. To revive the
economy after the Panic of 1837, state government increased their investments in canals and
other transportation ventures. As they issued more and more bonds to finance these ventures,
bond prices fell sharply in Europe, sparking a four-year long international financial crisis. This
crisis engulfed state governments in America, which were unable to meet their substantial
interest payments on their bonds. Nine states defaulted on their loans to foreign creditors, which
in turn led to Europe cutting off capital to the U.S. Bumper crops drove down cotton prices even
further, bringing more bankruptcies. Canals stopped being built by 90% and prices dropped by
nearly 50%. Eastern cities saw 20% unemployment.
3. The Fate of the Labor Movement
By creating a surplus of unemployed workers, the depression devastated the labor movement.
By 1843, most local unions and all the national labor organizations disappeared. The Supreme
Court did rule in their favor with the Commonwealth v. Hunt (1842) decision that upheld the
rights of workers to form unions. It ruled that a union was not an inherently illegal organization
and could strike to enforce a closed-shop agreement. In 1840, President Van Buren signed an
executive order that set a ten-hour day for federal employees.
C. "Tippecanoe and Tyler Too!"
The depression had a major impact on politics because many Americans blamed the Democrats
for their economic woes. In particular, they derided Jackson for destroying the Second Bank and
for issuing the Specie Circular of 1836, which had required western settlers to use gold and silver
Brody, David, Dumenil, Lynn, and Henretta, James, America’s History, 6th Edition Combined Volume.
New York: Bedford St. Martins, 2007.

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coins to pay for land purchases from the federal government (they did not realize the specie
shipments to Britain were the main cause of the Panic). Many voters blamed Jackson's policies
as well as his successor, Martin Van Buren. Ignoring the pleas of influential bankers, the new
president refused to revoke the Specie Circular or take other actions that might have reversed the
downturn. Van Buren believed in Laissez Faire. Van Buren's major piece of economic
legislation, the Independent Treasury Act of 1840, pulled federal specie out of Jackson's pet
banks (which it had used to back loans) and placed it in government vaults to save the country's
treasury. It is debated about whether this was a good idea or not.
1. The Election of 1840
The Whigs saw an opportunity and held their first convention and nominated William Henry
Harrison of Ohio for president and John Tyler of Virginia for V.P. A military hero of the Battle
of Tippecanoe and the War of 1812, Harrison was well advanced in age (68) and had little
political experience. The Whigs just wanted a candidate who would support protective tariffs
and a national bank. Van Buren did not stand much of a chance with the economy. Harrison's
campaign was called the "Log Cabin and Hard Cider" campaign by trying to convince voters
Harrison came from low economic roots (he was born wealthy). They chanted: "Van! Van! He
is a used up man!" or "Martin Van Ruin." They claimed he was aristocratic when he was
actually born middle class. The Whigs also welcomed women to get involved in politics while
the Democrats viewed it as a manly affair. More than 80% of the eligible male voters cast
ballots in 1840 (only 60% in the previous two elections). Heeding the Whig slogan "Tippecanoe
and Tyler Too," they voted Harrison into the White House--he won 53% of the popular vote and
80% of the electoral vote--and gave Whigs a majority in Congress.
2. John Tyler versus the Whigs
Unfortunately for the Whigs, Harrison died from pneumonia a month after his inauguration for
giving a 2 hour long inauguration speech in the cold rain without a coat or hat. Tyler was
actually a Democrat that only became a Whig to protest Jackson's view on nullification. He
planned on governing as he pleased. He was firmly committed to slavery and states' rights. On
economic issues, Tyler shared Jackson's hostility to the Second Bank and the American System.
Tyler vetoed Whig bills that would have raised tariffs and created a national bank. Disgusted,
most of the members of Tyler's cabinet resigned in 1842, and the Whigs expelled him from their
party. His nickname became "His Accidency." The split between Tyler and the Whigs allowed
the Democrats to regroup. The party vigorously recruited supporters among subsistence farmers
in the North, smallholders in the South, and former members of the Working Men's parties in the
cities. It also won success among Irish and German Catholic immigrants--whose numbers had
increased during the 1830s--by supporting their demands for religious and cultural freedom.
Soon voting along ethnic and religious lines became prominent in American politics
(ethnocultural politics to historians). Thanks to these urban and rural recruits, the Democrats
remained the majority party in most parts of the nation. Their program of equal rights, states'
Brody, David, Dumenil, Lynn, and Henretta, James, America’s History, 6th Edition Combined Volume.
New York: Bedford St. Martins, 2007.

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rights, and cultural liberty was more attractive than the Whig platform of economic nationalism,
moral reform, and individual mobility.
Brody, David, Dumenil, Lynn, and Henretta, James, America’s History, 6th Edition Combined Volume..