The Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party: Jacksonian Politics and the Onset of the Civil War

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The Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party: Jacksonian Politics and the Onset of the Civil War

3.83 of 5 stars 3.83 · rating details · 42 ratings · 5 reviews

The political home of Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, Horace Greeley, and the young Abraham Lincoln, the American Whig Party was involved at every level of American politics--local, state, and federal--in the years before the Civil War, and controlled the White House for eight of the twenty-two years that it existed. Now, in The Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party, Michae...more

Hardcover, 1296 pages

Published June 17th 1999 by Oxford University Press, USA

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Jun 27, 2011 Davis rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: started-to-read

The first 200-300 pages are very good, discussing how the party evolved out of the Madison wing of the Democratic-Republicans after the factious and misnamed "Era of Good Feeling." However, their is another 1,000 pages after that. The book gets bogged down in the details of various elections (all branches of state government, congressional, presidential, even local) which can be good for references if, say, one wanted to know how President Taylor's opposition to the "Compromise" of 1850 played o...more

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Oct 20, 2009 Jim rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: history, politics

Wow. This book is very long, and very detailed. There's a lot here that's very interesting, but I feel, overall, that Holt missed his chance by focusing too much on highlighting data and examining state-by-state election returns, which he used to support certain conclusions that may be revisionist. It seems as though the book is written more for historians who already know a lot about antebellum politics, as a means of getting the mainstream view to change. However, he missed a good opportunity...more Wow. This book is very long, and very detailed. There's a lot here that's very interesting, but I feel, overall, that Holt missed his chance by focusing too much on highlighting data and examining state-by-state election returns, which he used to support certain conclusions that may be revisionist. It seems as though the book is written more for historians who already know a lot about antebellum politics, as a means of getting the mainstream view to change. However, he missed a good opportunity to educate his readers more broadly about the period.

Holt would argue, I'm sure, that his intent was to focus exclusively on the Whig Party, and that plenty has been written about the other parties and personalities of the time. Fair enough. But when your main thesis is that the Whigs' fortunes were always tied to actions taken by the Democrats (e.g., Texas annexation, the Mexican War or Kansas-Nebraska), isn't it worth stopping to examine what motivated those decisions in the first place? And since the parties took different approaches on these big issues, as well as tariffs and internal improvements, isn't is worth a bit more examination of the merits of these claims, and how they appealed to different constituencies at the time? The trouble with focusing so much on the purely political forces is that we're left with politicians staking out positions to enhance their electoral fortunes, but without an understanding of the popular currents of opinion that presumably drove the politicians to take those positions in the first place.

Holt does a great job describing the sectional rift within the Whig party, and how it grows over time (though, again, it would be helpful to understand how the Democrats were able to navigate those rifts more successfully). He spends a lot of time discussing the patronage and administrative decisions of the Tyler, Taylor and Fillmore administrations, which provide a fascinating (if overlong)look at how 19th century politics worked, mechanically. The discussion of the maneuverings over the Compromise of 1850 were the fastest read in the book, which is good since they consumed over 200 pages.

Ultimately, though, i wish Holt had spent less time on data and detail (which could have been reserved for the notes), and more on ideas, people, and what made individuals tick. In the end, Holt proclaims that the demise of the Whigs, and ultimately the onset of the Civil War, was not perhaps as inevitable as it has been made out to be, and his case is persuasive. He points to specific decisions, made by political actors such as Tyler, Clay, Fillmore and Webster, that might have changed history had they been made differently (and speculates that Clay, four-time loser in presidential contests, would have won in 1840 if he had only been nominated, which also would have produced substantially different results). But to make the case that the actions and decisions of individuals impacted history so significantly fairly begs for more extensive examinations of those men, their beliefs, and the reasons for their actions. I get the feeling Holt could write another 1000+ pages on that topic; I wish he had done so. (less)

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Sep 15, 2008 Arthur rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: political history buffs

Recommended to Arthur by: no one

The book is over 1200 pages long (including extensive notes and index), so you really have to care about the Whigs to read it in its entirety. If you do, it's a wonderful experience. If you don't, you could still learn quite a bit by sticking to the more narrative or personality-driven segments, which make up something more than half the book, and skipping over the detailed analyses of election results. Just the parts about Millard Fillmore, who couldn't be called a major character, are more enl...more

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Jan 02, 2011 Robert King rated it 4 of 5 stars

helps with understanding the Whig Part

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Feb 14, 2009 Douglas added it

this book defeated me once before. this time, I can do it.

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