This article is a counterpart to "The Rise and Fall of Virginia Whiggery," with our focus shifting away from Tyler-Whigs, who joined the Whig Party in a shaky alliance, to southern Whigs who were dedicated to the economic program of the Whig Party while still firmly attached to slavery. However, as discussed in ""For a want of fealty to the Union": Nullification as Nationalism," some Tyler-Whigs like John A. Quitman were once Adams’ men who became nullifiers then rejoined with the New England nationalists.
I think it proper then to say it is possible we can think of the post-Tyler southern Whigs, those genuinely dedicated to its principles, as merely delayed Tyler-Whigs. Nationalists who had not quite realised how much their beloved peculiar institution of slavery was at risk.
January 25th, 1845.
Henry Clay has recently lost his third presidential election as the nominee of a party, John Tyler is working with Secretary of State John C. Calhoun to annex Texas to expand the market for slavery, and Congress continues to debate the constitutionality of slavery in the District of Columbia.
And Alexander Hamilton Stephens has been elected to his first full term in Congress as a Whig.
Although he has not yet taken his seat, 1845 also marks the year that Robert Toombs, a fellow Georgian Whig, is elected to Congress. Like Stephen, Toombs was elected in a solidly Whig district, and the two were closely knit political allies and friends.
Alexander is on the floor of the House of Representatives speaking on the proposed annexation of Texas, arguing with Charles Jared Ingersoll, a Pennsylvania Democrat.
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[Stephens] went against the proposition reported by the chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs on two grounds. One was that, it provided for the assumption of the debts of Texas […] [Secondly,] it left the slave question unsettled. […] He wished no Grecian wooden-horse brought into this confederacy.
As a southern man, and Georgian, he protested against the correspondence of the Secretary of State [John C. Calhoun] on this subject. The institution of slavery was a domestic one, and the Secretary of State sought to make it a national one. He objected to calling on this government to strengthen the institution of slavery. If this government could strengthen, it could weaken or abolish slavery.
Within the context of Stephens’ whole life, the argument is surprisingly nationalistic, opposing Tyler’s Texas treaty on the grounds that it would disturb national unity. It displays Stephens’ commitment to nationalistic principles by refusing to support a treaty that would agitate pro-slavery sentiment, a feeling absent from the ideologically driven Democrats, a feeling later betrayed by Alexander himself.
Stephens was no Tyler Whig; not only was he opposed to Tyler’s treaty of annexation, he had supported Hugh L. White in 1836 up until Zachary Taylor in 1848, was a supporter of the Tariff of 1842 yet a self-described opponent of a protective tariff, and Alexander also voted against a resolution describing the national bank as corrosive to liberty. In short, Alexander Hamilton Stephens was a very run-of-the-mill post-Tyler southern Whig; he equivocated on a protective tariff but otherwise supported the national party. Stephens’, along with his political ally Robert Toombs, becomes an important look into why the southern Whigs fell apart. The party broke apart in an unexpected place, the presidency of Zachary Taylor.
The Zachary Taylor campaign was invigorating for southern Whigs, tensions were heating up over to the extent, if at all, slavery should exist in the territories acquired by the United States following the Mexican-American War. The two main contenders for the Whig nomination were: Zachary Taylor and Henry Clay, the failed candidate from 1844.
Zachary Taylor was from the deep south and certainly did not have a history of compromising with anti-slavery forces like Henry Clay. John C. Calhoun wrote of Zachary Taylor, "He is a Southern man and will of course be opposed to the Wilmot Proviso."
Calhoun had even gotten so open to the idea of supporting the Whig nominee that he said:
In my opinion, the best result, that can take place, is the defeat of Genl Cass, without our being responsible for it [...] If he (T[aylor]) should be elected, I have no doubt this would be a whig administration, but they could not do much mischief.
Thus, the nominating process was quickly becoming a contest between north and south.
If the anti-bank, anti-internal-improvement, and anti-Whig Calhoun was warm to Taylor, no doubt so too were the regular southern Whigs, looking to see their economic program realised to some degree. Of course, Robert Toombs strongly supported Zachary Taylor for the 1848 Whig nomination, supposing that it were impossible for Clay to win. Toombs described Taylor thusly:
Wisdom, Justice and Moderation are the great essential qualities we want in the ruler of a free people. These noble characteristics have marked and illustrated every step of Gen. Taylor’s life.
Stephens and Toombs would even travel to New York City to stump for Zachary Taylor’s candidacy, during which a disapproving crowd shouted "Hurrah for Clay!" and "Slaveholder! Slaveholder!" at Toombs before the malcontents were thrown out of the venue. The fierce battle for the Whig nomination was starting to become a clear divide between pro and anti slavery Whigs. Ironically with both the pro and anti slavery factions supporting a slave-owner.
With the assistance of Toombs and southerners across the country the popular General Zachary Taylor, would become the Whig presidential nominee; a triumph for the southern wing.
Zachary Taylor would go on to win Georgia and the presidency in 1848, winning the so-called "Empire State of the South" by a margin of 2.98%. Toombs had predicted Taylor would win the state by a "hard close vote." Taylor certainly seemed to have exceeded Toombs' expectations.
Yet, by Zachary Taylor’s actual presidency things started to change for the Georgian duo, he appeared completely contrary to their expectations. Taylor was opposed to the Compromise of 1850, a measure that many slaveowners, including Alexander H. Stephens, supported. He was strongly hostile to any suggestion of disunion and had even told an audience in Ohio:
The people of the North need have no apprehension of the further expansion of Slavery,
strongly implying that the Whigs and Taylor Administration were now the party of the Wilmot Proviso and Free Soil. In discussing issues concerning the Compromise of 1850, Robert Toombs became increasingly frustrated with Taylor and threatened to "drive the southern Whigs into opposition." Taylor retorted that he could afford to lose the votes of the fewer southern Whig Congressmen and not the larger northern Whigs. Taylor’s plans to turn the Whig Party into a sectional party seemed completely apparent.
In a conversation with William B. Preston, Secretary of the Navy, Alexander Stephens assured Preston that if President Taylor sent federal troops to New Mexico to defend its borders from the state of Texas, he would be impeached. Secretary Preston asked Stephens who would impeach Taylor if it came to that, to which Stephens responded, "I will if nobody else does."
What is important to remember is that, for Toombs and Stephens, Taylor was not only attacking the beloved institution of slavery; he was also attempting to do what Tyler had done, except for anti-slavery ends: turn the question of slavery from a domestic question to a national question, and if that came to pass, the Union’s dissolution was inevitable. Taylor’s attack on slavery was not only an attack on slavery to Stephens but also the nation itself.
Fortunately for Stephens and Toombs, before any of these shenanigans could commence, Taylor would fall severely ill in that year of 1850, from eating too much iced milk and cherries at a July 4th celebration. Taylor would end up dying, and in Taylor’s place, President Millard Fillmore would sign the Compromise of 1850. Yet, the damage had already been done; politics between the north and south would become increasingly polarized. Alexander Stephens forms the Southern Union Party (sometimes called the Constitutional Union Party), urging that "neither party—neither Whig nor Democratic—can be relied on to maintain the Compromise." Stephens’ experience with Taylor had shown him and the other Georgians the mistake of aligning with the Whigs and their dedication to slavery. Notice here as well that the maintenance of the Union relies on the compromise; to agitate the compromise is to agitate slavery, which is to agitate the Union.
Alexander Stephens recommends "the nomination of an independent Union ticket." Denouncing, for the first time in his life, the Whig presidential candidate, joining with him: Robert Toombs, and a number of other southern Whigs.
We consider Gen. Scott as the favorite candidate of the Free-soil wing of the Whig party.— […] the views of that faction of mischievous men are dangerous not only to the just and constitutional rights of the Southern States (which we represent in part), but to the peace and quiet of the whole country
The Southern Union Party never went on to nominate its own presidential candidate, and both Toombs and Stephens went on to endorse the Democratic presidential nominee, Franklin Pierce, signifying their final abandonment of nationalism as understood by the Whig Party. Stephens and Toombs transform into a southern form of nationalism that understands keeping the nation together requires having the nation be apart; distancing the federal government from the states as much as possible.
Winfield Scott goes on to receive 26.60% of the vote in Georgia, and the state goes on to vote Democratic until 1964.
The story of how Georgia lost its status as a swing state and became a part of the Democratic "Solid South" is more typical than the story of Virginia. Georgia’s Whig political body, no matter how firmly attached to the union it was, could not stand association with a party increasingly friendly to anti-slavery tendencies, first with the betrayal of President Taylor and then with the nomination of General Scott.
Stephens’ story shows not only the collapse of the Georgian Whig Party, but also how southern nationalists like Stephens learned to transform their nationalism from the belief the nation should be connected through railways and canals, to a belief that peaceful co-existence between states could only come from never interfering with their domestic institutions and a weak federal government. “If this government could strengthen, it could weaken or abolish slavery.”