American Parties From The Civil War Essay — страница 3

Democratic party. In 1852 Gen. Winfield Scott was the last Whig presidential candidate. Know-Nothing party The party was a U.S. political party in the mid-19th century. The increased immigration of the 1840s had resulted in focus of Roman Catholic immigrants in the Eastern cities. The Democrats welcomed them, but local nativist societies were formed to attack foreign influences and maintain the American view. The American Republican Party, formed in 1843 in New York, spread to neighboring states as the Native American party and became a national party in 1845. Many secret orders sprang up, and when outsiders made interrogations of supposed members, they were answered with a statement that the person knew nothing, which is why members were called Know-Nothings. The Know-Nothings

sought to elect only native Americans to office and to require 25 years of residence for citizenship. In 1855, they adopted the name American party and dropped much of their secrecy. The issue of slavery, however, split the party, and many antislavery members joined the new Republican Party. Populist party This party, an American political party expressing the agrarian protest of the late 19th century, formed when farmers suffered from declining agricultural prices. Many believed that the federal government’s currency policy favored Eastern banks and industrialists at the expense of farmers and workers. Members from farm and labor groups met at Omaha in 1892 and formed the Populist Party. Its platform called for the free coinage of silver and plenty of paper money. The Populist

presidential candidate, James B. Weaver, won more than 1 million votes in the 1892 election. But after the Democrats adopted free coinage of silver and ran William J. Bryan for president in 1896, and agrarian attack had declined, more or less as the result of rising farm prices, the Populist party dissolved. In some states the party was known as the People’s party. Free-Soil party This party was a U.S. political party born in 1847-48 to oppose the extension of slavery into territories newly gained from Mexico. In 1848, the Free-Soil party ran Martin Van Buren and C.F. Adams for president and vice president. After the Compromise of 1850 seemed to settle, the slavery-extension issue, the group known as the BARNBURNERS left the Free-Soilers to return to the Democratic Party. But

radicals kept the Free-Soil party alive until 1854, when the new Republican Party absorbed it. Concluded is knowledgable information about what the several politcal parties belived in, who created them, even why they might not have lasted. These different and sometimes similiar parties range from the end of George Washington?s first term through the Civil War.