Whig Voting in the black belt

[Bismarck]

Looking at the county maps for the elections in the 1840's the Whig party carried the black belt regions in Alabama and and the delta in Mississippi. Why would the areas with the largest plantations support the party that was less favorable to the slave interest?

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Looking at the county maps for the elections in the 1840's the Whig party carried the black belt regions in Alabama and and the delta in Mississippi. Why would the areas with the largest plantations support the party that was less favorable to the slave interest?

This is only speculation, but: the Whigs were not uniformly anti-slavery, and one's stance depended far more on region than party. In such a context, the Whigs may very well have been the party of the rich in the South (as I am left to assume they were in general). The Democrats on the other hand framed their arguments in terms of the "everyman".?

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I would recommend reading this:



The election that most illustrates the true nature of the Whig Party throughout its history, is that of 1836. There never really was "one" Whig Party. There multiple elements that came together primarily in opposition to the Jacksonian Democrats.

You had nationalists from both the Federalist and Democratic-Republican Parties, which brought with them a lot of strength in WASP precincts in the major commercial centers. You had the Anti-Masonic movement, which folded into the Whigs with its strong support in rural mid-Atlantic states and Vermont. This meant that Party had dominance among Congregationalists and Transcendentalists, rural and urban voters, and a significant movement for reform and ultimately abolition came from within the ranks of both, one being more conservative the other more liberal but both progressive in the sense that they wanted Temperance, abolition and women's suffrage. You had Catholics in many states where the Democrats were largely Protestant, like in Maryland. In fact, the areas of strength in MD from 1852 and 1856 completely flipped with traditional Whig areas going Dem and traditional Dem areas going Know Nothing, despite Fillmore being a former Whig.

In the border states, you the supporters of nationalists DRs like Henry Clay, which made KY and even Jackson's home of TN and Western NC even, that were heavily Whig. Portions of these coalitions, where inherited by the GOP (East TN, South Central KY and Western NC/VA).  

Finally, you had the State's Rights Whigs like John Tyler and even beyond them the complete nullifiers like Calhoun for a time. The only thing that kept them nominally in line was their hatred of Jackson. They were the polar opposite of the nationalists.

In states like MS the planters would be Whigs and the average common farmer, Democrats. In states like TN or NC, the planters would more likely be Democrats though not uniformly so. For instance there was a big Coast+West versus center geography in some NC maps if memory serves me. I believe also and East+West versus center divide in TN as well. And the poorest and most detached from state political and economic life, and thus those most supportive of infrastructure, were places like East TN once again.

[Chinggis]

In the border states, you the supporters of nationalists DRs like Henry Clay, which made KY and even Jackson's home of TN and Western NC even, that were heavily Whig. Portions of these coalitions, where inherited by the GOP (East TN, South Central KY and Western NC/VA).  

Outstanding post. I've often wondered if Jackson County, Kentucky's anti-Democratic attitude stems from some Democrat vowing not to put a road through it in the 1820s!

[PresidentSamTilden]

I believe it's inaccurate to describe the democrats as more "pro-slavery" than the Whigs in the 1840s. They were both in favor of allowing slavery to continue so as to not cause trouble in the union. John C Calhoun, a prominent Whig politician, was a pretty hardcore southern nationalist.

It was only following the breakup of the Whigs, and the rise of the Republicans, that the Democrats went into full appeasement mode.