Why did Vermont and Massachusetts always vote Whig while New Hampshire...

[Chunk Yogurt for President!]

Always voted Democrat (even in 1852) and Maine only voted Whig once during the Second Party System?

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Massachusetts was because of settlement patterns. Historically, there was a strong class divide in New England and prior to the massive immigration of Irish, this was between urban aristocrats, merchants and middle class on the one side, versus the landed farmers. Since the urban working class did not own land, they often could not vote. So the further out you got from Boston the less Federalist and the more DR, the territory was, though of course there were exceptions to the pattern.

The Whigs were more of a hodge podge, but two important factors were the Anti- Masons and ethnic polarization dictated by the arrival of the Irish Catholics. So poor, Yankee Protestant farmers began to polarize behind the Whigs. And of course the Anti-Masonic movement, was very strong in Vermont. This meant that Vermont became a strongly Whig state, though it still had a Democratic Party, which didn't evaporate until the 1850's.

New Hampshire and Maine were not affected by the Masons, and being more remote and distant could have been a factor and they maintained strong Democratic Machines until the 1850's. The preservation of the class dynamic undoubtedly played a role. NH remained the most closely divided of the Northern New England states and was the only New England state to vote for Wilson in 1916 for instance. But the unraveling of the working class versus business dynamic in favor of a Yankee versus Non-Yankee dynamic determined largely based on the issue of slavery was inevitably what ended Democratic dominance in ME, NH, as well as MI and WI. Jacksonian Yankee farmers, helped to fuel the Free Soil Party in the late 1840's and later were rolled in with the Republican Party.

[Chunk Yogurt for President!]

Why were the Whigs anti-Masonic while the Democrats weren't?

[darklordoftech]

Why were the Whigs anti-Masonic while the Democrats weren't?

1. Andrew Jackson was a mason.
2. From the Salem Witch Trials to the Anti-Masons to the Know-Nothings to McCarthy, hysteria seems to go with the business-friendly party.

[Chunk Yogurt for President!]

Why were the Whigs anti-Masonic while the Democrats weren't?

1. Andrew Jackson was a mason.
2. From the Salem Witch Trials to the Anti-Masons to the Know-Nothings to McCarthy, hysteria seems to go with the business-friendly party.

That's interesting.  I would have guessed that the Democrats, the party of small farmers, would have been more skeptical of secret societies than the Whigs.

[darklordoftech]

Why were the Whigs anti-Masonic while the Democrats weren't?

1. Andrew Jackson was a mason.
2. From the Salem Witch Trials to the Anti-Masons to the Know-Nothings to McCarthy, hysteria seems to go with the business-friendly party.

That's interesting.  I would have guessed that the Democrats, the party of small farmers, would have been more skeptical of secret societies than the Whigs.

Agreed. I'm not sure why the elites were so paranoid.

[Mr. Smith]

Why were the Whigs anti-Masonic while the Democrats weren't?

1. Andrew Jackson was a mason.
2. From the Salem Witch Trials to the Anti-Masons to the Know-Nothings to McCarthy, hysteria seems to go with the business-friendly party.

That's interesting.  I would have guessed that the Democrats, the party of small farmers, would have been more skeptical of secret societies than the Whigs.

Agreed. I'm not sure why the elites were so paranoid.

Why not? Elites have the moolah that can be taken away by changes to the status-quo, the proletariat stand to benefit from any change to the status quo.  And secret societies are a great vehicle for exactly that.