A new political party arose just to defeat Jacksonian Democrats: the Whig Party, founded by the powerful Senator Henry Clay from Kentucky in 1834. This party absorbed the Antimasonic Party, which had been founded in 1832 in order to oppose the influential Masons. The Whig Party, which included bankers, states' rights supporters, prominent statesmen like Senator (and future Secretary of State) Daniel Webster and former Vice President (and future Senator) John Calhoun, along with everyone else who disliked Jackson, became a formidable political force and would ultimately elect Presidents William Henry Harrison and Zachary Taylor prior to the Civil War. | A new political party arose just to defeat Jacksonian Democrats: the Whig Party, founded by the powerful Senator Henry Clay from Kentucky in 1834. This party absorbed the Antimasonic Party, which had been founded in 1832 in order to oppose the influential Masons. The Whig Party, which included bankers, states' rights supporters, prominent statesmen like Senator (and future Secretary of State) Daniel Webster and former Vice President (and future Senator) John Calhoun, along with everyone else who disliked Jackson, became a formidable political force and would ultimately elect Presidents William Henry Harrison and Zachary Taylor prior to the Civil War. |