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==Demise and Legacy==

==Demise and Legacy==

The Whigs were unable to deal with the slavery issue after 1850. Their southern leaders nearly all owned slaves. The northeastern Whigs, led by [[Daniel Webster]], represented businessmen who loved the national flag and a national market, but cared little about slavery one way or another. However many Whig voters in the North felt that slavery was incompatible with a free labor-free market economy, and supported the [[Wilmot Proviso]] that did not pass Congress but would have stopped the expansion of slavery.  No one discovered a compromise that would keep the party united. Furthermore, the burgeoning economy made full-time careers in business or law much more attractive than politics for ambitious young Whigs. Thus the party leader in Illinois, [[Abraham Lincoln]], simply abandoned politics after 1849. When new issues of nativism, prohibition and anti-slavery burst on the scene in the mid 1850s, no one looked to the fast- disintegrating Whig party for answers. In the north most ex-Whigs joined the new Republican Party, and in the South they flocked to a new short-lived "American" party. During the Lincoln Administration, ex-Whigs enacted much of the "American System;" later their southern cousins dominated the white response to reconstruction. In the long run, America adopted Whiggish economic policies coupled with a Democratic strong presidency.

The Whigs were unable to deal with the slavery issue after 1850. Their southern leaders nearly all owned slaves. The northeastern Whigs, led by [[Daniel Webster]], represented businessmen who loved the national flag and a national market, but cared little about slavery one way or another. However many Whig voters in the North felt that slavery was incompatible with a free labor-free market economy, and supported the [[Wilmot Proviso]] that did not pass Congress but would have stopped the expansion of slavery.  No one discovered a compromise that would keep the party united. Furthermore, the burgeoning economy made full-time careers in business or law much more attractive than politics for ambitious young Whigs. Thus the party leader in Illinois, [[Abraham Lincoln]], simply abandoned politics after 1849. When new issues of nativism, prohibition and anti-slavery burst on the scene in the mid 1850s, no one looked to the fast- disintegrating Whig party for answers. In the north most ex-Whigs joined the new Republican Party, and in the South they flocked to a new short-lived [[Know Nothing|"American" party]]. During the Lincoln Administration, ex-Whigs enacted much of the "American System;" later their southern cousins dominated the white response to reconstruction. In the long run, America adopted Whiggish economic policies coupled with a Democratic strong presidency.

==See also==

==See also==