(Redirected from United States National Republican Party)The 'National Republican Party' was a
United States political party that existed from
1829-
1833.
Before
John Quincy Adams's presidency, the original
Democratic-Republican Party, which had been the only truly national American political party for over a decade, began to dissolve, losing its infrastructure and identity. Its caucuses no longer met to select candidates. Politicians who supported Adams became known as the National Republicans; those who supported
Andrew Jackson were called "Jackson Men" (and would later form the
Democratic Party). In the
1828 election, Adams won 44 percent of the popular vote, and 84 out of 261 electoral votes.
The ad-hoc coalition that supported John Quincy Adams fell apart after 1828. The main opposition to Jackson was the National Republican party created and run by
Henry Clay. It shared the same nationalistic outlook as the Adamsites, and wanted to use national resources to build a strong economy. Its platform was Clay's "American System" of nationally financed internal improvements and a protective tariff, which would promote faster economic development. More important, by binding together the diverse interests of the different regions, the party intended to promote national unity and harmony. The National Republicans saw the Union as a corporate, organic whole. Hence the rank and file idealized Clay for his comprehensive perspective on the national interest. Conversely, they disdained those they identified as "party" politicians for pandering to local interests at the expense of the national interest. [Brown p 20] The
Whig party emerged in 1833-34 as a coalition of National Republicans, along with Anti-Masons, disaffected Jacksonians, and people whose last political activity was with the Federalists a decade before.
See also
★
American System
★
List of political parties in the United States
★
Era of Good Feelings
★
Second Party System
References
★ Thomas Brown; ''Politics and Statesmanship: Essays on the American Whig Party.'' Columbia University Press. 1985.
★ Carroll, E. Malcolm; ''Origins of the Whig Party'' Duke University Press. 1925. chapter 1
★ Michael F. Holt; ''The Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party: Jacksonian Politics and the Onset of the Civil War.'' 1999
★ Robert V. Remini, ''Henry Clay: Statesman for the Union'' (1993)