National Republican Party

The National Republicans were a political party in the United States. During the administration of John Quincy Adams (1825–1829), the president's supporters were referred to as Adams Men or Anti-Jackson. When Andrew Jackson was elected President of the United States in 1828, this group went into opposition. The use of the term "National Republican" dates from 1830.

Before the elevation of John Quincy Adams to the presidency in 1825, the Democratic-Republican Party, which had been the only national American political party for over a decade, began to fracture, losing its infrastructure and identity. Its caucuses no longer met to select candidates because now they had separate interests. After the 1824 election, factions developed in support of Adams and in support of Andrew Jackson. Adams politicians, including most ex-Federalists (such as Daniel Webster and even Adams himself), would gradually evolve into the National Republican party, and those politicians that supported Jackson would later help form the modern Democratic Party.

The ad hoc coalition that supported John Quincy Adams fell apart after his defeat for reelection in 1828. The main opposition to Jackson, the new president, was the National Republican Party, or Anti-Jacksonians created and run by pandering to local interests at the expense of the national interest.^[1] The party met in national convention in late 1831 and nominated Clay for the presidency and John Sergeant for the vice presidency. The Whig Party emerged in 1833–34 after Clay's defeat 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. In the short term, it formed the Whig party with the help of other smaller parties in a coalition against President Jackson and his reforms.

See also

• Era of Good Feelings
• Second Party System

Notes

1. ^ Brown (1985), p. 20.

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)