5.3The Whigs emerge

Jackson's forceful presidency provoked an opposition that coalesced by the mid-1830s into the Whig Party. Led by Henry Clay and Daniel Webster, the Whigs took their name from British opponents of royal power, casting Jackson as a would-be king.

Where Democrats distrusted federal activism, the Whigs embraced Clay's "American System": a national bank, protective tariffs, and federally funded roads and canals to knit the economy together. They tended to draw support from commercial and manufacturing interests, reform-minded Protestants, and those who saw government as an engine of national improvement. For two decades, Democrats and Whigs competed fiercely and nationally, each with real strength in every region.