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Andrew Jackson’s status as military hero following the War of 1812 translated into political support during his two terms as president.

Americans were opposed to the idea of a powerful president, preferring that the individual states retain more power. This was an issue that had divided America from its very beginning, when the Founding Fathers debated how much power should be held by the states and how much should be given to the national government. President Jackson expanded the powers of the executive branch , in large part through his use of the presidential veto power. Through his use of the veto against any legislation with which he disagreed, it became clear that the executive branch could quickly become more powerful than the legislative branch (Congress). The Whig Party took its name from a party in Great Britain, which was opposed to an overly powerful monarchy . The Whigs in America supported a more powerful Congress and also focused on issues of modernization and economic development. The party soon overtook the Democratic Party in urban areas, par- ticularly in the northern United States. Two Whig candidates were elected to the presidency: William Henry Harrison in 1841 and Zachary Taylor in 1849. Both men died in office. Vice President John Tyler, who became president when Harrison died, quickly vetoed many of the Whig platform issues and was forced out of the party. With Zachary Taylor’s death, Vice President Millard Fillmore became president. He would be the last Whig to serve as president, and during his term in office he signed the Fugitive Slave Act, which offered federal officers’ assistance to slaveholders who sought to recapture runaway slaves. This issue would bitterly divide Whigs, and by the 1852 presidential election, the party’s positions on slavery and many other critical issues of the day were no longer clear or unified. Former Whigs split off; some joined the Democrats, and others joined new parties like the Know Nothings or the Free Soil Party, which opposed the extension of slavery into Western territories. It soon became clear, however, that a political party

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The Birth of the Republican Party