page_title: History of the United States Whig Party
section_title: Van Buren and the election of 1836
hierarchical_section_title: History of the United States Whig Party / Rise, 1836–1841 / Van Buren and the election of 1836
caption_attribution_description: English: Daguerreotype of an oil painting depicting William Henry Harrison, 9th President of the United States.&#91;1&#93;
context_page_description: The history of the United States Whig Party lasted from the establishment of the Whig Party early in President Andrew Jackson's second term to the collapse of the party during the term of President Franklin Pierce.
  The Whigs emerged in the 1830s in opposition to President Andrew Jackson, pulling together former members of the National Republican Party, the Anti-Masonic Party, and disaffected Democrats. The Whigs had some links to the defunct Federalist Party, but the Whig Party was not a direct successor to that party and many Whig leaders, including Clay, had previously aligned with the Democratic-Republican Party rather than the Federalist Party. In the 1836 presidential election, four different Whig candidates received electoral votes, but the party failed to defeat Jackson's chosen successor, Martin Van Buren. Whig nominee William Henry Harrison unseated Van Buren in the 1840 presidential election, but died just one month into his term. Harrison's successor, John Tyler, was expelled from the party in 1841 after clashing with Clay and other Whig Party leaders over economic policies such as the re-establishment of a national bank.
context_section_description: Early successes in various states made many Whigs optimistic about victory in 1836, but an improving economy bolstered Van Buren's standing ahead of the election. The Whigs also faced the difficulty of uniting former National Republicans, Anti-Masons, and states' rights Southerners around one candidate, and the party suffered an early blow when Calhoun announced that he would refuse to support any candidate opposed to the doctrine of nullification. As party leaders were unable to organize a presidential nominating convention, legislative caucuses in the states instead nominated candidates, resulting in the nomination of multiple Whig candidates for president. The presence of multiple Whig presidential candidates in the 1836 election was a reflection of a divided party rather than the result of a concerted strategy by party leaders, though some Whigs did express hope that nominating multiple candidates would force a contingent election in the House of Representatives by denying Van Buren a majority of the electoral vote. 
  Northern Whigs cast aside both Clay and Webster in favor of General William Henry Harrison, a former senator who had led U.S. forces in the 1811 Battle of Tippecanoe. Though he had not previously been affiliated with the National Republicans, Harrison indicated that he shared the party's concerns over Jackson's executive power and favored federal investments in infrastructure. Though he was eclipsed by Harrison, Webster remained in the race, but only as the Whig candidate in his home state of Massachusetts. Southern Whigs coalesced around Senator Hugh Lawson White, a long-time Jackson ally who opposed Van Buren's candidacy. Capitalizing on opposition to Van Buren and the growing prominence of the abolitionist movement, White and his followers helped establish and grow Whig party organizations throughout the South. Ultimately, Van Buren won a majority of the electoral and popular vote in the 1836 election, though the Whigs improved on Clay's 1832 performance in the South and West. Harrison won Kentucky and several Northern states, White carried Tennessee and Georgia, Webster won his home state, and Willie Mangum won South Carolina's eleven electoral votes.
  Shortly after Van Buren took office, an economic crisis known as the Panic of 1837 struck the nation. Land prices plummeted, industries laid off employees, and banks failed. According to historian Daniel Walker Howe, the economic crisis of the late 1830s and early 1840s was the most severe recession in U.S. history until the Great Depression. Van Buren's economic response centered on establishing the Independent Treasury system, essentially a series of vaults that would hold government deposits. As the debate over the Independent Treasury continued, William Cabell Rives and some other Democrats who favored a more activist government defected to the Whig Party, while Calhoun and his followers joined the Democratic Party. The Whigs experienced a series of electoral successes in 1837 and 1838, sparking hopes that the party could win the upcoming 1840 presidential election. Whig leaders agreed to hold the party's first national convention in December 1839 in order to select the Whig presidential nominee.
caption: William Henry Harrison, a two-time presidential candidate who became the first Whig president in 1841 but died just one month into office
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