Are Today's Democrats Yesteryear's Whigs?

Leftist commentators are making prognostications on the fate of the Republican Party; often comparing them to the Whig Party. The Whigs fractured in the mid 1800’s, purportedly over sectional disputes. The socialist are betting that the feud between the GOP’s old guard and the upstart tea party will be a repeat of history.


Even though sectional differences were an important factor in the demise of this historic political party; it was the policies, patronage and paternalistic nature that brought about their downfall. If you looked upon the Whig’s platform and modus operandi, you would have sworn they were today’s Democratic Party.

The Whigs believed that the Federal Government should invest in the country’s infrastructure. Yesteryear’s canals and railroads are today’s railroads and highways. It’s amazing how much we have advanced over the past 150 years.

The Whigs believed that the Federal Government was the facilitator of economic prosperity. Here is a paragraph from The Rise and Fall of The American Whig Party:

Whigs contended that the public welfare or commonweal included far more than equal rights. Government, particularly during a depression, had an obligation to promote economic recovery. Even in good times, argued Whigs, private capital was too small and fragmented to finance economic development. As the agent of the people, the national government therefore should supply the capital, either directly or indirectly. It should subsidize expensive transportation projects or transfer its funds to the states so that they could do it.

Does that sound familiar? It should. Now look at the consequences of these actions:

Nor, in 1841, did state issues provide Whigs with an effective weapon. With banks closing their doors or suspending specie payments, with state governments on the verge of bankruptcy, and with farmers unable to get loans to move their crops, Whig efforts to aid banks and continue canal construction only stirred the hostility of Democratic constituents without satisfying their own. In Georgia, Mississippi, Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio, and Michigan, Democrats flayed Whig legislatures for economic mismanagement, and failure to provide economic relief.

And how did the Whigs pay for all of these internal improvement projects?

They had also done little to restore government credit. Bond sales lagged, and to finance the government in the short term, the Whigs had been forced to issue Treasury notes. Even though these notes bore interest, with their issue the government in effect printed money to pay its debts rather than borrowing it…

And if you think that is eerily familiar, than let’s look at how the Whigs acted during the Mexican War:

Yet at the same time that congressional Whigs, like the Whig press, vituperated virtually every aspect of Polk’s conduct of the war, most continued to vote for the supplies, funds, and troops he needed to prosecute it and to boast that they were doing all they could to ensure the success of American armies.

My God, are we in the 1800’s? It seems that we are repeating history. I wonder if Andrew Jackson would recognize his Democratic Party of old. Chances are he would denounce them as Whigs.