Thug Whig Life!

The League’s William Bradford writes a brief (and very good) defense of the ill-fated Whig party:

Although I’m planning to read a more pro-Jackson book sometime in the future — any recommendations? — I think I’m going to have to come down on the side of the Whigs as well. A number of the politicians who later became prominent Whigs opposed Jackson’s policy of Indian removal, and the part of me that likes respect for the rule of law as expressed in treaties, especially when it goes hand-in-hand with not committing moral atrocities, goes with the future Whigs on this issue. I’m basically agnostic on the issue of the Second National Bank, but it doesn’t appear to me that Jackson’s motivations for destroying it were sound. Finally, I’m absolutely with the Whigs in their opposition to the war with Mexico and James K. Polk’s aggressive expansionism.

I took a class on American political theory (pre-Reconstruction) this past semester and I came away very impressed with the Whigs as they struggled – in the short run, unsuccessfully – to build a stronger national government and a more cohesive United States.  And it wasn’t just, as William notes, their respect for treaties or general preference for diplomacy – the Whigs correctly understood that a robust program of “internal improvements” (roads, canals etc.) linking the nation together was integral if the United States was to become a genuinely powerful actor on the world stage.  Even if you’re only looking from a development standpoint, the Whig program was unquestionably better than that put forth by the Jackson and his followers.