TheUnion Party was aproslavery,unionistpolitical party in theUnited States during the early 1850s. It was one oftwo main political parties in theslave states ofAlabama,Georgia, andMississippi, alongside theSouthern Rights Party. The Georgia affiliate was known as theConstitutional Union Party. The party was organized to support theCompromise of 1850. While some figures such asDaniel Webster predicted a sweepingpolitical realignment in which the Union Party would unite all those in favor of the Compromise measures, no national organization ever emerged. The party disbanded following acceptance of the Compromise by the Southern Rights leaders, with most former Unionists returning to theirprevious partisan allegiances.^[3]

Events following theMexican–American War fueled rising tensions between the free and slave states, as proslaveryfire-eaters threatenedsecession in response to theWilmot Proviso. The crisis fractured the existing party system and produced an alliance between unionistDemocrats andWhigs in theLower South who sought to avert acivil war and defeat their intrapartisan rivals. Unionists were especially active in the 1851 elections, when Union parties elected 14 members to theU.S. House of Representatives andwon governorships in Georgia andMississippi.^[4] The acquiescence of the Southern Rights leaders to the Compromise after 1851 removed the need for a dedicated Union Party. Many Whigs who had supported the Union Party movement subsequently joined the Democratic Party, while most Union Democrats returned to their former political allegiance.^[5]

In states where Union parties were organized, Unionists supported preservation of thefederal Union and opposed an independentSouthern Confederacy. Ardently proslavery, they rejected secession asunconstitutional and ruinous to the interests of the slave states.^[6] Instead, they advocated a policy ofconditional unionism wherein the slave states would remain loyal to the national government so long as the free states agreed to abide by the Compromise and abstain from any futureattacks on slavery. While they opposed immediate secession, Unionists did not rule it out in the future should Southern demands go unheeded.^[7] Many who had been Unionists in the 1850s would go on to serve in the Confederate government during the Civil War, includingAlexander H. Stephens, who served asvice president of the Confederacy from 1861 to 1865.^[8]

TheTreaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo gained the provinces ofAlta California andNuevo México for the United States and opened the question of slavery's extension into the territory. Prior to ratification, the U.S. representative fromPennsylvaniaDavid Wilmot introduced an amendment providing as a "fundamental condition" of annexation that "neitherslavery norinvoluntary servitude shall exist in any part" of theMexican Cession. The so-called Wilmot Proviso passed the House of Representatives but stalled in theSenate, where it became a serious point of contention between the free and slave states. The Proviso was a major issue in the1848 United States presidential election, resulting in a split between the anti-extensionistBarnburner Democrats and the dominantfaction of the Democratic Party, which advocatedpopular sovereignty. The Barnburners joined antislaveryConscience Whigs and abolitionists in theFree Soil Party, which polled 14 percent of the votes in the free states. The breach in the Democratic ranks allowed the Whig candidate,major generalZachary Taylor, tocarry the critical state of New York and win the election while maintaining a noncommittal position on the territorial question.^[9]

Taylor planned to finesse the Proviso by granting immediate statehood toCalifornia andNew Mexico, thus bypassing the territorial stage and avoiding the need for the national government to assume responsibility for slavery's exclusion from or expansion into theSouthwest, but died beforeCongress could come to any determination.^[10] A compromisepackage introduced by the senator fromKentuckyHenry Clay was defeated by the combined votes of Northern free-soilers and Southern fire-eaters. Following weeks of deadlock, the Compromise was shepherded through Congress item-by-item, withborder state Whigs joining the Northern members toadmit California as a free state, abolish theslave trade in theDistrict of Columbia, and settle the boundary dispute betweenTexas and New Mexico, while Northern Democrats joined the Southern members to pass theFugitive Slave Act of 1850 and organize theUtah and New Mexico territories without restrictions on slavery. Taylor's successor as president,Millard Fillmore, declared the Compromise measures a "final settlement" ofsectional issues and committedU.S. soldiers to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act.^[11]

Clay's original omnibus proposal consisted of eight planks, subsequently enacted as individual items.

1. Admission of California as a free state;
2. Organization of the Utah and New Mexico territories without restrictions on slavery;
3. Settlement of the Texas-New Mexico boundary dispute in favor of New Mexico;
4. U.S. assumption of debts contracted by theRepublic of Texas prior toannexation;
5. Abolition of the slave trade in the District of Columbia;
6. Protection ofslavery in the District of Columbia;
7. Strengthened U.S. enforcement of theFugitive Slave Clause;
8. Denial of U.S. authority to regulate the interstate slave trade.^[12]

The Whig Party was a conservative political party in the United States during the mid-nineteenth century.^[13] It was the main opposition to the Democratic Party from 1834 until 1854.^[14] Following the party's unexpected defeat in the1844 United States presidential election, some voices within the party called for a political realignment in which Whigs would join dissident Democrats in a new party. Taylor's nomination and election were seen as a step in this direction, in light of the general's perceived popularity withnativists, Democrats, andindependent voters. Theallocation of patronage in thenew administration was indeed intended to build up a new "Taylor party" that would supplant the Whigs as the major opposition to the Democrats. Catastrophic Whigs losses in state and congressional elections held in the fall of 1849 put an end to the Taylor movement but not to discussion of a possible realignment among Whigs of various stripes.^[15]

Followinghis inauguration, Fillmore wrote toHamilton Fish that he intended "to save the country [and] to save the Whig party, if possible." The president's strenuous support for the Compromise measures exacerbated divisions among Northern Whigs, however; intensified intraparty conflict led some pro-Compromise Whigs to conclude with Webster that "a new arrangement of Parties is unavoidable." During the winter of 1850–51, they increasingly looked to an alliance with pro-Compromise Democrats and "the creation of a great National Union Party" in answer to the problems presented by the sectional crisis.^[16]

Following the congressional vote on the Compromise, the freshman U.S. senator fromOhioSalmon P. Chase wrote that "the question of slavery in the territories has been avoided. It has not been settled." Fillmore's insistence that the measures constituted a "final settlement" of sectional issues conflicted with the reality that a passionate minority of free-soilers and fire-eaters still opposed the Compromise. Thead hoc majority assembled for each of the Compromise measures disguised the fact that most members had voted against any concessions by their section; in both houses, fewer than one-third of the members had supported the omnibus package.^[17] Opposition to the Compromise cut across party lines and divided individual state organizations. These circumstances encouraged pro-Compromise politicians in certain states to form bipartisan Union coalitions predicated on unconditional acceptance of the Compromise.^[18]

Several prominent pro-Compromise Whigs endorsed the Union Party movement during the fall of 1850, including Clay, Webster, andJohn P. Kennedy. In contrast, most Democrats denied the need for a new party. The junior U.S. senator fromIllinoisStephen Douglass, who managed the passage of the Compromise measures through the Senate, said, "the Democratic party is as good a Union party as I want." One notable exception was thespeaker of the U.S. House of RepresentativesHowell Cobb, a Democrat from the unionistupcountry of Northern Georgia whom local circumstances compelled to seek an alliance with pro-Compromise Whigs. During the summer of 1850, Cobb's allies joined the majority Whig faction led byAlexander H. Stephens andRobert Toombs in anad hoc Union coalition that became the basis for the state's Constitutional Union Party. Informed partly by ideology, Stephens and Toombs also hoped to displace the rival Whig faction led by the senior U.S. senator from GeorgiaJohn M. Berrien, who had gravitated into the Southern Rights orbit.^[19]

The new party movement experienced modest success inMassachusetts andNew York City, where a Union ticket was circulated during the1850 New York state election. The strongest performances by the Union Party, however, were in the Lower South. In Alabama and Mississippi, as in Georgia, upcountry Democrats joined most Whigs in Union parties that contested elections held in 1851. In Mississippi, the Union U.S. senatorHenry S. Foote defeated the Southern Rights leaderJefferson Davis in the gubernatorial election; Cobb was electedgovernor in Georgia, while Unionists won majorities in both chambers of theAlabama Legislature. Fourteen Unionists were elected to the32nd United States Congress, all from the Lower South. The results of the elections encouraged Unionists like Alabama'sHenry W. Hilliard to believe that the Union Party could be a vehicle for their national political ambitions.^[20]

Attempts to establish a new national party, however, came to little. When Stephens circulated around-robin letter in March 1851 as a test of Union Party sentiment in Congress, most Whig and Democratic members declined to leave their old parties. A Union National Convention proposed forFebruary 22 failed to materialize. Webster's efforts to organize the Union Party in the free states failed decisively, resulting in debilitating Whig losses across the Upper North. Meanwhile, Fillmore's pro-Compromise stance, together with strong showings for Southern Whigs in elections held in 1851, diminished demand for a new pro-Compromise party. By coopting the Union platform while emphasizing traditional Whig economic policies, the president hoped to position Whigs to carry the slave states in the1852 United States elections.^[21]

Union Party activity in the1852 United States presidential election centered around Webster, who marketed himself to Whigs and Unionists as a potential presidential candidate. In a contentious scene at the1852 Whig National Convention, Webster's supporters blocked Fillmore's nomination for three days before the exhausted delegates at last selected the agedmajor generalWinfield Scott. Undaunted, Webster's Union Party allies engineered his nomination by a faction of the Georgia Constitutional Union Party. Furious at Scott's nomination, conservative Whigs determined to humiliate their intraparty rivals joined the Webster movement. Independent Webster tickets were nominated in Georgia, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania. In the free states, the Webster forces were supplemented by supporters of theNative American Party, who hoped to secure Pierce's election by diverting nativist Whig voters to Webster.^[22]

Webster, however, was by this time ambivalent about the election; privately, he advised friends to vote for the Democratic candidate,Franklin Pierce. The candidate's indecision reflected contradictory impulses that would lead to the decline of the Constitutional Union Party in Georgia. The Georgia Unionists had split between Union Democrats and Union Whigs, each of whom held out hope that the nomination of a pro-Compromise candidate would pave the way for reconciliation with their former parties. Following the1852 Democratic National Convention, Union Democrats in the Constitutional Union state convention endorsed Pierce. Refusing to support the national Democratic candidates, Union Whigs held their own convention atMacon, Georgia that nominated Webster.^[23] The Union Democrats subsequently withdrew their candidates in favor of the Pierce ticket nominated by the Southern Rights Party and declared the Constitutional Union Party dissolved; a minority who still opposed merger with the Southern Rights men held their own convention and nominated a separate ticket pledged to Pierce. Thus, voters in Georgia had the choice of four presidential tickets in 1852: the Southern Rights and Union Democratic tickets, each pledged to Pierce; the Union Whig ticket; and the regular Whig ticket pledged to Scott.^[24]

Webster's death one week prior to the election brought an abrupt end to his candidacy.^[25] He received 7,378 votes posthumously in Georgia, Massachusetts, and New York;Jacob Broom, the substitute Native American candidate, polled a further 2,415 votes in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The Union Whig showing in Georgia accounted for 71 percent of Webster's national total.^[26] Two Union Democrats and one Union Whig were elected to Congress from Alabama; no other states returned Unionists to the33rd United States Congress.^[27]

The result of the1852 United States elections continued the collapse of the Second Party System. The national Whig ticket suffered the worst defeat of the party's history; of the 31 states, only Kentucky, Massachusetts,Tennessee, andVermont gave theirelectoral votes to the Whig nominees for president and vice president. Whigs lost seats in both chambers of Congress and lost further ground in state and congressional elections held in 1853. Whig weakness masked similar troubles within the Democratic ranks, as factional, ideological, anddenominational tensions divided organizations in several states.^[28]

Among conservatives,political fragmentation led to calls for the revival of the Union Party in 1853. In Georgia, Toombs and Stephens foiled an attempt to resurrect the Whig Party and succeeded in nominatingCharles J. Jenkins for governor atop the Constitutional Union ticket. Democratic disunity encouraged some former Whigs to hope that a merger of conservatives in the Union Party was still possible. Among the converts to the Union Party cause was now former president Fillmore, who wrote to Kennedy that events permitting, "we may hope to see a national Union party which will cast off the secessionists of the South and the abolitionist freesoilers of the North and rally around the Constitution and sustain it in its purity."^[29]

In spite of this optimism, the Union Party campaign of 1853 did not lead to the formation of a new national party. Too few Democrats were tempted by a coalition with Whig conservatives to replicate the success of 1851. Jenkins's gubernatorial candidacywent down to defeat, and the Constitutional Union Party quickly fell out of existence. An attempt by Mississippi Whigs to rebuild their state's Union coalition similarlyfailed to deliver the governorship.In New York, where Union Party boosters were confident that intraparty factionalism would give birth to a conservative coalition, Whig and Democratic conservatives chose to remain and struggle for control of their state organizations rather than join their erstwhile rivals in a new party. Resentments held over from 1852, concerns for the allocation of patronage, and the rise of thetemperance movement in Georgia hampered efforts to resurrect the Union Party in 1853.^[30]

Developments after 1853 were not to the benefit of the Union Party. The rapid spread of nativism,anti-Catholicism, and prohibitionism was accompanied by the rise of the American ("Know Nothing") Party in theNorthern United States. Simultaneously, the sudden appearance of theKansas-Nebraska Act in January 1854 polarized national politics along sectional lines. Rather than join Northern Whigs in opposing the repeal of theMissouri Compromise, most Southern Whigs supported the measure. The resulting political realignment "derailed the Union party movement," driving a wedge between free state and slave state conservatives that precluded their cooperation in a national Union Party.^[31]

Belatedly, Fillmore's conservative allies joined the American Party in hopes that the surging Know Nothing movement could form the core of a bisectional Union coalition in the1856 United States presidential election. Distinguished by theirpopulistic,antipartisan ethos, many original Know Nothings proved hostile to attempts by conservative former Whigs to take over leadership of the party. The platform adopted by the 1855 American National Convention largely achieved Fillmore's goal of converting the Know Nothing movement into a national Union Party, but alienated most Northern Know Nothings in the process. Events inBleeding Kansas foiled Fillmore's bid for a nonconsecutive second term; the former president carried onlyMaryland and finished a distant third behind the inauguralRepublican candidateJohn C. Frémont and the victorious DemocratJames Buchanan.^[32]

Some Union Whigs joined the Democratic Party after 1853, including Stephens and Toombs. Stephens supported Stephen Douglas in the1860 United States presidential election, while Toombs backed theSouthern Democratic candidateJohn C. Breckinridge. Both Georgians subsequently served in theConfederate Cabinet, Stephens as vice president and Toombs assecretary of state.^[33]

Later "Union" parties had few ties to the Union Party movement of 1850. During the 1860 election, a group of elder conservatives formed theConstitutional Union Party and nominatedJohn Bell for president on a platform that vowed "to recognize no political principle other than the Constitution [...], the Union [...], and the Enforcement of the Laws."^[34] Unlike the earlier Union Party, the Bell movement was made up almost exclusively of former Whigs.^[35] Bell carried the slave states of Kentucky,Tennessee, andVirginia, but lost the election toRepublicanAbraham Lincoln. Supporters ofLincoln's administration subsequently organized theNational Union Party during the Civil War. Some proponents envisioned the wartime Union Party as the base for a bisectional coalition to enact theCrittenden Compromise, but Lincoln's insistence on the non-extension of slavery foiled these efforts.^[36] The platform adopted by the1864 National Union Convention endorsed passage of theThirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, committing the party to theend of slavery in the United States.^[37]

• Dubin, Michael J. (2007).Party Affiliations in State Legislatures: A Year by Year Summary, 1796–2006. Jefferson, NC: McFarland and Company.
• Dubin, Michael J. (March 1, 1998).United States Congressional Elections, 1788–1997: The Official Results of the Elections of the 1st through 105th Congresses. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland and Company.
• Dubin, Michael J. (2002).United States Presidential Elections, 1788–1860: The Official Results by State and County. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co.
• Holt, Michael F. (2017).The Election of 1860: "A Campaign Fraught With Consequences". Lawrence: University Press of Kansas.
• Holt, Michael F. (1983).The Political Crisis of the 1850s. New York: W. W. Norton and Company.
• Holt, Michael F. (1999).The Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party: Jacksonian Politics and the Onset of the Civil War. New York: Oxford University Press.
• Howe, Daniel Walker (1979).The Political Culture of the American Whigs. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• Howe, Daniel Walker (2007).What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815–1848. New York: Oxford University Press.
• McPherson, James M. (1988).Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era. New York: Oxford University Press.
• Murray, Paul (December 1945)."Party Organization in Georgia Politics, 1825-1853".Georgia Historical Quarterly.29 (4):195–210.JSTOR 40576991.

• Unionist Party (United States)
• 1850 establishments in the United States
• 1853 disestablishments in the United States
• Political parties established in 1850
• Political parties disestablished in 1853
• Political parties in the United States
• Unionism

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