Willie Mangum and the North Carolina Whigs in the Age of Jackson

In the 1820s, young congressman Willie Mangum imbibed the political philosophy of North Carolina’s senior senator Nathaniel Macon, the “prophet of pure republicanism.” From his election in 1824, Mangum was at the epicenter of national and state government. In the 1830s, he emerged as leader of an opposition party—the Whigs—and became an opponent of Andrew Jackson and his Democratic Party. Mangum’s career offers insight into the ideology and politics of North Carolina’s Whigs. Opposition to executive power was fundamental to the Whig platform but in North Carolina the party was a coalition that melded the Old Republicans’ creed with the National Republican economic agenda touted by Henry Clay, a combination that enabled them to dominate. Mangum and the Carolina Whigs have received little attention from scholars. This book traces their rapid rise to power and their even more rapid fall in the years prior to the Civil War.

Benjamin L. Huggins is an associate professor at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville and is also an associate editor at The Papers of George Washington.

Benjamin L. Huggins

Format: softcover (7 x 10)
Pages: 264
Bibliographic Info: 5 photos, notes, bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2016
pISBN: 978-0-7864-9876-5
eISBN: 978-1-4766-2509-6
Imprint: McFarland

Preface 1
Introduction 3
1. Mangum and the Old Republicans 7
2. Young Old Republican 30
3. The Beginning of Opposition: States’ Rights and the Anti–Van Buren Party 59
4. The Whig Opposition: States’ Rights and the Senate 75
5. The Revolution of 1840: From States’ Rights Whigs to Clay Whigs 107
6. The Whig Ascendancy: Whig Principles and Clay Whigs 132
7. The End of the Whig Ascendancy 170
Conclusion 211
Chapter Notes 219
Bibliography 244
Index 249