Opposition Party (Southern U.S.)
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Opposition Party
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|---|---|
| Leaders |
John Adams Gilmer, John Netherland |
| Founded | 1858 |
| Dissolved | 1860 |
| Preceded by | Whig Party |
| Merged into | Constitutional Union Party |
| Ideology |
Nativism Whiggism Pro-slavery |
The Opposition Party was a third party in the South in the years immediately prior to the Civil War.
The late 1850s saw political chaos during the fragmenting of the Second Party System of Jackson Democrats and Clay Whigs. The Democratic efforts to expand slavery into western territories, particularly Kansas, led to organized political opposition, which coalesced in Congress as the "Opposition Party."
As the Whig Party disintegrated, many local and regional parties grew up, some ideological, some geographic. When they realized their numbers in Congress, they began to caucus in the same way US political parties had arisen before the Jacksonian national party conventions. Scholars such as Kenneth C. Martis have adopted a convention to explain the Congressional coordination of anti-Pierce and anti-Buchanan factions as the “Opposition Party”.
The Opposition Party as a third party in the South was made up of political activists who organized, held party conventions and elected members to Congress.
The Opposition Party was the name adopted by several former Whig politicians in the period 1854-1858. In 1860, the party was encouraged by the remaining Whig leadership to effectively merge with the Constitutional Union Party.
The party was seen as offering a compromise position between the Southern Democrats and Northern Republicans.
The Whig name had been discredited and abandoned, but former Whigs still needed to advertise that they were opposed to the Democrats. The Know Nothings had found that its appeals to anti-immigrant prejudice was faltering and their secrecy was made suspect, so they sought more open and more inclusive appeals to broaden a candidate's chances at the polls.
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