The Conscience Whigs and the Republican Party

The events of January 6th, when a mob more reminiscent of the attack on the Bastille entered the U.S. Capitol Building, but with far less moral or objective justification, has been called a failed coup, an insurrection, or even a revolution by its participants. The “revolutionaries” themselves, however, seemed far more interested in taking selfies and posting to social media as they vandalized and ransacked the personal belongings of members of Congress – a very 21st century American revolution – than in establishing a new government “laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.” As their identities become known, as surely they will be given their propensity for self-promotion and the legions of digital sleuths now devoted to their unmasking, they will almost certainly prove to be the same folks who stalk Q-Anon chat rooms, attend rallies, and demand that law and order be imposed on those they disagree with. They are, by any measure, a decided minority. Shocking as yesterday was, it involved only several thousand protestors and was over in time for a late supper. Leaving aside the very real claims that they have about having been marginalized and left behind by politicians, the economy, and, in truth, the modern world in general, as a minority they cannot claim to be “revolutionaries.” The Founders, and Lincoln as outlined in his First Inaugural, understood that revolution was a majority right in a democracy, and that so long as the minority’s individual rights have been respected by the majority, any such resistance to legitimate government is insurrection – an existential, criminal act subject to the sanction of the state representing the majority power.

In this case, of course, this minority is animated by a sitting president who himself refuses to accept the consequences of his election loss and, as his legal and other appropriate remedies have fallen one-by-one by the wayside, increasingly defaults to shadowy conspiracy theories and completely baseless claims of fraud. This president is aided and abetted by allies in Congress and a bought-and-paid for media network who do little more than play to the confirmation bias of their supporters and audiences (this is not to assert that the “left media” is unbiased itself; it is, but that’s another topic). Two United States Senators in particular – Senator Ted Cruz (R, TX) and Senator Josh Hawley (R, MO) – are clearly and cynically maneuvering to replace Trump as leaders of his faction (one wonders, really, if Trump realizes this). Last night, other Republican leaders – Senator Mitt Romney (R, UT) and Senator Ben Sasse (R, NE), joined, at long last, by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R, KY) – pushed back.

This is well-worn territory, and readers will note there’s nothing terribly insightful about these observations. However, history may offer some guidance to Senators Romney, Sasse, and McConnell, if they care to heed its advice. The Republican Party is at a crossroads (again, not an original thought), and that crossroads is reminiscent of the split in the Whig Party in the 1840s. Not the oft-discussed split between Northern Whigs and Southern Whigs over slavery, free-soil, and expansion, which led to the original organization of the Republican Party, but the split within the Northern wing of the Whig Party. As a party, the Whigs had emerged in the 1830s largely in opposition to Andrew Jackson and inherited the legislative agenda of the Federalist Party and the National Republicans. Associating themselves with the English Whigs of 1689 and the Whig leadership of the American Revolution and the Founding, the Whigs opposed tyrannical concentrations of power and were led by nationalists and “continentalists.” Advocating for the primacy of elected legislative bodies, written, inviolable constitutions, and protections of individual rights, they supported an expansive view of government power to promote economic growth through a national bank, infrastructure projects (“internal improvements”), and a protective tariff. They were largely pro-immigrant, particularly for immigrants from white, northwestern Europe, and embraced a Hamiltonian view of the future of the country. Their support for free labor put them at odds with their Southern allies, and once Jackson was out of office the issues of slavery and expansion split the party in two. 

The Northern Whigs were themselves increasingly divided. “Conscience Whigs,” led by John Quincy Adams and New England Unitarians swept up on the reforming movements of 1840s, were increasingly, and outspokenly, anti-slavery. Charles Sumner, later a leading Radical Republican, was an early Conscience Whig. This alienated Southern Whigs, of course, but it also put Northern Whigs sympathetic to the South – mostly businessmen and financiers with interests in the New England textile industry and those considerable parts of the growing Northern economy associated with textiles and dependent on cheap Southern cotton – in a considerable political and moral bind. These “Cotton Whigs” emphasized economic interests and favored a more moderate, compromising course when it came to slavery and the South, a position that became increasingly untenable. By the early 1850s, in the aftermath of the Mexican War and as sectional crises became more acute and bloody and it became clear that the South would push slavery’s expansion without apology, Conscience Whigs became an important force in the formation of the new Republican Party. Abraham Lincoln was a Conscience Whig before he became a Republican. Those Cotton Whigs who did not join the Republicans gravitated to the Democratic Party. This split between Conscience and Cotton Whigs presaged the later split in the Republican Party that contributed significantly to the end of Reconstruction as the Radical generation died off, public support waned, and moderate Republicans looked ahead to industrialization.

Republicans today find themselves in a very similar position, though a somewhat inverted one. A minority party at the national level, they are grappling with the necessity of forming electoral majorities and using the Constitutional federal structure to advance their agenda. This requires them to placate and appeal to a significant minority of voters they simply cannot do without, or at least have allowed themselves to be convinced they cannot do without. President Trump has taken control of this faction, and wields it like a cudgel to insulate himself from criticism and accountability and now, it seems, in an attempt to stay in power.

Listening to Senators Romney and Sasse last night, it was encouraging to hear them at least begin to move as the Conscience Whigs did in the 1840s. In fairness, Romney has been leaning in this direction for a while, and there are certainly many others, at the national but even more so at the state level, who are with him. Evan McMullin comes to mind. And now Sasse, after strategically avoiding a commitment for some time, seems to have taken a decisive step in that direction. They should use this historic moment to decisively leave behind the Trump faction, as the Conscience Whigs did the Cotton Whigs on the eve of the Civil War. As Senators Cruz and Hawley debate who will be the next John C. Calhoun – who often flirted with the Whigs, but ultimately chose a specifically sectional political path –  these “Conscience Republicans” can form a new party, appealing to Never Trump conservatives, those supporters finally abandoning Trump as his term crashes to an ignominious close, and moderates concerned about the left-ward drift of factions within the Democratic Party. They can use the old Whig platform as inspiration: using government in a limited, directed way to promote economic growth, for example by providing necessary public goods such as infrastructure programs; supporting public education as the key to prosperity and social stability; giving ample space for local authorities and civic groups to build and manage their own communities; and encouraging public virtue and well-being through shared material progress. Henry Clay called this “the American System,” and critics today might associate such a platform with the Democrat’s Depression-era New Deal. It’s not. Whigs saw government as a means of providing the necessary ordered liberty that a free people need to prosper and pursue their own happiness. The New Deal promised something far grander, more intrusive, and ultimately illusory. While the complications of living in the 21st century surely require a more active government than the Whigs ever imagined, it is a state that supports true equality of opportunity, not equality of result.

The analog to the Cotton Whigs of the past are those Republicans and conservatives who have cynically enabled and apologized for the current Administration, despite its obvious incompetence and corruption. They have done so to secure the installation of conservative judges and to reduce taxes and deregulate the economy. They pursued their own self-interest and the interests of their well-heeled donors and financial backers and stood by as their president abused his power, undermined the foundations of the Republic, and purposefully set Americans against each other. Nothing laid bare the follies and dangers of that choice more plainly than what happened in Washington on January 6th. It is time – it is well past time – for principled conservative leaders to abandon this president and his followers. If they cannot reclaim control of their party, then they must form a new one, just as the Conscience Whigs did when they formed this very party a hundred and seventy years ago.