National Republican Party

THE NATIONAL REPUBLICAN Party was a political party that existed 1829–33, first opposing President Andrew Jackson. The National Republican Party was a faction of the Democratic-Republican Party, which had been the dominant political party in the United States since the election of 1800. By the 1820s, the party was no longer functioning as a national party, and the presidential election of 1824 saw the emergence of four “Republican” candidates: John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay, William H. Crawford, and Andrew Jackson. As no candidate received a majority of the electoral vote, the House of Representatives decided the election. Although Jackson received a plurality of the electoral votes, he was denied the presidency as the House elected John Quincy Adams president. Following this election, the supporters of Andrew Jackson would eventually become the Democratic Party. Adams's followers were known as the National Republicans.

Henry Clay, who had become secretary of state under Adams after agreeing to throw his support to him in the House of Representatives (an agreement that Jackson's supporters labeled a “corrupt bargain”), cobbled together a national network of supporters that became the National Republicans. The party supported Clay's American System, which he, along with John C. Cal-houn, championed in the years after the War of 1812. Around 1815 the term National Republican was first used to describe Jeffersonians who supported Clay's plans. The system called for protective tariffs that would make imported goods more expensive than domestic products, the continuation of the Second Bank of the United States, and the financing by the federal government of “internal improvements” that would improve transportation and promote economic development. Clay believed that his plan would promoted the economic development of the nation, and would foster national unity. This placed him in conflict with Jackson and his followers, who rejected using the national government to promote economic development.

In 1828, Jackson defeated Adams, becoming the seventh president of the United States. The coalition that had supported Adams became a formal party. During the 1828 campaign, they established a campaign newspaper called We the People. The party's supporters included businessmen, farmers, and laborers who supported Clay's program of high tariffs, internal improvements, and a national bank. Geographically, the party's base was New England, the Mid-Atlantic, Kentucky, Ohio, and Louisiana. However, their unpopularity in the south made it difficult for the party to compete with Jackson. Among the leading figures of the party were Adams, Clay, Senator Daniel Webster of Massachusetts, and Senator John M. Clayton of Delaware.

In 1830, the party formally took on the name National Republicans, and opposed the Jackson-backed Indian Removal Act, which called for the relocation of Native American tribes from the southeastern states to west of the Mississippi River. Their opposition to this legislation made the National Republicans unpopular throughout much of the south, because they deemed it immoral legislation and an attempt by lackson to expand slavery westward. They also condemned lack-son for his veto of the Maysville Road Bill, which would have appropriated $150,000 for a 60-mile road between Maysville and Lexington, an extension of the Cumberland Road and National Roads. They saw this action as an attack on the American System.

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