In its 26-year existence, the Whig Party saw two of its candidates elected President of the United States—Harrison and Taylor—and saw both of them die in office. Four months after succeeding Harrison, Whig President John Tyler was expelled from the Party, and Millard Fillmore, Taylor's Vice President, was the last Whig to hold the nation's highest office.
The party was ultimately destroyed by the question of whether to allow the expansion of slavery to the territories. Deep fissures in the party on this question led the party to run Winfield Scott over its own incumbent President Fillmore in the U.S. presidential election of 1852. The Whig Party never elected another President. Its leaders quit politics （as Lincoln did temporarily） or changed parties. The voter base defected to the nativist Know-Nothing Party, the anti-slavery Republican Party, various coalition parties in some states, and even to the Democrats.
Origins and policies
Whig Party banner from 1848 with candidates Zachary Taylor and Millard Fillmore.The Whig Party was formed in the winter of 1833-1834 by former National Republicans such as Henry Clay and John Quincy Adams, and by Southern States' Rights supporters such as W. P. Mangum. Opponents of the party ridiculed it as a reconstitution of the old Federalist party. While the party did have strong support in areas historically known as Federalist strongholds, it was mainly formed as a result of an alliance between disillusioned Jeffersonian Republicans （Clay, a 10 year Republican leader in Congress, joined the party）, southerners who disliked Jackson's power grabs and stance during nullification crisis and anti-masonites. In its early form, the Whig Party was united only by opposition to the policies of President Andrew Jackson, especially his removal of the deposits from the Bank of the United States without the consent of Congress. The Whigs pledged themselves to Congressional supremacy, as opposed to "King Andrew's" executive actions, and took their name from the British Whig Party, which had opposed the power of the monarchy and supported Parliamentary control. The Whigs saw President Andrew Jackson as a dangerous man on horseback with a reactionary opposition to the forces of social, economic and moral modernization. As Jackson purged his opponents, vetoed internal improvements and killed the Bank of the United States, alarmed local elites fought back. They argued that Congress, not the President, reflected the will of the people. Controlling the Senate for a while, Jackson's enemies passed a censure motion denouncing Jackson's arrogant assumption of executive power in the face of the true will of the people as represented by Congress. （The censure was later expunged.） The central issue of the early 1830s was the Second Bank of the United States. Backing various regional candidates in 1836 the opposition finally coalesced in 1840 behind a popular general, William Henry Harrison, who proved the national Whig Party could win.
The Whigs came to unite around economic policy, celebrating Clay's vision of the "American System" which favored government support for a more modern, market-oriented economy in which education and commerce would count for more than physical labor or land ownership. Whigs sought to promote faster industrialization through protective tariffs, a business-oriented monetary policy with a new Bank of the United States, and a vigorous program of "internal improvements"—-especially to roads and canal systems-—funded by the proceeds of public land sales. The Whigs also promoted public schools, private colleges, charities, and cultural institutions.
By contrast, the Democrats hearkened to the Jeffersonian political philosophy ideal of an egalitarian agricultural society, advising that traditional farm life bred republican simplicity, while modernization threatened to create a politically powerful caste of rich aristocrats who threatened to subvert democracy. The Democrats wanted America to expand horizontally, by adding more land through Manifest Destiny. Whigs had a very different vision: they wanted to deepen the socio-economic system by adding more and more layers of complexity, such as banks, factories, and railroads. In general, the Democrats were more successful at enacting their policies on the national level, while the Whigs were more successful in passing modernization projects, such as canals and railroads, at the state level
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