“But Martin Van Buren is the important point here. Years ago he was identified by our own LS as the Founder of the Northern-Southern Democrat party alliance which ruled Washington, DC from the time of Andrew Jackson (circa 1828) until secession in 1861.
“Van Buren’s contribution was to forge Northern big-city immigrant populations into Democrat voting blocks firmly allied with the Southern slave-power.”
There’s no disputing Van Buren’s role in assembling the Democratic Party out of the wreckage of the Democratic-Republican Party around 1828. But the Whigs also formed from elements of that old party, plus Federalists.
The problem is trying to connect Van Buren with “big city machine politics supporting Southern slave power”. By 1844 Van Buren sided with New York’s anti-slavery Barnburner Democrats. By 1848 Van Buren was running for President on the anti-slavery Free Soil Party. When the Civil War began Van Buren supported Abe Lincoln.
New York’s Tammany Hall was the only real big city machine and Van Buren was a member. Tammany overwhelmingly supported the Jackson-Calhoun ticket in 1828 and Jackson rewarded them with patronage.
Tammany backed Van Buren in the 1836 Presidential election but only managed a meager 1,124 win for him in NYC. In 1840 Tammany’s help failed to win Van Buren a second term. In the 1844 Democratic Convention Tammany ended up voting for dark horse James Polk. In the 1848 Democratic Convention the Barnburner Democrats withdrew and joined the Free Soil Party in nominating Van Buren for President. Most of Tammany remained with the Democrats and nominated Lewis Cass.
Republicans/Whigs took advantage of political patronage, the spoils system, the same as Democrats. Patronage finally lost some of its power with the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act of 1883, named for a Democratic Senator from Ohio.
No argument at all that the Whigs (who came later) completely copied the DemoKKKrats in their organization, partisan press, and GOTV efforts.
But, as one historian said, the Whigs were “stillborn” because they still in large part harkened back to the days of “elites” running things and never accepted the full “democratization” of the process with conventions and so forth, or at least, not until 1840.
It is ironic, then, that William Henry Harrison, a Whig, is considered by historians who have studied the local data, to have run the first true “Jacksonian” campaign.
Thanks for an interesting history lesson, no disagreements with such facts.
Might note the removal of patronage was also the beginnings of the Deep State, but that's for another time.
Now I'm out of time again... hi ho, hi ho, off to work... ;-)