But in practice the parties were closer than in theory. The actual Whig Presidents didn't support Clay's ideal program. No Whig administration got very far in a program of public works. No Democratic administration would refrain from taking steps it felt essential to the country's survival. The Democrats also advocated special protection for select industries. A person of our era who wanted to know which party was more libertarian, and which more imperial would have a hard time judging, given the militaristic expansionism of the Democrats, and the pro-slavery attitudes of important wings of both parties.
Alexander Stephens, Vice President of the Confederacy, had himself been a Whig, as were other important Confederates. As so often in American politics, political affiliation had as much to do with interest groups and ethnic, class and regional identities as with ideology.
A lot of these arguments about Lincoln involve claims about what he thought or intended that we don't have the evidence to prove or disprove. We know that Lincoln supported a protective tariff and that Congress passed on once the rebellion had begun. We also know that Lincoln was an enthusiast for the tariff in his youth, seeing it as a means of promoting growth and opportunity. We also can see that he had little to say about the tariff during the late 1850s, his presidential campaign and his presidency, though he did discuss the topic with those who were very interested in the question. We can easily refute di Lorenzo's pathetic claim that Lincoln had very much to say about the tariff in the Lincoln-Douglas debates or that he was aggressively pushing the old Whig agenda in the seven debates with Douglas.
Probably, it would have been better for the country if the GOP had simply put the tariff issue aside in the interests of national unity. To be sure, this would have been more than their opponents were willing to do with their own interests and pet projects, but it would have made things much clearer for all of us. They did win the election, though, and elections usually do give winners more say than losers in policy questions. But one could argue that there was no true cross-sectional mandate for increased tariffs and that caution was necessary in the interests of the union.
But let's assume that the Republicans had followed this strategy and kept the tariff off the table after the election. Does anyone really think that this would have changed anything? South Carolina and the other six states were already resolved to go -- if they hadn't already gone. The tariff had little or nothing do do with their leaving, as their own declarations indicate. Four more states would join them once the war started. The tariff had nothing to do with their leaving. It wasn't that the tariff drove those states out. It was that their leaving made larger tariff increases possible than would otherwise have occured.
People will claim otherwise. I think it's just that they can't believe that the defense and expansion of slavery could have been as important an issue as it was. The only way to judge is to read as much of the contemporary record as you can and then judge. Here is one website to get you started. And here is another.
What an ironic tragedy the war was. Industrialist versus Agrarian, Hamilton's urban mercantilist legacy versus Jefferson's gentlemen farmers, free-traders versus protectionists, statist's versus confederates, all destined to kill each other by the hundreds of thousands because of the economic, political, and cultural divisions created by an antiquated, immoral idea of property rights?
What a shame the Southern reform experiment was snuffed out in it's crib. The two systems would have evolved, shared, competed, and prospered from the march of the technological revolution with far more benefit to future world history, but for a farsighted, super-intelligent, ambitious corporate lawyer, who remolded the working thesis of continental government and of warfare.
Many thanks, again.