Millard Fillmore, 13th president of the United States, was a member of the Whig Party. He was the last Whig President; all of his successors have been either Democrats or Republicans. When he first started out in politics, Fillmore was a member of the Anti-Masonic Party, which, as the name suggests, was strongly opposed to the influence of freemasonry in American politics. Later on, however, Fillmore gravitated to the Whigs, and he would represent the party in the White House from 1850 to 1853.
The Whigs were in the tradition of the Federalists, and one of the forerunners of the present-day Republican Party. They tended to be somewhat suspicious of unchecked democracy, seeing it as a harbinger of mob rule. Instead, they advocated a strict interpretation of the Constitution, absolute fidelity to the rule of law, and the establishment of a modern, industrialized economy based upon a federal banking system.
No comments:
Post a Comment