Analyze The Factors Which Contributed To The Failure Of The Two-Party System

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Recommended: Beginnings of the U. S. Party System

The collapse of the second party system was between the Democrats and Whigs, competing factions within the old Republican Party. They were split into opposing parties during Andrew Jackson’s presidency, the Democrats, Jackson’s faction, and the Whigs were his opponents. The social and economic transformation the United States had made by the 1850s contributed to the rivalry of the Whig-Democratic party system and eventually the fall- but immigration, nativism, slavery and expansion of slavery were the main factors. In the early 1850s, the two-party system started to fail due to foreign immigration. By 1856 the Whig party had completely disintegrated and been replaced by a new faction, the Republicans. Three million immigrants arrived to America between 1846-1855, and in big cities like New York and Chicago, the foreigners actually outnumbered the native citizens. Rivals of immigration profited by the working class fear of financial rivalry from immigrant work, which was less money, and hatred against the developing political force of nonnatives. The Democrats usually welcomed …show more content…

Since a considerable amount of those workers preceding the Civil War were Roman Catholics, ethnic preference against foreigners was generally joined by instinctive hatred of Catholics also. No doubt the biggest political reaction against immigrants and Catholics before the Civil War was the Know Nothing’s. They pointed the finger at them for the financial, social and political issues in America. The name “Know Nothings” came from the standard response from a member when asked about the party’s agenda “I know nothing.” However, the Know-Nothings left a permanent imprint on politics. The development dissolved loyalty to the national political parties, demolished the Whig party, and made the political framework less fit for containing the divisive issue of

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