Opposition Party in The South (c. 1858-1860)
In 1858, 19 candidates were elected to the 36th United States Congress as members of the Opposition Party from several states, including Kentucky, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia. After 1858, the party did not win seats in Congress and effectively ceased to exist.
To qualify as a third party by Kenneth C. Martis’ analysis, a political party must meet one of four criteria, including (a) run clearly identifiable congressional candidates, many times in three-way contests; and/or (b) they represent a clearly identifiable historical political movement or sentiment that is regional or national in scope. . Elements of the pro-Union American Party and the Whig Party in the south needed to organize a political party which could not be accused of disloyalty to Southern Institutions (slavery).
In March 1859 the Opposition party met in Tennessee convention to nominate a gubernatorial candidate and set up a state-wide party organization. It won 7 of the nine Congressional Districts (see chart below). Kentucky followed in February 1859, winning five of the ten districts. Georgia’s was July 1859, winning two of eight. In North Carolina, the anti-Democratic parties won four of the eight seats, and caucused with the Opposition party in the House. “These elections were the last gasp … in the South to stand up to the Democrats in the emerging sharp sectional” confrontation.
| “Opposition Party” in the 36th Congress, 1859–1861 | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| State | Georgia | Kentucky | North Carolina | Tennessee | Virginia |
| Representative, (Congressional District Number) | |||||
| 1. | Thomas Hardeman Jr. (3rd) | Francis M. Bristow (3rd) | William N. H. Smith (1st) | Thomas A.R. Nelson (1st) | Alexander R. Boteler (8th) |
| 2. | Joshua Hill (7th) | William C. Anderson (4th) | John A. Gilmer (5th) | Horace Maynard (2nd) | … |
| 3. | … | Green Adams (6th) | James Madison Leach (6th) | Reese B. Brabson (3rd) | … |
| 4. | … | Robert Mallory (7th) | Zebulon B. Vance (8th) | William B. Stokes (4th) | … |
| 5. | … | Laban T. Moore (9th) | … | Robert H. Hatton (5th) | … |
| 6. | … | … | … | James M. Quarles (8th) | … |
| 7. | … | … | … | Emerson Etheridge (9th) | … |
In North Carolina, a Republican organization did not develop until after the Civil War, and many former Whigs such as John Pool called themselves either the Whig Party or the Opposition Party through the election of 1860. This "new" Whig Party was actually just the state's affiliate of the American (Know-Nothing) Party with a new name, according to Folk and Shaw's W.W. Holden: a Political Biography. This party ceased to exist after the onset of the Civil War, but many of its members joined the loosely organized "Conservative Party" of Zebulon B. Vance.
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Famous quotes containing the words opposition, party and/or south:
“The history of men’s opposition to women’s emancipation is more interesting perhaps than the story of that emancipation itself.”
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)
“Good government cannot be found on the bargain-counter. We have seen samples of bargain-counter government in the past when low tax rates were secured by increasing the bonded debt for current expenses or refusing to keep our institutions up to the standard in repairs, extensions, equipment, and accommodations. I refuse, and the Republican Party refuses, to endorse that method of sham and shoddy economy.”
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)
“We have heard all of our lives how, after the Civil War was over, the South went back to straighten itself out and make a living again. It was for many years a voiceless part of the government. The balance of power moved away from it—to the north and the east. The problems of the north and the east became the big problem of the country and nobody paid much attention to the economic unbalance the South had left as its only choice.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)