AND THE WHIG COALITION 339 



He had already been recommended for the vice- 

 presidency by the legislatures of several Southern 

 states. During the year 1834 the Whig party came 

 into existence. At the North the National Republicans, 

 the party of Clay and Webster, were beginning to 

 call themselves Whigs ; while the Southern strict con- 

 structionists gladly took the name of " State Rights 

 Whigs." Between these two wings of the new party 

 there was no bond of union whatever except their 

 common hostility to the Jackson Democrats. Their 

 alliance was as unnatural as that of Fox and North 

 against Lord Shelburne in 1783, or as that of John 

 Bright with Lord Salisbury against Mr. Gladstone 

 scarcely a decade ago. The protective theory of govern- 

 ment, with its tariff, bank, and internal improvements, 

 which was the fetich of the Northern Whigs, was to the 

 Southern Whigs a device of Belial. Even in their com- 

 mon hatred of Jackson they did not stand upon common 

 ground ; for the Northern Whigs hated him for his 

 stanch opposition to paternal government, while the 

 Southern Whigs hated him for the severity with which 

 he frowned upon nullification. The nearest approach 

 to real sympathy between the two discordant allies 

 was furnished by Tyler and Webster, in so far as 

 they were agreed for the moment in condemning the 

 violence of Jackson's proceedings in the particular 

 case of the bank. And it was in this one point of 

 sympathy that the name " Whig " had its origin. 

 They called themselves Whigs because they saw fit 

 to represent Jackson as a sort of unconstitutional 

 tyrant, like George III., and for a moment they tried 

 to stigmatize Jackson's followers as " Tories," but 

 this device was unsuccessful. 



