Conservatism and Criticism: The Literary Standards of American Whigs, 1845-1852

Abstract

In I840, after an emotional campaign which substituted slogans and enthusiasm (Tippecanoe, and Tyler too!) for principles and issues, Benjamin Harrison, the Whig candidate, was selected president of the United States. Harrison died shortly after his inauguration, and Tyler, who succeeded to the presidency, broke with the party, which was only a makeshift conglomeration of hastily thrown-together elements, organized to put up some opposition to the Democrats. Whig leaders, including Henry Clay and Daniel Webster, determined to formulate and set before the public an ideology which would represent the principles of the party. For this purpose, they founded, in I845, American Review: A Whig Journal of Politics, Literature, Art, and Science, commonly called the Whig Review. magazine, which appeared monthly, was designed to offset the influence of the Democratic Party's United States Magazine and Democratic Review, a journal in which the Young America group was promulgating what Longfellow called a Loco-foco politico-literary system. first editor of the Whig Review was George H. Colton, 27, a Yale graduate and sometime poet. contents of the first issue provide an idea of the type and scope of material which the magazine offered its readers during the eight years of its existence: Introductory; The Position of