Talk:Opposition Party (Northern U.S.)

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Fix to the confusing Opposition Party (United States) article

That page featured 3 different sections about 3 different parties that had nothing to do with each other. It should be about the "Opposition Party" that arose in the South in the period right before the war.InformationvsInjustice (talk) 02:35, 2 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Is it quite fair to say the two parties of the 1850s had nothing to do with each other? They were both basically ex-Whigs who didn't belong to a functioning national party but wanted to differentiate themselves from the Democrats. Be that as it may, I wonder whether it might be more useful to distinguish these by date, i.e. Opposition Party (1854) and Opposition Party (1858). Contrasting "United States" with "Northern U.S." seems odd, particularly since the Northern U.S. party was larger... Q·L·1968 ☿ 18:23, 12 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the contributions! I am not in a position to object to your... objection ;-) Bear in mind, I didn't use the word "Nothing" in the article, just in my talk page explanation.

I'm no historian, however here's what I found after some research:

Of the 100 members of congress who were elected in 1854 on the Opposition ticket all were Northerners.
While a significant number of those elected in 1854 were Whigs, many had been Democrats when they ran in 1852.
in 1856, no members of congress ran on the Opposition ticket and 96 ran as Republicans, including many of the former Oppositionists (like all three from Michigan who were reelected as Republicans).
Of the 25 members of congress on the Opposition ticket in 1858, there were no Northerners.
The only Opposition congressmen elected in 1858 who had been elected in 1856, ran on the American (Know-Nothings) ticket during the prior session (however at least a few, like Bristow(KY) served as a Whigs in previous sessions).

Now I speculate: The term "Opposition" as used in 1854 referred to expansion of slavery into the new territories in the wake of the horrors unleashed by the Kansas Nebraska Act and Dredd Scott. The term as used by the Southerners elected in 1858 referred to Southern secession. Perhaps this point would be a good candidate for a request because it should be included in the articles if it's true. Alas, I don't know enough about how to do that. Perhaps you do?

As for the issue with Opposition Party (United States). It's totally wrong and should be changed, I didn't do so because that seemed like a big change, whereas just migrating this part seemed justifiable. And, what about all the other articles linked to it? Is there a way to find them and fix them? If so, I totally agree that this needs to be done.InformationvsInjustice (talk) 00:36, 13 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I like your interesting speculation, and it actually fits with my point about opposition to the Democrats, because the extension of slavery and (if they couldn't get that) secession were the causes célèbres of the Breckenridge wing of the party—which was essentially the faction in power in the Pierce and Buchanan administrations. I can't think of a good source off-hand that could be cited on this point as it relates to the Opposition politicians (I'm a history buff, not a historian, myself), but it may be worth hunting around for... Your research about who the southern Opposition Congressmen of 1858 were, and who those of 1854 were, is persuasive that these should be two separate articles, as you've made them.

As for moving either page, it should be a simple matter since Opposition Party (1854) and Opposition Party (1858) don't currently have a page history. In either case, a redirect page will be left behind. Bots sometimes go through and fix the links to redirects on other pages, or we could use the "What links here" tool to go through the linked pages. Q·L·1968 ☿ 17:13, 13 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I have no objection to further disambiguation of the article titles per the above discussion. This isn't an area of expertise of mine. That said, I thought "northern" was too vague and that's why I did the last move. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 22:52, 13 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Opposition Party (United States) should disambiguate

Instead of just redirecting to the Southern U.S. page. What say you?InformationvsInjustice (talk) 00:42, 16 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I think that would be helpful! Q·L·1968 ☿ 19:02, 16 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Inconsistencies in this article

This article seems to confuse Free Soilers / Anti-Nebraska types / nascent Republicans with old-line Whigs who were happy with the Whig party, but became politically homeless after it started to disintegrate. The top of the article claims that Oppositionists were "anti-slavery", but then in the middle of the article there's a mention of Oppositionists who wanted to fuse with the Constitutional Union party in 1860 (who were almost certainly NOT "anti-slavery"). AnonMoos (talk) 08:41, 8 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@AnonMoos: Thanks so much for your contribution. Good catch. It looks to me like that passage refers to the Southern Oppositionists and doesn't belong here. These Oppositionists were largely anti-slavery, although it appears there were those within it that were merely anti-expansion of slavery. The article's content on the politics of its membership almost certainly deserves to be expanded on. Please have at it!

This article and Opposition Party (Southern U.S.) were a product of the former, horribly confusing Opposition Party (United States), which is now a dab. Curse the men of the time for their lack of creativity. Although I feel comfortable contributing to articles in this area of US history, I know there are many editors who are far more knowledgeable than I. Informata ob Iniquitatum (talk) 04:04, 9 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Even if the particular Constitutional Union 1860 sentence is removed, there still seem to be some problems, or at least vaguenesses. If "Opposition Party (North)" is confined to those with anti-slavery views, then it pretty much becomes a synonym of "Anti-Nebraska movement". But if it includes all those who opposed the Democratic Party, but were not affiliated with another organized party, then it would necessarily include many former Whigs who were not particularly anti-slavery. (Some of them thought that slavery was theoretically morally wrong in the abstract, but saw no urgency or necessity to antagonize Southerners by confronting them over the issue.) It could be that the term as originally used and/or as used by historians is unavoidably somewhat vague, but that should be explained more clearly in the article... AnonMoos (talk) 11:43, 10 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@AnonMoos: Please take aim at any content you feel merits change. I am fairly certain that virtually all of the members of congress who ran on the Opposition Party ticket from the free states opposed slavery and were former Whigs. Certainly that included "anti-Nebraskans" (anti-Nebraska-ists?).

However, after a little light research I find myself less confident than before. :-| Informata ob Iniquitatum (talk) 01:49, 12 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I guess the technically correct name for what I've been calling old-line Whigs is the "Silver Grays" (see Francis Granger). According to the "Francis Granger" article, he was from Connecticut / New York and supported the Constitutional Union party in 1860. AnonMoos (talk) 17:12, 13 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

as I look into this, it seems like the inconsistencies are not this article's problem but more of a reflection of the sources themselves. It seems like these people are called something different in different sources. It seems much clearer when I created the original page. If you have a suggestion regarding a split or some other rearrangement of the content of this and the other article, I would certainly listen.Informata ob Iniquitatum (talk) 20:33, 13 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know all that much more than what I've said here, but I'm not sure that defining the Opposition as entirely anti-slavery is correct, and there's definitely a contradiction between being anti-slavery and supporting the Constitutional Union party in 1860... AnonMoos (talk) 23:54, 14 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Division into Northern and Southern groups seems unnecessary and confusing

I think that the split of the Opposition Party into two articles, though clearly well intended, somewhat confuses the issue at hand. It's true that there were major differences between the Northern group that labeled itself as members of the Opposition Party and the Southern group that did the same, but the similarities seem more important to me than the differences. Both groups consisted of former Whigs struggling to find a new home in the aftermath of the party's collapse, and both groups were active at the same time. I think a re-merger of the two articles would be the best course of action, since this would allow a singe article to effectively cover the organization of post-Whig groups in the North and South during the 1850s, while also continuing to highlight the differences between the Northern and Southern groups. Orser67 (talk) 19:15, 30 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

A lot of ex-Whigs in the North were at least anti-slavery-extension, and eventually drifted into the Republican party (see Abraham Lincoln), while very few in the border states were, and basically none in the deep South -- in fact, sometimes southern ex-Whigs tried to distinguish themselves as being even more loudly pro-slavery than the southern Democrats in public. I'm not sure how merging the two articles would help to distinguish nascent Republicans vs. Silver-Grays in this article. AnonMoos (talk) 14:59, 4 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]