David & Margaret Roddey (Roddy) Haston Information
From 1898 William Carrol Haston Biographical Sketch

David Haston - "Old Time Whig"

• American Whig Party, roughly from 1834 to 1856

• American Revolutionaries were called "Whigs" (as opposed to the British loyalists who were called "Tories")

• Andrew Jackson's ("King Andrew I" as he was known by critics) Democratic party championed a strong presidency that attempted to overshadow the legislative branch;  thus, the Whig Party was formed to counter this "king like" type of rule that had been overthrown by the Whigs of the American Revolution

• Daniel Webster, Horace Greeley, and Henry Clay were early leaders; also, Abraham Lincoln in his early political career

• Generally ran a strong second to the Democratic Party

• Favored a National Bank

• Attempted to unify the North and South and avoid secession

• Development of Abraham Lincoln's Republican Party in the 1850s drew off so many Whigs that the party dissolved  (split by "Conscience [anti-slavery] Whigs" to Republican Party and "Cotton [pro-slavery] Whigs" to Democratic Party)

• After the demise of Jacksonian democracy, focused concern on internal improvements (roads, deepening rivers, railroads, etc.) and moral reforms