I\u2019m glad you asked<\/a>! Let\u2019s look at the Senate first.<\/p>\n![\"Senate](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/166\/2016\/09\/Senate-Elections.png\")
<\/p>\n
In the election that took place in November of 1856, there were 39 Democrats and 20 Republicans elected to the Senate. There were also 5\u00a0Senators that belonged to neither of these parties, but none of them were Whigs. In other words, after the election of 1856, there were no Whigs in the Senate, and the Republican Party had roughly the same number of Senators that the Whig party had had before its collapse.<\/p>\n
What about the House of Representatives?<\/p>\n
![\"House](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/166\/2016\/09\/House-Elections.png\")
<\/p>\n
The election of 1856 created a House of Representatives that included\u00a0131 Democrats, 94 Republicans, and 13 Representatives that belonged to neither of these parties\u2014and these weren\u2019t Whigs either.<\/p>\n
As of 1856, the Whigs were no more. We still had two parties, yes, but those two parties were the Democrats and the Republicans. The Republicans didn\u2019t succeed because people chose to vote for 3rd party candidates. The Republican Party was only created in 1854, and it was only created\u00a0because the Whig party collapsed due to internal tensions over slavery. Indeed, many Whig leaders left the Whig Party to create the Republican Party, Abraham Lincoln among them. The Republican Party was created in 1854 because<\/em> the Whig party was collapsing. The Republican Party was\u00a0created out of the remains\u00a0of the Whig Party.<\/p>\nIn 1852, you had Democrats and Whigs. In 1854, the Whig Party fell apart due to internal tension, and the Republican Party was formed. That year, you had the Democrats and the Opposition, which included what was left of the Whig Party, what existed of the brand new Republican Party, and a few individuals from various smaller\u00a0parties. In 1856, you had the Democrats and the Republicans. More than anything else, this showed the stability of the two-party system. Our winner-takes-all system is not set up to accommodate more than two parties. When one major party died, a new one was created and immediately took its place.<\/p>\n
By the time\u00a0the election of 1860 rolled around, the Republican Party had been the second party in a two-party system for four years. Abraham Lincoln was not a third party candidate. He was a candidate nominated by one of the two major parties. Even John Fremont, the Republican Party candidate in 1856, was not a third party candidate, because the Whig Party had collapsed so fully that they were not running a candidate. That would be the equivalent of\u00a0the Democrats or the Republicans experiencing such severe internal collapse that they decide not to run a candidate in the presidential election. That is not the situation we are looking at today.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s not\u00a0use bad history to influence\u00a0people\u2019s political choices.<\/p>\n
I have a <\/b>Patreon<\/b><\/a>! Please support my writing!<\/b><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By the time the election of 1860 rolled around, the Republican Party had been the second party in a two-party system for four years. Abraham Lincoln was not a third party candidate. He was a candidate nominated by one of the two major parties. Even John Fremont, the Republican Party candidate in 1856, was not a third party candidate, because the Whig Party had collapsed so fully that they were not running a candidate. <\/p>\n
Click through to read more!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":845,"featured_media":30419,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"yoast_head":"\n
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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-zFpIRr8GjTs\/V5_sMWELWsI\/AAAAAAAABUY\/U3NdH9D5PqQg8k8sk_DE2DGV267EX40WwCLcB\/s1600\/3rdparty.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Election](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/166\/2016\/09\/Election-of-1856-2.png\")
<\/p>\n