Constitutional Union Party

'And now for our next trick, we'll make the Democrats and Republicans disappear'.

The Constitutional Union Party was a political name adopted by an oddball alliance of Know Nothings (American Party) and Know-It-Alls (Whigs) in 1861 to challenge the Republicans and Democrats in the United States. If they had had an animal symbol, like the Democrats (jackass) and Republicans (heffalump), it would have been an ostrich, with its head buried deep in the sand. They were defeated by Abraham Lincoln and then disappeared for good.

The party was supported by anyone (if they had the vote) to govern the U.S. on the policy of ignoring political reality between pro-slavery and anti-slavery forces. Treating the U.S. Constitution like the Ten Commandments, this group hoped to raise the spirit of George Washington to ask for guidance from the Other Side.

Origins

For 20 years, the American Whig party had provided opposition to the dominant Democratic Party, considering itself much saner than the Democrats. They were not too bothered by slavery, which they believed would eventually die out. They wanted to keep it as a "Southern pecularity." Who knew that they would die out first?

In 1854, the Whigs collapsed as a viable political alternative to the Democrats. Slavery became a greater question as new states were admitted into the Union. Would each be slave or free? The Whigs sat neatly on the fence, and a large chunk broke off to create the anti-slavery Republican Party. Others drifted off to the virulent anti-immigration (anti-Irish essentially) Know-nothings whilst the rest just counted their slaves and hoped the issue would just go away. Or became Democrats

Elections

The dance-off finale to the General Election of 1860. Clockwise top: John Breckinridge, Abraham Lincoln, John Bell and Stephen Douglas with the late Dred Scott playing the violin.

In 1856, such Whigs as remained supported the Know Nothings against the Democrats and Republicans. They came in a poor third. They shunned even a name for themselves, running as "Oppositionists". This neatly sidestepped what they were for, as it focused on what they were against. They badly needed an actual name, as the United States drifted toward a civil war. The Whigs, Know-nothings and other oddballs contested the next Presidential election as the Constitutional Union Party, because their answer to anything was to scream, "The Constitution! The Constitution!!"

Lincoln

In 1860, the remaining Whig Grandees ran their own candidates for president and vice president. Senator John Bell from Tennessee and a former governor of Massachusetts Edward Everett were nominated. The slavery expansion issue broke the Democrats; they ran anti-slavery candidates in the North and pro-slavery candidates in the South. The Constitutionalists claimed that if everyone calmed down...but the hotheads were in control. The Southern Democrats won the argument by simply barring Republicans from the ballot. When Lincoln still won, they headed off into seccession.

Bell and the Constitutionalists won in the border states between North and South. However, nationally, they still came in third. With the South now ready to break the Constitution, a fence-straddling Constitutional Party looked surplus. Some ex-Whigs and now ex-Constitutionalists joined Lincolm as "Unionists". Bell himself rode South and became a Confederate.

Whig windbag

The failed vice presidential candidate Edward Everett had allied with Lincoln as an 'Unconditional' Unionist. Everett had a reputation as an orator who could warm an audience before the main speech. That's if you had half a day to kill.

In 1863 Lincoln hired him as the first act to speak to an audience at Gettysburg. Everett spoke for so long that people were snoring by the end when Lincoln took the stage. The war leader spoke for 30 seconds and was gone. Everett's waffle was forgotten.