# Second Party System The Second Party System (c. 1828–1854) organized American politics around the rivalry between the **[[Democratic Party]]** of [[Andrew Jackson]] and the **[[Whig Party]]** of Henry Clay. It was the first genuinely mass-democratic party system, built on expanded white-male suffrage, popular nominating conventions, patronage machines, and high voter turnout. The defining cleavage was over [[Jacksonian Democracy]] and the role of the federal government in the economy: Democrats championed states' rights, hard money, and hostility to the national bank, while Whigs backed Clay's **[[American System]]** of a national bank, protective tariffs, and federally funded internal improvements. The system was destroyed by the slavery question. The [[Compromise of 1850]] and the [[Kansas-Nebraska Act]] (1854) shattered the cross-sectional coalitions; the Whigs collapsed, anti-slavery forces founded the [[Republican Party]], and the nativist [[Know-Nothing Party]] briefly surged. The realignment produced the [[Third Party System]]. ## See Also - [[Democratic Party]] · [[Whig Party]] · [[Free Soil Party]] · [[Know-Nothing Party]] - [[First Party System]] · [[Third Party System]] - [[American System]] · [[Realignment]]