If you were living in the 1840's do you think you would have been a democrat or a whig?

[book_worm]

or some other party that may have been around in those days?

[Muttocracy]

1. I wouldn't have been able to vote - but it's an interesting question. nt

[book_worm]

2. Good point, so many of us would not have been able to vote.

[Muttocracy]

8. reviewing quickly on Wiki... I'm not sure... but probably Democratic

though I like the Whig parts about Congress being more powerful than the President - so maybe that makes me a Jeffersonian Democrat but not a Jacksonian one?

Most of my ancestors were probably not voting either - probably too busy scraping a living in Appalachia.

[Texasgal]

3. Good point!

[Blue_In_AK]

6. Add me to that list. n/t

[luvspeas]

9. no vote here either

good point.

[Warpy]

4. Neither. I'd have been serving tea and cakes

to fellow Suffragettes and plotting the overthrow of male dictatorship along with ending the evil system of slavery.

My great grandmother was a Suffragette. My grandmother was a Suffragette.
One of my mother's earliest memories was of a Suffragette parade in NYC at least five years before the men in DC finally did the right thing.

[Botany]

5. I would have been a boatman on the Erie Canal

I've got a mule, her name is Sal,
15 miles on the Erie Canal
She's a good old worker and a good old pal,
15 miles on the Erie Canal

We've hauled some barges in our day
filled with lumber, coal and hay
And we know every inch of the way from
Albany to Buffalo.

[Critters2]

19. Low bridge! Everybody down! nt

[Skink]

7. I probably would have still been a saxophone player as the Sax was invented in 1840.

[DearAbby]

10. I would not been able to be within a party

I would have been considered property, tho not like the slaves. As a female, I would have been told what I was supposed to believe, or risk being alienated.

[Steepler0t]

11. Well, since my descendants are from Germany

I would be at the bar with:

Discussing philosophy and raising hell

He sure knew how to get a party started!

Next rounds on Engels! :rofl:

[Harry Monroe]

25. Um, I think you mean "ancestors"

[Odin2005]

34. I'd be telling him "Brilliant economics and sociology, but your Hegelianism sucks!"

:rofl:

[Hippo_Tron]

12. That's a very good question and I've thought about it frequently

Really it's hard to choose because neither party really gave a shit about poor or working people. The Whigs were largely the business elite and their concern was mostly protecting their own interests. Jackson and the Democrats didn't really help poor or working people either because their electoral success was based on having a voting block with a low level of education.

The tie breaker would probably go to the Whigs since at least some of them were anti-slavery.

[Muttocracy]

13. good point - in terms of slavery, at least some Whigs were on the right side

though I guess it split their party eventually?

[NoPasaran]

18. The Democrats had some against slavery as well

David Wilmot, author of the Proviso banning slavery in the Mexican Cession, was a Democratic Congressman.

[Hippo_Tron]

22. True, but not those with the prominence of people like Daniel Webster

[janx]

31. "their electoral success was based on having a voting block with a low level of education"

Some things never change, eh? ;-) Only parties change.

[ThomWV]

14. About that time there were three other divisions, one of which sort of persists today

If I were to consider myself anything of that time it would probably be something you've likely never heard of, Cohee. Prior to the civil war anyone in the country would have known exactly what it meant as well as its two counterparts, Tuckahoe and Yankee. The traditional notion of who a Yankee persists to today but the other two have faded. You can begin to grasp the Tuckahoe in that was the name of Jefferson's father's home. The Tuckahoe were the better off land owners, tradesmen, and wealthy coastal folks. The Cohee were the inland people of the mountans and beyond, from a place much more harsh and very much independent of the other two.

[Muttocracy]

42. very interesting. I don't remember hearing those terms

despite growing up and having long roots in the border of those. I'd have been a Cohee too.

[asdjrocky]

15. I'm quite certain I would have loved Jackson and his big block of cheese.

But, per usual, he probably would have done little for me or my class.

[slampoet]

16. If it was after 1845 I would be a ONE ISSUE voter for whoever stopped the IRISH POTATO FAMINE

[Synicus Maximus]

17. All my people were Texians in 1840

[Ten Bears]

20. The Whigs were the liberal party then...

...so it appears I would have been a whig.

[NoPasaran]

21. They were also the pro-business, pro-banking party

I'm not so sure that our current ideas of liberal and conservative really fit that well into the politics of a century and a half ago.

[janx]

30. Those ideas don't even fit well into the politics of 30 years ago.

;-)

[MajorChode]

33. I would characterize the Whigs as more progressive than liberal

[coalition_unwilling]

23. It probably would depend on

which section of the country I lived in. Political identity and hence affiliation was far more sectional (North, South and West) than national in the 1840s.

I would like to think I would have stood with Lincoln and Thoreau against the Mexican-American war of 1848, though.

[Odin2005]

35. Same with me. IIRC Whigs were generally opposed to that war.

It was seen as a land grab by Southern Democrats who wanted to get more land to have plantations.

[Jamastiene]

24. I supposed I'd be serving tea and crumpettes along with

the rest of the women.

[roamer65]

26. Democrat.

Definitely a "Jacksonian" democrat.

[Harry Monroe]

27. Probably neither. My ancestors were still in Sicily at the time

Didn't come over to Ellis Island until 1897

[Shiver]

28. I'd have been Canadian

My family didn't move down to Wisconsin until the 1880's.

[janx]

29. I would not have been able to vote, but my ancestors then were Whig. n/t

[Odin2005]

32. Probably a Whig. 2 decades later I would have been a Radical Republican

Around the turn of the 20th Century I would have been a Progressive Republican. Only starting around 1920 would I fit in the Democratic Party

[Hippo_Tron]

41. It would be hard to fit into the party until about 1928-1932 IMO

Because until that point, the Klan was still an element of the party and they were debating whether or not to change that. Al Smith was at least anti-prohibition and that may have drawn me to him.

[scarletwoman]

36. Wouldn't have been able to vote. Depending on my class, I might not have been able to read, either.

So I probably would have had no knowledge of politics. And if I had been a slave, the question would most certainly be moot.

sw

[Connie_Corleone]

37. Picking cotton on some plantation in Georgia, hoping my family didn't get split up.

Maybe having some of the slave owner's children.

I'll stick with this century.

[johnlucas]

38. Neither. I'm Black.

Neither party cared about my well-being in those days to put it VERY mildly.

John Lucas

[w8liftinglady]

39. Popping out babies in Italy.

[HawkerHurricane]

40. Democrat.

Half New York Irish, Half Southerner.
"You mean, there are other political parties?"

[jacksonian]

43. the Whigs never produed the kind of politician i would go for

they were nothing nationally without some war hero general at their head. Nor were they, as a party, particularly anti-slave - many did become abolutionists, but many were in favor of slavery and became Dems after the Whigs broke up.

i would have been a Jacksonian Democrat, because i would have been most concerned about limiting the power of the banking system, although i would have been a moderate on the tariff issues. The slavery and Indian rights questions would have had me considering splitting, however. By 1860 i would have definitely supported Lincoln.

My votes:
1840: van Buren over Harrison, although i might have voted for Harrison
1844: Polk over Clay, Clay was just too slick a politcian for my vote
1848: Cass over Taylor, although this would have been the first time the slavery issue would have started to have me leaving the Dems. But Zach Taylor was not presidential timber, i'm sorry, and the whole "general as president" meme was getting pretty worn out
1852: Pierce over Scott, a terrible choice either way.
1856: Fremont over Buchanan and Fillmore. Bloody Kansas would have chased me from the Dems.

[nadinbrzezinski]

44. No voter... many reasons,

[mmonk]

45. My ancestor was a Whig in the NC Legislature.

He led a fight to try and keep NC in the Union. Other than that, I don't know the political leanings of the others except George Monck, Duke of Albemarle and one the Eight Lords and Proprietors of Carolina when the state was claimed by England.

[Muttocracy]

46. kick

[misanthrope]

47. I wouldn't be alive without modern medical science and sanitation...

...and there's probably a fair number of folks here for whom that would apply.