The Whigs Strike Back in Nashville

The week after Democrats met in Nashville in mid-August 1844, Whigs gathered in the same city. As expected from the party that had used cultural politics to its advantage in the 1840 presidential election, Whigs used political symbols extensively. For example, they raised a 200-foot-high liberty pole, a political symbol dating from the American Revolution. In a nod to the campaign of four years earlier, “a splendid Ball” covered in inscriptions honoring the ticket of Henry Clay and Theodore Frelinghuysen “illuminated the whole city.”

By the time the Whigs had assembled at Camp Harrison, the outdoor meeting place named for their former president, on Wednesday, August 21, they were a reported 50,000 to 75,000 strong. The “Great Whig Festival” included speeches by several prominent party leaders. Tennesseans John Bell, who was the convention president and a former friend of Andrew Jackson, and Governor James “Lean Jimmy” Jones were two local speakers. William J. Graves of Kentucky, who had infamously killed Jonathan Cilley of Maine when both were serving in Congress, was a popular speaker, as was the long-haired “Arkansas giant” Albert Pike.

Perhaps most notable was former congressman Seargent S. Prentiss of Mississippi. On one occasion, while speaking in front of the Nashville courthouse, Prentiss suffered a “stricture of the chest,” which may have been heatstroke from the hot August sun. After a few minutes of rest, Prentiss recovered and finished his oration. A local Whig newspaper described Prentiss’ first speech on Wednesday:

So rapid is his elocution, so strong is the rush of his ideas, so vehement is the torrent of imagery with which he clothes every sentence, that after the first quarter of an hour we thought we might as well attempt to report correctly the flood of poetry which a Byron would pour out in standing on the shore of the deep and dark blue sea, and exclaiming the glorious stanzas beginning “Roll on thou deep and dark blue ocean, roll!”

Interestingly, the main Nashville Whig newspaper–the Republican Banner–said a lot about the style of speakers of Prentiss, but it barely mentioned the substance of what they said. This silence stood in stark contrast to the way the Democratic Nashville Union had reported on the speeches and letters of its party the preceeding week.

Drawing tens of thousands of party members and leaders, the two Nashville meetings–one Democratic, one Whig–marked the beginning of the fall election season, as both parties sought to convince voters that their ideology and policies were the right ones to embrace as the presidential campaign progressed.

Sources: Nashville Republican Banner and Nashville Union, 21-27 August 1844; Library of Congress; Mark R. Cheathem, Who Is James K. Polk? The Presidential Election of 1844 (2023).