A US political party of the second quarter of the 19th century. The Whig Party was formed in the mid‐1830s by those who opposed what was perceived as the executive tyranny of President Andrew Jackson. Dominated by Henry Clay and Daniel Webster, the Party elected William Henry Harrison to the White House in 1840 and Taylor in 1848, but disunity on free‐soil and slavery issues weakened it severely and it broke up.