PRESIDENTIAL PARTY HOPPERS
When the National Republican Party finally died out, Adams then became a Whig. He remained a Whig for the rest of his life, earning the title “Old Man Eloquent” for his vocal and vigorous opposition to slavery and dying in his beloved House of Representatives following a stroke. His membership in four political parties remains the record for a President.
Another President to change Parties was Martin Van Buren. He began his career as a Democratic-Republican, and was a state senator in New York and state attorney general. When the party broke up, he joined the Democrats, working for Andrew Jackson. As a Democrat, he was elected U.S. Senator, governor of New York, and was then appointed Secretary of State. Jackson then chose him for Vice President, and he followed Jackson in the White House as a Democrat. But Van Buren was defeated for re-election in 1840, and failed to win the nomination in 1844. In 1848, he ran for President on the Free Soil Party ticket, winning no states but taking enough Democratic votes in his home state of New York to throw it to the Whigs, and giving them the election.
John Tyler was a life-long Democrat who broke with the Jacksonian faction of his party. This made him a perfect Vice Presidential candidate for the new Whig Party. Unfortunately for the Whigs, the President died and Tyler became President. Although elected as a Whig, he was still a life-long Democrat at heart, and opposed the Whig legislative program. After his second veto of the Whig Bank Bill, they expelled him from the Party. At the end of his term, Tyler began a re-election campaign as an Independent Democratic candidate, but withdrew in favor of the regular Democratic candidate who was eventually elected.
Millard Fillmore started his career as an Anti-Mason, serving in the New York legislature. He helped to found the Whig Party in New York, and served Congress as a Whig. While in the House of Representatives, he was the chairman of the powerful Ways and Means Committee, making him one of the most powerful politicians in the country. He was the successful Whig candidate for Vice President in 1848, and succeeded to the Presidency when President Taylor died in 1850. He failed to get the nomination to a full term of his own in 1852 because of his enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law. In 1856, he ran as the
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