WI: no "Whig curse"?

In OTL the american Whig party only won two presidental elections. Of the four Whig presidents, two died in office (Harrison, Taylor) and two where embattled/ineffectual accendent vice presidents (Tyler, Filmore) the Whigs are also infamous for their collapse durring the 1850s over the issue of slavery, leading indirectly to the American Civil War. What if the Whigs where:
A. better at choosing presidents
B. better able to wheather the storm over slavery
 

Thande

Donor
It would be interesting. Some of the historical trends might be inevitable, but I suspect we could see a situation where the USA has a relatively long period of two parties being competitive in nearly all states, which would be a significant change to OTL (people forget the South was Democratic one-party states even BEFORE the Civil War to some extent). Both Whigs and Democrats having pro, anti and status quo slavery factions within them, so slavery is not such a general partisan issue. I think the main issue would actually be the executive powers of the President, as the Whigs were IIRC originally founded around the idea that there was executive overreach and Congress should have more powers. It's just that that got kind of forgotten due to them being unable to have anyone in the White House for more than five minutes without them dying or being useless.
 
Top