Aside from the Whig economic program, various other issues confronted the Whig Party. Temperance never became a purely partisan issue between Whigs and Democrats, but Whigs tended to be more favorable to state prohibition laws than were Democrats. Similarly, opinions on immigration did not break down strictly on party lines, but Whigs tended to have less favorable views towards immigration, partly because most recent immigrants aligned with the Democratic Party. In the mid-1840s, a group of Whigs unsuccessfully pushed a bill that would have implemented new paperwork requirements for naturalization and monitored the movements of immigrants in the United States more closely. The unwillingness of Whig leaders to push for more far-reaching changes, such as an extension of the five-year naturalization period, encouraged some Whigs to join nativist third parties. Whigs were less in favor of expansionism than their Democratic counterparts, and Whigs tended to oppose the Mexican–American War and the acquisition of new territories like Cuba. John Mack Faragher writes that Democrats sought to balance the rising power of industrialization in the United States by following "Thomas Jefferson's vision of establishing agriculture in the new territories", while Whigs were content to develop the country within its present borders and feared that expansion would cause a divisive debate over slavery in the territories. Base of support Political scientist A. James Reichley writes that the Democrats and Whigs were "political institutions of a kind that had never existed before in history" because they commanded mass membership among voters and continued to function between elections. Both parties drew support from voters of various classes, occupations, religions, and ethnicities. Nonetheless, the Whig Party was based among middle-class conservatives. The central fault line between the parties concerned the emerging market economy, as Whigs embraced the economic and social changes caused by the market economy and Democrats rejected them. Whigs drew strength from the economic elites in both Northern cities and Southern plantation regions, but they also attracted support from other classes in most cities. In many states, local rivalries pushed groups into one party or the other, though areas that favored internal improvements tended to favor Whigs. Catholics overwhelmingly voted Democrat, while Protestants were split between the two parties. Recent Irish and German immigrants generally supported the Democrats, but recent immigrants from England, Scotland, and Wales tended to support the Whigs. Although the Whigs and the rival Democratic Party established party structures that were