K. Polk, who subsequently presided over the Mexican–American War. Whig nominee Zachary Taylor won the 1848 presidential election, but Taylor died in 1850 and was succeeded by Millard Fillmore. Fillmore, Clay, Daniel Webster, and Democrat Stephen A. Douglas led the passage of the Compromise of 1850, which helped to defuse sectional tensions in the aftermath of the Mexican–American War. Nonetheless, the Whigs suffered a decisive defeat in the 1852 presidential election partly due to sectional divisions within the party. The Whigs collapsed following the passage of the Kansas–Nebraska Act in 1854, with most Northern Whigs eventually joining the anti-slavery Republican Party and most Southern Whigs joining the nativist American Party and later the Constitutional Union Party. The last vestiges of the Whig Party faded away after the start of the American Civil War, but Whig ideas remained influential for decades. During the Lincoln Administration, ex-Whigs dominated the Republican Party and enacted much of their American System. Presidents Abraham Lincoln, Rutherford B. Hayes, Chester A. Arthur, and Benjamin Harrison were Whigs before switching to the Republican Party, from which they were elected to office. It is considered the primary predecessor party of the modern-day Republicans. Background During the 1790s, the first major U.S. parties arose in the form of the Federalist Party, led by Alexander Hamilton, and the Democratic-Republican Party, led by Thomas Jefferson. After 1815, the Democratic-Republicans emerged as the sole major party at the national level but became increasingly polarized. A nationalist wing, led by Henry Clay, favored policies such as the Second Bank of the United States and the implementation of a protective tariff. A second group, the Old Republicans, opposed these policies, instead favoring a strict interpretation of the Constitution and a weak federal government. In the 1824 presidential election, Speaker of the House Henry Clay, Secretary of the Treasury William H. Crawford, Secretary of State John Quincy Adams, and General Andrew Jackson all sought the presidency as members of the Democratic-Republican Party. Crawford favored state sovereignty and a strict constructionist view of the Constitution, while Clay and Adams favored high tariffs and the national bank; regionalism played a central role, with Jackson strongest in the West. Jackson won a plurality of the popular and electoral vote in the 1824 election, but not a majority. The House of Representatives had to decide. Speaker Clay supported Adams, who was elected as president by the House, and Clay was