slavery would be allowed). Whigs sank to their death after the overwhelming electoral defeat by Franklin Pierce in the 1852 presidential election. Ex-Whigs joined the Know Nothings or the newly formed anti-slavery Republican Party. While the Know Nothing party was short-lived, Republicans would survive the intense politics leading up to the Civil War. The primary Republican policy was that slavery be excluded from all the territories. Just six years later, this new party captured the presidency when Abraham Lincoln won the election of 1860, the election that established the Democratic and Republican parties as the major parties of America. Third Party System: 1854–1890s The anti-slavery Republican Party emerged in 1854. It adopted many of the economic policies of the Whigs, such as national banks, railroads, high tariffs, homesteads and aid to land grant colleges. After the defeat of the Confederacy, it became the dominant party in America for decades, associated with the successful military defense of the Union and often known as "the Grand Old Party". The Republican coalition consisted of businessmen, shop owners, skilled craftsmen, clerks, and professionals who were attracted to the party's modernization policies, and newly enfranchised African Americans (Freedmen). The Democratic Party was usually in opposition during this period, although it often controlled the Senate or the House of Representatives, or both. The Democrats were known as "basically conservative and agrarian-oriented", and like the Republicans, it was a broad-based voting coalition. Their support came from "Redeemers" of the Jim Crow "Solid South" (i.e. solidly Democratic) where "repressive legislation and physical intimidation" prevented the "newly enfranchised African Americans from voting"; small farmers in the West (before the Sun belt boom, both regions being much less populated and politically powerful); there were also conservative pro-business Bourbon Democrats, traditional Democrats in the North (many of them former Copperheads), and Catholic immigrants, among others. As the party of states' rights, post-Civil War Democrats opposed civil rights legislation. As the (sometimes) populist party of small farmers, it opposed the interests of big business, such as protective tariffs that raised prices on imported goods needed by rural people. The party favored cheap-money policies - low interest rates and inflation favoring those with substantial debts, such as small farmers. Civil war and Reconstruction issues polarized the parties until the Compromise of 1877, which saw the withdrawal of the last federal troops from the Southern United States. (By 1905 most black people were effectively