Episode 2 of 2

First Whig National Convention

When: December 4-8, 1839
Where: Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
Part of: Whig Party's first national convention nominates William Henry Harrison

The Whig Party held its first national convention in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, from December 4 to 8, 1839, to select the presidential nominee for the 1840 election.

Whig leaders agreed to hold the party's first national convention in December 1839. Henry Clay had emerged as the front-runner by early 1838 due to southern support and opposition to Van Buren's Independent Treasury. The convention was organized to select the party's nominee, with results documented in the Farmer's Cabinet newspaper.

Sources

1839 Whig National Convention Wikipedia, revision of 2026-08-28
Whig Party (United States) Wikipedia, revision of 2026-10-05

Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.