Currents Magazine June 2016 Currents June 2016 | Page 5

Currents

June 2016

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is a degree or two higher than that of the surrounding country, and Pallas believed, that the climate of
even so thinly a peopled country as Russia was sensibly modified by similar causes.
Some of the terminology he uses is clearly a little
archaic to our ears today, but, broadly speaking, his
hunch has subsequently proved to be correct. You
can see him grappling with concepts that we now
know as the urban heat island effect and greenhouse
effect.

History
The political party active in the
middle of the 19th century in the
United States. Three Presidents
were current members of the
Party. Along with the rival Democratic Party, it was central to the
Second Party System from the
early 1830s to the mid-1850s.
It originally formed in opposition to the policies of President
Andrew Jackson (in office 182937) and his Democratic Party. In
particular, the Whigs supported
the supremacy of Congress over
the Presidency and favored a program of modernization, banking
and economic protectionism to
stimulate
manufacturing.
It
appealed to entrepreneurs and
planters, but had little appeal to
farmers or unskilled workers.
It included many active Protestants, and voiced a moralistic
opposition to the Jacksonian
Indian removal policies. The
"Whig" name was chosen to echo
the American Whigs of 1776,
who fought for independence.

Ideological Divide
Democrats stood for the 'sovereignty of the people' as
expressed in popular demonstrations, constitutional conventions,
and majority rule as a general
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