What are tories and whigs?
In the American colonies, Tories were Royalists, who supported British sovereignty over the colonies. In the UK, the Tories are the original conservative party, supporting the monarchy and the Church of England. The Whigs in the U.S. were a short lived party, lasting only ~20 years from the time of Andrew Jackson’s presidency. They were basically the , although not direct, ancestor of the Republican Party. They took the name because the Whigs were the opponents of the Tories in England, and were the opponents of Tories in the colonies before the Revolution. They saw the Democratic Party as Royalists. The Whigs in the UK were the rivals of the Tories in parliament from the 17th to 19th centuries.
