The Whig Almanac and United States Register is a cornerstone resource for understanding antebellum American politics. While most 19th century almanacs focused heavily on weather forecasts and agriculture, Greeley’s Whig Almanac was a sophisticated, political engine. Using political, cencus, and election data as its “almanac” hook, it was in reality designed as a mass-market ideological tool to unite the fractured Whig Party around its economic platform. The pages were occupied by lengthy, accessible essays explaining why high tariffs on foreign imports protected American labor and fostered domestic manufacturing. He argued for federally funded infrastructure projects like railroads, canals, and harbors to knit the expanding country together and to stimulate national identity and pride.

The 1852 edition, present here, is particularly famous because it featured Greeley's definitive essay, "Why I Am a Whig." This piece codified the party's intellectual worldview just as it was beginning to disintegrate. Greeley positioned Whiggery not as a faction of elites, as Democrats charged, but as the true party of moral progress, social mobility, and public education. 

This 1843–1852 run of the Whig Almanac perfectly bookends the decline of the party. Looking through the sequence of these volumes reveals the precise historical shift from traditional economic debates to the existential crisis over the expansion of slaver. The early editions (1843–1845) focus extensively on biographies of Henry Clay and the tariff battles.  Mid-period editions document the fallout of the Mexican-American War and the introduction of the Wilmot Proviso (1846). The final volumes (1850–1852) capture the desperate attempt to hold the nation together via the Compromise of 1850, tracking the sudden death of Zachary Taylor and the elevation of Millard Fillmore, who would become the last Whig president.

The sammelband includes:

Greeley, Horace. The Whig Almanac and United States Register for 1843. New York. 1843. 64pp.

Contents include: The Protection of Industry. Its Necessity and Effects by Horace Greeley [Greeley's fascination with Karl Marx is evident here. He would later employ Marx as a writer for the New York Tribune]; General Jackson on Protection. The Voice of Our Presidents in Favor of Protection [Thomas Jefferson, John Quincy Adams, etc.]; The Elements and Names of Political Parties; The Life of Henry Clay by Henry J. Raymond; etc.

[Bound with]

Greeley, Horace. The Whig Almanac and United States Register for 1844. New York. 1844. 72pp.

Contents include: History of the Tariff; The Past and Present Tariffs. Reasons for Changes in the Mode of Collecting Duties; The Whig Tariff of 1842; A National Bank; Protection of American Industry. Its Expediency and Necessity by Charles Hudson; etc. One small fact column neatly excised. Not impacting article text.

[Bound with]

Greeley, Horace. The Whig Almanac and United States Register for 1845. New York. 1845 64pp.

Contents include: Were the Whigs Beaten by Fraud [Election Fraud]; The Complete Text of the Declaration of Independence; The Constitution of the United States; George Washington's Farewell Address; etc.

Greeley, Horace. The Whig Almanac and United States Register for 1846. New York. 1846. 64pp.

Contents include: The Tariff Question; The Postage Reform; The Necessity for Protection; American Railroads; A Superb Map of the Oregon Territory, w/ Oregon. Our Rightful North-Western Territory; The Oregon Question; What Constitutes Texas? Its Western Boundary; Excellent Map of Texas and Indian Territory; The Boundaries of the United States as Defined by Treaties; Joint Resolution for Annexing Texas to the United States; etc.

Greeley, Horace. The Whig Almanac and United States Register for 1847. New York. 1847. 64pp.

Contents include: The Condition of the Country; The Oregon Territory; Texas and Mexico; Our Brave Defenders; The Sub-Treasury; The Tariff of 1846; The Oregon Treaty; The War with Mexico; Map of the Battlegrounds in Texas; Mr. Webster's Speech on the Tariff of 1846; etc.

Greeley, Horace. The Whig Almanac and United States Register for 1848. New York. 1848. 64pp

Contents include: The Origin of the Mexican War; Mr. Henry Clay's Speech at the Lexington, Kentucky Mass Meeting; The War with Mexico; Speech of the Honorable Thomas Corwin on the War in Mexico; Declaration of Principles by the Whigs of Massachusetts; etc.

Greeley, Horace. The Whig Almanac and United States Register for 1849. New York. 1849. 64pp.

Contents include: The Election of 1848; A Complete Printing of the Treaty of Peace with Mexico by President James K. Polk; Railroads Telegraphs and Public Lands; etc.

Greeley, Horace. The Whig Almanac and United States Register for 1850. New York. 1850. 64pp.

Contents include: President Zachary Taylor's Inaugural Address; The Atlantic and Pacific Central Railway; on the Panama Canal; On the Government of California and the Boundary of New Mexico; The Cost of War in Peace - Recruiting; Flogging in the Navy; On the Application for Admission into the Union of Deseret / Utah by Brigham Young, etc.; 

Greeley, Horace. The Whig Almanac and United States Register for 1851. New York. 1851.64pp.

Contents include: Millard Fillmore; The Admission of California; The Texas Boundary; An Act on the Organization of Utah; A Complete Printing of "The Fugitive Slave Law;" On the Suppression of the Slave Trade in the District of Columbia; The Nicaragua Ship Canal; California in 1850; etc.

Greeley, Horace. The Whig Almanac and United States Register for 1852. New York. 1852. 64pp.

Contents include: Why I am a Whig. Reply to an Inquiring Friend; Indian Appropriations; California in 1851; Foreign Policy of the United States - The Webster and Hulsemann Correspondence; The Cost of Kings [Comparative Cost of Monarchy's Vs. U.S. Government]; etc. 

The whol in good + condition; original sheep binding with rubbing as shown, labels a bit chipped. First almanac forward in the binding and shaken. Each issue signed in sepia ink by J. W. Brown of Danville. Contents very good overall. An excellent period assemblage.